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

Mickey One (1965)

Film: Mickey One (1965)

Stars: Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield, Franchot Tone, Kamatari Fujiwara

Director: Arthur Penn

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

We have not yet done an English language film from the neo-noir era this year, and since we are officially at the end of the month (this is our final film-thanks for following along!), I'm going to get one in under the buzzer.  Mickey One, though, doesn't feel particularly American.  Made in 1965 for Columbia, it starred a big name in Hollywood at the time, albeit one that wasn't as big as he would be two years later.  Warren Beatty, along with his director from this picture Arthur Penn, would redefine Hollywood movies two years later with Bonnie and Clyde, but Mickey One is barely discussed today, and it's honestly more akin to the French New Wave than the other American movies of its era, even other neo-noir of the early-to-mid-1960's.  The film is at once ahead of its time, and perhaps also, not of any time, it's such an oddity in the noir genre.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is narratively about Mickey One (Beatty), a standup comic who has made the mafia angry, though it's not entirely clear why (this becomes a key point in a scene later in the picture where Beatty argues with Oscar nominee Franchot Tone, this being his penultimate big-screen role).  He moves to Chicago, and there he falls in love with a woman named Jenny (Stewart), but is afraid of being too successful as a comic under an assumed name, realizing that if he becomes well-known the mafia will come after him.  He fouls up an audition arranged for him by a talent scout of sorts (played by Hurd Hatfield), mostly because he's too scared of the man behind the light, thinking that he's trying to kill him.  The film ends with him finally giving up, realizing that he can't run forever, so he might as well at least try to make his act a success again.

That's the plot of the movie, but it's not really the driving force behind it.  Penn's picture is roughly edited, frequently splicing together scenes in a seemingly intentional manner (given that Penn would make a movie as fine as Bonnie and Clyde, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that this was a stylistic choice rather than just bad editing), and feels like it's supposed to be ambiguous.  There are aspects of this I like.  I loved the way that we get a French New Wave film by way of Fellini (Kamatari Fujiwara plays a modernist sculptor that would've felt very much at home in Nights of Cabiria or 8 1/2), and I think it smartly plays into the paranoia that would be mined so well in the 1970's in movies like Chinatown and Penn's own Night Moves (maybe the two best neo-noirs of the decade?), showing that you can't trust anyone, even if in the case of Mickey One, it's not clear if anyone is out to get you.  It looks good (solid cinematography), and I loved the jazzy soundtrack.

But while there are a lot of good ideas on display here, the film itself does not gel.  This is blasphemy coming from me as I love him as an actor, but Warren Beatty is maybe miscast?  He's too beautiful, and he's not a particularly funny comic (it's not clear if he's supposed to be talented or not, which is a problem for the story), and he doesn't inhabit the paranoia in the way that someone like his buddy Jack Nicholson would've at the time.  I feel like he gets lost in the movie, and while he looks the part of a French New Wave leading man, it doesn't work.  None of the performances are that strong, though, to be honest.  Hurd Hatfield is the best, but I don't think he knows what his part is supposed to be, and the sexual tension between he and Beatty feels wasted (it's possible Penn never even noticed it).  Critics at the time called the film pretentious, and honestly-they're not wrong, even if time would show that Penn had good ideas, but he wouldn't be able to hone them until he had seen an America ripped apart by Vietnam and Watergate.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Brute Force, Call Northside 777, Caught, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, The Naked City, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Secret Beyond the Door, Side Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach, A Woman's Secret

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Big Knife, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, Kansas City Confidential, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps, Whirlpool

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai, Shoot the Piano Player

The Good, the Bad, and the Insane at Last Night's Oscars

Well, that was a show, huh?  In what will go down in history as the strangest Oscar finale of all time, we had not one but two Best Picture winners for a brief moment.  I know a number of people (including my father, who was tired and headed upstairs to bed once La La Land won), may be wishing that they had stuck around a bit longer, but man was that an ending.  As a result, let's get to the good, the bad, the WTF,  and undecided of last night.

The WTF

We'll start here because this is really what we all want to talk about, right?  Never, in my wildest dreams, could I have anticipated such a scenario as the wrong Best Picture winner being called.  My mom and I both stood up there aghast (we were both standing, anticipating that we'd quickly see a pithy aside about Donald Trump from Kimmel right before the credits rolled) and then suddenly Jordon Horowitz proclaimed Moonlight the winner.  At first, quite frankly, I thought what was happening was a Jack Lemmon/Ving Rhames situation, where the producers of La La Land wanted to bring their counterparts to the stage in an act of recognizing that, perhaps, more than one Best Picture is worthy each year.  But no, it was a staggering mistake of epic proportions.

Conspiracy theorists will postulate this was planned for the rest of time, but honestly I don't think that Dunaway or Beatty are that good of live performers (if they can still pull off something like that, why aren't more casting agents on them?).  No, based on what we're hearing this morning the wrong envelope got in Beatty's hands (you can see this in the pictures/video pretty clearly), he was confused, Dunaway just saw La La Land in giant letters and was assuming he was being cute, and then the catastrophe was set in motion.

Aside from proving once-and-for-all that Marisa Tomei did win that Oscar years ago (the real loser tonight is Judy Davis), this was both the best and worst of live television.  It was SO awkward and yet SO stunning, it ranks in the same sort of "can't look away" live television as the David Niven Streaker or Janet Jackson's half-time "wardrobe malfunction."  I feel truly bad for the La La Land producers (though I'm not going with the "grace and class" line so many are saying, as Jordan Hurwitz literally yanked that card out of Beatty's hands even though it clearly wasn't his fault; I'm not saying I would have behaved differently, but I probably wouldn't have had the gaul to rip anything out of a screen icon's hands).  I feel worse for Dunaway and Beatty, both of whom are going to be accused of having a "senior moment" when in reality there's a PriceWaterhouseCoopers accountant backstage who is updating their LinkedIn profile right now.  All-in-all, though, this was insane television, and thankfully it was La La Land to Moonlight, and not the other way around (or something involving Hacksaw Ridge).  And it led to arguably the first time I've seen Twitter erupt in chaos over something that didn't involve our president.  So that's a win in my book.  Either way, I won't forget about this for a looooong time.

The Good

Other than the Best Picture fiasco, the show had a number of great credits to its name.  I know that it's a popular past-time to mock the host, which Kimmel pointed out at the beginning, but honestly-I thought that Jimmy was aces and should become a regular.  He was edgy enough to keep the politically-inclined happy, several of his bits worked for me (I thought the potential trainwreck of the tourists coming in paid huge dividends, particularly Denzel marrying those two people and if nothing else it served as the soundest indictment of America to PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING PHONES rather than recording things, as you're missing out on meeting movie stars by recording everything).  I loved a few jokes, and actually thought the Gibson jokes were just enough, and I was fine with the candy bits because the stars (particularly Meryl Streep, Octavia Spencer, and Taraji P. Henson) got into it in a major way.  I know he joked about never coming back, but that'd be a damn shame-he's clearly the most able host to take to the Oscars since Ellen, perhaps even Steve Martin.

Obviously I could celebrate a few of the wins (Moonlight taking Best Picture a decade after Brokeback Mountain is going to hit me at some point this morning, but my 20-year-old self is pretty proud right now considering I wore black for days of mourning after that), and I loved the way that The Salesman win was handled, though obviously having Asghar Farhadi there would have been better (Donald Trump is always on the "ugly" list).  Mahershala Ali gave a great speech, and the Hidden Figures section of the audience was by far the most fun (I loved "Cookie" aka Taraji P. Henson asking Octavia Spencer to share her cookies part in particular).  It wasn't superbly executed, but Katherine Johnson coming out was damn cool, and though it won't ever happen again at this rate, I loved the nod to Old Hollywood with Dunaway/Beatty.

One of the best bits of the night, one I wish I'd seen a bit more of, was the pairings of actors with their heroes (ie MacLaine/Theron and Fox/Rogen), as it nodded back to movies as culture, and it was a great way to show how actors inspire other actors.  Oh, and while I hardly wanted Hacksaw Ridge to win any awards, A) its sound mixing was better than La La Land's and B) Kevin O'Connell finally winning that damn Oscar and giving a beautiful ode to his mother made that moment worth it for me.  All-in-all, I think that while there were bits that I could have skipped, this was a very tight, strong Oscars, so anyone complaining this morning needs to state what they expect out of the Academy Awards...other than they hand the right envelopes out. #understandable

The Undecided

Viola Davis and Casey Affleck still have me undecided, to be honest, so let's start with Viola and work our way down.

I am glad Viola Davis has an Oscar.  Viola is one of the best actors in Hollywood, and this was a long time coming (I'd have given her two trophies by now).  But the category fraud thing has got to stop at some point.  Alicia Vikander and JK Simmons means it's three years in a row now, and if we don't end it soon, we're never going to get rare wins like Mahershala Ali's in Moonlight, a tiny gem that added SO much to Moonlight but in reality doesn't have the screen time to compete with someone like Davis in terms of sheer impact.  I'm usually one to look past that (it's easy to be calmed by one of your favorite actors getting a trophy), but can't we end this at some point?  Also, I have to say that while Davis is arguably the best orator in Hollywood right now when it comes to picking up awards, the "only" occupation to know what it is "to celebrate a life"-what about doctors, funeral directors, the white helmets, etc?  I think that this entered indulgent hyperbole even if I knew where she was going.  Still, it's a better world that we live in that Viola Davis now has an Oscar.

Casey Affleck I have no issues with his performance.  It's in my opinion by far the best of that category.  But I'm going to be honest here-I was hoping he'd lose.  I would have voted for Denzel, and part of me was hoping that this was that moment Ryan Gosling randomly picked up the trophy.  I could see in the lack of a proper standing ovation for him and the way that Brie Larson refused to clap that this is someone a lot of Hollywood doesn't believe in the charges against him, and I am a little confused about whether or not I will put a picture of him on my Facebook banner all year, as I do every year with the Oscar winners (apparently there's a few photos of just the other three winners circulating that would be a solid option, but then you get your conservative friends on Facebook who want to make an example of everything and...Facebook sucks, let's leave it there).  Either way, I'm going to remind myself that he almost certainly deserved this for his work even if he didn't deserve it personally.

The Bad

Since I'm not putting the Best Picture fiasco here (because it was fascinating if awful), there's not a lot to do here.  I have my most consistent complaint about the sound quality of the musical production numbers, which never seems to be as good as the Tonys and the Grammys.  I thought they might have it fixed after that well-launched opening number by Justin Timberlake (I loved the look at the lobby for the Oscars, which I'd never seen) as Timberlake sounded superb, but then the Moana singer came in and the balance felt off.  On a night where they correctly identified a La La Land weak spot (the sound mixing), you'd wish that they could address the same in their own telecast.

I will say that while Timberlake's opening felt a little too "the Grammys" for me, considering we weren't going to get a musical number from Kimmel this felt about right, though I could have done without Timberlake for the rest of the evening, greeting every person in La La Land as if he was in their movie, and that whole bizarre mugging thing when Kimmel was talking to him fell insanely flat.  I don't know-I don't like Timberlake personally at all and while I'll acknowledge there's talent there, it's more in the sense of live performance and less personality-based for me.  That, plus Sunny Pawar as The Lion King and the Donald Trump tweet sections were the only bits that really didn't work for me of Kimmel's, which is a solid track record but still worth pointing out.

Oh, and while the Meryl Streep bit was funny and took it a step further than usual, we probably need a new Meryl bit at this point, right?  We all know her routine of hiding behind Don (who clearly is completely over going to these things at this point), and part of me wondered if the producers were hinting at this when they chose such a slight clip from FFJ and not, say, a dying scene.  And don't go crying for a spoiler alert there-I don't know if you'd catch it, exactly, from the clips, but we saw serious spoilers from Fences and Hell or High Water in the acting clips last night.  I didn't want to say anything to my parents in the room with me during Jeff Bridges' clip as they haven't seen the movie yet, but Fences all three of us noted that "that's giving away something."  Probably better chose the clips next time.

Arguably the worst moment of the night was Vince Vaughn's weird, inexplicable Sal Mineo joke.  What was that about-was it meant to be homophobic?  I think that anyone with Vaughan's politics should probably resist cracking about slain gay actors, and while he somewhat recovered, he doesn't have the comic sensibility of a Whoopi Goldberg or even a Ricky Gervais to make inside baseball jokes that will land outside of the Kodak.

All-in-all, though, I had a great time-please share your thoughts below in the comments of what you thought of last night's Oscars!

John's 5 Worst Films of 2016

It's time to start recapping the year (what?-the cinematic year doesn't end until the Oscars roll their heads into view) and as a result, we're going to look first at the worst of the year-my annual list of the five biggest disappointments.  I'm not someone that is paid to do this site (it's a labor of love...though I'm not married to this idea so if you know someone...), so you won't see films I was forced to watch like Zoolander 2, Suicide Squad, or London Has Fallen on this list as I pay for the movies out of my own pocket.  Still, that doesn't mean that I can't be susceptible to bad judgment, and as a result here are (alphabetically) the five worst movies of 2016:

The Bronze (dir. Bryan Buckley)

Somehow I'm supposed to take a deeply unlikable Melissa Rauch cussing like a sailor for 100 minutes and then suddenly supposed to root for her despite the fact that she spends most of the movie attempting to destroy a young girl's promise and dreams?  Sebastian Stan's natural charisma cannot save this dreck-truly an awful, cruel movie that never remotely attempts to be as funny as it's convinced it's being.

Finding Dory (dir. Andrew Stanton)

Oh Pixar, what have you done?  While it's probably still better than Cars 2, man was this a failure.  A movie that never should have been made as it's clear that Dory is a side character, it feels at best like a retread of the original, and at worst like a gigantic cash grab from Disney, trading in our memories of the lovely 2003 film for something cheap and disposable.  A true shame, and a major black mark on a once impeccable record that looks more filled with failures these days than successes.

The Jungle Book (dir. Jon Favreau)

Speaking of Disney...here's what happens when you make another gigantic cash grab off of a beloved film of many an adult's childhood, and then destroy it with wonky CGI, lazy casting, and thin storytelling that never really sinks the basket.  I was intensely bored for all but one scene of the movie (Scarlett Johansson's Kaa being the only reason to praise this film), and particularly with that hammy climax-wow, what a misfire.

Rules Don't Apply (dir. Warren Beatty)

What would happen if you took one of the greatest directors of the past fifty years, took him largely out of filmmaking for fifteen years, and then had him make a film about a subject an equally impressive director covered quite well during that absence?  Apparently what you'd get is a movie that takes what might be an iconic movie star's last dance at the cinema and turns it into an excruciatingly boring affair, led by two leads that lack chemistry and in the case of Lily Collins, any discernible acting talent.

Sully (dir. Clint Eastwood)

It says something about Sully that somehow it made Finding Dory the second least necessary film of 2016.  Seriously-who thought this was a particularly good idea to greenlight?  The film is comically bad and poorly drawn, with Anna Gunn playing a ridiculously over-the-top villain (Clint Eastwood's politics get in the way of his moviemaking here), while Laura Linney literally just talks on the phone in a hushed and worried tone the entire movie.  An admittedly thrilling crash scene cannot remotely save this film from being an abject disaster.

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

Film: Rules Don't Apply (2016)
Stars: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen, Ed Harris
Director: Warren Beatty
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Heaven Can Wait.  Reds.  Dick Tracy.  Bullworth.  It's quite a collection of films that Warren Beatty-Director, has amassed.  Beatty is, by my count, the only actor to have been nominated for acting, directing, producing, and writing in the same year twice.  Even Clint Eastwood couldn't equal that, which is saying something as Clint hasn't taken annoyingly long breaks in his filmography (it's worth noting that this is his first directing bid in 18 years...also that 1998 was 18 years ago), and that it was his first time acting in fifteen (the enormous bomb Town & Country which stalled a number of careers at the time).  As a result, I couldn't miss this movie.  Reds remains one of the crowning achievements of the 1980's, and is one of my all-time favorite movies-I owe Warren Beatty indefinitely for it, not to mention multiple other roles that place him amongst my favorite actors.  The reviews were scary, but it couldn't be that bad, could it?

(Spoilers Ahead) Unfortunately, it was.  Rules Don't Apply may be one of the most-hyped movies of the year for me simply because Warren Beatty is finally billed in the credits again, but even if you'd maintained low expectations for the picture, it's unlikely this would have surpassed them.  The film is the story of Howard Hughes (Beatty) toward the end of his career, when he is still an icon in American print but his output, especially as a director, is pretty low.  He keeps a stable of women in luxurious houses around Los Angeles, being chauffeured by a series of drivers who rarely understand why they're driving around these women, and have limited contact with Mr. Hughes, one of which is Frank (Ehrenreich), who develops a crush on an aspiring actress Marla Mabrey (Collins), who in turn is also romantically involved (briefly) with Howard Hughes.  The love triangle is the center of the film, though it's sidetracked by bouts of crazy from Hughes, Marla's weird focus on her own chastity and religion, and a bevy of Beatty's longtime Hollywood friends coming out for what may well be his swan song (Candy Bergen making a rare film appearance, as well as Martin Sheen-it's a pity that Beatty couldn't get his best buddy Jack Nicholson in for one last hurrah-THAT would have been something to see).

The film's problems are all over the board, and probably too innumerable to list.  For starters, Beatty has no idea if this film is supposed to be funny or a drama, and it does not combine the two well (at all).  There are scenes that are hilarious on-paper (some of the older members of my audience chuckled), and then it's followed by a heartbreaking sequence that shows how tragic the love triangle is (no matter how it lands, almost no one is going to completely win here).  It would have been better had Beatty decided to do a straight drama or comedy (he can do either), but trying to be both doesn't work, and feels like a movie that's been in production too long.

The lead actors leave much to be desired.  Alden Ehrenreich is fascinating to look at, and was great in Hail, Caesar! earlier this year, but cannot sell this underwritten character at all.  I'm not sure which old star Beatty was picturing when he wrote this (Robert Redford, perhaps?), but man is it bland.  Ehrenreich is a talent if his naive cowboy is any indication, but here his best attribute is a fascinating, John Barrymore-like profile that is framed well onscreen.

His acting is not noteworthy at all, and he has no chemistry with leading-lady Lily Collins, who is by far the worst part of this movie.  Collins has no onscreen ability or charisma, and is hopelessly generic every time I've seen her in a movie.  Considering she was abysmal in Mirror Mirror, tanked The Mortal Instruments franchise, and has now proven she can't even find talent opposite someone like Warren Beatty, perhaps it's time to stop hiring her and forcing her onto unsuspecting audience members?  There are other actors who aren't very good in the film, but they can at least claim no one cares about them (Beatty seems only focused on his three leading characters and doesn't really want to do anything other than let the camera beam at his old pals in bit roles).  Lily Collins has no excuse-this is Razzy-worthy stuff.

Beatty at the center is fun to see onscreen, though even there I question whether or not it's an okay performance or simply seeing a thousand movie memories in his wide smile that makes me give him a pass.  It's likely that after two back-to-back (albeit separated by 15 years) flops Beatty might be done at the movies, certainly behind the screen, but one bad movie or a few doesn't ruin your career when you are also Clyde Barrow or John Reed or Dick Tracy.  But it does if you're simply Phil Collins' daughter, so Lily Collins-perhaps it's time to take an acting class or seven?

My Dozen Favorite Actors

Well I didn't quite get this out when I wanted to, but we're back with round two of my three-part look at my favorite actresses, actors, and directors.  For those unfamiliar with round one, click here, and for those that have been eagerly awaiting, let's take a look at my all-time favorite actors (listed alphabetically, as actually ranking them sounded too difficult-to-choose).

Honorable Mention: Like the actresses, there were countless names that showed up here for me.  We have a few actors who just barely missed the cut (Michael Caine, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Dustin Hoffman all spring to mind, but their careers were too inconsistent for my tastes).  We have a few actors who don't work enough or don't quite have the body-of-work I was looking for, but the talent is very, very real (James Dean, Daniel Day-Lewis).  There's a few actors whom I've always thoroughly enjoyed, but for whatever reason I've still got too much missing in their filmographies to really make the jump here for them (Alec Guinness, William Powell, Robert Mitchum, and Fredric March all come to mind).  And finally, there's some younger actors I adore, but I'm not quite there yet to call them one of my twelve favorites, even though they're appointment viewing at this point for me (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Fassbender, Michael B. Jordan, Oscar Isaac, and Channing Tatum are all actors I give myself a pass to see in pretty much any film).  That being said, here's our Top 12.

Warren Beatty (1937-Present)

Oscar History: As an actor, which is the focus here (there are several men who moonlit as directors throughout their careers on the list, but you don't get extra credit for that in the countdown), Beatty is 0/4 in terms of Oscar.  However, he is also a 14-time nominee, getting cited for writing, producing, and directing in addition to his four Best Actor nods, and won Best Director for Reds and then the Thalberg in 1999.
First Impressions: Beatty, like several actors on this list, has never really made a kids movie.  My first interaction with Beatty was strangely at a young age, though, as my brother and I would regularly play with a Dick Tracy colorform toy at my grandmother's religiously, though our focus was less on Beatty's oversized image (it always bothered me that he wasn't proportional to all of the other Dick Tracy characters), but instead on Madonna and her glamorous silhouette, which as a young gay child was far more fascinating to me.
Why the Love: Beatty is rarely onscreen (in some ways he's similar to Day-Lewis up-top), but when he is, he's always the beautiful, driven dreamer.  He somehow combines the beauty of a young Mel Gibson with the actorly determination of Montgomery Clift, and he isn't shy about making his characters flawed, potentially even unlikable, and making you uncomfortable for wanting to still pursue them (think of Splendor in the Grass or Reds).  All-in-all, he's one of those screen presences that even when he's leering into bombast, he's insanely watchable.
My Favorite Performance: Surely this is Bonnie and Clyde.  Beatty has made a lot of movies that I enjoy, but he's never been sexier, more vulnerable, or stronger than as Clyde Barrow.
Missing Piece: I would have to say Bugsy as it's perhaps the last truly significant film of his career, and a film that many people expected to win the Academy Award for Best Picture when Silence of the Lambs pulled off the upset.

Marlon Brando (1924-2004)

Oscar History: 8 nominations/2 wins (On the Waterfront and The Godfather)
First Impressions: I want to say that my first impression of Brando was either seeing him, randomly, in kitsch wall art while shopping at our local K-Mart, or perhaps it was (in fact) the first movie I really remember catching him in, which was A Streetcar Named Desire, a movie that profoundly changed my life.
Why the Love: Where to begin?  Brando was a complicated genius, one who spent long periods of his career making, arguably, crap (name a decent Brando film from the 60's or 80's-I dare you), but when he was on there really is no one in the world of the movies that can compare.  Brando, at his best, could portray a sensitive vulnerability unmatched by other actors, a combination of raw, animal lust and a brooding desire (word choice intentional).
My Favorite Performance: Streetcar contains my two favorite onscreen performances, period, and I doubt that that ever changes.  It's weird when you have Terry Malloy, Don Corleone, and Paul from Last Tango in Paris on-deck to relegate them to lower tiers on the podium since they're all landmark pieces of acting, but there's just no topping Stanley Kowalski.
Missing Piece: Like a few actors on this list, I've actually seen most of Brando's major performances, as well as a few that he'd probably wish I'd forgotten.  I'm going to go with Viva Zapata, one of only two Oscar-nominated turns of his that I'm still missing (the other being A Dry White Season), as it clearly had some ardent fans.

Robert de Niro (1943-Present)

Oscar History: 7 nominations/2 wins (The Godfather, Part II and Raging Bull)
First Impressions: My first impression of Robert de Niro was actually a film that I didn't really like, but my parents did (which was rare when I was a kid) called Awakenings, a film that I truly should watch again as I have little memory of it other than I didn't care for the picture.
Why the Love: You'll notice that Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino didn't make this list, but de Niro, the third leg in the "once brilliant, now largely coasting on our considerable movie memories" portion of their trio, does.  That's because de Niro is, when he's at his peak, the best of the three.  A marvelous actor, his streak in the 1970's and 80's is unmatched by most actors-it's hard to imagine a rawer bunlde of energy.  He's earned comparisons to Brando, but while Brando played off of his sexuality and fluidity, de Niro is nerves and live wires, electric in the way that he commands the screen at his peak.
My Favorite Performance: Taxi Driver.  I could easily say Godfather Part II and Raging Bull (you're going to have a hard-time convincing me he doesn't deserve three Oscars), but Taxi Driver is just an extraordinary piece of work, and quintessential de Niro.
Missing Piece: I have only missed one of de Niro's Oscar-nominated turns, so I will say Cape Fear, a film that I'm actually curious about as it was on the precipice of de Niro going into his "cash in on the legend" phase.

Michael Douglas (1944-Present)


Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (for acting, Douglas has only won for Wall Street, though as a producer he also won a second trophy for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
First Impressions: This one is easy in terms of remembering because it was a quintessential part of my childhood.  So many of our relationships with movies are forged by our parents, and for me I saw Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile countless times growing up because they were two of my mom's favorite movies.  Hence a very early appreciation of Michael Douglas.
Why the Love: Douglas is a great everyman, and may have been the most vibrant and relevant actor of the 1990's, despite his strange lack of an Oscar nomination during that period.  Like de Niro, he kind of phones it in lately but when he was on-top of himself, he was even better than his famed father: a movie star panache combined with a wonderful, actorly approach.  Douglas will always be one of those rare male actors I loved unabashedly, even when he felt down for the count.
My Favorite Performance: Surely The American President-his Andrew Shephard isn't Jed Bartlett (few creations are, and President Bartlett had multiple seasons to grow upon me), but is more appropriate for a film setting and manages to breed that rarest of cinematic products-an intelligent, competent romance between two equally-savvy human beings without resorting to motifs, but instead keeping them smart.  It's a triumph, and shows off Douglas' rather sharp comedic skills, which are often under-utilized.
Missing Piece: I want to say Basic Instinct-there's a few holes I have in Douglas filmography (Falling Down and The China Syndrome also feel like they're toward the top of this list), but Stone at her peak with Douglas at his seems like something I'd have trouble turning down-it's coming up in the Netflix queue.

Ralph Fiennes (1962-Present)

Oscar History: 2 nominations (sadly no wins, but Schindler's List and The English Patient both are strong crutches to lean upon)
First Impressions: I think it'd have to be The English Patient in terms of actual cinema-Fiennes didn't start doing fare for younger audiences until later in his career, at which point I was an adult proper and saw all of his films anyway.  I do distinctly remember his nomination in 1996 and getting into much ballyhooed conversations with people who didn't remotely care about such things over whether it was pronounced Rafe or Ralph.
Why the Love: Ralph Fiennes is the most electric actor currently working in the cinema this millennium, save for perhaps a Shawnee, Oklahoma native we'll get into in a minute.  Fiennes is always on-point and interesting, even when he's got a film that appears to require him to be just stately and British (Harry Potter, James Bond), and when he's doing his dramatics, he's dynamite.  Think of how M. Gustave, Amon Goeth, and the murderous, profane Harry are all played by the same man-he exhibits a range that rivals Streep in the 1980's.  That Oscar consistently has looked over such wonders is a bit of a stain on their reputation, but at least we have those movies to revisit until the end of time.
My Favorite Performance: Fiennes is one of those actors I love pretty much every time he leaves his trailer, so I feel a little cheap saying that forever and always Count Laszlo de Almasy will remain, eternally, at the top of my list of favorite performances from the Brit.  And yet, his maddening, marvelous look at love and the obsession of attaining it even despite the dangers that it proposes is something I cannot deny.
Missing Piece: I've actually seen most of Fiennes' work-he's one of those actors I've given a free pass to for over a decade and rarely miss anything that he puts out.  I'd probably go with something very early in his career then, like Wuthering Heights or Quiz Show, as ones that I'm missing but I've seen over 50% of his filmography, which is something that as a general rule is hard to achieve without trying.

Cary Grant (1904-1986)


Oscar History: 2 nominations (Grant never won a competitive Oscar, but he did pick up an Honorary one in 1969)
First Impressions: Weirdly my first interaction with Grant was with one of his last films, in Father Goose.  I was visiting my aunt with my family, and my mom/aunt both were wildly excited while flipping the channels when they saw the film was just starting on a cable channel.  I remember being underwhelmed, mostly because I was very young and didn't actually get what was going on onscreen.
Why the Love: Grant eventually became a taste I couldn't get enough of, though, after that initial screening.  He may not have been a great actor in the sense of Brando or de Niro, constantly transforming himself onscreen but he was a man who knew exactly how to pick elegant and charming scripts over-and-over again, giving us decades of marvelously charming roles.  It's hard to deny that Grant, whenever he's onscreen, was a bubbly delight to view, and he seemingly did the impossible, finding ways to have chemistry with performers as diverse as Mae West, Kate Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Sophia Loren.
My Favorite Performance: Like I said, Grant's best performance seemed to be playing the same role over-and-over again, the public's persona of himself.  However, if I had to nail down one specific role it'd be The Philadelphia Story, which is my favorite of his movies and where he even outdoes eventual Oscar winner Jimmy Stewart, the rare time where the Best Actor winner wasn't better than one of his male coleads in the same picture (perhaps the only time?  Share another if you can think of it in the comments)
Missing Piece: I've seen almost every Cary Grant film of note, quite frankly, save one-somehow, in all of my years of watching movies, I've never watched His Girl Friday despite every intention of doing so.  I feel guiltier about this one than any other missing piece on this list-perhaps I'll make a point of it this week?

Heath Ledger (1979-2008)


Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (The Dark Knight)
First Impressions: My first impression of Heath Ledger was that he was the most beautiful man I'd ever laid eyes upon in The Patriot.  He was gloriously handsome in the film, making it one of the first times where I actually noticed someone who wasn't the star of a picture and pinpointed him to be a major player-I was right, though considering 10 Things I Hate About You had come out the year before I was beaten by a number of other people in this regard.
Why the Love: Ledger is the person on this list with the scantest filmography, but honestly-he was fast-emerging prior to his death as the quintessential actor of his generation, in my opinion, and even the body-of-work that he left behind was challenging and fascinating.  He was one of the first actors that I became obsessed with while they were working-I would go to whatever film that he made, even as young as a teenager, just because it featured Ledger.  To this day, he is one of only two cinematic images that adorn the walls of my apartment (the plane sequence in Casablanca being the other), showing how much he still means to me, nearly ten years after his death.
My Favorite Performance: Ennis is too good to ignore, a challenging look at the ways that our lusts and our loves haunt us, even as we grow old or must deny that they happened just to move on with our lives.  I still can't believe that a movie so exquisite exists
Missing Piece: Like Fiennes, I've seen well over 50% of Ledger's filmography and most of the biggest hits.  I suspect, though, because I have such a continuing fascination with him that I'll eventually see them all.  The one I'm looking most forward to is Casanova, as it was always fun to see Ledger let out his playful side.

Paul Newman (1928-2008)


Oscar History: 10 nominations/1 win (for The Color of Money, though it's worth noting that Newman is that extremely rare actor who has not one but two Honorary statues, for lifetime achievement in 1985 and the Hersholt in 1993).
First Impressions: It was The Sting, a film that I have actually not seen since I first saw it some twenty years ago (I'll surely have to revisit it for the OVP).  I remember loving it, particularly the ending, but considering my taste in films as I've gotten older I'm not confident that that would hold.
Why the Love: Paul Newman is perhaps what Heath Ledger could have aspired to become-a proper thespian in the body of a matinee idol, Newman is the quintessential guy who could act, but you couldn't get past that mug of his.  That's a shame if you think of him as just a pretty face, because Newman consistently stole most of his films, almost all of which he played the lead, and frequently brought a movie star's panache along with some genuine depth-of-character.  He's intensely watchable, outside and in.
My Favorite Performance: This is actually tricky for me, because while I love most of his work, I've never seen the performance that stands out as "this is my Paul Newman" in the way that Brando or Fiennes has for me.  I think I'm going to go with Hud, if only because that's a wonderful movie, one that combines his flare for danger with his intense sexuality, and he has a marvelous screen partner in Patricia Neal to accentuate what he's doing in the film.  I could be convinced it should be others though.
Missing Piece: I have never seen The Hustler.  I'm aware of the shame this brings to my name.

Jack Nicholson (1937-Present)

Oscar History: 12 nominations/3 wins (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets)
First Impressions: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"  For those who get that reference, you'll know why Jack Nicholson is a lifelong affair, something challenging that also is constantly electric, a headliner with the razor-sharp focus of a persistent player on the boards.  For those that don't know the reference, they started making superhero movies before 2005-please investigate.
Why the Love: Who doesn't love Jack?  Honestly-the man is one of the most consistently watchable presences in the history of cinema, and unlike de Niro/Pacino, he actually kept challenging himself for most of the latter half of his career, scoring that third Oscar that alluded Bob (and severely alluded Al).  Nicholson may occasionally over-indulge in his reputation as a batshit crazy screen presence, but he had the bonafides from early in his career (that he occasionally brought out just to prove he still had it in places like About Schmidt) to be both a caricature and a great actor.  Also, he usually made really good movies-taste in scripts should not be discounted here.
My Favorite Performance: It feels weird not to go with something like The Shining or Cuckoo's Nest, since those are the roles that are kind of hallmarks of Nicholson's career, but I can't pick anything other than Jake Gittes in Chinatown.  This is Jack when he's still proving himself as one of the great screen presences, so he holds back in moments he later would have partook in some scenery, and that restraint adds to the menace of one of the truly perfect films.
Missing Piece: I've seen most of Nicholson's most important roles, but I am missing Five Easy Pieces, which I'm actually confident is toward the top of my Netflix queue so that's coming up pretty quickly.  After that, maybe Prizzi's Honor?

Brad Pitt (1963-Present)


Oscar History: 3 nominations (As an actor, though Pitt is 3/1 with producing, as he won for 12 Years a Slave, and had the Academy not changed the rules he should have been included as a nominee for producing The Tree of Life as well)
First Impressions: Joe.  I always pronounce that name the way that Anthony Hopkins did in Meet Joe Black. I remember being struck while watching it that Pitt was both one of the most beautiful men I'd ever seen and how much more I was enjoying this film than all of my classmates, who found it dull and listless while I found it terribly romantic and moving.  I haven't revisited it in many years, but I do believe it was one of the first times I realized it was okay to have an opinion different than the popular one, a critical moment in an appreciation for the movies.
Why the Love: Pitt, more than any other actor, gets the free pass when it comes to me seeing his movies-with two exceptions (at least one of which is on my Netflix queue), I've seen every film he's done for over fifteen years, and have just been in awe of his Adonis-like determination.  Pitt is, like Newman, an actor that perhaps is too beautiful for him to initially be taken seriously but he is also a consummate performer, finding challenging, subdued ways into all of his characters-he's the rare guy that can headline an action film and add an actor's sensibilities to the role, giving us more for our ticket price.  I'm forever in love with him.
My Favorite Performance: A few actors on this list I hadn't actually thought before about what my "favorite" performance is of theirs, and Pitt is one of them.  Argh-it's such a tossup between Assassination of Jesse James and The Tree of Life (both his peak for different reasons) that I'm not going to choose-if you force me to in the comments, I might relent in hopes of getting more interaction on the blog.
Missing Piece: I've seen, as I mentioned, almost every film of Pitt's for the past fifteen years.  However, a bit of his earlier work still alludes me (though even there it's not much), and one of those that I'm thrilled to eventually get to see is 12 Monkeys, his first Oscar-nominated turn.

James Stewart (1908-1997)


Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (The Philadelphia Story, though he also won an Honorary Oscar in 1984 for his general contributions to the movies)
First Impressions: Like so many of us, my initial introduction to Jimmy Stewart was as George Bailey, a worthy first chapter for pretty much anyone as Stewart was an actor I instantly fell in love with, the way he distinctly pronounced every sentence (I've said "Mary, Mary" like him for so many years that I can't even remember when it started) and found his heart at the end of the picture.  How could you not fall in love?
Why the Love: Stewart long has received comparisons to another actor that I fell in love with in my youth, though he was current at the time, Tom Hanks, but let's face facts here (with all due respect to Tom): Stewart is a more interesting performer and better actor.  While Hanks frequently traded on his nice-guy persona, Stewart found a balance between maintaining it and occasionally making us uncomfortable in it.  Look at, say, the way that he abandons all hope in It's a Wonderful Life despite him being a genuinely good guy or how he looks back with anguish on his failures in Liberty Valance.  He found a way to challenge the audience while still remaining Jimmy Stewart.
My Favorite Performance: Like Nicholson, it feels somewhat like cheating to go with Stewart's most atypical classic role, but how can you turn down Scottie in Vertigo, the film where Stewart completely abandons his nice guy image (something he likely could only do once quite effectively), but does so in such a way as to make a cinematic masterpiece.
Missing Piece: Anatomy of a Murder is the final major film of Stewart's filmography I've never seen, and was his final Best Actor nomination so the OVP will eventually steer me there.

Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Citizen Kane, though he was also nominated for writing and directing the movie, and would win an Honorary Oscar in 1970)
First Impressions: It would be Rosebud herself as my first impression of Welles, an actor who loomed very large early on for me, but also quite small, in the same way as Vivien Leigh since his most famous role so overshadowed everything else in his filmography.
Why the Love: Welles is a champion of the screen, a truly great thespian who occasionally indulged his reputation more than he should have (remember those wine commercials, not to mention Transformers?), but when he was on (which was most of the time), he was stupendous, a consummate actor whether or not he was behind the screen directing himself.  To limit yourself to Charlie Kane might be understandable, but would deprive you of one of the great screen icons.
My Favorite Performance: I mean, it's the greatest film of all-time for a reason, so I think I have to put Citizen Kane, but it's worth noting that Oscar could have had a Swanson/Davis style match of acting master classes in 1958 had they simply nominated Stewart for Vertigo and Orson Welles for his "wilderness period" opus Touch of Evil.  Throw in Harry Lime in The Third Man, and Welles arguably should have had three acting Oscars, even though he never got one.
Missing Piece: Perhaps Chimes at Midnight, which actually just came out on Netflix disc and so this might actually happen after years of trying to track it down.

There you have it-my dozen favorite actors.  There's a lot to go over here, so head to the comments and let me know what you think-did I make the right calls in performances, missing pieces, and especially in the twelve men I listed?  Who would you have found room for?  Share below!