Best Actor - 1993

tom hanks was pretty good tbh

can live without any of them tbh but hopkins

voting l neezy

I like the Nazi guy better

oh shit

yeah i got him confused with ralph fiennes, always do that

ie "i wanted to vote for the nazi dude"

Day-Lewis and Hopkins, in that order. I would never have voted for Hannibal Lecter as a lead performance.

Fiennes is dope in that movie, iirc Neeson just has to walk around looking sad

DDL and neeson are dope in those films

Too sleepy to vote. Snooty question: Soto, is your pastime watching middlebrow films?

DDL, back in his pre-showboating era

Most movies before 1970 = "middlebrow"

Hopkins

Most movies before 1970 = "middlebrow"

?

^latest ILE variation on "old stuff sucks"

I'm just turning KJB's logic against him. I'm not sure how you can help watching "middlebrow" movies. Hollywood films are middlebrow.

Also: I watched The Hangover and Day of Wrath on Wednesday.

jesus christ this is a horrible list

These are all OK performances at worst, with Fishburne's at the bottom (Tim Meadows' Ike impersonation funnier).

middlebrow is the new highbrow

DDL
Hopkins
Neeson
Hanks
Fishburne

xxxxxpost I suppose you're right. I certainly don't want to see the middlebrowisms in any of the auteurist faves (Ford, Hawks, Fuller, Preminger, Ulmer, Mann, Sirk, etc.). So instead of "middlebrow," maybe "Oscar bait?" And while it was indeed a snooty question, I'm impressed more than anything that you've seen things like In the Name of the Father. A definite blindspot for me.

i don't think "middlebrow" is a super-helpful for those guys (well, it is for "anatomy"-era preminger) but they sure as heck are not highbrow. watching hawks and sirk films is not really better use of time than watching these picks anyway.

Fishburne went the fuck in imo

Which goes to show the uselessness of "middlebrow" as taxonomy.

Hopkins - his best '90s perf after Shadowlands. Neeson second. I suppose.

xpost Oh come on - 'middlebrow' is very useful, i.e., h. mayne is right in that it doesn't really explain many of the auteurist greats. But it certainly gets at Kazan, Kramer, Lean, the Brit new wave, non-Czech Forman, select Coen Bros., etc. And 90% of Best Picture Oscar winners.

But this is a sure sign that someone needs a hug:

watching hawks and sirk films is not really better use of time than watching these picks anyway.

Fishburne went the fuck in imo

― some dude, Friday, March 5, 2010 1:28 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Which goes to show the uselessness of "middlebrow" as taxonomy.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, March 5, 2010 2:19 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

context lols

The brows get confusing. For example, are there clear contemporary analogs to High Modernism and Low Modernism? (I suppose there are.)

High Modemism and Low Modemism?

just realized i haven't seen any of these movies since they came out except for schindler's list, which i only finally saw last year. since I didn't dig Neeson a ton, i'm left what 13/14-year-old me thought and i don't trust his taste for shit.

Using "middlebrow" as an insult is so fucking boring. It just means intelligent, accessible movies that you don't like as opposed to the intelligent, accessible ones that you do (not to say, of course, that countless middlebrow movies don't suck). Virtually anything that lies between The White Ribbon and Dodgeball is middlebrow.

i have no idea what "low modernist" is. certainly not a term used when modernism was a going concern.

basically agree with dorian re middlebrow. i know what people mean by it, but it's a lazy and stupid put-down, really, with origins in a discourse that can't helpfully be applied to film.

one of the classic texts on middlebrow (midcult, he called it) by dwight macdonald is basically a retelling of queenie leavis of all people. i could get into it further but can't be fucked, suffice to say, it's based on the idea that if lots of people like it there must be something wrong with it.

it certainly gets at Kazan, Kramer, Lean, the Brit new wave, non-Czech Forman, select Coen Bros., etc. And 90% of Best Picture Oscar winners.

so yeah, i can see what people mean, and some of these are "accurate", but ehh... the thing with kramer and lean is that it is fashionable, because we're supposed to hate the middlebrow, to prefer their less intelligent and more tedious contemporaries (sirk, ray, fuller).

id say the whole point about the brit new wave is that it broke the "middlebrow" stranglehold of the 1950s! at the time it was seen as a big deal just to put working people on screen. they certainly aren't more middlebrow than chabrol's or truffaut's films, but they're french so must be highbrow?

ddl has such killer hair in in the name of the father

because we're supposed to hate the middlebrow, to prefer their less intelligent and more tedious contemporaries (sirk, ray, fuller)

Can someone walk me through killfile again?

aside from Hopkins & Hanks, this is one of the sexier Best Actor lineups.

xpost Aw come on - he's cute. I love people who sound 70 yrs. older than they actually are.

xposts I wasn't using 'middlebrow' as an insult because I don't 'hate the middlebrow' across the board. I chose those names up there for a reason. I dig select Kazan despite him winning a statue he should've given to Abe Polonsky. If Victim counts as Brit new wave (which it kinda sorta doesn't), then yay Brit new wave. Amadeus is one of my very fave films of the 1980s. Coen Bros. boil my blood. But I like three or four titles despite always feeling like a dupe for doing so. And the end of A Serious Man blew me away (get it?). (Not a big fan of Best Pic Oscar winners, though.)

id say the whole point about the brit new wave is that it broke the "middlebrow" stranglehold of the 1950s!

Only to be reinstated by the hosannas of a well-meaning liberal press. Contemporary critics certainly weren't praising Hammer horror and Carry On.

they certainly aren't more middlebrow than chabrol's or truffaut's films, but they're french so must be highbrow?

I wouldn't argue too strenuously against that. But it's telling you left off Godard. And Rivette. And Varda.

If Victim counts as Brit new wave (which it kinda sorta doesn't), then yay Brit new wave.

nah it doesn't. BNW: richardson, reisz, anderson + schlesinger basically. it mutates. it's not that useful a label, but it means what happened after 'room at the top'. sure, it didn't include hammer. but when you start to think about where losey fits in -- he directed for hammer! -- then the designation falls apart.

if yall could say what was interesting about hawks or sirk that'd be good. it's the dudes stuck in the 1950s, stuck on boring and conformist hollywood cinema, that sound old. losey had to work in britain for a reason.

if yall could say what was interesting about hawks or sirk that'd be good.

Hawks and Sirk made good movies.

they both made some moderately entertaining films. but the inordinate focus on them among "serious" critics and theorists is a bad practical joke.

srsly though, no-one could argue that hawks's films are interesting as films. there's nothing to distinguish them from the run of hollywood filmmaking in the classical era. he was a consummate pro, sure. so passing on from that, is there anything interesting about these films? as stories, concerning ideas, concerning human emotion... anything? again, a film can pass the time and be entertaining without being original or particularly memorable -- but hawks's films really are remembered, whereas (i would say) losey is not. (not that the auteurist frame is always useful.)

obviously pinter-era losey is, but not the rko films, or even the better-regarded brit ones like 'blind date'

You're talking in circles. If a movie's entertaining, the critical attention is warranted; and if you have any interest in film, Sirk's framing, editing, and design are first-rate, consistently more probing than his contemporaries; in that respect he's miles above Hawks.

Hawks made films about American brio, guilt, and reinvention; maybe that's why they mean nothing to you.

Sorry Alfred, Hawks' tech chops in, eg, Scarface, Only Angels Have Wings, and Red River are plenty worthy.

Missing from the '93 field? Costner in A Perfect World?

I'm only tut-tutting his chops vis a vis Sirk. I realized how slovenly Wilder was beside Hawks.

If a movie's entertaining, the critical attention is warranted

not on this scale. 'the hangover' is entertaining. i don't really need to read a book about it. i don't imagine it will be on university courses in 2060. im entertained by a fair number of 1950s hollywood films, but yeesh.

yeah, sirk (and team) were definitely better at their craft than hawks. not better than minnelli (similar figure) or aldrich (different figure) or (in a quite different way) kazan (hated figure because oh noes he made films about social themes) or again losey. the cahiers gang in the 1950s were aggresively apolitical, bordering on reactionary, and their choices of auteurs reflect that.

so Kazan is hated for the same reasons you hate Loach?

don't imagine it will be on university courses in 2060

I don't imagine anyone here will be around to ask you.

Assuming that you're right about the "aggresively apolitical, bordering on reactionary" ethos of the Cahiers crowd, is an aggressively apolitical (whatever that means; I have no clue), bordering on reactionary filmmaker not worth your attention?

mayne, i'm no longer sure if you're arguing about 'middlebrow' or 'British new wave' (or both) re: Losey. But he had to work in Britain for a very specific reason which had nothing to do with how unboring and non-conformist his films were. (And fwiw, Sarris was a HUGE Losey stan.)

And come the hell on re: Hawks and Sirk. hate them all you want. but someone as intelligent as you should have no problem reconstructing the arguments in favor of both. Fred Camper and Robin Wood, just for starters, have written quite well on Hawks. And Sirk? Bitch, please! No one in classical Hollywood understood mise-en-scene better. Imitation of Life is a masterpiece where the script says one thing and the mise-en-scene (i.e., Sirk's perceptive, artful direction) says another. Listen to the "Jesus is any color you want him to be" speech or any number of the "Have we ever treated you any differently, Sarah Jane?" lectures. Then check out where Sirk places Sarah Jane in the frame - when Annie carries off the young Susie; when Sarah Jane brings in the plate of 'crawdads;' the beginning of the party sequence in the kitchen; etc.

and finally, what's so conformist about Red Line 7000 of all things???

As I understand the term, low modernism would be, say, Mickey Spillane.

What Kevin said. Sirk is a cinematic landmark and no amount of chipping you can do will change that, NRQ.

That said, light the blowtorch on Hawks afaic.

(Just kidding, but only a little.)

we know he's too macho for you ;)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

You know, I don't actually care half as much about who won as I do about Hanks' acceptance speech.

As I understand the term, low modernism would be, say, Mickey Spillane.

― M.V., Saturday, March 6, 2010 4:42 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

hahaha whut

the question arises what ISN'T modernism?

yall still be trippin on hawks and sirk but w/e it's your lyfe

Let me see if I have this straight:

"Oscar bait" = films I don't like that get nominated for Oscars
"middlebrow" = films I don't like that other people do like, and aren't purposely silly
not "interesting as films" = I would not read a book about these films even if others would (or do)

I think The Hangover is good, not great, The Big Sleep is perfection, and In the Name of the Father is somewhere in that vast in-between. I don't know if it's a great film about England/Ireland, but it's a great film about a father and son getting thrown into prison together.

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