Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Film: Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Ben Davidson, Mako, Max von Sydow

Director: John Milius

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Arnold Schwarzenegger: click here to learn more about Mr. Schwarzenegger (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was a different kind of movie star not because he came with an accent (so did Greta Garbo & Marlene Dietrich) nor because he was a muscle-bound figure (as we talked about a few months ago, Bruce Lee was totally jacked and a huge star both here and abroad).  Schwarzenegger's phenomenal success in large part stemmed from coming at the right time.  In the post-Jaws/Star Wars era, blockbusters were a regular thing, and something happened where we had the effects budget to regularly churn out big, sometimes gaudy action films (which would become Schwarzenegger's bread-and-butter), but also because home video became really important.  If you look at the early successes of Arnold's career (Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator), the films themselves were not massive successes.  Conan was a hit, sure, but its domestic box office was dwarfed by films like An Officer and a Gentleman, Porky's, and even a prestige drama like The Verdict.  The Terminator was the same situation-modest hit, but it was outgrossed by now forgotten films like Tightrope and Breakin'.

Why have you heard of these films as a result?  It's because Schwarzenegger became a star on home video.  Conan the Barbarian was one of four action flicks that Dino de Laurentiis made with Schwarzenegger in the 1980's, and the biggest calling card of these movies was that they would sell better than their theatrical grosses would indicate in the burgeoning home video market.  Conan would, by some estimates, nearly quadruple its initial gross through home video rentals & sales, and The Terminator would do similarly well.  Both films would eventually also have additional success through repeated showings on cable television.  As we'll talk more and more about Arnold over the remainder of the month, you're going to note that this is a pattern-Schwarzenegger was a huge star, but not always through traditional domestic box office like his predecessors, instead relying upon growing international markets & home video sales to ensure that he was always profitable and worth the exorbitant salaries he demanded from the studios...even on films that didn't click with American audiences.

(Spoilers Ahead) Which brings us to the movie, the first narrative film we're talking about with Arnold after last week's documentary.  The film follows Conan (Schwarzenegger), whose parents are murdered when he is a child by cult leader Thulsa Doom (Jones).  Afterward, he is taken into slavery, and forced to work at a mill that turns him into a glistening, muscle-bound gladiator (aka the Arnold we all know and love), and through his time as a gladiator gains his freedom.  This leads him on an adventure, one where he treks across the land to gain his revenge on Thulsa Doom, eventually finding him and beheading him in a dramatic fashion...that allowed for him to come back in a sequel (Arnold always likes to keep his options open for a sequel).

You may note that the intro is way longer than my description of the film, and that's because Conan is practically a silent movie it uses so little traditional dialogue, particularly from Arnold himself.  I can't find an exact account of this, but Schwarzenegger himself has roughly 24 lines in the movie, most of which are reserved for a scene where he beats up & steals from an effeminate priest who is clearly hitting on him (he does not have a line in the first 24 minutes nor the last 25 minutes of the picture).  This isn't unusual for some of Schwarzenegger's early films (I believe he has even less spoken dialogue in The Terminator) and given his limited ability as an actor even when he was actually talking, this may have been for the best.  But it also feels almost silly as it goes, and when he's paired with real performers (like a scene about halfway through the film when he's opposite acting god Max von Sydow), it reads as comically uneven.

But this is kind of the appeal of Dino de Laurentiis's movies (he was the film's producer).  De Laurentiis was capable of greatness (he made some of Fellini's best pictures), but by 1982 de Laurentiis was largely best-known for making profitable schlock.  With Schwarzenegger, he found a goldmine, and they would make four movies together.  The two would have a complicated relationship.  De Laurentiis would get rich off of these movies and Schwarzenegger would become a proper movie star by the end of their partnership (something he likely would've struggled to do in mainstream movies had they not gone down this path...it's easy to see him being more Chuck Norris than Sly Stallone without De Laurentiis's help), but the last two pictures they made together (Raw Deal and in particular Red Sonja) left such bad blood that Schwarzenegger vowed to never work with him again, which meant that the third chapter in the Conan movies never happened.

Which in its way is a pity, because I quite enjoy the camp value & silliness of de Laurentiis films in this era.  Arnold can't act, this is written with an overwrought pen, and it makes all of the actually talented actors in the movies feel like they're in some weird type of kabuki theater...but it's still very watchable.  There's something there...there's a reason this movie became a hit at home, because it's equal parts funny and entertaining, even if it's objectively not good.

Tab Hunter, and 18 Remaining Stars of Hollywood's Golden Age

Tab Hunter

A few years ago, I did a series of articles where I (for some reason that was likely related to a TCM screening or perhaps just my love of classic cinema nostalgia), I went through the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Stars" list comprehensively taking a look at my interactions with the stars, and which stars I was surprised to see on the lists, which stars I was happy were on the list, and which stars were still living from the list.

I was reminded of that this week when Tab Hunter, at the age of 86, passed away.  Hunter was hardly what one could consider a "master thespian," but was certainly a proper movie star, and one of the few Golden Age headliners of his era.  The blond Adonis, who would later lean into his camp factor with pictures like Polyester and Grease 2, gained a second act in his career when he wrote a bestselling memoir called Tab Hunter Confidential, and became one of the few men of his era to actually come out of the public during his lifetime.  In honor of Hunter, I thought it would be fun to revisit the articles I wrote a few years back with a look at specifically the actors and actresses who are still alive who were nominated for the list, including the three stars who actually made the Top 25: Sidney Poitier (#22), Kirk Douglas (#17), and Sophia Loren (#21).  Without further adieu.

The Living Actors...

Kirk Douglas (1916-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Douglas would receive a trio of Oscar nominations in his career, all for Best Actor, but would lose every time (he probably came the closest to winning for 1956's Lust for Life).  Douglas would deservedly win an Honorary Award in 1996 from the Academy.
Most Known For: Living forever?  Hopefully that's the case-it clearly helps your star exponentially to have some longevity around it.  Douglas has been one of those great, enduring links to Hollywood's classical age, and still frequently does interviews & appearances, oftentimes with his famous son Michael or his daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones.  During his career, of course, he was perhaps best known as Spartacus.
Is He Still Working?: He is not-Douglas retired in 2004, with his last film being an independent film called Illusion, though I always think of his last film being Diamonds, where he reunited with his Young Man with a Horn costar (and lifelong pal) Lauren Bacall.
My Favorite Performance: I'd pick either his iconic work in Spartacus, a truly spectacular feat of movie star-quality, or his sleazy performance as Whit Sterling in Out of the Past.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Though I'm slowly working my way through Douglas' filmography, as he was a star for so many years, I'd say Lust for Life would be toward the top of the list, as would Paths of Glory, both pictures I'll get to hopefully soon.

Sidney Poitier (1927-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Poitier received two Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (becoming the first black man to win Best Actor).  Poitier also won an Honorary Award in 2002.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being an iconic and celebrated figure in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and along with Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte, being one of the very first black movie stars (he's also Ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, as he actually has dual citizenship with both the Bahamas and the United States-random fact!).  Poitier is one of the most widely-respected actors in the industry, and one of its most enduring stars.
Is He Still Working?: Poitier quit acting in 2001, with the television movie The Last Brickmaker in America-his final theatrically-released film was 1997's The Jackal with Richard Gere & Bruce Willis.
My Favorite Performance: I know that some like to quibble about how Poitier never received an Oscar nomination for In the Heat of the Night, but part of me thinks it was more to do with vote-splitting (he also had Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and To Sir, with Love out that year) than racism.  Still, he certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for his iconic Virgil Tibbs.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never actually seen the movie that landed Poitier his Academy Award.  For whatever reason Lilies of the Field has never made it to the top of my queue, though I've seen a lot of Poitier films through the years.

Dean Stockwell (1936-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Stockwell has received one Oscar nomination, for 1988's Married to the Mob (he lost to Kevin Kline).
Most Famous For: The career of Dean Stockwell is a fascinating one, as he is one of those rare child actors who went on to have a very strong career as an adult, though in this case in character actor parts. Starting acting as a cherubic-faced youth in movies like Gentleman's Agreement and Anchors Aweigh, he eventually became a hit actor as an adult, dropped out of acting to get involved in the hippie subculture, reappeared in the 1980's in the art house cinema of David Lynch and Wim Wenders, and is most well-known today for playing Al Calavicci in Quantum Leap and Brother Cavil in the revival of Battlestar Galactica.
Is He Still Working?: Absolutely, and in a variety of different pictures (including Max Rose with Claire Bloom and Jerry Lewis, the late actor's final picture).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've actually seen a few Stockwell pictures, and thought he was terrific if terrifying singing Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in the exceptional Blue Velvet.  I'll go with his Oscar-nominated work as my missing piece, though I have always meant to watch the revived Battlestar Galactica.

Max von Sydow (1929-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Two nominations, one for Pelle the Conquerer, and another one for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (he lost both).
Most Famous For: Being a titan of acting.  He is frequently referenced by people who want to name check someone of great acting gravitas.  He is particularly well-known for his work in the films of Ingmar Bergman, but also has appeared opposite Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Susan Sarandon in recent years.
Is He Still Working?: Absolutely.  He's been in a bit of a blockbuster mode lately, with appearances in the Star Wars and Game of Thrones franchises (the latter winning him his second Emmy nomination).  He'll next be seen in Kursk with Colin Firth and Lea Seydoux.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I would do myself a disservice here if I didn't mention that I love von Sydow's work and he is one of my most beloved performers, particularly his films The Seventh Seal and Winter Light (Bergman being one of my all-time favorite directors).  Of the films I'm missing from von Sydow's filmography, I'd probably say The Emigrants would be the most egregious.

The Living Actresses...

Claire Bloom (1931-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: For her long and illustrious career on the British stage, as well as her many tabloid romances.  Ms. Bloom made her stage debut at sixteen opposite John Gielgud and a young Richard Burton, whom she had a passionate love affair with (Burton claimed he loved two women before Liz Taylor-his wife Sybil and Claire Bloom).  She would perform on in the West End for decades, and continue having tabloid-worthy relationships, including marriages to Rod Steiger and Philip Roth, as well as affairs with Laurence Olivier and Yul Brynner.
Is She Still Working?: Yes!  She actually appeared recently in the Best Picture winner The King's Speech, playing Queen Mary in the film, and will be playing Salvador Dali's sister in Spain's Miss Dali.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: With Bloom it's hard not to pick her first international starring role in Limelight, where she plays a suicidal ballerina in the only film that features both Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Ann Blyth (1928-Present)

Oscar Nominations: 1 nomination (for Mildred Pierce)
Most Famous For: Portraying the selfish daughter from hell in Mildred Pierce.  Her work opposite Joan Crawford won her an Oscar nomination early in her career, and she eventually went on to become a major star of musicals, at one point being a rival for Kathryn Grayson at MGM.  She eventually moved completely away from the cinema, instead starring in a series of television guest spots, including a memorable turn as a potential murderer opposite longtime friend Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote and as an actress with a secret on The Twilight Zone in "Queen of the Nile."
Is She Still Working?: Blyth quit working in film after her role in The Helen Morgan Story with Paul Newman.  She quit television in the 1980's, though she does occasional do interviews still.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've actually seen Mildred Pierce and The Great Caruso, the two most important pictures in her filmography, so maybe Brute Force with Burt Lancaster, where she plays a woman dying of cancer whose husband is in prison.

Doris Day (1922-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Despite a dazzling career and being a major public draw for fifteen years, she only received one nomination in 1959 for Pillow Talk (she would lose to Simone Signoret).  Every year, though, like clockwork, the rumors spread that she'll win an Honorary Award.

Most Famous For: A Box Office superstar, she was all the public could demand from the mid-1950's to the mid-1960's and starred in a string of romantic comedy hits.  Even today her name is extremely well-known with audiences (even if her movies aren't necessarily) and everyone knows her as one of America's Sweethearts.

Is She Still Working?: No-while she did some TV appearances in the 1970's on her eponymous show, Day retired from movies in 1968 in With Six You Get Eggroll costarring alongside Brian Keith and a young Barbara Hershey.
My Favorite Performance: I've seen many Doris Day films through the years (my mom was a big fan of hers), so I'm going to go with a childhood favorite right now in Calamity Jane.  It doesn't age particularly well (some of the songs are pretty sexist), but the music and sets and in particular Day are incredibly game and "Secret Love" is heavenly (and an oddly resonant coming out song for anyone who reads between the lines).

Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: There's a few options here, but since I've seen some of the biggest pictures of her career, I'm going to go with one that intrigues me most: Move Over, Darling, where Day is united with James Garner and Polly Bergen.  The film was a huge hit and kept the lights on at 20th Century FOX after Cleopatra (not to mention I want to see how Day does in a role that was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe).

Olivia de Havilland (1916-Present)

Oscar Nominations: De Havilland would receive five Oscar nominations during her career, winning twice in 1946 and 1949 for To Each His Own and The Heiress, respectively.

Most Famous For: Certainly her best-known film is Gone with the Wind, and her work as Melanie Wilkes continues to be a career high-point.  Perhaps she's best known today as a last link to the classic age of Hollywood, which was highlighted once again when she sued Ryan Murphy regarding Feud where she was upset about her life being dramatized, though really she should have been angry at how awful Catherine Zeta-Jones was in portraying her.

Is She Still Working?: De Havilland still makes public appearances and does interviews (she became the oldest person ever to be named a Dame Commander by the Queen last year), but she has been away from cinemas for decades.  She did a spattering of TV work in the 1980's, including winning a Golden Globe for playing Dowager Empress Maria in a TV movie about Rex Harrison, but her final film performance was opposite Beau Bridges & Ursula Andress in The Fifth Musketeer

My Favorite Performance: I'm going to go cliche with her bravura work as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, though I've always had a soft spot for her work as Catherine Sloper in The Heiress.

Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I have never seen The Adventures of Robin Hood, which is one of the few classic films of that era that I haven't caught yet that I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing, and I believe that it's actually toward the top of my Netflix queue, so we'll be getting there pretty quickly.

Rhonda Fleming (1923-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being the "Queen of Technicolor."  Along with Maureen O'Hara and Arlene Dahl (the latter of which oddly wasn't on the AFI ballot list, though she would have been eligible and is still alive, so clearly being a red-headed movie star is good for your longevity-hooray for Julianne Moore!), Fleming's red hair made her a major motion picture star, and one that photographed particularly well in Technicolor, which was very in fashion during the height of her fame.  Her best known films are probably from the 1940's, when she had supporting roles in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and the brilliant Out of the Past, but she was a bigger headliner in the 1950's when she appeared opposite Dana Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas.  Like a number of women on this list, she was an ardent Republican in her personal life, particularly as an advocate for school prayer.
Is She Still Working?: No-her most recent film would be 1990's Waiting for the Wind with Robert Mitchum, her Out of the Past costar.  She still frequently makes appearances, though, and has participated in the Turner Classic Film Festival.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've seen Spellbound and Out of the Past, so I would probably go with the classic Western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday.

Mitzi Gaynor (1931-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being Krusty the Clown's go-to name drop?  Just kidding (Simpsons reference!).  Gaynor was in fact one of 20th Century FOX's biggest stars in the 1940's and 1950's, starring in a number of hit musicals.  While she could boast costarring roles with Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly, it was with Rossano Brazzi, a little-known Italian actor, that she enjoyed her biggest and most enduring cinematic success.  The movie?  Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, with Gaynor as the main character of Nellie Forbush, forever washing that man right out of her hair before a very enchanted evening.  She also had one of the most famous numbers in Oscar history (though she wasn't nominated for or even in the film) when she got one of the longest-standing ovations in the history of the ceremony for her performance of "Georgy Girl" in 1967.
Is She Still Working?: While she no longer acts, she frequently is featured in documentaries chronicling the Golden Age of the musical, and actually won an Emmy for her 2010 documentary "Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle!"
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've come to really admire Gaynor's work over the past couple of years, but somehow am still missing her most famous performance, as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.

Marsha Hunt (1917-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Her politics.  You may be wondering where all of the Hollywood liberals are after so many conservatives highlighted on this list, but you're about to get one in Ms. Hunt, a star for both Paramount and MGM in the 1930's and 1940's who watched her career unravel during the 1950's as part of the blacklist.  Hunt was a vocal advocate for free speech and freedom to petition, and refused to denounce her activities protesting Congress on behalf of the blacklist...and therefore didn't work for most of the 1950's, extinguishing her career.
Is She Still Working?: Not really.  She made two random appearances in those films that only seem to exist on IMDB recently, but hasn't regularly worked in film since 1971's Johnny Got His Gun with Timothy Bottoms and Donald Sutherland.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I'm going to go with Born to the West, starring an extremely handsome John Wayne in his twenties, which gives Hunt an unusually robust screenplay to work with for a love interest role in the 1930's.

Angela Lansbury (1925-Present)

Oscar Nominations: 3 (for Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Manchurian Candidate, as well as an Honorary Oscar she won earlier this year).
Most Famous For: Lansbury has enjoyed an incredible amount of succcess throughout her career, principally on Broadway (she has won five Tony Awards) and on television (as J.B. Fletcher on the long-running CBS show Murder, She Wrote).  Of course, Lansbury has had a plethora of film roles as well that have become part of her own personal lore.  Her work in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate and Disney's Beauty and the Beast would be toward the top of the public consciousness.
Is She Still Working?: Yep!  She's in the hunt for her 19th Emmy nomination for the BBC's Little Women and will be seen later this year in Mary Poppins Returns.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Here I've seen enough of her work (I've even seen her on-stage) to have a favorite performance (The Manchurian Candidate, though honestly I've loved almost everything-she's a personal favorite) and have all three of those Oscar-nominated roles done, so I'll go with the comic classic The Court Jester, which I have for some reason never gotten around to and in which she plays Princess Gwendolyn opposite Glynis Johns (who like Arlene Dahl didn't quite make the cut of the 250 finalists for the AFI Award, but is also still alive at age 94 and would have been eligible).

Piper Laurie (1932-Present)

Oscar Nominations: 3 (for The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God)
Most Famous For: We'll continue the list of actresses that you've actually heard of with Piper Laurie, who did make her first screen appearance in 1950 (just making the AFI eligibility cutoff), and who is most known to film audiences as the mother from hell in Carrie (oddly enough, Angela Lansbury arguably plays the cinema's other most famous mother from hell on-screen).  Laurie also was Paul Newman's love interest in The Hustler, and got a Best Actress nomination for it and was Catherine Martell on Twin Peaks.
Is She Still Working?: After an eight year absence, Laurie will be on movie screens once again later this year opposite Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh in White Boy Rick.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I cannot believe I am admitting this, but I have somehow never seen The Hustler, one of those great films from the 1960's and one of the most important roles of Paul Newman's (and of course Piper Laurie's) careers.  I should get on this quickly.

Gina Lollobrigida (1927-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Look at the picture to the left and I'll give you one (err...two) guesses.  Lollobrigida was the Italian sex symbol, a counterweight to the American Marilyn and the French Bardot.  She did make a handful of films with the leading men of the era (Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Frank Sinatra), but quite frankly it was her incredible beauty and her bizarre change in careers late in life (she became a journalist, and eventually managed to land an interview with Fidel Castro of all people in the 1970's) that made her a household name.
Is She Still Working?: She is not acting, but she does still stay in the papers, recently auctioning off $5 million worth of jewelry to benefit stem cell therapy.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I don't know if I've ever actually seen a Lollobrigida film, so I would probably make it a bit of a marathon to catch up.  I'd start with her Golden Globe-winning work in Come September with Rock Hudson, follow it with her Esmerelda opposite Anthony Quinn in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and finish things with her Solomon and Sheba with Yul Brynner, which has the distinction of being King Vidor's final film.

Sophia Loren (1934-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Loren received two Oscar nominations in her career, winning for Two Women in 1961 (the first person to win for a foreign-language film).  She would go on to win an Honorary Oscar in 1991 for her body of work.
Probably Best Known Today For: For starters, thankfully being alive and still working (the only woman on the Top 25 still with us).  Loren's most recent film is Rob Marshall's Nine, but is probably best known for her enduring beauty.  Consistently considered one of the most striking and attractive women in the history of cinema, she was a major star at the height of America's fascination with foreign language cinema. (Completely Random Aside-I once had a car that I named after Loren because the car was so pretty...my brother still drives it).
Is She Still Working?: Other than a random voice spot in Cars 2, Loren seems to have ended her career with Nine.
My Favorite Performance: Is it terrible to say Houseboat?  I genuinely loved this movie as a kid, and it's the sort of film I suspect I'd still adore as an adult.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I am going to go with Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, which unites Loren with one of her favorite directors (Vittorio de Sica) and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Rita Moreno (1931-Present)

Oscar Nominations: One nomination (which she won for-Best Supporting Actress for 1961's West Side Story)
Most Famous For: For thoroughly enjoying life in Ame-RIC-a.  Moreno starred in one of the great American musicals in 1961, taking over the role made famous by Chita Rivera on Broadway and becoming a household name as a result (as well as an Oscar-winner).  Though at that time she had been featured in three of the best-loved musicals of all-time (she was also in Singin in the Rain and The King and I), she didn't star in a lot of high-profile films again (a Latina actress in the 1960's frequently had to rely on stereotypical roles, which Moreno refused to partake of).  Instead she forged a bold multi-platform career, winning an Emmy, Grammy, and Tony in the 1970's to complete her EGOT.  She is best known from this period for her work on The Muppets and The Electric Company (with Morgan Freeman).  Moreno also had a pretty spectacular personal life, being romantically involved with both Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley during her career.
Is She Still Working?: Absolutely-she can be seen on Netflix's critically-acclaimed One Day at a Time as Lydia.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've seen her three iconic musicals, so I'm going to go with The Ritz, which earned Moreno a Tony Award on Broadway and a Golden Globe nomination on film.

Margaret O'Brien (1937-Present)

Oscar Nominations: None, though she won the Juvenile Academy Award in 1944.
Most Famous For: Being one of the biggest child stars on the planet.  Margaret O'Brien was to the 1940's what Shirley Temple and Judy Garland were to the 1930's.  She even appeared opposite Garland in the most famous of O'Brien's movies: Meet Me in St. Louis, where she played Tootie.  O'Brien was a major star, but couldn't jump to adult roles like Garland, whom she is oftentimes compared to, and instead only made the occasional television or film appearance.  If you ever want a fun story, read about O'Brien's Oscar and how she lost it for some fifty years before it finally returned to her.
Is She Still Working?: I think so-it looks like she has a relatively long recent IMDB cast page but it's not entirely clear if these are just clips of her in her youth or her actually playing a role.  If the 2017 movie where she stars opposite Mickey Rooney in a retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde actually exists, I need to see it immediately.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I'd probably go with the film that made her a star, Journey for Margaret with Robert Young and Fay Bainter, as I've seen (and loved) Meet Me in St. Louis before.

Jane Withers (1926-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being insufferable.  Or rather, playing insufferable, in the Shirley Temple classic Bright Eyes, where Withers plays her bratty nemesis.  Withers became one of the biggest stars of the late 1930's, joining Shirley Temple as a major box office draw despite being a child star, and then eventually going into supporting roles, like her work in Giant (she and James Dean were good friends) and eventually commercials, taking on what would become her most famous role for the Baby Boomer generation: Josephine the Plumber in the Comet commercials (for comparison's sake, think of Flo from the Progressive commercials and her ubiquity).  And continuing our streak, she was in several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and appears to be politically conservative.
Is She Still Working?: From what I can tell her most recent work would be voiceover contributions to The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its direct-to-video sequel, so I'm going to go with no since that was 16 years ago, though who knows-she may still be willing to give it a go.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I think Bright Eyes, Withers' most noted work, would probably have to be at the top of the list.

OVP: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Stars: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow
Director: JJ Abrams
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Original Score, Editing, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Like every carbon-based life form on the planet, I too saw the new Star Wars movie this past weekend. In fact, I am still wearing my R2D2 shirt that I wore to the opening weekend this morning (I saw it Saturday so it's not quite as gross as it sounds).  The movies, which were a part of my childhood in a way that they were for many Millennials who saw the original trilogy when they were re-released for the twentieth anniversary, bring back a sense of nostalgia that seems to have been the theme of the year.  From Jurassic Park to Rocky, nostalgia at the movies and playing off of past love for a cinematic brand has been the best way to mine the box office and our pocketbooks for a Hollywood that continually wants to find a sure-thing (lest we forget that the Independence Day and Harry Potter franchises recently released new trailer installments).  Like many critics, I found the film itself to be an enjoyable and thrill-filled ride, one that reestablishes the world of Star Wars without alienating die-hard fans of the franchise (like JJ Abrams kind of did for some more devoted Star Trek fans) while still seeming accessible to those people who didn't just rewatch all of the original six movies for the 70th time.  Still, that doesn't mean the film isn't without its faults, and so we'll get into that juxtaposition right now.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film in many ways borrows from the original A New Hope, so much so that some (including myself) felt like they remade the original trilogy with just a complete rehaul of gender and racial backgrounds of the main characters.  Here, so far, we have Rey (Miller) taking on the Luke Skywalker role, Finn (Boyega) seemingly taking on a more robust Princess Leia position, and then of course there's can-he-be-in-everything Oscar Isaac as Poe, the scallywag who is clearly mining Han Solo while Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is the misguided son of Leia and Han and our Vader-like antagonist.  The film plays out in many ways just like this, with Rey discovered ala Luke on a lost planet, and we have Han Solo step into the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for Finn and Rey as they try to take down the newly-risen Empire (for anyone who eye rolls, remember that every generation has their "Empire" on Earth, after all, so the fact that they're back with a different name isn't really that surprising).

This sounds worse than it is, to be fair.  The reinvention is lighter than some other franchises, and they don't skimp on humor and charm, particularly in letting us soak up all of the nostalgic glory of the franchise.  There's something so magical about hearing John Williams lush strings echoed behind the faces of Fisher, Hamill, and Ford (which are awash onscreen long enough for midnight movie crowds to cheer enthusiastically, and even if I didn't go to a premiere, I still heard the murmurs when Ford and Chewbacca or Leia's face first is shown on the movie screen).  To pretend otherwise would be stupid-Star Wars is so important to pop culture and these three have featured so prominently in it that we forgot the prequels entirely while waiting heroically for JJ Abrams to save the franchise, and he did.  This film, especially in the confines of a crowded movie theater, is extremely enjoyable to watch in the moment.  The action is intense, the set pieces are great, and the visual effects never totally abandon the color palette and become a CGI monstrosity (like, say, Jurassic World); the matte work seems to match in many ways what we first saw in a galaxy far, far away.  To put it bluntly, this is a good movie, and not one you're going to force yourself to watch when you prep for Episode VIII in two years.

The problem is that when it takes on A New Hope that I felt a little less enthused once I left the theater, and even as the film progressed it became a bit of an "oh, we're just going to do that again."  I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, and suggest you see it in theaters if you're one of the three people who haven't, but they're just not adding something new to the mix.  Ben Solo (Kylo Ren's real name) is just Anakin or Luke, continually having issues with his father or father figure, and watching Han Solo, one of the most iconic movie characters of all-time go down in a scene we're completely sure he's going to die in is so anti-climactic that it borders on sacrilege.  Is there really no way that we could have done Star Wars again without a son rebelling against his father?  Are there no other plot points in a galaxy far, far away?  The film is exhilarating, and the acting is good (though some people like Isaac and Ford are better than others), but the writing still needs work, and I hope that since I've already mentally spent money on the following two sequels (Disney bought the crack cocaine of movie franchises-no one quits this baby) my goal is that they not only continue to break down gender and racial stereotypes by casting against expectations (Poe could be gay, is all I'm saying here people), but also by defying expectations since we still have Luke and Leia to perhaps subvert the path that we followed in Empire and Jedi.

Those are my thoughts on the latest Star Wars.  I'm positive you've seen it, so why not share your own?  Do you agree with the death of such a beloved character?  Are you in the same boat as I where you were thrilled while watching but kind of wish you'd gotten something new instead of pleasant leftovers?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 5

This article is part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  For the Actors, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

And now we hit the finale of our AFI Stars series.  We've chronicled through the many men and women who made the list fifteen years ago, were near-misses (in your host's opinion), and for the ladies, are still with us.  We'll now get into the still-living gents who were on the ballot but didn't make it, but before that, I'll just throw out a thank you to anyone who has been reading through this fairly big undertaking on my part (all-told, this was probably one of the largest series we've done on the blog, coming in at around 30,000 words).  I know I frequently ask for this, but if you did enjoy and read the blog regularly (or didn't enjoy), please share your thoughts in the comments and I'll know if this is something that I should try again in the future.

Getting back to the article, the sad matter for the actors in particular is that of the 250 men that were nominated for the list in 1999, only six of them are still alive today.  Two of those men (Kirk Douglas and Sidney Poitier) were on the original list, so we only have just four actors to get into right now.  Without further adieu...

Tab Hunter (1931-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being the Zac Efron of his day (no insinuations of Mr. Efron's sexuality...though they are very similar in a variety of other ways, so...).  Tab Hunter was a beefcake who made Warner Brothers a huge amount of money in the late 1950's, starring as the dreamy embodiment of a blond boy-next-door.  Hunter later starred in John Waters' Polyester with Divine and in 2006 caused major media waves (including on the New York Times bestseller list) when he wrote a biopic confirming the long-whispered rumors that he was gay.
Is He Still Working?: No, he is not (his final film role was in 1996), though there is supposedly a documentary coming out about his life next year from Jeffrey Schwarz.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Like the living ladies articles, I'm going to skip the "favorite performances" here except for two actors I actually have a favorite performance for.  I'll go with Island of Desire, because let's face it-seeing Tab Hunter shirtless with Linda Darnell sounds like a great way to kill an evening.

Jerry Lewis (1926-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Lewis was never nominated for a competitive Oscar, though he did win the Jean Hersholt in 2009.
Most Famous For: His Labor Day telethons.  Lewis was a noted comedian in the 1950's and 1960's, frequently appearing to much success with Dean Martin in television, film, and radio, and enjoying solid success as a solo act.  However, to most everyone with a television in September, he was the face of the telethons that raised money for Muscular Dystrophy, which he did for over forty years.  He is particularly well-known and beloved in France, where they recognize him as a "comedic genius."
Is He Still Working?: Yes, actually, though he doesn't host the telethons anymore, he does do small film work in movies like Max Rose in 2013 with Claire Bloom (whom you'll remember was on the female acting list).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen the original Nutty Professor (at least I don't remember that I have), and so I think that would probably be the number one slot for Lewis.

Dean Stockwell (1936-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Stockwell has received one Oscar nomination, for 1988's Married to the Mob (he lost to Kevin Kline).
Most Famous For: The career of Dean Stockwell is a fascinating one, as he is one of those rare child actors who went on to have a very strong career as an adult, though in this case in character actor parts. Starting acting as a cherubic-faced youth in movies like Gentleman's Agreement and Anchors Aweigh, he eventually became a hit actor as an adult, dropped out of acting to get involved in the hippie subculture, reappeared in the 1980's in the art house cinema of David Lynch and Wim Wenders, and is most well-known today for playing Al Calavicci in Quantum Leap and Brother Cavil in the revival of Battlestar Galactica.
Is He Still Working?: Absolutely, and in a variety of different pictures (including, and I find this hilarious, Max Rose with Claire Bloom and Jerry Lewis).  He was also opposite Jonathan Groff and Corey Stoll in C.O.G. last year.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've actually seen a few Stockwell pictures, and thought he was terrific if terrifying singing Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in the exceptional Blue Velvet.  I'll go with his Oscar-nominated work as my missing piece, though I have always meant to watch the revived Battlestar Galactica.

Max von Sydow (1929-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Two nominations, one for Pelle the Conquerer, and another one for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (he lost both).
Most Famous For: Being a titan of acting.  He is frequently referenced by people who want to name check someone of great acting gravitas.  He is particularly well-known for his work in the films of Ingmar Bergman, but also has appeared opposite Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Susan Sarandon in recent years.
Is He Still Working?: Absolutely.  He'll be taking a role of some sort (at least this is the rumor) in the next Star Wars film, and was just on The Simpsons.  He also was an Oscar nominee three years ago, so not only is he still working, but he's working in very relevant films.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I would do myself a disservice here if I didn't mention that I love von Sydow's work and he is one of my most beloved performers, particularly his films The Seventh Seal and Winter Light (Bergman being one of my all-time favorite directors).  Of the films I'm missing from von Sydow's filmography, I'd probably say The Emigrants would be the most egregious.

And there you have it-the final four.  What are your thoughts on the careers of Hunter, Lewis, Stockwell, and von Sydow?  Which of their films do you most need to see/most want to share your love for?  Click on the comments and let us all know!

OVP: Supporting Actor (2011)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees Were...

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

My Thoughts: And now, it's time for the four categories people tend to most discuss the-those of the actors.  There are always performances to be heralded in each of the four lineups (or at least, there were performances given throughout the year worth heralding in the lineups), but of the four categories, this is probably the one I most often disagree with Oscar on when it comes to their nominations.  Because of the demographics of the Academy, while Supporting Actress oftentimes celebrates the ingenues struggling to make it big in the industry, this category is typically reserved for the veterans of the industry-the marquee stars of yesteryear who are now playing fathers and grandfathers, and no longer get the roles they once coveted.  It will oftentimes ignore the character actors in the middle or beginnings of their careers, and more so than the other three categories, feels too often like an "Honorary Award."  The lineup is typically not quite as lopsided as this one (Kenneth Branagh, at 51, is the second youngest of these nominees), but you see my point in most years of the Oscars.  It's a true pity, because some of my favorite performances in a given year would qualify in this race, but Oscar rarely decides to go that direction.

Let's start out then, with the two eldest statesman of this lineup-Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow.  Plummer has embraced almost every role Shakespeare ever wrote outside of Lady Macbeth, and has appeared in dozens upon dozens of films, but is most well-known to audiences as the man with the whistle, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (a film he famously detested).  In 2009, he got a consolation prize of sorts when he was nominated for playing Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, a huge relief for the Academy, who had long been harangued for not nominating this legendary actor (Donald Sutherland and Mia Farrow-there's always hope!).  At the time, it didn't seem like he would be returning so quickly (or ever) to the Kodak Theatre, but he defied expectations with the independent dramedy Beginners.

Plummer's character is a long-closeted gay man who, after many decades of seemingly happy marriage to his wife, comes out to his son after his wife's death.  The film follows Plummer's late-in-life declaration of his sexuality, as well as his son's (Ewan McGregor) coping with his father's new path and decaying health.  Plummer brings a real sense of happiness to his role, something not always easy to do onscreen.  Dying is easy, comedy is hard has long been a saying, but it may just as well be depressed is easy, keeping happy interesting is impossible.  Plummer's decaying health gives him a few great speech moments, but it's the happiness that is probably the hardest thing he's doing onscreen, as we get to celebrate the joy of being who you are, even if we find our youth-oriented brains wondering "why now?"  I was not of the group who thought this was a cosmic, brilliant sort of turn (it's well-acted, to be sure, but I don't quite push the button toward Oscar-worthy), but it's nice to see an actor of Plummer's talents still being challenged onscreen in his 80's.

Max von Sydow is also being challenged in his 80's in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Von Sydow is most well-known to audiences today as one of Ingmar Bergman's muses and the father in Pelle the Conqueror (his only other Oscar nomination), but he's continued working steadily during a time-of-life that most people are golfing in Palm Springs (most recently, he wowed as the father in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).  This film was deservedly much-maligned, and while I won't get into that too much now (I'll reserve judgment when we discuss its bizarre Best Picture nomination), von Sydow is not the issue.  I spent so much of this film hoping that Thomas Horn and his nails-on-the-chalkboard performance would lead us to any of the other actors onscreen, and though I didn't get this reward (he stayed the entire film), he at least brought excellent performers out, particularly in the form of von Sydow.  His mute old man with a mysterious past is a rich, complicated performance that has no business in a film this one-dimensional and treacly.  While von Sydow is limited in how much of an impact he can make with Horn's loud performance taking up much of the onscreen air, his weathered glances and searches for approval and internal conflict over human connection are far-and-away the best part of this terrible movie.

Another senior citizen of the screen, gaining his third nomination for Warrior, is Nick Nolte.  Not many actors have gone through more transformations than Nolte, a one-time screen star and "Sexiest Man Alive" who became a tabloid joke after his drunk driving arrest in 2002.  Few people expected him to attempt a comeback, but he did just that as the drunk, abusive father in this sports film.  Nolte gives the long, tedious film a shot in the arm, but is ultimately far too one-dimensional for me to take serious as a legitimate contender for the "best" of the year.  Nolte has given some incredible performances before, particularly in Affliction, but this is a case where the role was nominated rather than the shaky, sometimes workable performance.  And also, for the record, just because someone mumbles their way through a movie it doesn't mean that they're doing Brando-level work.

Kenneth Branagh has one of the strangest histories ever with Oscar-he is the first person to ever be nominated in five separate categories, and he did it in five nominations-Best Actor and Director (Henry V), Live Action Short Film (Swan Song), Adapted Screenplay (Hamlet), and in this category for My Week with Marilyn.  For an actor who has spent much of his career being favorably compared to the greatest of all modern Shakespearean actors, Laurence Olivier, it seems either genius or stunt casting to put him in that role in this film about the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.  Either way, the casting is serviceable, though it limits the hammy Branagh a bit.  I have to admit that I was so spellbound by Williams in this film (not necessarily due to her performance, since she's always good and typically better, but because she does a marvelous Marilyn transformation) that Branagh sort of falls by the wayside, and nothing about his performance calls out to me.  He gets meaty, over-the-top readings throughout the film, but it doesn't translate to great acting.  About the only scene where he works is his "little girl lost" soliloquy, but one strong speech from one of the world's finest Shakespearean actors is not enough to warrant inclusion in this category.

As you may have guessed, even by the standards of this not being my favorite Oscar acting category, this is not a lineup I'm at all happy with, and that unfortunately doesn't stop when AMPAS includes a token "guy under 40" to fill out the category, Jonah Hill in Moneyball.  I have to hand it to Hill, who managed to be one of the first guys of my generation to score an Oscar nomination, and he was not one of the ones I was ever expecting to make it (and neither were you, let's be honest) and is not an actor I greatly anticipate making it here again (note that he's the only one of the five actors I'm not ready to give his own tag).  He manages to luck into the second biggest role in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and has a wonderful screen partner in Pitt, who is doing his cocky excellence thing in this movie.  Hill's character has little depth, and aside from strong one-liners and a true chemistry with Pitt, there's nothing exceptional about this role or performance.  It was a nice way to round out a weak lineup with an actor who seems like a nice guy, but it, and I sound like a broken record at this point, is not Oscar-worthy.

Other Precursor Contenders: Like writing, acting has a treasure trove of contenders to deal with, so we'll just stick to the Globes, the BAFTA's, and the SAG Awards.  The Globes, always a bit more star heavy, skipped von Sydow and Nolte, instead going for Viggo Mortenson's calculating Dr. Freud in A Dangerous Method and Albert Brooks cold-hearted villain in Drive.  BAFTA also kicked out Nolte and von Sydow, though they favored Philip Seymour Hoffman's exhausted campaign official in The Ides of March and hometown favorite Jim Broadbent playing Denis Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  Finally, the SAG Awards kept all but von Sydow in their lineup, instead favoring the closeted lover that Armie Hammer portrays in J. Edgar.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Here's where my anger at this category really lights up, because there were excellent performances in supporting roles last year worth honoring.  Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken are a heartbreaking father-and-son in The Tree of Life.  Pitt, in particular, is giving the best performance of his career as a domineering, unsuccessful husband-and-father.  There's also John Hawkes creepy and intoxicating cult leader in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene that would have been a fine choice after his worthy inclusion for Winter's Bone.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar loves a comeback and honoring a celebrated and elderly thespian, and the precursor onslaught showered upon Christopher Plummer made this an easy landslide decision for the Academy.

My Choice: As I've mentioned, I probably wouldn't have included any of these five men in my personal lineup, and Pitt or Hawkes would have been such an easy decision.  However, I have to work within the confines of the game, which means that von Sydow beats out Plummer for the trophy.  Von Sydow's work is a bit more effective and he has a much more difficult film to be able to excel in than Plummer.  Third place goes to Branagh, and I'll give Hill the slot just above Nolte.

And now, what about you-which of these five gentlemen deserved to win Best Supporting Actor?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Supporting Actor of 2011?

Also in 2011: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap