By John H. Foote Not only should Tilda Swinton have been nominated for Best Actress for her stunning, heartbreaking performance in We Need to Talk About Kevin, the actress should have WON Best Actress. There was no greater a performance by an actress in 2011 than Swinton as a broken mother and wife, Eva, dealing…
By John H. Foote Never was I believer that Jim Carrey deserved an Academy Award nomination for The Truman Show (1998) but admittedly, it was a very fine performance. A year later he absolutely deserved to be nominated for his extraordinary, uncanny performance as comic Andy Kaufmann in Milos Forman’s brilliant Man on the Moon.…
By John H. Foote Debra Winger’s performance in Urban Cowboy was once described as “sex incarnate” and it is both correct and unfair. Winger was so much more than just a beautiful sexy woman, she was an actress of formidable power, and had the ability to reach into a character and find the character. The…
By John H. Foote The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made another bone head move this week. In their attempt to shorten the show, they have decided to not broadcast the awarding of several awards, believing the time cut will help keep the show to a more manageable length. I for one oppose…
By John H. Foote After winning two Academy Awards and being most deserving of a third in Cast Away (2000), still his finest performance, Tom Hanks was ready for a monumental challenge. It came when Oscar winner Sam Mendes approached the actor to play a thirties mob hitman in Road to Perdition (2002) opposite no…
By Alan Hurst Both Myrna Loy in The Thin Man and Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage should have been Best Actress Oscar nominees in 1934. Let me explain. In 1934 – the first time the Academy honoured films released within the 12-month calendar year – there were three nominees for Best Actress (five nominees…
By John H. Foote And to be clear, it is not always because I did not care for the performance, but more often than not that there were better performances that lost! So often the industry decides that an actor is “due”, it is “their time for an Oscar” and come hell or high water…
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…