Almost There: Diane Keaton in "Shoot the Moon"
The magnificent Diane Keaton is 75! The Best Actress champion of the 50th Academy Awards has been enchanting movie audiences since the early 70s, making a name for herself as a comedienne before proving she was a versatile performer, as good at having audiences cry for her as she's at making them guffaw. Unlike many great thespians of the silver screen, Keaton's Oscar history is a good representative of her talents. The winning turn in Annie Hall and the runner-up marvel that is Something's Gotta Give represent two wildly different approaches at comedy, one spiky and cerebral, the other warmly commercial. Then we have the romance of Reds and the melodrama of Marvin's Room, a drama played at the scale of an epic and a chamber drama respectively.
Still, one can quibble with the results and wish Keaton had gotten even more love from AMPAS. For instance, when I examined the battle of the titans that was Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange's bid for the 1982 Best Actress trophy, many mentioned how Diane Keaton. Some said she should have been present among the nominees for her work in Alan Parker's Shoot the Moon for which she got considerable buzz. I confess I agree with those Keaton-loving readers…