Best Actress 1987

I must say that of the three of these that I've seen, I have no urgent desire to revisit them. Even the beloved BN is just kinda meh to me.

That said, I'd probably still vote Hunter.

the winner is Christine Lahti for Housekeeping

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius)

I'd have written her in too. And the following year for Running on Empty.

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I just watched Broadcast News again after a couple of decades and Holly Hunter owns that film. The tacked-on happy ending really sucked.

otoh, it's been maybe 3 or 4 years since I rewatched Lahti in Housekeeping. She was good, but it was such a low key role there wasn't a huge amount of room for her to maneuver. And the costume and hairstyle choices made by the director were hugely & annoyingly contrary to the character, which wasn't her fault, but still they detracted from the whole effect.

yes, she did look like a housewife in an eighties sitcom.

buncha crap. classic film and performance.

i love how Meryl appears to leap up out of her seat to make her approval when Cher wins!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3lB-HTbbc

i was glad Cher won at the time and yeah she's amazing in Moonstruck. but Glenn should probably have won, if only for the non-verbal stuff in FA. the look on her face when she's riding the 'coaster with the kid, and when she's flipping the light on and off and on again alone in her apartment. i mean.. man.

I like Bill Forsyth's work as well as anyone, but he seems to have been hired to direct Housekeeping on the strength of Local Hero's box office and the idea that Housekeeping was a quirky film and that he was a director of quirky films. If you've read the book, you must realize that the film fails to capture it many important ways and misses the book's major themes, which seem to have faded in the wash during the script's adaptation. The costume and hairstyle I mentioned are especially out of synch with the original work.

I suspect either Forsyth was not the right choice as director because the book's quirks are of an entirely different quality from his , or else he suffered from a lot of interference from the money people. This isn't to say the film is weak or bad, but only that it falls short of its material. Lahti's performance is fine, but her role is the opposite of the scenery-chewing that often gets nominated.

Conceding that it does feel tacked on, I've always liked the ending of Broadcast News, aimless. I wouldn't say it's unreservedly happy. For Hunter, yes. For Hurt, maybe--I never got the feeling he was as enamored of his porcelain-looking wife as he was of Hunter. For Brooks, I don't think so; he clearly still harbors lots of resentment towards both Hunter and Hurt.

My reading on Hurt's character was that his feelings for Hunter's character may have been entirely sincere in the moment, but they were quickly transferable to almost any other woman who happened across his path. He was portrayed as intellectually dull, but a prodigy at making seductively rapid emotional connections with anyone and everyone. Having a dullish porcelain wife would have been no impediment to his having a rich and varied love life.

You might be right about him. I definitely don't get a happy ending for Brooks. Overall, I think the mood of the epilogue is more bittersweet than happy.

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And Sally Kirkland rolls her eyes and sucks her cheeks in once again.

Is Anna any good?

Maybe Anna wasn't an actual film. Maybe it was just a poster.

Wait, wait, there's a clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWDUoraQxLA

And there's also this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsmJW8np_MI

Left behind:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/82NxRBvCYlw/hqdefault.jpg

The major reason why I called the ending of Broadcast News "happy" is that the entire film sets up the idea that Hurt's character represents the cheapening of news and a lowering of standards making him emblematic of a profound threat to the integrity of the institution. Then, in the finale, we hear briefly that he has been named as the network news anchor and has ascended to the pinnacle of the profession, but hey! it's not so bad, really, because he will leave all editorial decisions to the ultra-committed Hunter character, so we are all in good hands and all those worries were totally overblown.

Fatal Attraction is an evil, silly piece of shit, full stop.

I saw Bill Forsyth do a Q&A after Housekeeping a few years ago and he said he made the film so more people would read the book.

the only Oscar Glenn Close deserved was for Dangerous Liasions.

a Q. for shit cinema buffs:

was Fatal Attraction the first non-monster, non-supernatural movie with the now obligatory "surprise" resurrection of the villain at the end? Back then it was indeed a surprise --- I busted out laughing when Close blasts out of the tub for one last assault after she should have been brain dead with water filled lungs.

This horrible bit started somewhere and I'm wondering if this was its debut in a like you know "realistic" movie.

Spoiler Alert, but...

Diabolique

It was the first time a killer had Close's hair.

everyone knows the final sequence was shot after a test screening with the original ending (Close quietly commits suicide), right? where the cards said KILL THE BITCH. (it was Morning In America)

I saw Anna. I don't think it was bad.

Oh, I forgot about one more test screening story, and forgot that I had seen Diabolique too --- that was a great movie. I think they did a bit more work to bring that off as plausible in Diabolique, right? They don't even bother in Fatal Attraction. It's a movie, schmuck.

Anyway, I'll take the "everyone" remark seriously. I stick a toe in the waters of the film threads here & there on ILX, the water is always chilly.

it was a question.

Oscar-related threads are about as P*PULIST as film threads get, cuz who with half a brain gives a flying fucking shit?

In the event that "It's a movie, schmuck" was misinterpreted, I meant that as a summation of what the people making Fatal Attraction would say if you pointed out how stupid the ending is. It's not my attitude.

This thread hasn't actually been a stupid discussion. 1987 Oscars seem pretty arcane to me, like discussing Mesopotamian pottery shards only less relevant to our world. Hold your head high.

morbs is otm regarding fatal attraction, which i think is one of the most vile movies ever made

diabolique is awesome, tho

I never minded Cher winning for Moonstruck but I forget how assured how she is in her reaction shots. I laughed every other moment.

Stéphane Audran in Babette's Feast

Who else apart from me thinks the film of HOUSEKEEPING was better than the book?

Maybe. I haven't read the book in years. She did write several books I prefer.

I haven't read the book, but I love the film, possibly the best thing he's done, not to mention Lahti's best performance. It's too bad Sony treated it so poorly - famously one of David Puttnam's productions when he ran Columbia, and therefore one of the films the succeeding regime dumped in theaters with minimal promotion when he was pushed out.

("he" being Bill Forsyth)

messed that up - I mean "possibly the best thing Bill Forsyth's done"

I loved the book Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. It was so strange and magical and it was told from a 'transparent eyeball' point of view (Ralph Waldo Emerson's term as a reference to nature taking over the senses). I haven't seen the film yet but I can't imagine it is better than the novel

1987 also included Yimou Zhang's Red Sorghum, which featured a great debut performance by Gong Li

The film got marketed as a quirky sitcom: I can still see the late '80s VHS box with Lahti drinking tea while she's knee deep in water.

Dan, you should watch it. It's not as limpid as the book, but Lahti's fantastic.

I will

but I can't imagine it will be anything like the book, which was so eerie and feral

Forget the book!

The film is its own kind of eerie.