Isn't it interesting when some older films feel super dated while other films from the same year feel timeless and like they could be from today? I think that's how you know a film is really good. No examples from this category per se, just an observation. Glad to get this category underway!
1990 Best Actress
Kathy Bates - Misery
This is another one of those films where I've seen a whole bunch of it, but never seen the whole thing all the way through. So I was eager to watch this based off that and some other things like the fact that Steven King has interesting stories and Kathy Bates is an intriguing actress who you might forget has a Best Actress win. Here she plays a woman who takes in a writer who has crashed his car in the middle of winter and come to find out she is a super fan and doesn't want him ending his series that she loves so much. We also learn the woman is batshit crazy. She's a nurse that has been accused of killing patients, old and young, and now lives alone out in the boonies. This is a memorable role mainly because of Bates' performance. She's so committed to making her Annie Wilkes be as crazy and intimidating and despicable as possible. We first meet her and see her as this innocent fangirl who loves the writer and his book series and are lulled into a sense of security by the dour, frumpy, meek woman. And then she explodes into rage over some trivial thing and understand who the real Annie Wilkes is. Kathy Bates switching so easily between the two extremes is pretty fun to watch and makes it clear why she was nominated and won. Like I said before, I think a lot of people forget she's an Oscar winner but this role is hard to forget. What I like most about the performance is that Bates is so comfortable playing all sides of the character. Seeing her other work you know she can play the sweet lady (Fried Green Tomatoes) or a rambunctious asshole (Primary Colors) or any multitude of disparate characters. The good thing about her performance here is that none of the extremes feels insincere or lacking. She plays Annie as if she's all the way crazy or all the way innocent and sheltered and the two never meet. It's entertaining and a strong, memorable performance that earns it's win.
Anjelica Huston - The Grifters
Man, I wish there was a lot more I could write about this performance or say that I really loved it or that I hated it profusely but it's just one of those performances that falls directly in the middle. I am pretty ambivalent to it overall. I was kinda excited to watch this film because I had heard that it was pretty good and the performances were worth seeing and being nominated. I was also interested to really watch Huston for the first time in this blog because I know she's a great actress. But the film and her performance failed to connect with me. Huston plays Lilly, mother to John Cusack's character and a grifter in her own right. She places large bets on horses to drive down the odds. She also seems to be skimming some money off the top. She comes back into her son's life and wants him to stop grifting and go straight. I never really felt that the love or respect or familial bond was ever legit between the mother and son and didn't understand her motivations for seeing him get out of the con. There was a distrust and dislike between Huston and Cusack's girlfriend, Bening, but I didn't really see why that mattered other than they were competing for Cusack in different ways. Even when Huston was being tortured by her employer for missing placing a bet that paid out big time, I didn't feel the gravity of her situation or that it really mattered for Huston in the long run. So all of these scenes added up to me not really getting much out of Huston's performance because there was no immediacy to it at all for me. I wasn't invested and that seemed to be in part to Huston's laissez faire approach. Huston should have been sexier and cooler and more earnest and more like an old pro at this than what I felt I was watching. Huston's performance just didn't resonate with me and while I know she was fine and other people liked it, I simply wasn't into it.
Julia Roberts - Pretty Woman
This is the follow up nomination after the year before where the Academy decided to make her into a star. It was obvious that this beautiful, charming, gifted woman would seduce Hollywood and become a force to reckon with. Roberts is flat out endearing in this role. You fall in love with her over and over again because she's the girl next door, the every woman. Even though she's a prostitute or escort or whatever, she is adorable and accidentally sexy. This film came out while Julia was doing all her Oscar stuff for Steel Magnolias, right around actual Oscar time so she was fresh on everyone's mind. She was the IT actress and the Academy didn't forget it. I mean, this is honestly kind of a no brainer right? Beloved actress portrays a prostitute and changes into a better person while getting with a handsome rich man and has a happy ending. It's unfortunate, though, that she gets nominated for the hooker with a heart of gold role because Roberts is obviously much better than that but at least she makes the role her own. Now, this role isn't a huge stretch of the acting chops but Roberts is perfect in the role which is why she is nominated here. The film took on a life of it's own and you get why it was nominated but she was never going to win. I'm okay with Roberts getting nominated because she deserved it but she did play a hooker and didn't have a huge character arc. Without her charm and universal appeal, the performance wouldn't have been nominated. Anyway, Roberts makes it easy to champion her because she's so adorable and vote worthy. I'm glad she has an Oscar and this is early evidence as to the Academy wanting it to be so. It's the best film about owning a woman ever.
Meryl Streep - Postcards from the Edge
It's been so long since I had to review a Streep nomination that I was getting worried! But here we are again with the 11th (!) Streep nomination. I'll say this one is a little more interesting because Meryl isn't doing one of her accents and isn't playing a crusading woman role. Meryl is just like a normal actress for once, playing a drug addicted, and then recovering, actress who has a lot of personal issues to deal with. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that this film is based off the semi-autobiographical book Carrie Fisher wrote about her life and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. So Meryl plays the Carrie Fisher role even though it's not 100% accurate. Meryl is her typically great self here, it's just that the film kind of bores me overall. For what's supposed to be an indictment on the Hollywood life and drug addiction and mother-daughter relationships, well, it just never reaches a really interesting point. Maybe it's because of the time period it's from but we've seen harder, more intense and interesting films about all three of those aspects - sometimes altogether. So the film never grabs me and while I realize Meryl is a great actress, I'm not fully engaged by her performance in this one. She is able to display some comedic talent but it all seems too low key. Nothing ever hits very hard in this film so it seems to just skate on by without leaving an impact. Everything is ho hum when I feel it should all have a lot more bite to it. I enjoy the scenes with her and Shirley MacLaine, even though they feel more like friends or equals rather than family. And of course when we discuss Meryl, we do have to take into account all her other performances. I'd like to say I take them all on their own merit, which I do, but compare this one with any of her other work and you see just how it's stands up in her own pantheon. To me, even though this is a fine enough Meryl performance, it's on the mid to lower end of her work as a whole. It doesn't grab me enough and seems much more forgettable than most of her other performances, sadly to say.
Joanne Woodward - Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
There are a lot of reasons why Woodward was nominated here. For one, it's quite obviously a veteran nomination and looking back through the 80s, there seems to be a lot of these older actresses getting nominated as a career reward. Woodward had already won an Oscar previously, so this was more of a congratulations on a good career nomination. Plus, she was acting with her longtime husband, Paul Newman which I'm sure got the older Academy voters in a tizzy. For another thing, this is a Miramax film and we all know how good the Weinstein's were at bullying through their films/performances for nominations. You can figure all that stuff out without even watching the performance! But as for the actual acting, first this is a Merchant-Ivory film so you know right there what you're getting yourself into. This one is centered in Kansas City instead of England (though they do go to Europe for a brief time). The Bridges are an older couple in the 1930s-40s and Woodward obviously plays Mrs. Bridge, a woman who is battling her increasing isolation from her family. Her husband is emotionally distant and her kids don't want to settle down and get married like her and rebel against the status quo. We follow the family as the kids go off and do their own thing. Woodward is fine but the film itself is a little boring. This one doesn't feel as grand as the other Merchant-Ivory pictures so while Woodward is clearly talented and accomplished, I don't feel all that much for her performance. It's as if the married couple wanted to do another film together and Woodward put more effort into it than her hubby. It's sincere and committed but just lacking any kind of pizzazz, like an exercise in acting. I understand what the Academy was going for and Woodward is a great actress but I feel like there was probably something better out there than this. This is one you watch to tick off that box and move on.
What a pretty blah year. Once you get past Bates' win, which you can understand why she won after watching all the others, there's not much there. I mean Roberts comes in second by default because the other three are just so boring to me. Two are stature nominations and the other is a career/veteran nomination. Meryl is good so she is the middle one for me but you can toss up Huston and Woodward into 4th and 5th and I'd be okay with whatever way you put them. I was really expecting and hoping for a lot better from this group. Big names with not much to show for it.
Oscar Winner: Kathy Bates - Misery
My Winner: Kathy Bates - Misery
Julia Roberts
Meryl Streep
Anjelica Huston
Joanne Woodward
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