Diane Keaton (1946-2025)

Perhaps the question I get most as a cinephile is "what made you love the movies?"   The answer varies depending on the situation and the person who asked it.  Every true movie-lover knows the breakthrough film, the one that made them realize this was no longer something casual, but a lifelong obsession, something that can only be captured in a darkened room, popcorn in your lap, marveling at the majesty and richness of the story in front of you.

But perhaps a better question is "what keeps you in love with the movies?"  What makes a flight-of-fancy as a child, the kind of thing that children usually give up alongside pretending to be pirates and princesses, and keeps you inspired, sustained, nurtured for decades to come.  There are many answers to this, but if you ask me to pinpoint with a movie, one particular title & scene is always going to come up.  Near the end of Reds, Diane Keaton is walking along a train platform, trying to find out if Warren Beatty has lived or died.  She sees men being celebrated upon their return, and the audience is meant to be hopeful, and then we see a stretcher holding a clearly dead body, and you can feel your heart sink.  Finally, Keaton's gaze looks up from the covered corpse with dread, and she sees Warren Beatty, disheveled and tired, but still very much alive.  Their complicated relationship, and nearly three hours of cinema in front of it, is etched onto their movie star faces.  They don't run to each other, but instead walk slowly, and then embrace, with Beatty whispering in Keaton's ear "don't leave...please don't leave me."  Whether or not these characters will ultimately live or die before the credits fall, they have achieved a reunion-they will be together whatever comes next.  And for every audience member, most teary-eyed, these actors have shown them something true, honest, and real.  From the ephemeral, we have witnessed love, if only for an instant.

I have seen countless Diane Keaton movies, and fallen in love with many of them.  The manic screams of Something's Gotta Give, the frustrated declaration of an abortion in The Godfather, Part II, the la-de-da perfection of her singing "Seems Like Old Times" in Annie Hall, but for me, when I think of Diane Keaton, I always think of her on that train station.  A singular actor, a singular talent, a singular human being, Reds is not the Keaton persona that most of the public associate with her, the neurotic, suited-up feminist trailblazer that Annie Hall would perfect.  But with Reds, you see best what made her so breathtaking in every role she would inhabit-that vulnerability and raw commitment to making each of her characters feel full of truth, timeless, even immortal.  Life is not fair, and death comes for us all, even the immortal, but as long as there are projectors in darkened theaters, and people willing to be moved by the floating lights on a projector, there will always be a Diane Keaton, wandering on a train platform, inspiring us all.

1981 Oscar Viewing Project

We are officially announcing our 30th completed Oscar Viewing Project.  As of yesterday, I have officially seen all of the narrative, feature-length nominees from the ceremony, and as we do here, we'll be ranking all of the major categories.  You'll note with this list that part of the reason that I got some of these completed was that 1981 is one of the most repetitive Oscars ever-all five of the Best Picture nominees got Best Director nominations, and they produced half of the acting nominations (in the pre-2009 era, this was a pretty high metric).  In terms of the box office, though, this is who led the field:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. On Golden Pond

3. Superman II

4. Arthur

5. Stripes

6. The Cannonball Run

7. Chariots of Fire

8. For Your Eyes Only

9. The Four Seasons

10. Time Bandits

Of these, I have seen only five of the top box office draws of the year.  The 1980's, especially the early 1980's, were still in the era where box office and Oscar's tastes were pretty much synonymous, so this is a relatively light list for Oscar nominees (as the only five films that I've seen are the five that are listed below).  I will for sure see Superman II & The Four Seasons before I complete the year for the My Ballot (where I pick the nominees...hopefully should complete that here by early June, though we'll do the 1957 My Ballot next)...the remainder are more of a question mark (make your cases for them in the comments).  If you're new here, also, look at the bottom of the page for links to all of our past 29 OVP's.

With that said, it's time to start impressing Jodie Foster, firing up your IBM computer, & wanting your MTV.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

(Note: Raiders of the Lost Ark received a Best Sound Editing Oscar at the ceremony as a special prize.  Given its nominations in other categories, I obviously saw this film, but wanted to make sure to note it-when we get to the My Ballot in the next two months for 1981, I will have this be a competitive race)

Note from John: When I did this series during the time when I wrote individual articles, and had this blog be a daily part of my life, I made a point of highlighting each nominee in my many write-ups.  While I will be writing these every time I complete a year (we'll have at least one OVP and/or My Ballot every month going forward), I can't make that time commitment, either in terms of number of articles or in terms of giving each nominee their due with a mention.  I promise, though, that I have given each nominee their due under the confines of the specific category while making my rankings (and of course I've seen every single nominated picture), including giving higher rankings to movies I didn't like if the craft was better than ones I did like (Oscar should consider that!).  Hopefully you enjoy the trimmed-down, but still devoted to the original concept version of the OVP we'll have going forward!

Picture

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. On Golden Pond

4. Chariots of Fire

5. Atlantic City

The Lowdown: This is, all things considered, one of the best Best Picture lineups that Oscar assembled during the 1980's, an era of moviemaking I generally find a bit underwhelming.  None of these movies is bad, but the two truly great ones of the lineup are Raiders and Reds, both from directors at the peak of their creative powers.  I'm going to favor Spielberg's Raiders.  It's less in Oscar's wheelhouse (but these are my choices for a reason), but I think that it is a tighter film, and defines the action-adventure genre.  Reds will be showing up again though (and as you'll see in the coming categories, is a movie I loved).

Director

1. Steven Spielberg (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

2. Warren Beatty (Reds)

3. Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond)

4. Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire)

5. Louis Malle (Atlantic City

The Lowdown: We're also going to give Spielberg his second OVP statue for Best Director, once again for a movie he didn't actually win for (can't stress enough how the links to the years we've covered are at the bottom of this page).  It's such a perfectly shot movie, giving us Harrison Ford's iconic archaeologist and a series of flawless adventure sequences.  Beatty's breathtaking too, though, particularly that effortlessly romantic scene at the train station.

Actor

1. Warren Beatty (Reds)

2. Henry Fonda (On Golden Pond)

3. Paul Newman (Absence of Malice)

4. Burt Lancaster (Atlantic City)

5. Dudley Moore (Arthur)

The Lowdown: Don't feel too bad for Beatty, though, as he's going to get a Best Actor statue for our OVP next.  The big fight here for me is between Beatty, whose John Reed is such an impassioned, imperfect example of a revolutionary (pun intended) man, bitter about his inability to be everything he dreamed (but still accomplishing true greatness).  Fonda is excellent in On Golden Pond, wrapping up a career that surely should've gotten an Oscar by then, but as a reminder we pick these winners in a vacuum, so it's possible that we're turning down Fonda's only shot at an OVP win from me, but objectively Beatty is stronger.

Actress

1. Diane Keaton (Reds)

2. Meryl Streep (The French Lieutenant's Woman)

3. Katharine Hepburn (On Golden Pond)

4. Marsha Mason (Only When I Laugh)

5. Susan Sarandon (Atlantic City)

The Lowdown: With the exception of Sarandon (who I think doesn't get Malle's tricky material) this is an underrated "all-timer" lineup, including the best thing I've seen (to date) from Marsha Mason.  For the win, though, it's between Streep and Keaton.  Streep's French Lieutenant's Woman has its detractors (including Streep herself), but I love what she does here, defining two women in similar fashions, both controlled by the same man.  There was a time I considered giving this to Streep (whom, it should be noted, has yet to win one of our OVP's or My Ballot's), but Keaton's sensational here, and giving the best dramatic performance of her career (don't you wish she'd do this instead of yet another spin on Annie Hall just once more?).

Supporting Actor

1. Jack Nicholson (Reds)

2. John Gielgud (Arthur)

3. Howard Rollins, Jr. (Ragtime)

4. Ian Holm (Chariots of Fire)

5. James Coco (Only When I Laugh)

The Lowdown: A lot of first-time OVP rendezvous this year with actors like Hepburn, Mason, Sarandon, Lancaster, & Newman, but it's hard not to think getting to talk about Jack for the first time is the biggest highlight of the bunch.  One of my all-time favorite actors, and you see why here.  His Eugene O'Neill is ruthless, him taking on the role of the "scorned lover" so deliciously ("you're a cheap gutter whore from Portland" being one of the most quotable lines he nails here).  Gielgud is delightful in Arthur and Rollins is the best part of Ragtime, but I am going to give this to Jack (who is definitely in the running to get the most total OVP and My Ballot acting statues before this is over).

Supporting Actress

1. Maureen Stapleton (Reds)

2. Melinda Dillon (Absence of Malice)

3. Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime)

4. Jane Fonda (On Golden Pond)

5. Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh)

The Lowdown: Yes, you're reading that right.  For the first (and perhaps only?) time, we are giving all four of the OVP acting statues to the same film, a movie that wasn't able to win Best Picture.  Unlike the other three acting categories, though, Stapleton doesn't have a lot of nearby options that would be respectable choices to beat her.  She nails this part, giving her Emma Goldman an electricity that makes you understand her importance in every scene she's in.  Dillon, McGovern, & Fonda all have their moments, and are roughly on-par (without Stapleton this would've been a more competitive field), but Stapleton being there makes it easy.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The French Lieutenant's Woman

2. On Golden Pond

3. Prince of the City

4. Pennies from Heaven

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: A particularly weak lineup that isn't entirely Oscar's fault (virtually all of the best films of 1981 were original ideas, unimaginable today), for me it's a contest between the first two, as I thought the screenplays on the remaining pictures were a yawn.  I'm going to give it to The French Lieutenant's Woman, though.  While On Golden Pond had far more quotable lines ("you're my knight in shining armor..." being a classic speech), I think that it doesn't tread deeply enough in the relationship between real-life father-and-daughter Hank & Jane, and I was totally sold on the gimmick of The French Lieutenant's Woman being both a story within a story, something that wasn't in the John Fowles' novel.

Original Screenplay

1. Reds

2. Atlantic City

3. Chariots of Fire

4. Arthur

5. Absence of Malice

The Lowdown: On the flip side, while this isn't that great of a lineup, it at least has one terrific script in the bunch.  Reds is phenomenal, and rises above the cost of an epic (i.e. that the screenplay is regularly the weakest part of it) by giving us a genuine, enthralling love story between two people who can't seem to live without each other (even if they might have to).  Atlantic City has a lovely gimmick, and Chariots of Fire is moving (and Arthur, specifically the parts with Gielgud, can be funny), but none of them can compete with Reds, the one triumph in this field (that should've included Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Foreign Language Film

1. Mephisto (Hungary)

2. Muddy River (Japan)

3. The Boat is Full (Switzerland)

4. Man of Iron (Poland)

5. Three Brothers (Italy)

The Lowdown: One of those years where the Foreign Language Film (now the International Feature Film) category features movies that were only cited for this prize, and nowhere else, so this is your only chance to speak about any of the contenders.  The best of this bunch are Mephisto, a spin on the Faust concept (literally...the main character is an actor best known for playing the devil), and Muddy River, a moving look at friendship across income levels through the eyes of a child.  I'm going with Mephisto, because I think it's grander and has a better central performance from Klaus Marie Brandeur (it also won the Oscar), but Muddy River is not far off and really worth your time if you've never heard of it.

Original Score

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Chariots of Fire

3. On Golden Pond

4. Ragtime

5. Dragonslayer

The Lowdown: Honestly, in a normal year this would be a slam dunk for something like On Golden Pond, a superb score that can barely muster a bronze here.  Raiders and Chariots are two of the most iconic film scores for a reason, and it's hard to argue with either of them (fun fact: I played "Hymne" by Vangelis for a piano recital when I was in middle school and still have the sheet music for it, even though I don't even have a piano).  I'm going to go with Raiders because I have more of an emotional connection to it, and because I think it's most consistent throughout the actual movie, but this is a coin toss race.

Original Song

1. "Endless Love" (Endless Love)

2. "For Your Eyes Only" (For Your Eyes Only)

3. "Arthur's Theme" (Arthur)

4. "The First Time It Happens" (The Great Muppet Caper)

5. "One More Hour" (Ragtime)

The Lowdown: If you look just at the movie titles here, I'm definitely not picking the best films of the bunch.  Bette Midler quite famously did a send-up of how bad the movies were in this lineup when she presented it (check it out if you haven't seen it...it was the funniest moment in an otherwise pretty tepid ceremony, comically speaking), and both of the Top 2 got the worst of it.  But I don't really connect with Christopher Cross, and I think "Endless Love" is both a moving little ballad, and one that fits the saccharine movie it's housing, just a bit better than the also good "For Your Eyes Only."  Had "Hey a Movie" gotten in from The Great Muppet Caper, we'd be having a reranking here as I always love the Muppets onscreen.

Sound

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. Pennies from Heaven

4. Outland

5. On Golden Pond

The Lowdown: We are once again pitting Raiders vs. Reds, and once again Raiders is coming out on top.  It's just hard to argue with the play on the Saturday morning adventure serial, but now in the mold of a giant movie blockbuster.  Reds is subtler with its sound work, and would make a fine win as well...particularly the crowd scenes feel authentic, melded with the music, but still have a grand aura.  Pennies from Heaven, the token musical that always shows up for Sound...is fine.

Art Direction

1. Heaven's Gate

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

3. Reds

4. The French Lieutenant's Woman

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: The best lineup of the bunch, there is not a single bad nominee in this group, and any of them would work as a winner.  I loved the shifts in time being played with in French Lieutenant's Woman, the over-abundance of sets in Ragtime (you understand why this became a musical), the book-laden interiors of Reds, and the continental jumping of Raiders.  But if I have to pick a winner, it needs to be Heaven's Gate, a really grand movie that was (at the time) one of the most famous flops ever made, but it looks spectacular, and I love the shifting stages & devotion to the western on display.

Cinematography

1. Reds

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

3. Excalibur

4. On Golden Pond

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: For the first (and only) time in this article, you will see me ever so slightly favor Reds over Raiders.  Despite loving them both, this is the only Oscar contest that I feel Beatty's film exceeds.  I love the camerawork in Raiders (that rolling boulder...come on now, it's iconic for a reason), but I can't help but feel that the use of temperature (you can practically feel the warmth & cold emanating off of the screen in Reds), plus the famous train scene, are impossible to deny.  Kudos also to Excalibur, which has the feel of a shoe-string budget but still gives us glorious looks at Nicol Williamson & Helen Mirren in their entrancing witchiness.

Costume

1. Reds

2. The French Lieutenant's Woman

3. Ragtime

4. Pennies from Heaven

5. Chariots of Fire

The Lowdown: With Indy's fedora left off the dais, it's a contest between the period work of Reds and the period work of The French Lieutenant's Woman (don't look at me like that-I have at least one contemporary film on the list currently for the My Ballot...it's Oscar that never goes there).  Of the two, I go with Reds because I think it is more consistent overall.  There's more care put into French Lieutenant's when it comes to the period stuff than the modern scenes, and Ragtime behind it doesn't break the mold in the way that the of-the-people looks in Reds achieve.

Film Editing

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. The French Lieutenant's Woman

4. Chariots of Fire

5. On Golden Pond

The Lowdown: Again, another Raiders & Reds contest (our final one), with everyone else just getting the scraps.  I think the editing exhibits why these two tower above.  Raiders is fast-paced, effortlessly so in a way that makes every scene feel timeless (which, after nearly 45 years of existence, it really is), while Reds gets a slow-burn, us investing continually as the movie finds its own romance.  The timelessness wins it for Raiders, though (kudos also to French Lieuentant's for working so well with the time jumps).

Makeup

1. An American Werewolf in London

2. Heartbeeps

The Lowdown: We have a pair of two-wide races to complete this year's Oscar's, starting with Makeup (for the record, both of these categories I'll go five-wide when I pick my personal choices).  This was the first year of the Best Makeup category, and they did something that would become commonplace at the Oscars: nominating Rick Baker (the maestro behind An American in Werewolf) and giving the title of "Oscar-nominated" to a truly heinous movie.  There are few films as bad as Heartbeeps, but what's worse is the makeup in it is bizarrely lazy, particularly when you had much better options nominated in 1981 (it's just Bernadette Peters & Andy Kaufman covered in a plastic sheen).  Conversely, An American Werewolf is one of the best achievements of Rick Baker's career, so an easy call for him to take this.

Visual Effects

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Dragonslayer

The Lowdown: A second category that is only two-wide, we have two films competing against each other in another lopsided victory where I definitely go with Oscar's choice.  At this point, anything George Lucas or Steven Spielberg were creating was foundational to the future of blockbuster cinema, and Raiders is a genius use of practical and special effects, particularly the face-melting scene when they open the Ark.  Dragonslayer, though, unlike Heartbeeps is a genuinely quality product and earned this spot (and will likely make my My Ballot as well for its great use of the imposing dragon in the picture).

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

OVP: Actress (2003)

OVP: Best Actress (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider

Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give

Samantha Morton, In America

Charlize Theron, Monster

Naomi Watts, 21 Grams

My Thoughts: I sometimes feel like an old man (which depending on your birth certificate, I may well be) when I talk about old Oscar races, but it's hard to impress how wild of a ride 2003's Best Actress race was.  Even compared to recent fields (like this year's crazy, frontrunner-less year), 2003's nominations got bonkers with only two names showing up in most of the precursors (and not a single name landing in all of them), and the remainder feeling totally influx throughout the season (just wait until we get to the precursors below).  We'll start with the two names, though, that never felt in doubt with Oscar all year long.

Charlize Theron, it's hard to remember in 2003, was not considered a particularly compelling actress.  Beautiful, yes, but she had largely stuck to "girlfriend/wife" roles until that point, and when she saw her break playing totally against type in Monster, she took it.  Theron has been called one of the great performances to ever win this award, and to some degree I find that to be hyperbole.  I think she's excellent, inhabiting Aileen Wuornos & humanizing her in a way that probably works better in fiction than in a biopic (the sympathy for serial killers angle always feels like a tightrope considering the lives they ended up destroying even if they started out from sheer horror like Wuornos clearly did).  I don't think she lands the romantic arches with Christina Ricci (there's not enough chemistry there), and I also feel like some of her shock appeal is the makeup doing heavy-lifting because we know what she really looks like, but this is a worthy nomination, even if I don't think it's an all-timer.

Diane Keaton was having yet another comeback in 2003 (her last, to date, with Oscar), and like Theron, there are moments where it doesn't quite work.  I don't know that she had enough chemistry with Keanu Reeves late in the movie for my taste, never quite making it work the same way as with Jack (and there are moments it feels like she's playing Diane Keaton more than her character).  But this is minor quibbling about a terrific performance.  Playing a woman who has found immense success in every avenue of life except love, and then having that be a bumpy, fraught, vulnerable journey for her rather than a simple rom-com...Keaton sells a woman who had settled for her life, even if she always knew there could be more.  It's great stuff from one of the best of her generation.

I feel a little bad ragging on child performers, particularly since I know my brother reads this blog & will be guarding his beloved Whale Rider with mama bear arms, but Keisha Castle-Hughes doesn't work with me.  There's naturalism in a performance, and then there's just not emoting enough, and I think she's more in the second half.  It doesn't help that her script is hackneyed and filled with coming-of-age cliche that even the most skilled of performers wouldn't have been able to bring to life, but I wasn't into this the way that so many were...bonus points to the Academy, though, for putting her in the correct category as this is 1000% a lead performance.

Samantha Morton is better with naturalism in In America.  She plays her mother as a real, complicated figure, someone who can have horny sex with her husband (strong chemistry between Morton & Paddy Considine), while also having great anger toward him later in the movie & still make it feel believable.  Morton's work is informed by grief, her Sarah knows that she can never fill the void left by the death of her son, and just wants someone to blame because blaming no one is the worst punishment.  Morton was capping off a truly impressive run in the late-1990's & early-2000's with this her second (and final) nomination, and while it was a surprise, it was a pleasant one from Oscar.

Our final nomination cannot get the same compliment.  Naomi Watts has been nominated for a My Ballot Award before for King Kong and was in sixth place for The Painted Veil-I consider myself a fan.  But she is actively terrible in 21 Grams and I will never understand why Oscar chose this as the moment to honor her, one of the worst performances of her career.  She is constantly screaming, constantly angry, acting as if there's nothing underneath her hostility toward the world, nothing that existed prior to the confines of the movie.  This, like her nomination for The Impossible, feels like they're nominating the role more than the actress, and that these movies (and not something unique & film-fitting like Kong) are where she got her nominations will never not confuse me. 

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have eleven women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it's Theron besting Cate Blanchett (Veronica Guerin), Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Volume 1), & Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), while for Comedy/Musical it's Keaton over Jamie Lee Curtis (Freaky Friday), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Diane Lane (Under the Tuscan Sun), & Helen Mirren (Calendar Girls).  SAG gave us Theron as the winner over Keaton, Watts, Wood, & Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) while at the BAFTA Awards it was Johansson (Lost in Translation) winning over Watts, Johansson (for Girl), Thurman, & Anne Reid (The Mother) (due to release schedule issues, Theron wasn't eligible until the next year with BAFTA, which used to happen a lot more there than it does now, and she was nominated but lost that season).  All of this is to say-who the hell knows who was in sixth place...there are thirteen names just listed and only three of them made it with Oscar, and that's not counting that for much of the race Jennifer Connelly (House of Sand and Fog) was considered something of a favorite.  If I had to guess, thanks to Johansson's campaign being royally botched, it was probably Wood, but this was a bizarre race & one that I still can't figure out.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Similar to our comments for Return of the King, it's hard to know where to put Uma Thurman's work in Kill Bill exactly since it's one great performance split in half, but it's a darned shame that Oscar didn't make room for her in either 2003 or 2004.

Oscar’s Choice: There was no beating Theron-that trophy was undeniably hers...Keaton didn't stand a prayer, and she was obviously in second.

My Choice: I'm going to go with Keaton, who gives the stronger character arc without the need for prosthetics to enhance the performance, against Theron (I also, to be fair, like Keaton's movie way better as I didn't like Monster at all and in a close race, that matters).  Morton is third, with Castle-Hughes & Watts falling behind.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with Oscar & Theron, or do you dare to be different with Diane & I?  Why do you think that Oscar has the worst taste in Naomi Watts movies?  And who the hell was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2003: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Crimes of the Heart (1986)

Film: Crimes of the Heart (1986)

Stars: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard, Tess Harper, Hurd Hatfield

Director: Bruce Beresford

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actress-Sissy Spacek, Supporting Actress-Tess Harper, Adapted Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The 1980's are a weird time for me cinematically.  I was alive in the 1980's, but the movies I was obsessed with were Lady and the Tramp and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day...I was not really concerned with the kinds of films that Oscar was acknowledging.  As a result, I don't have any nostalgia to surround myself with from the decade, and am left with kind of a bad feeling every time someone brings it up with reverence...as the 1980's is easily my least favorite decade cinematically.  The acting is a bit too involved, the headliners are not my favorites, the scripts are too indulgent and anguished...it was a decade where people seemed to be totally oblivious to how awful Ronald Reagan was as president.  I had this sense of apprehension heading into Crimes of the Heart, even though I genuinely like all three of the leading ladies in it (even with my 1980's allergy), as I was curious what a film like this would feel like, and if it would rise above the 1980's trappings.  What I didn't expect, however, was how weird it would be.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about three sisters, all of whom have very different natures.  Lenny (Keaton), is a spinster who has spent much of their life taking care of their dying grandfather (Hatfield), while Meg (Lange) is a struggling singer in Hollywood who has left behind her family.  They are both home immediately following Babe (Spacek), their youngest sister, having had an affair with a black teenager & shooting her husband who regularly beats her senseless.  As the film progresses, we learn more about the trio, specifically the shocking trauma they endured when they were children (that their mother hanged herself and her cat, making them national news).  As the film ends, it looks like Babe will kill herself in a fashion similar to her mother, but is unsuccessful in repeated attempts to commit suicide, and the film ends with the three sisters finally acknowledging their need for one another, despite their differences.

The movie is bizarre not in its approach (it actually kind of works for a theatrical adaptation, even if you can see the strings of it being a play from a mile away), but in its strange tonal inconsistencies.  It is a tender film, one about three sisters who love each other despite deep differences & genuine animosities. But it also runs rampant between comedy-and-drama, oftentimes in ways that you can't really tell what the director is trying to accomplish.  The cat hanging comes as a total surprise during a felt scene, and while it is a spit-take moment, it also feels kind of cheap.  There's something to be said for telling the story of people who endure 15 minutes of fame in the lens of comic tragedy (we've all seen headlines like that "Woman Hangs Self & Cat" feels ripped from the back pages of a tabloid newspaper), but the movie itself never successfully lands on what its purpose is, and when it tries to turn Babe's suicide into an equally comic moment (after seeing what it did to these women as children)...I just didn't like it.  It felt like a parody, and not in a good way.

The film won three Oscar nominations.  As I mentioned, the stage-to-screen translation is good even if you can tell its a play, but weirdly that can be accredited to the art directors.  I loved the lived-in sense of Lenny's house, the way it is bursting with too much stuff, quilts & photo albums & boxes that you've "meant to throw out but have been collecting dust for twenty years."  So often in films we don't see this attention-to-detail, but it's very real-look at your house, and notice things that have sat on counters or on closet shelves for a decade without having been moved in all that time.  Adding this sort of personality makes it feel less like a stage.  The script, though, doesn't do that kind of legwork, and its issues with tone & strange shock value felt off-putting.

Sissy Spacek is the best member of the cast, by a lot in my estimation, even if she also gets the best part.  Keaton is the pro at comedy, but has never done well with films that tread across genres (she's a good dramatic actress, but she needs to play that drama completely straight otherwise it comes off sarcastic), but it's Spacek who best encapsulates the black humor of the film.  She plays her part as someone who lives a more spontaneous life than her sister Lenny, but one more sporadic than her sister Meg, and she's very good when she's pitting her two older sisters against one another (as if she's done it her whole life).  The nomination for Tess Harper is weird.  Harper had just had a breakout part three years earlier for Tender Mercies, but that hardly explains her shrill, blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in Crimes of the Heart, a totally one-note performance that lacks any of the nuance that Spacek is bringing.  It's honestly bad acting, and totally runs aground the rest of the picture.  It's hard to imagine Oscar couldn't have done better.

Book Club (2018)

Film: Book Club (2018)
Stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy Garcia, Don Johnson
Director: Bill Holderman
Oscar History: It's not that kind of movie.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

4 Oscars, 6 Emmys, and 12 Golden Globes.  If we go to the nominations, it's 13, 16, and 39, respectively.  The women of Book Club have created so many film and television memories through the years, honestly, they could have filmed their actual book club and I would have shown up to watch it.  This seems to be the attitude of most of the people I follow on Twitter, who were thrilled to be attending Book Club even if it didn't actually look any good.  The fact that it got made at all is interesting, and proof, perhaps, of Hollywood having missed the boat a bit when it comes to counter-programming.  Book Club is a genuine hit at this point, and proves that you don't have to have an English accent to storm the box office against blockbuster giants (these four women's British contemporaries like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Smith regularly get to lead their own summer comedies).  That said, this is a film review, and it's important for me not to just ask "is this fun?" but also "is this good?"

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around four lifelong friends: Diane (Keaton), Vivian (Fonda), Sharon (Bergen), and Carol (Steenburgen) who get together every single month to read a book, and because Hollywood demands we have to have a hook in order for four beautiful older women to talk about sex & relationships, the book club pick is Fifty Shades of Grey.  Thankfully this isn't a huge part of the film itself (only Steenburgen seems to indulge a bit in EL James erotica, and that's less central to her subplot than the trailers would suggest), as it would feel a bit ageist to have a bunch of worldly women focus entirely on being shocked by S&M, but it is indicative of the pretty uninspired thinking that screenwriters Bill Holderman and Erin Simms bring to this movie.  For it has to be said-Book Club, for all of the promise of its legendary stars, is not very good.

The film's central problem lies in it being too predictable, and feeling a bit too much like an original movie you'd catch on cable (in many ways it reminded me of Wild Oats from a few years back, which premiered on Lifetime).  There's nothing unique or special happening here.  Candice Bergen is the only person doing something original here, and the only character whose story I wanted to learn more about as the film progressed.  Bergen breathes life into her character, a stately judge who is trying to start dating again, and finds at least some under-explored facets of aging; watching her ex-husband introduce "the love of his life" is a cruel scene, particularly when you consider that he's not meeting some harlot, but instead a genuinely nice younger woman.  There's also the frayed dynamic between her son, who is clearly more like his dad than his mother, and herself, and the way that Bergen tips her hand that she needed to be a more absent mother in order to have her successful career, and the resentment that builds from such a decision.  That's great stuff, and while heavy for a comedy, Bergen makes it work.  The rest of the cast, though, doesn't have that luxury and doesn't expand their characters beyond two dimensions.

Fonda, for example, is phoning in her role as a sexy nymph who let a man get away-she could do this in her sleep.  Keaton's performance as a mother rediscovering love is the same role she's been playing for twenty years.  It would have been genuinely interesting if they had messed around with these parts, for example, and not had them play their own public persona (imagine Fonda as the neurotic mother or Keaton as the lusty single gal), but that's not really what people are buying tickets for; like the Dench/Smith films, they want to see the star they know-and-love, and they don't want them to stretch too much.  As a result, this is a film that feels instantly disposable, which is a damned shame as these actors are too talented to discard.

George Clooney's AFI Win is Too Soon

Yesterday, the American Film Institute announced that George Clooney will be receiving its Life Achievement Award.  This is considered one of the highest honors in the world of cinema, a landmark achievement that puts Clooney alongside such luminaries as Bette Davis, John Ford, and Fred Astaire.  It also makes him the sixth youngest person to ever win the award, tying Harrison Ford who won the honor in 2000.  This struck me, however, as a bit pandering and as one of those life achievement awards that feels far too soon, and perhaps a little undeserved.  I figured I'd explore that line-of-thinking here today by looking at Clooney's career in comparison to some of the legends that he now joins by being on this list.

The first thing I want to discuss is Clooney's age itself.  In an era where people are living considerably longer, (provided you have access to quality health insurance) winning a life achievement award before at least 65 feels far too premature (he'll be 57 when he picks it up).  This isn't the first time that the AFI has jumped the gun on honoring someone.  Tom Hanks won in 2002 at the ridiculously early age of 45, which meant that some of his lauded recent work in pictures like Captain Phillips and Bridge of Spies wasn't among his clips at the time, and Steven Spielberg picked up the award in 1995, probably deservedly but still without Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, or his most ambitious work-to-date, AI: Artificial Intelligence, being part of that conversation.  Clooney's winning at such an early age means that we don't really get to see where his career goes.  One could argue, for example, that Hanks ended up being less consequential to the landscape of film than he was specifically at the age of 2002, though still a major actor in his own right, and others who won young it seems silly that we honored them before they hit a new renaissance in their careers.  Martin Scorsese, for example, picked up the trophy at the age of 54 in 1997, meaning that his wave of five Best Picture nominees that came after it, including The Departed which won him the Oscar, weren't amongst the reasons that he took the AFI Award.

Honoring too early in itself is not a problem, of course.  One could argue that Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, both of whom won the honor when they were younger than Clooney, more than deserved the trophy at that point in their careers (2004 and 1994, respectively), as they'd been omnipresent figures in film for decades at that point, though it's worth noting both would go on to give an Oscar-winning performance later on in their career.  And there's always the risk that you run into great work happening after the AFI Life Achievement Award-it's not a retirement party.  Perhaps the most glaring example of this would be Clint Eastwood, whose career as an actor and a burgeoning director in 1996 likely warranted this trophy, but who would go on to have a HUGE second career as a filmmaker of pictures like Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper; Eastwood would quite frankly win for a filmography that has largely been overtaken by what his actual legacy as an artist will entail.  Henry Fonda and Robert de Niro both were Oscar-nominated after their wins, and it seems likely that John Williams will be this year as well.  Since some artists work until their final curtain closes, you do have to pick an age that they win it.

But 57 is too early, and certainly too early for Clooney.  This is where I might come off as unkind, so I do want to point out that Clooney is a very good filmmaker.  He has four times been nominated as an actor by the Academy Awards (winning for Syriana), and is also an Oscar-nominated director, writer, and producer.  Two of those performances were amongst the best of the year and more than exhibited his big-screen talent (Michael Clayton and Up in the Air), and he has directed one additional brilliant movie in Good Night, and Good Luck.  It's a career literally any artist would envy, but George Clooney is hardly as prolific or as consistent of a filmmaker as almost any other recipient of this award.

Let's examine the evidence, but point out a caveat first.  The American Film Institute, while it doesn't expressly exclude specific people who are important to the craft categories in moviemaking, tends to highlight either acting or directing.  There are exceptions (Williams being the biggest one), and one could argue that someone like Steven Spielberg might have in-part made it based on some of the work that he produced, but by-and-large this is for acting or directing (Spielberg would have won without The Goonies).  It also tends to favor headliners.  Great character actors tend to not win, even ones who ended up being leading players at the peaks of their fame (look at someone like Robert Duvall, who has never picked up this trophy).  The first film that George Clooney got above-the-title billing was From Dusk til Dawn in 1996 and the first movie he received top billing on was The Peacemaker the following year (interestingly enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger got top billing on Batman & Robin despite not playing one of the title characters).  That means that Clooney will have been a headlining movie star for about 22 years when he wins the trophy next year.

There are few actors you could find who have had shorter careers as marquee stars than Clooney in this regard.  For comparison sake, let's look at Diane Keaton, who won this year.  Keaton got star billing for the first time in 1973's Play It Again, Sam, and would get top billing for the first time four years later for Looking for Mr. Goodbar, at which point she'd already been a co-lead for most of that time.  That means that Keaton had 40 years of leading lady moviemaking under-her-belt, and really we should up it to 45 as we're discounting the first two Godfather movies in that equation (Clooney never had such a significant supporting role before he became a leading man).  One could argue that Keaton was more deserving at 57 (which would have been in 2003, during her big comeback year), than Clooney is now.

There's also the question of Clooney's actual filmography.  Since From Dusk til Dawn (not really his breakthrough, which was ER, but that's television), Clooney has made about 25 major movies, including a couple of cameos.  That's not a lot for someone who is being ranked alongside people like John Ford or Lillian Gish, and it's not like all that many of them were that significant.  Really, outside Clooney's most successful artistic period from 2005-2011, where he won four Oscar acting nominations and directed a Best Picture nominee, there's not much to distinguish Clooney's career.  Yes, he's had a few hits in the Ocean's Trilogy and O Brother Where Art Thou, but nothing approaching the likes of someone who has a comparatively thin filmography like George Lucas (whose Star Wars so redefined moviemaking that it's hard to argue with his victory even if it seems to have only been for Star Wars...and even then the AFI made him wait longer than Clooney).  Clooney post-The Descendants has kind of been a bust.  He's produced some decent movies (Argo, August Osage County), and been in one good movie that he had a supporting part (Gravity), but he seems relatively post-peak as an actor, even if he's still very in-demand as a philanthropist and celebrity.

All this wouldn't be a problem if there weren't other people who deserved this honor who haven't won it yet, but unfortunately that's still a very long list.  Sally Field, Faye Dunaway, Francis Ford Coppola, Jessica Lange, Julie Andrews, Julie Christie, Ridley Scott, Robert Redford, Woody Allen, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Gene Hackman, Glenn Close, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Robert Duvall, Anthony Hopkins, Liza Minnelli, Norman Jewison, Vanessa Redgrave, Gena Rowlands, Sissy Spacek, Goldie Hawn, Burt Reynolds, Ellen Burstyn, and Sylvester Stallone are all over seventy and have been working in major movies longer than Clooney.  You can quibble maybe with 1-2 names on this list, and admittedly rumor has it some don't want the honor even though it's been offered to them (Redford, Allen, and Hackman being toward the top of that list), but taken as a collective it's hard to justify Clooney besting all of them.  Which makes his honor feel more like a nod to his celebrity more than anything else, as he's certainly going to get more clicks than any of those people.  That's a pity, because if Clooney could rebound a bit artistically as an actor and/or director, in ten years he may have earned this award.  But for now, it feels like he's winning too early, too soon, and perhaps most unfortunately, without earning the trophy.

My Dozen Favorite Actresses

I am back to writing daily blog articles this week, and as a result of that, I want to do a few GTKY articles in relation to movies, as we're now entering the phase of the year where we weirdly overlap movies/politics.  The Oscars are picking up, the elections are in full-swing, and so I decided to do a series of three articles (we'll go one today, one Thursday, and one this weekend) where I count down my dozen favorite actresses, actors, and directors, of all-time.

I haven't really done this before, and I was debating whether to rank or whether to go alphabetical, and partially because of a cop-out, but mostly because I think it's darn near impossible to actually rank different actors/styles, I decided to go alphabetical below.  If I get enough comments (or at least a couple), I'll spill the beans about how I would have properly ranked these, but in the meantime, let's start with the ladies as they're always the most interesting.

Honorable Mentions: It has to be said that a lot of women were in contention here.  There are some that just missed (Cate Blanchett ignobly was positioned at thirteenth, with people like Tilda Swinton, Julie Christie, and Myrna Loy were not far behind).  There are a few actresses where I feel like they're poised for greatness, but haven't quite made enough movies yet (Chastain, Viola Davis, Cotillard, Weisz), while others I've always loved but can't quite claim to have seen enough of their filmography to warrant a spot (Stanwyck, Lombard, Hayworth, and Dietrich all spring to mind).  It also has to be said that I could name-check women that should be on this list until the end of time, while the men's list will not remotely approach this adoration.  This is an endlessly fun activity, though, so please berate, agree, and recommend in the comments (along with providing your own list).

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)

Oscar History: 7 nominations/3 wins (Gaslight, Anastasia, The Murder on the Orient Express)
First Impressions: I think my first experience with Ingrid Bergman was actually Casablanca-I want to say I saw it right at the same time as Anastasia so theoretically I could have seen her there first, but my gut is telling me Casablanca was the culprit.
Why the Love: I don't think that you can pinpoint exactly one reason to love Ingrid Bergman, for many years my easy answer for favorite actress (I'm not ranking here, but she'd be still be Top 5).  She has this instinctive, natural introverted glamour in every movie she makes.  Even when she's being funny or joyous, there's something mesmerizing in the way that she does it.  There are few actresses in the history of cinema I've felt more connected to the language of their eyes and faces-she is the sort of performer who would have been famous in every decade of the movies.
My Favorite Performance: Casablanca, most assuredly.  I know she didn't like that everyone pointed this movie out, but she's my favorite performance in my favorite movie, and the way she just effortlessly projects being the object of Rick's affection, and yet still striking in her own ways as a woman complicated by loving two men at once: it's to-die-for.
Missing Piece: Almost certainly the performance of hers I'm missing and most excited to see is Autumn Sonata.  I love both Bergmans, and so the idea of the two of them together is thrilling.

Juliette Binoche (1964-Present)

Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (The English Patient)
First Impressions: I think the first film I ever saw of hers was Chocolat, a film I remember quite enjoying when it came out even if it was a bit frothy (it's the sort of pleasant comedy that I tend to have a lovely time with even if it's not remotely Oscar-worthy), though I will save both my brother and I the embarrassment of sharing my initial thoughts of Binoche, particularly when she shockingly bested Lauren Bacall at the Oscars.
Why the Love: Binoche is truly a superb actress, one who finds the center in pretty much every characterization she's in, and who has been, in her forties and now fifties, continually growing.  Her early work as a young, earthy beauty has transformed into a mature, confident performer, one who continually amazes even decades after she first got onto our screens.  Honestly-Binoche is one of those rare performers I'll not only see all of their movies, I'd be willing to bet I'd like the movie that holds them.
My Favorite Performance: Surely it'd have to be (my favorite?-it competes with Casablanca on a steady basis) movie The English Patient.  The way she handles line readings as the optimistic, but consistently abandoned Hana is a work of pure poetry.
Missing Piece: I've never seen Blue.  I know, I have no excuse on that one.

Joan Crawford (1904-1977)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Mildred Pierce)
First Impressions: Like most people younger than forty, my first impression of Crawford was clutching a wire hanger, being impersonated by Faye Dunaway in a camp classic (which I've never seen somehow, but we all know that rodeo even if we haven't caught the picture).
Why the Love: No Golden Age performer has grown more on me in recent years than Joan Crawford.  Seriously, for all of the Mommie Dearest jokes or the cracks about her shoulder pads, Crawford was a consummate movie star, and a damned fine screen presence.  Honestly-I have yet to find a film of hers where I didn't enjoy her, even if occasionally the films surrounding her border on the absurd (or more accurately in her grand guignol period, the camp).  Crawford is intensely watchable, perhaps even more so than her arch-rival (who, thanks to a fortuitous use of the alphabet, she sits right atop right now), and always holds the attention of every movie she's starring in (Joan Crawford doesn't do bit parts).
My Favorite Performance: I mean, I truly hope one of these isn't a horrible cliche, but I'm going to go with Mildred Pierce, where she's absolutely aces as a melodramatic mother (with a daughter from hell).  She won the Oscar in a bit of a surprise that year, but her victory was well-earned.  Truly, though-Joan Crawford's greatest role was pretty much always Joan Crawford.
Missing Piece: I haven't seen either of her other two Oscar-nominated turns in Possessed and Sudden Fear, so I'll go with those-arguably the two Best Actress nominations I'm most looking forward to from the late 40's/early 50's.

Bette Davis (1908-1989)

Oscar History: 10 nominations/2 wins (Dangerous and Jezebel)
First Impressions: The Kim Carnes song aside, my first introduction to Bette Davis was weirdly Jezebel.  When I first got into the Oscars I started randomly watching any film on AMC that had ever won a Big 6 trophy, which is why a twelve-year-old boy was watching a then sixty-year-old movie about a woman desperately (but unfortunately) in love with Hank Fonda.
Why the Love: Because Bette Davis doesn't take shit from anybody, and you have to admire someone like that.  You'll notice by now if you're peaking ahead that I didn't put her longtime Oscar rival Kate Hepburn on this list.  At one point she absolutely would have made this and if I expanded to 20 I probably would have found room, but Hepburn I almost never could get into when she did drama (1968 set aside).  Davis, on the other hand, was worth it whenever she was delivering a laugh or a dramatic line, and perhaps was best when she was trying to do both (Baby Jane Hudson, anyone?).  She was a consummate actress, even if the public toward the end of her career demanded a movie star, and one that echoed her tough broad persona even more than in her heyday.  Davis always delivered.
My Favorite Performance: I looked ahead-I don't always go with the cliche, so I'm here going to say the role that she was born to play (all do respect to the talented Claudette Colbert, but it wouldn't have been the same had the producers' first choice been available): Margo Channing.  Her throw-a-mink-like-a-wet-umbrella attitude was classic, and she sells all of the lines of (arguably) the best screenplay ever written with All About Eve.  A close runner-up is her desperate romantic nature in Now, Voyager, which is a much better movie than you remember it.
Missing Piece: I'm going to go with Dark Victory, the film she ended up in instead of Gone with the Wind, and the movie that many people suspect she would have clinched her third Oscar for had it not been for Vivien Leigh.

Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)

Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Roman Holiday)
First Impressions: Like so many, I remember loving My Fair Lady growing up, thinking it absolutely loverly.
Why the Love: Audrey Hepburn has also been someone that I've said for years is "my favorite actress" and depending on the day probably still is.  There's a quiet grace in her work, something that's hard to pinpoint but evident when she's at the top of her game.  It's not just the waif-like beauty, but also the way she presents her heartbroken self as genuine, and genuinely lonely.  I see something like Sabrina, and am flabbergasted at how good her performance is in an era where she was more likely to go into histrionics over a lost man than simply sustain a subdued facial expression.  Hepburn largely disappeared from the cinema after she set it afire for most of the 1950's and 60's, but she left a wonderful footprint.
My Favorite Performance: Sabrina Fairchild is actually pretty close to the top-it's one of those romantic comedies that works better if you slightly change the ending (Sabrina never really needed any man-just her Paris cookbooks), but I can't deny the impact that Holly Golightly has had on me.  I spent years after Breakfast at Tiffany's emulating her deep, distant love for Fred, to the point where I once walked in front of Tiffany's with a croissant, playing "Moon River" on my iPod.  Yes, that happened-the movies are my life.
Missing Piece: Arguably Hepburn is the actress I do the best on in terms of seeing all of the important works.  I am missing her Oscar-nominated turn in The Nun's Story, and while I haven't heard great things (it seems to be the weakest link in her AMPAS quintet), it's the only major film she ever made I haven't caught, so I'll go with that one.

Diane Keaton (1946-Present)

Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Annie Hall, though Keaton better step it up if she's going to continue her strange only-once-a-decade Oscar streak).
First Impressions: One of my mom's all-time favorite films is Baby Boom, and we would watch it as a family on a regular basis for many a movie night-I probably still know most of it by heart.
Why the Love: Keaton's the quirky girl you desperately hope to be while forcing yourself to fit into a group of people you don't really like.  The actress is strangely good in drama (oddly enough, despite her multiple successful forays into comedy, she's actually best as a dramatic actress), imbuing her characters with a wide-eyed forcefulness, even if they don't match her actions.  She's spent years creating a honed, eccentric (and besuited) persona offscreen, but my love for her comes in the quieter, honest moments she brings to the big-screen.
My Favorite Performance: I told you I'd go off the beaten path here.  I love Annie Hall, don't get me wrong, and what a wonderful thing that she got her Oscar for Woody's magnum opus, but for me this has to go to Reds, one of the most romantic films ever made and almost certainly Warren's magnum opus as well.  I might even put Annie in third, behind Louise and then Kay Corleone, in the second installment of the series (I may or may not have done the "it was an abortion" speech every single time my brother and I were washing dishes as a kid).
Missing Piece: Here's a strange case where I've seen most of her work, including a lot of her stuff with Allen.  Perhaps Looking for Mr. Goodbar, the film that many people thought helped carry her Academy Award across the finish line?

Nicole Kidman (1967-Present)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (The Hours)
First Impressions: I believe that Nicole Kidman was one of the first actresses to ever really underscore what a sexy woman was for me, which is a weird thing for a very gay man to proclaim, but her work in Batman Forever was so glamorous, and I maintain to this day that I'd probably be into blonds if I were straight (fortunately for me I'm gay...and into redheads).
Why the Love: Kidman, after a decade of being married to Tom Cruise with only a spattering of success, managed to have one of the great second acts of movie history, pushing out a series of fine, pitch-perfect performances for auteur after auteur.  She is courageous as a performer (witness The Paperboy), gamely finding herself in pretty much every vision that is put in front of her, and is occasionally lightning in a bottle when she finds the right match for her icy, grand talents.
My Favorite Performance: Oh Satine, you are breathtaking, but I will always be looking to Virginia Woolf, waiting for the train.  I am that person who actually thought she deserved the Oscar for The Hours even in hindsight.
Missing Piece: The 2004 duo of Birth/Dogville stick out in my mind, or perhaps even the dark comedy of To Die For.  Either way, Kidman is that rare recent actress where I actually have some room to grow.

Vivien Leigh (1913-1967)

Oscar History: 2 nominations/ 2 wins (Gone with the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire)
First Impressions: Strangely, it's not Scarlett, but Blanche that first made my acquaintance.  I was eleven-years-old, and I credit that screening of A Streetcar Named Desire as the exact moment that I permanently became a fan of the movies, someone who didn't just go casually but was willing to devote their life to them.
Why the Love: Because Vivien Leigh is perfect, and not just because she gave two of the world's most iconic performances.  Leigh is glamorous steel, a weird conglomerate of pixieish beauty and a dangerous, ardent performer's heart.  She also may be one of the cinema's most underrated performers.  I mean, look at some of the work that she's done-even if she just had her two most iconic creations, that'd probably be enough to be on this list, but she also found time to make a slew of romantic heroines in the 1940's that were continually excellent.
My Favorite Performance: Leigh's made some of my all-time favorite films, and while Gone with the Wind is a titanic achievement (word-choice quite purposeful) and Waterloo Bridge is one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen, nothing compares to Streetcar.  I've seen thousands of movies, tens of thousands of performances, and this is my favorite in all of film history.
Missing Piece: I'd probably go with The Deep Blue Sea, a film that I absolutely loved Rachel Weisz in a few years (I would have given her the Oscar), as I think the tortured soul having a love affair is a part Leigh was born to play.

Shirley MacLaine (1934-Present)

Oscar History: 6 nominations/1 win (Terms of Endearment...though it's worth noting one of her nominations was for directing the documentary The Other Half of the Sky)
First Impressions: My first impression of Shirley was actually not a film, and not even her belief in channelling or UFO's, but instead an ardent need to see the film Guarding Tess, which looked delightful when I would constantly pass it at our local video rental store, but I never was able to rent it (it had to have been rated PG-13, which was forbidden in my household).  Either way, I loved the sly grin she had on all of those posters and was convinced it could be a favorite movie.
Why the Love: MacLaine is one of those performers I've come to more passionately as the years have gone by, an actress that is so consistent it's hard to remember she's also consistently refreshing.  I honestly can't think of a Shirley MacLaine performance I didn't love.  I've seen other actresses on this list upstaged, but I genuinely can't remember a single MacLaine film where she isn't the best part about it-it's the fact that she's always a trouper.  While other actors of her generation slid into the laziness of playing themselves over-and-over-and-over again (cough, Al Pacino), Shirley continues to make interesting films whenever she gets the chance well into her eighties.  Man do I wish filmmakers would take advantage of her still solid timing and ability.  We deserve a Shirley moment for the ages just one more time.
My Favorite Performance: Aurora Greenway-it's that perfect combination of terrific movie, marvelous movie star turn, and damn fine acting.  It was probably a victory for MacLaine at the Oscars because "how the hell hasn't she won yet?" but it's likely she would have won anyway even if she was hunting for a second trophy as she was just that good.
Missing Piece: I'll go with The Turning Point, a film that stars not only Shirley, but actually gets her to act opposite an actress I haven't seen her with (Anne Bancroft).  Shirley's always at her best starring opposite other women (Debra Winger, Meryl Streep), so this feels like an easy answer to investigate.

Maggie Smith (1934-Present)

Oscar History: 6 nominations/2 wins (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite)
First Impressions: Maggie Smith is that rare performer who, especially for Millennials, is littered with performances you remember from childhood.  My first impression of her was actually in Hook, though, as an aging Wendy.  I thought she was wonderfully creepy and old in the role (which is saying something for the makeup department, who made her look older than she was), and it was kind of a love affair whenever I found her later on in any picture.
Why the Love: Smith's voice is where it starts.  That crisp, precise accent that only she can achieve (though countless comedians are constantly trying to parody), is so marvelous and exact.  But she's an actress that can rely on more than just her dialect.  She's someone with great feeling.  It might shock a generation of people who watched her do her "Maggie Smith schtick" in things like Downton, Harry Potter, and Best Exotic Marigold, all prim and upper-crust, to know that she once-upon-a-time was an actress that was quite sexual in her role choices and would fling herself into affairs in my favorite of her works.  Smith is the sort of presence, even if the film's not on the top of its game, I'm always more than joyful to see show up on an opening credits line.
My Favorite Performance: Undoubtedly this would have to be The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, one of those rare Best Actress wins that not only totally deserved the win, but was the exact right moment for an actor who was actually a bit of a surprise victory at the time.  It's a towering achievement if you've never had the chance to catch it, and one of my personal favorite movies.
Missing Piece: I somehow have never seen the other film that won her an Oscar in California Suite, which I'll obviously hit sometime in the OVP, but impatience may get the better of me one day and I'll move it to the top of the queue.

Meryl Streep (1949-Present)

Oscar History: 19 nominations/3 wins (Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie's Choice, The Iron Lady)
First Impressions: I genuinely don't know what the first film starring Meryl Streep I ever saw was-I want to say it might have been Kramer or The Deer Hunter-that sounds about right as I would have seen both of those films when I was first starting to watch Oscar-winning pictures.  My first impression of her, though, was that she was an actress that was treated as something of a deity, as I remember reading an Entertainment Weekly Oscar issue in 1995 where they talked about how she could upset Susan Sarandon's expected victory as she had legions of fans at the Oscars who always voted for her (they may have been onto something there).
Why the Love: I mean, at this point naming Streep as one of your favorite actresses is like naming Michael Jordan one of your favorite basketball players-everyone has to do it.  But the point of the matter is that Streep deserves her spot in the pantheon.  Some of her work, especially when she's at the top of her game, is unmatched.  She can develop a naturalism onscreen like few others can achieve, and she's that rare multi-talented performer where it's almost hard to tell what she's best at-she can make you laugh, make you cry, she can sing like an angel and forebode with just the slightest of inflections.  All-in-all, Streep is worthy of all the hype.  After all, she can live up to it.
My Favorite Performance: For years I would have said The French Lieutenant's Woman, but I've actually had something of a resurgence this year of Streep roles (I've seen three of her Oscar-nominated turns for the first time...four if we think Florence Foster Jenkins gets there, which is looking increasingly plausible), and one of them has taken the top of the heap: Silkwood, where Streep casts aside pretty much any pretenses we have about her and just, scene-after-scene, is marvelous and exact and nails it.  A brilliant piece of work.
Missing Piece: Like I said, I'm working my way through all of Streep's Oscar-nominated turns quickly and swiftly, but I still have two left: A Cry in the Dark and One True Thing.  So I'll go with those two, but the Streep filmography gaps are closing quickly.

Kate Winslet (1975-Present)

Oscar History: 7 nominations/1 win (The Reader)
First Impressions: I actually most remember my mom talking about how much she liked her.  The 1995 Oscars were the first Academy Awards I really got into (it helped that there were several films like Apollo 13, Batman Forever, and Babe that I had actually seen which were up for a number of awards), and I recall my mom looking at the Supporting Actress lineup and proclaiming Kate Winslet the one that should have won.  As my mom dictated a lot of the movies I could see, that instantly added a huge weight in wanting to see Winslet in more films.
Why the Love: Winslet is the youngest actress on this list by nearly a decade, and so I teetered whether to include her or thinking perhaps she was still too new (and hadn't yet entered the treacherous-for-actresses period of her 40's).  Yet I can't deny the love is there, and pretty much always there.  I've seen most of Winslet's filmography, and she's one of the few women on this list I can genuinely claim I've seen every one of their Oscar-cited turns.  She's a vision, consistently, onscreen-someone who is rarely judgmental of her characters, which gives imperfect creations like Rose or Marianne or Hanna so much more weight as she portrays them on the big screen.
My Favorite Performance: I'm torn.  I think arguably her best acting role ever was Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a truly wonderful and special movie, one that will probably never be duplicated (it feels like the kind of film you only pull off once in a career), but the other half of me is screaming "TITANIC!" at the top of my lungs.  As she's the last actress listed here, I'll just say both and cheat and bravo for getting through one of my lengthier blog posts.
Missing Piece: Like I said, Winslet's a rare performer I've actually seen most of her major movies.  I'll go with her big break, though, which I haven't caught yet which is Heavenly Creatures.

There you have it-my twelve favorite actresses!  Like I said, please take some time to visit the comments section, as I'm positive you have your own list of favorite actresses, or thoughts on mine!  There's a plethora of comments directions to take, so I encourage you to do so!