Holly Hunter (A Poll)

i had no idea she was in The Burning, and I just saw it!

she was really good in 2017's The Big Sick, looking at recent films

come on it’s raising arizona

it’s Broadcast News for me 100% but theres prob no wrong answer

Broadcast News, easily (one of my favourite performances of the past few decades). She's great in a small part in Jesus' Son (she and Billy Crudup dance to "Misty Blue") and funny in The Firm. Haven't seen The Piano since it came out, but I remember her as being quite compelling there.

no one else is going to vote for home for the holidays so i will

My "I can never get them straight" that I feel most guilty about is her and Jodie Foster.

Nearly impossible--she's great in so many things. I suspect Broadcast News will take this; I hope The Piano doesn't.

Voting Once Around, a lovely little film that I think only me and Gene Siskel really liked.

The premise of Home for the Holidays has always confused me: what is it about their parents that makes Downey and (especially) Hunter dread seeing them so much? They seem like perfectly lovely people!

That said, Charles Durning is fantastic, and I like the way the film gives the stock character of the daffy aunt some dimension.

downey dreads it because he's gay/married/not out to his parents (and would just rather be with his husband). i don't remember why hunter does

also their sister is unpleasant

Broadcast News all the way.

"The place near the thing where we met that time."

Home for the Holidays is so great, Hunter is fabulous in it

but i only saw Broadcast News for the first time this year & was so blown away by her performance & the character & just everything about her in it

http://thefilmexperience.net/storage/no-its-awful.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1490029349120

I have a big soft spot for her in Raising Arizona. That character could've been just an ugly set of stereotypes, but she made her a person.

Not on the list because it's TV, but in recent years my favorite thing she did was the hippie guru in Top of the Lake. I wanted a whole show just about her.

"The place near the thing where we met that time."

I quote that all the time!

lol so good

"I'm not here to teach remedial reporting."

Like, I actually said this recently

O and clemenza, the "place" in the movie was (and is) 219 in Alexandria, Va., a decent place to drink mimosas and listen to jazz.

An actual place? Never knew. I think it's the best example of the secret language and verbal shortcuts that exist between long-time friends that I've ever seen in a movie.

but i only saw Broadcast News for the first time this year & was so blown away by her performance & the character & just everything about her in it

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl)

This also

But also, top of the lake

Of the movies on the list I've seen, Broadcast News was easily the most memorable performance. She was outstanding in it from start to finish. afaics, she has always handled whatever part she's given with professional aplomb.

She has one of the all-time great voices in American cinema.

Think I'm gonna go w The Piano, because it *might* be a little bit deeper overall than the amazing Raising Arizona---also the visuals---but these would be one of the ultimate double features.

Or am I brainwashed because it's one of them furrin art movies? So be it.

True story, I once got to help Holly Hunter pick out cookware at the Williams Sonoma in Midtown Manhattan. She was an extremely small person, I had to reach a lot of things for her. She was very nice.

SHUT UP

tipsy that is awesome

I'm guessing this is only movies where she was the female lead, because she was great as the main character's mom in Thirteen from 2003, and I would have voted for that.

She's also very good in David Cronenberg's Crash, even though I hate that movie.

Broadcast News, where she's tormented by two sides of the same awful coin (Brooks & Hurt)

Just noticed that Crash is an option. I won't be voting for it, though.

I want to second Home for the Holidays as a seasonal watch. It's not great and often not good but it's never boring and Jodie Foster frames moments that a more seasoned director might've missed, and the performance are terrific; it feels like a Cassavetes film playing as a Hollywood rom com. And, my god, it doesn't wink about its queerness.

I've seen four of these, plus (the film named) Thirteen. I don't feel she really stood out of the ensemble in any except The Piano, but I'm voting for Crash as the best movie.

Now that I think about it, Copycat almost defines (as I wrote on the 21st-century actors thread) the kind of generic junk I'll watch if someone I really like is in it. (Great story, Tipsy.)

Voted Always because it's not her fault the film doesn't quite work and she's aptly adorable in it.

You've sold me on Home for the Holidays, Alfred.

boom!

I checked to see what TV's she done--she seems like she'd be perfect for the right Netflix or F/X series.

I haven't seen Succession yet--on the list. What about Saving Grace? Never saw it. It's available, but the second and third seasons are ridiculously overpriced.

i love that home for the holidays is structured in vignettes, it feels like a short story collection about a single family

and there's at least one absolutely stunning camera movement

Not on the list because it's TV, but in recent years my favorite thing she did was the hippie guru in Top of the Lake. I wanted a whole show just about her.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, December 13, 2020

same for me

Blood Simple remains my favorite performance of hers, though oddly enough The Incredibles is up there with Raising Arizona close behind it

Just watched Raising Arizona for what I am going to say is the fourth time. Mild digression: my parents took my sister and I to see this in theatres (we were 8 and 9) thinking it was going to be a Mr. Mom-style yukfest. For quite a while, it and Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold were our family's main reference points for bad movies we saw in theatres, at least until the following year when we were forced to see Mac and Me after we couldn't get into Midnight Run. Anyway, not my very favourite Hunter performance--she's doing a little too much of a Carol Burnett-style Southern caricature, which is admittedly in keeping with most of the performances in the film--but her and Cage are sweet together, and the film on the whole is easily the Coen's kindest, and possibly even their most hopeful. Even discounting my disastrous first exposure to the film, it is definitely one that I find resonating with me more and more with age.

She's so great in the best of these movies, and she's not bad in the bad ones. My gut says Raising Arizona or Broadcast News, but I sort of want to say The Incredibles, which is weird, since I don't really like those movies that much (especially the stupid second one), and it's just her voice, but it's so clearly *her voice* that she really owns that character.

Mac and Me, jfc

must you have reminded me of that abomination

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Good results imo

Hrm yeah I guess this is the right result but I do feel a little bad for the Incredibles movies. The Piano I can take or leave (unless this were an Anna Paquin poll)

Oh, my Always vote didn’t register. Anyway, good winner in same mould.

Always is okay, but it's not her movie in the way some of the others are.

No votes for The Piano? Is Jane Campion really out of fashion? I remember in 1991 she and Spike Lee were acclaimed "directors to watch in the next millennium" by TIFF.

Jason Mewes put everyone off of it

I recall her being good in The Piano, but even though she won an Oscar for it, it doesn't really feel like an iconic Holly Hunter role. A big part of her on-screen charm comes from her Georgia accent, which is obviously absent in that movie.

Hope some people who haven't seen it catch up with Jesus' Son (which I notice did a get a vote). Hunter is only in it for the last 15 or 20 minutes, but she's so affecting. A friend and I did a Zoom last week on the excellent soundtrack.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHDE9Vjoj_A

"Misty Blue," "Cowgirl in the Sand," "Hang on Sloopy," "Yes, I'm Ready," and a great recurring theme by Joe Henry (which I totally forget to mention when we talked).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9B_bl0RbBU

Something I didn't know till today (always did Spike Lee's birthday for Today in History with my students): Holly Hunter and William Hurt share a birthday (today).

Now that I think about it, Copycat almost defines (as I wrote on the 21st-century actors thread) the kind of generic junk I'll watch if someone I really like is in it.
― clemenza, Sunday, December 13, 2020

And rewatch every so often. Too-brief but great use of the Partridge Family.

I watched it last month and can't decide if it's good or bad junk

wait is she actually in Blood Simple?

It’s been nearly 30 years since I last saw it, but I remember Harry Connick Jr.’s performance pushing Copycat into the realm of bad junk.

Ebert praised Hunter’s turn in that one, though, calling it the equal to her work in The Piano.

I can see that. I remember being impressed at the time that it was Harry Connick, doing the last thing I ever expected of him, but he is pretty cartoonish.