Best Performance by an Actor Ever – DUSTIN HOFFMAN in “TOOTSIE” (1982)In “Tootsie”, Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, an actor living in New York City trying to make the “big time” on the Broadway stage. Michael isn’t really a bad actor, but he’s really down on his luck because, well…producers are looking for a certain body type in the roles he always wants to get. One day, Michael learns that their casting a role in a soap opera called “South West General” and Michael needs money fast ($8,000 to be exact)! The only problem is: the role is a girl! Michael then takes action, and without a doubt or thinking of the consequences, he transforms himself into Dorothy Michaels; a stuck up, silly, half middle-aged actress and auditions for the role. He gets the role in a snip and money starts rolling in. Michael continues his “acting” and all is a blast. Until, international popularity, adoring fans, mad friends and love for his beautiful costar Julie (Jessica Lange in her Oscar winner performance) starts rising. Michael then learns that now he has to play the biggest role of his life: the decision to set everything “straight”. Dustin Hoffman certainly creates not only a fun and funny performance, but he does so well in the portrayal of a woman, you’d think you were watching a really ugly girl instead of a man in a dress. Few actor’s can really, really achieve that kind of greatness. He gives us a good time but by the end, makes us emote for his character and love him and cherish the movie that he was in. It was spectacular first-rate fun and should have won the Oscar for Best Actor (to bad it didn’t). In Dusty’s long line of great performances like in Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate” (1967), Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), Babe in “Marathon Man” (1976) and even for his Oscar winning roles as Ted Kramer in “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979) and Raymond Babbitt in “Rain Man” (1989), this was sure the best of the best. It’s Dustin at his best! This ugly girl sure made a beautiful performance!
Best Performance by an Actress Ever – VIVIEN LEIGH in “GONE WITH THE WIND” (1939)
The beautiful (and ever so sassy) Vivien Leigh captures the imagination of readers and embodies the complex character of Scarlet O’Hara that was first introduced in Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind”. In the movie version, she is fantastic as ever and creates a deliciously selfish, crude, Ashley-crazy, powerful, sassy, ladylike, fashionable, complex, mysterious, unpredictable, daring Scarlet O’Hara and I can hands-down say that she is the best performance in a motion picture EVER. She portrays Scarlet O’Hara, the belle of the county in Georgia who has a beau in every family in the state. But Scarlet loves only one man, and it’s her childhood friend Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) but knows she can’t have him for he’s to marry the unselfish and very sweet ninny Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland) from Atlanta. As the civil war starts, she lives through being very rich then loosing it all and turns poor, loosing Ashley, being hated by the whole time, getting attempted to be raped and discovering herself, she also lies and she cheats and kills in the movie. I also counted that she assaults 5 people in the movie, kills 1 and marries 3 times. Throughout Scarlet’s really tragic life, it isn’t till the last 5 minutes of the 4 hour drama (when Melanie’s in her death bed) that she realizes that she was never in love with Ashley after all, but in love to a man she thought she hated through her whole life (and the whole movie), her 3rd husband Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), and runs home to try and convince him not to leave her. But in an unsuccessful attempt to keep him in her arms, she goes “If you go, where am I to go, what am I to do?” and he gently says to the woman he now finds despicable, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” and the movie wraps up with Scarlet being alone. Leigh was absolutely, absolutely spectacular. I think she doesn’t even know she was actually really brilliant. She captured a film icon and was flawless to the core of her bones. She deserved every inch of the Oscar she won (maybe even more). She progressed as she was supposed to and she made a 4 hour movie seem like it was heaven to watch. I can watch the film again and again because of her. She is the soul of the picture, without her, the movie would have not worked. Utterly fabulous and delightful to watch in all the scenes she’s in (I forgot, she’s in EVERY SINGLE SCENE OF THE 4 HOUR MOVIE)! Leigh’s performance is a deserving triumph!
*****
Best Performance by a Supporting Actor Ever – JOEL GREY in “CABARET” (1972)
A gift from heaven for supporting players, Joel Grey breaks the barrier of being a “supporting” actor and steals the show from the male lead Michael York (sorry, he just can’t beat the female lead Liza Minnelli). In the film, he plays the Master of Ceremonies AKA The MC in the 1930’s Berlin night club “The Kit Kat Club”. Though the movie musical doesn’t really focus on him, it focuses on the characters Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli in a truly deserving Oscar Best Actress role) and her closeted-bisexual lover Brian Roberts (Michael York) and their adventures in pre-war Germany and how they became friends with a millionaire, how they made the most unusual friends, and how they survived their difficult love that becomes tangled and mixed up. In this story of the two lovers, Joel Grey and the “Cabaret” girls perform musical numbers in the Kit Kat Club Stage, somewhat as the narrator of the story going on. All the songs Joel performs reflect on the life of Sally and Brian. The performance was the dark-comic relief of the picture and wasn’t only devilishly perky and delightful but outstanding too. The accent was perfect! The high pitched singin’ voice was full of enthusiasm and excitement. When he sings the opening number “Wilkomen” he was really welcomed in my list of best performances. When he sang “Money, Money, Money” he was pure gold!!! He steals the picture and is so very much delightful and distorted in the same time. It’s a performance that you will surely remember. And to all those “The Godfather” (1972) fans who think Al Pacino should have won the Oscar that year, well…you can all die cause Joel rightly deserved the trophy!
*****
Best Performance by a Supporting Actress Ever – JEAN HAGEN in “SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN” (1952)She wasn’t the one who sang in the rain, she didn’t even sing at all in the movie! In the start, in her opening scene, you see the hella beautiful Jean standing in the crowds being admired by the many crowds. But when she speaks, oh my goodness, what a shriek! But it doesn’t matter, Jean Hagen’s performance in “Singin’ in the Rain” was one of the funniest I’ve ever scene and is one performance in film history that definitely needs more screen time. A LOT MORE SCREENTIME. It was a crime not to give her an Oscar for this film. She wasn’t the heart and soul of the film I admit, but she was surely the mind and plot of it! Her casting was perfect. “Singin’ in the Rain” is set in 1927, the time when The Silent Era in Hollywood was converting their movies into “Talking Pictures”. All of Hollywood remembers the time when many of their beautiful stars were fired because of their ugly voices unfit for the “talking” silver screen. Jean Hagen, plays one of those luscious actresses whose careers were sadly brought down. She plays America’s sweetheart Lina Lamont, who’s acting and gorgeous face did not match her voice. She was Lamont in the famous love team “Lockwood and Lamont” along side her costar in many movies Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly, the star of the picture). But what happens when the world wants to see their favorite female screen star on screen talk: DISASTER TIME! In every single scene Hagen is in, she steals it. Well her voice was an attention seeker but it was “pitch” (gulp) perfect and really caught my attention I must say. I kinda feel bad that she was ignored all the respect she deserves for this role. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about (this is the least iconic role of the four), watch her in the movie, you won’t regret it: she was fabulously spectacular and captured the image and glamour of a 1920’s movie star…well, until she talks that is.
.bmp)
No comments:
Post a Comment