ICYMI & August's 'Year of the Month'
Monday, August 4, 2014 at 12:00PM 
Since I spent the last week completely absorbed in Supporting Actress Smackdown '73 (with a side of Into the Woods spazzing) I didn't have as much time to write. I'm super proud of this month's two part event (written & podcasted) and I'm so tempted to make Dana Delany's impression of Sylvia Sidney my new ringtone. I thank StinkyLulu for letting me be the Whitney to his Dolly. But here's a handful of other highlights you may have missed if you too had a busy week where one project stole your life. The team jumped in since I was smackdowning.
A Dame to Shill For cosign Jason's bigscreen/smallscreen lust for Eva Green's talent
Bergman's Ghosts Cries and Whispers is the greatest haunted house movie. But who or what is doing the haunting?
Is Lucy racist? Matthew refuses to see it
Hepburn's Hair Anne Marie shares a hairography theory
A Most Wanted Man & Guardians of the Galaxy reviewed. Michael is joining me on weekly review duties so you get two each week now + the podcast reviews
UP NEXT: I just got a new computer (it's so big I could trap Jeff Bridges inside it for decades!) and though the size of the screen is beyond glorious and will help with my writing and whatnot (particularly the whatnot) immensely, it rendered many of the ancient software programs I use to create the various entertainments on this here site unusable. Sad face. I will try to recover quickly.
Liz whips her hair back and forth
But in August you can expect Emmy coverage & Oscar season warmups, The Giver, Love is Strange, the final episodes of "Hit Me" (cannot wait for Suddenly Last Summer and Gone With the Wind!), Anne Marie on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and of course a celebration of 1989, our "year of the month" culminating in the Smackdown on August 31st.
- Brenda Flicker, My Left Foot
- Anjelica Huston, Enemies: A Love Story
- Lena Olin, Enemies: A Love Story
- Julia Roberts, Steel Magnolias
- Dianne Wiest, Parenhood
So queue up those four films and five performances and get your votes in (scale of 1 to 5 hearts) by August 24th. What other 1989 films should we discuss this month?
Reader Comments (19)
1989 obscure suggestion: the tall guy - first time i'd seen emma thompson on screen and it was a real "who is THAT?" moment
also, jane campion's sweetie
I'd like to see reviews for each member of the SM cast especially Dolly and Sally.
I rarely see Meg Ryan mentioned on this blog. When Harry met Sally does re-set the rom-com for that generation.
And a complete switch from such sentimentality.........Do the Right Thing.
leslie19 & par - good suggestions.
mark - that's actually kind of a brilliant idea. i'm been trying to figure out some way to handle STEEL MAGNOLIAS cuz i am SO over it but everyone i know just loves it.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover released stateside in 1990, but was completed and released elsewhere in '89.
License to Kill because of Benicio Del Toro, and its bookend theme songs by Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle.
Drugstore Cowboy, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Sex Lies and Videotape, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down, How to Get Ahead in Advertising...
That Best Original Screenplay category for that year is fascinating to me... When Harry Met Sally, Do the Right Thing, Sex, Lies & Videotape and how the least inventive but most inspirational Dead Poets Society won the thing. (And I mean, I don't *hate* Dead Poets Society, but I don't think it wins my Best Original Screenplay competition for that year as much as that "O Captain!" thing has been referenced ad nauseum in every little pop culture thing I have seen.)
Add Lena Olin to the list of actresses who don't age. She looks fantastic on Welcome to Sweden.
For 1989, I'd like to see something on Drugstore Cowboy, The Little Mermaid, Roger & Me, and Field of Dreams.
I mean, if you want to open the perpetual can of worms that is "should animated performances be eligible for Oscars?" there is no greater year to do it for than 1989, what with Pat Carroll giving the best vocal performance in an animated film ever.
Kacey: Right??! The defeat of Ephron, Soderbergh, Spike and Woody by the man who wrote Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is just wild as some of 1989's other, more documented embarrassments.
Mike in Canada- It almost makes me wish it was possible to do a Screenplay Smackdown because I would love to see how everyone would rank those screenplays a lot of which are great but are great in totally different ways. Like I don't know who I would award myself that year. Probably not Dead Poets Society, but....
Kacey and Mike in Canada: I agree about the 1989 Original Screenplay race. Granted, I haven't seen sex, lies and videotape (to my shame) but of the others, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Do the Right Thing and When harry met Sally... are, to me, all so much better than Dead Poets Society (which is decent but, you know...) that it's a bit embarrassing.
I think Woody ekes out the win, but Spike deserved something for Do the Right Thing.
Nathaniel: As for other 1989 films to discuss, maybe Kenneth Branagh's debut with Henry V or Al's return with Sea of Love? And, enjoy your new computer! I'm about to upgrade too but a little worried about the software I'm going to lose...
Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey, Julie Hagerty, Rutger Hauer, Madonna, Esai Morales, Anita Morris, Randy Quaid, Josef Sommer, Alan Ruck, Stephen McHattie, Dinah Manoff, Fisher Stevens, Michael Wincott, Black-Eyed Susan, Tamara Tunie, Steve Buscemi, and William S. Burroughs (?!?) in Bloodhounds of Broadway, a 1989 musical.
1989... Heathers?
Somebody's gonna have to watch Enemies: A Love Story and that someone is me!!
1989? "Tap" with Gregory Hines, Sammy Davis Jr, Savion Glover, Harold Nicholas and more. The story is not up to much, but the dancing, oh the dancing!
I'd also second Henry V. Dead Calm with that new actress, Nicole Kidman. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, A Dry White Season, Too Beautiful For You.
And I love Huston and Olin in Enemies, A Love Story. Huston is the Queen of Accents as far as I'm concerned. I used to think, oh Irish accent in The Dead, well she lived in Ireland; Perez Family, she spent time in Mexico; Enemies, isn't her family from Eastern Europe, no wait, she's acting and she's really good at it. Who can forget her luscious accents in Prizzi's Honor and The Grifters?
fabulous baker boys - review, discussion, pfeifferian glamour dissection
Baker Boys!
She-Devil. Duh!