By John H. Foote With two Academy Awards three years apart, one might think Jodie foster has had enough in terms of accolades. My attitude has always been if they are deserving, nominate them, award them, who cares if they have two or 20, give them what they deserve. Foster was first nominated for her…
By John H. Foote Imagine having to portray an animated character come to life. I cannot imagine, yet that was the challenge put forth to Amy Adams as Princess Giselle in Enchanted, a perfectly delightful Disney film. The film opens with animation, and we encounter Giselle as she waits for her “one true love” Edward…
By John H. Foote Pauline Kael, that brilliant, venerable film critic of The New Yorker, stated that Travolta’s performance in Blow Out was as great as anything given by young Marlon Brando in the fifties, he was that extraordinary a talent. After exploding into films with Saturday Night Fever (1977), which came after a supporting…
By John H. Foote After winning the Academy Award for Best Director and Best picture for his masterpiece One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Milos Forman had his pick of projects as everyone wanted to be in the Forman business. For his follow up film to the five-time Oscar winning One Flew Over the…
By John H. Foote How is it after becoming the first woman to win both the Academy Award as Best Director and the Directors Guild of America as Best Director of 2009 that Kathryn Bigelow could surpass that achievement with her stunning film Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and NOT be Oscar nominated for Best Director?…
By John H. Foote Dustin Hoffman has always been at his finest when the character he is portraying has an edge to him, a meanness that sets him apart from the rest of humanity. He twice has won Academy Awards for Best Actor, but never has he won for his finest work, which was Tootsie…
By John H. Foote Watching this film for the first time, I remember thinking as Lange moved into the frame, “I am watching pure carnality”, so great was her sexual power. As Cora, the very dangerous young woman stuck in a dead-end marriage to a loud, brash immigrant who owns a diner in the Depression…
By John H. Foote The nominees for Best Actress in a Leading role for film in 2018 were Meryl Streep in The Post, Frances McDormand in 3 Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, Margot Robbie in I, Tonya, and Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water. So who gets bumped? Seriously,…
By John H. Foote Dern was among the finest and most prolific actors of his generation, but early in the eighties, seemed to disappear. He gave some of the most compelling performances in the seventies, none finer than his work here as Michael J. Lander, a former Vietnam veteran being used by the Black September…
By John H. Foote One of the dumbest rules ever created for the Academy Awards is that an actor is eligible for nomination only once in the same category each year. So, if someone has three brilliant performances in three different films, they must decide which one they are going to campaign for the nomination.…