Posterized: Dame Emma Thompson

Okay, so she's not a Dame yet. Shut up. It's only a matter of time!

Nanny McPhee costar Maggie Gyllenhaal at Emma's star ceremony
for Hollywood's Walk of Fame earlier this month.

Nanny McPhee Returns is on 2000+ of the nation's screens but I probably won't be seeing it. Remember two days back when we discussed what we were always looking for in a movie? One of my answers should have been beauty. I am not a beauty fascist in real life but I suppose I am at the movie theaters. Hollywood's great actresses should be immortalized with key lights, flawless makeup and evening gowns. Movie stars are supposed to be fantasies... our idealized selves. That's why Old Hollywood still has so much appeal. The studio system understood this. I like beauty on my silver screens so I really don't want to see Emma Thompson -- who can be just ravishing (see Much Ado About Nothing. I mean, my god. She's breathtaking in that movie) -- made to look purposefully hideous.

Anyway... her career in posters.

The Tall Guy (89) | Henry V (89) | Impromptu (91)

Dead Again (91) | Peter's Friends (92) | Howard's End (92)

Much Ado..., Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father (93)

Junior (94) | Carrington (95) | Sense & Sensibility (95)

Intermission. In early 1996 after five Oscar noms and two wins (acting & screenplay) and several arthouse hits, the screen career seems to slow down. She was only 36. It's difficult to say what caused this. A listers sometimes just volunteer for that and if so who could blame her? Her first six years of fame were crazy huge and chaotic.

<--- Emma with her husband Greg Wise at the premiere of his most recent movie in 2009

Consider... She was 30 when fame hit. The first six years of fame were bookended with her wedding and then divorce from Kenneth Branagh (also often her director and co-star) and the movies were iconic arthouse titles. And then there's that stellar 1993 wherein she won the Oscar in the spring then appeared in three more arthouse smashes, two of which she was Oscar nominated for. [Tangent: If you ask me I think Much Ado... is the best of those three '93 performances -- even if it's the least of the three films -- so it figures it's the one she was snubbed for.]

Or maybe it wasn't an intentional break but maybe the offers just started to dry up? The cinema is sometimes nonsensical like that. This is also the time period in which she and Greg Wise, the dangerously good-looking man who breaks her screen sister Kate Winslet's heart in Sense & Sensibility, fall in love. They've been together ever since and were married in 2003.

The Winter Guest (97) | Primary Colors (98) | Judas Kiss (98)

Wit (01) | Angels in America (03) | Love Actually (03)

Mike Nichols to the rescue with two acclaimed pay cable movies that reminded fans what a sensational screen presence she is.

Imagining Argentina (03) | Nanny McPhee (05) | Stranger Than Fiction (06)

Brideshead Revisited (08) | Last Chance Harvey (08) | An Education (09)

not pictured: Pirate Radio (09), two Harry Potter films (04/07) the current Nanny McPhee sequel and a few cameo parts or voice roles.

How many have you seen? Is it odd that she's not in the last two-part Harry Potter film (I can't remember if that character is in the last book)... or if she is, that they aren't crediting her since she's not listed as being part of the cast? And don't you wish she'd have more plum parts again? She was so moving in Last Chance Harvey but it was one of those sacrificial December lambs needlessly disposed of during the year's busiest month. When I rewatched Angels in America a few weeks ago, I was reminded what a glorious comic personality she has. She's the best of both worlds, really, able to wear both of those iconic thespian masks. She sells comedy and tragedy with equal inspiration.
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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Angels in America

We're only three episodes in and I've already polluted the idea of this new series, in which participants are supposed to choose their single favorite shot from a film. I offered up a fantasia of multiple shots from Showgirls. The idea is to choose only one shot from each film. I did a better job with X-Men. And I'm so happy that people are now playing along... even if the one shot thing is difficult difficult difficult. But this time our indecision is totally rational. Tony Kushner's extraordinary stage epic Angels in America was adapted for the screen in 2003 by Oscar winning Mike Nichols. Rather than limit myself to one shot I'm picking one from each chapter. This I can manage!

Chapter 1 "Bad News"


Mary Louise Parker and Justin Kirk in their pre-Weeds duet. Harper and Prior, the abandoned lovers, are dolled up to provide themselves with distracting glamour in their shared hallucination. But their lonely hearts club memberships are too strong for these distractions to be successful. The framing is deliciously funny here. You could title this still "The Lurking Homosexual" and really, whether it's the men she imagines behind walls, or her own husband or this imaginary friend "aren't you too old for imaginary friends?" she knows he's there.

Chapter 2 "In Vitro"


There are so many shots in the six hours where Prior looks devastatingly lonely as both his condition and his fury at the deficient boyfriend grows. The darkness is going to swallow him up.

Chapter 3 "The Messenger"


It's a slightly canted angle, which tends to be lazy shorthand for "TENSION!" but I mostly chose this shot because the physicality in the relationship between leering Roy (Al Pacino) and confused Joe (Patrick Wilson) is so fascinating. Roy is constantly pawing at Joe, totally hot for the young buck. Joe is mostly oblivious but likes to be touched and yet, it always comes out wrong... particular between the two of them (their next close physical contact will involve clenched shirts, gay confessions and lots of blood). Joe raises his fist and Roy keeps egging him on (he wants sex but he'll definitely take violence as a substitute -- check out the dirty thrill in Pacino's eyes with a sideways glance to Joe's fist)... it's all so disturbing. Roy Cohn is basically the devil. He's asking Joe to sin -- pick a transgression, any transgression -- but the genius of the scene is that it's not terrible advice in this case. Something's gotta give.

Chapter 4 "Stop Moving"


This scene is excitingly lit, both for its obvious bids for EPIC MOMENT status and for its rapidfire shifts in feeling: glaring whites, golden softness, blue mood. Plus, Emma Thompson is just hilarious as the self regarding, impatient and highly vocal heavenly creature.

Chapter 5 "Beyond Nelly"
Here's where I stop being able to choose. It's late at night. I'm exhausted and I love every hallucination in this great piece of theatermovie. An astounding monologue about racial impurity and the afterlife from Belize (Jeffrey Wright) to Roy ends with this condescending dreamy dismissal "Go to sleep now baby. I'm just the shadow on your grave." Director Mike Nichols and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt chase that line with this incredible image.


Both the dead (Meryl Streep as Ethel Rosenberg) and the living (Belize...but "out" gay men in general, really) are haunting Roy. And they'll cast a shadow over him forever. But isn't it rich that you could layer that threatening lullaby monologue over the nearby image of Joe and Harper's tragically unsexy reconciliation and it would work just as well.


Everyone is haunting everyone.

Chapter 6 "Heaven, I'm in Heaven"


My favorite part of chapter six is the frankly incredible duet between Meryl Streep and Al Pacino as they trade hauntings and tauntings, one dead and one dying but both entirely obsessed with defeating the other. "I WIN!" It's the kind of lengthy scene you dream of seeing Great Actors perform together. Neither of them pull any punches but it's also not lazily over the top. It's just perfection, a lucid dream of a duet. But I couldn't decide on a shot. So let's hear it for the absurd diorama (so chintzy, boxy and tiny) that is the angel's final arrival. It's an epic in miniature, both entirely cinematic and thoroughly stagebound. Any time Angels in America embraces both modes simultaneously, it wins.

"Best Shot" Angels
Thank you to these fine heralds for spreading the holy 'Best Shot' word. "I... I... I... I... I..."

• Crossover Man 'Joe & Roy gathered at the edges' is totally interesting. Read it.
• Serious Film "The magic of the theater" ohmygod. almost picked this same shot.
• Nick's Flick Picks the always provocative Mr Davis, picks a naked addition to the text as an emblem of his feelings.
• Low Resolution Belize and Ethel and the most potent of Angels many messages.
  
• Well, Hello Achilles divvies up the best shots to part 1 (Prior) and part 2 (a chaos of character)
• Much Ado About Nothing highlights the characters and great quotes (but doesn't like the way the movie treats Joe Pitt)
• Against the Hype goes all Lust, Caution on us. Not only do I think Angels in America is brilliant but I think it tends to inspire brilliance in the audience, too, lifting them up. It's just so rich for personal connections and time and place cultural slotting.
• vg21random Redemption as Orgasm. See what I mean?
  

 Other Films in This Series

• Angels in America (2003)
• X-Men (2000)
• Showgirls (1995)
• Bring It On (2000)
• Black Narcissus (1946)
• A Face in the Crowd (1957)
• Pandora's Box (1929)
• Se7en (1995) 
• Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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Streep Nom #10: The Bridges of Madison County

We've been looking at each Meryl Streep Oscar nod and its competitive field. Previously: 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88 and 90.

When The Bridges of Madison County premiered in summer (a rare Eastwood berth, indeed) it seemed like Streep might finally win her 3rd Oscar the following Spring. She'd been away from the awards race in what seemed like forever. Hilariously, that "forever" absence had only been four consecutive years (1991-1994) but for Meryl, that's an eternity. In fact, a four year absence had never happened before and has never happened since all these years later. By the end of the 1995 film year, a really actressy one, the story was a lot different and the race was suddenly all but sewn up for Sarandon with only Streep and Stone as dark horse possibilities.

1995 the nominees were

• Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking
• Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas *Nathaniel's pick. This performance kills me.*
  
• Sharon Stone, Casino
  
• Meryl Streep, The Bridges of Madison County
• Emma Thompson, Sense & Sensibility
  

Trivia note: With this 10th honor, Streep tied Bette Davis & Jack Nicholson's overall nomination records (at the time -- Jack wasn't done giving Streep a run for #1) making them the collective #2 Oscar favored actor after Katharine Hepburn.

Back to the actual competition. How many times have we heard this almost-win story now? Meryl is flouncing along giddily in the general direction of the podium for her third triumph when suddenly...

But let us not bemoan that elusive third Oscar and instead marvel at how many valid choices Oscar made for 1995 and how good their roster might have been even if it had looked a lot different.

---> Meryl with Tom Cruise at the Oscars in March '96. (Note frosty snubbed Nicole, not yet ascendant, by his side)

Other 1995 women for context: Oscar chose the entire Globe Drama slate which meant that the comedic nominees were snubbed: Nicole Kidman (To Die For), Vanessa Redgrave (A Month by the Lake), Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding), Annette Bening (The American President) and my fav Sandra Bullock perf (While You Were Sleeping). Two critical darlings Julianne Moore [safe] and the eternally snubbed Jennifer Jason Leigh (Georgia) were ignored due to being ahead of their time and upstaged by their co-star, respectively, though Leigh did win the coveted NYFCC prize. Box office queens Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Dangerous Minds) failed to scare up awards attention outside of MTV.

Other female leads that year included: Angela Bassett (Waiting to Exhale), Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise), Lori Petty (Tank Girl), Winona Ryder (How to Make an American Quilt), Elizabeth Berkely (Showgirls) and Sarah Jessica Parker (Miami Rhapsody) getting her first taste of romantic comedy lead stardom to come.

Bassett had a fiery 95 (Strange Days & Waiting to Exhale)

Finally, the year included a few leads who were previous Oscar winners Jessica Lange (Rob Roy), Geena Davis (Cutthroat Island), Holly Hunter (Home for the Holidays) and Kathy Bates (Dolores Claiborne) none of whom were received as warmly as had often previously been the case.

See what I mean about the year being actressy? And so many fine examples of different flavors of it, too.

Nathaniel's List: It's a tasty Oscar vintage for sure -- they done good -- but I'd have to remove Stone's effortful hot mess and Thompson's sensible sister to make room for two redheads who staked their first unmistakable claims to genius: Moore & Kidman. And though I'll always love "Cher" in Clueless, I can't make room for her in such an abundant year. That said, it's utterly shameful that the Globe Comedy nominations excluded her.

AS IF!

Your thoughts on the year, please. It's so rich, don'cha think?
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