Best Actress "Character" 1981-1990

Time for more polls! Same situation as before. I'm asking not who you think should have won the Oscar but which Best Actress nominated roles are the most memorable for you. Who are the characters you think of the most from movie history (albeit through the lens of Oscar since some great role aren't nominated).

Two polls ahead -- I think we'll quit here since fewer people will play from the 70s backwards -- so please vote on both. Pick the 5 roles that are the "stickiest" in your head, the most memorable, from each poll of Best Actress nominated characters.

1981-1985
Choose up to 5 women

poll by twiigs.com

1986-1990
Choose up to 5 women

poll by twiigs.com

Does anything surprise you while reviewing your options?

Clutch The Pearls! "The Iron Lady" Teases

What timing!

Oscar nominations are exactly 200 days away. Immediately after hearing that Glenn Close's Albert Nobbs now has a distributor, her ostensible "overdue" Best Actress competition -- that'd be Meryl Streep -- starts teasing us with this one minute teaser clip, the first from The Iron Lady.

We'll save the "Yes, No, Maybe So" for a full trailer. But you are immediately forgiven if every line reads as an Oscar tease as well.

You've got it in you to go the whole distance!"

Consider eyebrows raised, but why can't I shake the vocal / aural image of Streep as Julia Child on first glimpse of Streep as Margaret Thatcher? Is it just the Oscar proximity? (Can you?)

P.S. Oscar Prediction Pages updates have begun starting with Best Actress

Halfway Honors. Best of 2011 Thus Far

This year seems to be off to a slow start but here's what I'd choose as the best of the year thus far. I've excluded films that are still waiting for their proper release like Andrew Haigh's finely tuned miniature gay drama Weekend (which has been collecting festival trophies and which I loved) and Paddy Considine's discomfiting abuse drama Tyrannosaur which I did not love but which boasts impressive acting.

TOP TEN PICTURES (alpha order)
The Arbor, Beginners, Bridesmaids, Certified Copy, Jane Eyre, Midnight in Paris, Poetry, Rango, The Tree of Life and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. You can see a complete list of what I've seen here.

[Notable films that I did plan to see but will have to catch on DVD include: Hanna, The Housemaid and Win Win]

DIRECTOR
Clio Barnard - THE ARBOR
Lee Chang-dong - POETRY
Abbas Kiarostami -CERTIFIED COPY
Terrence Malick -THE TREE OF LIFE
Mike Mills -BEGINNERS

notes: I gave Barnard the slight edge over Apichatpong Weerathesakul mostly because I far prefer "Joe's" earlier effort Tropical Malady to Boonmee. But not without some hesitation. I appreciated the bold experimentation of The Arbor, a documentary/narrative hybrid about the life and work of playwright and screenwriter Andrea Dunbar (Rita, Sue and Bob, Too). I just wish the film had been tighter and less relentless in its last 45 minutes. It had already done so much surgical socioeconomic surveillance damage by that point that rather than feeling devastating it started to feel exhausting. But it's definitely worth a look.

ACTRESS
Juliette Binoche - CERTIFIED COPY
Yun Jeong-Hie -POETRY
Mia Wasikowska - JANE EYRE
Kristen Wiig - BRIDESMAIDS
Michelle Williams -MEEKS CUTOFF

actors and the supporting crop and even a few technicals if you just...

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Actress "Characters" Wins: Miranda, Clarice, Clementine

Talking Points!

Last month I asked you to vote on the most memorable characters within the ranks of the Best Actress nominees. It wasn't about who gave the best performances but which characters have stuck with you the most. Here are the results -- I assumed you'd like to see.

1991-1996 

1. *CLARICE STARLING (Jodie Foster) from Silence of the Lambs
2. THELMA (Geena Davis) from Thelma & Louise
3. LOUISE (Susan Sarandon) from Thelma & Louise
4. *ADA MCGRATH (Holly Hunter) from The Piano
5. FRANCESCA JOHNSON (Meryl Streep) from The Bridges of Madison County
   
   runners up (in descending order):  (four way tie for sixth place!!!) SERA Leaving Las Vegas, TINA TURNER What's Love Got to Do With It,  ELINOR DASHWOOD Sense & Sensibility and *SISTER HELEN PREJEAN Dead Man Walking and... coming in tenth *MARGARET SCHLEGEL Howards End
   
   observations: Clarice Starling had the widest margin of victory in any of the polls, a classic character indeed. I was a bit surprised to see Thelma just edge out Louise for #2 given that Sarandon was the "leader" but perhaps people still get the characters mixed up? Thelma, Louise and Ada were pretty evenly matched with Francesca just barely edging out that cluster of women competing for the the 5-Spot. I'm surprised that Margaret Schlegel was as low as she was (I would've voted for her myself) but I have noticed that today's film culture has greatly devalued the Merchant/Ivory filmography. A true shame because nobody does Brit lit adaptations like that historic team.
   
   weakest showing: Rose (Laura Dern) from Rambling Rose, Viv (Miranda Richardson) from Tom & Viv barely made a blip with 1% of the vote each. The surprise there is Rambling Rose since Dern's Oscar breakthrough was quite a memorable girl. But it's true that you never hear people talk about that film these days.

1996-2010 AFTER THE JUMP

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Actress Polling - Final Days

Only a couple of days remain to vote on the "Character" Best Actress Polls that were posted earlier this month.

If you haven't already voted on 1991-2000 in particular please do so. That decade's polls got far fewer votes than 2001-2010 and it'd be great if another 400 of you voted to even things out a bit. You can vote for five characters in each poll!  I mean I'm dying to know whether you think Cynthia "Sweetheart" Purley in Secrets and Lies is more memorable than, say, cross-dressing Viola in Shakespeare in Love. Or whether you love Louise but not Thelma (aren't you required to vote for both?) or if you'd vote for Senator Laine Hanson from The Contender but would never buy a house from Carolyn Burnham in American Beauty. Have you ever ridiculed Nell "tae in the win'" or sold your body to an alcholic like Sera did in Leaving Las Vegas.

Go and vote: Which Best Actress characters from that era do you think about the most?