25 September 2009

Skandies: Best Performances of the Decade, #18



Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven
originally placed: #1, Actress, 2002.

[Sorry, clip was taken down.]

18 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
md'a said...

Oops, that looks Orwellian. Just disregard—originally I had the clip on YouTube and it turned out the "some countries" in which I was told it was blocked included the U.S. Had to move it to Vimeo.

Nictate said...

Hmm. The melodrama conceit here was a single-serving satisfaction for me.

Kza said...

[Contemplated making joke about "rocks through windows" and Allstate, couldn't find amusing enough phrasing in time allotted to self, determined the whole idea to be stupid anyway, also figured it best to leave the inane stuff to someone else for a bit.]

md'a said...

Don't look at me. I was the one arguing that Rebecca Romijn-then-Stamos was Best Actress that year.

Anonymous said...

I was trying to guess who the "he" would be before the clip was reposted -- my first guess was Chad Everett, second was Quaid/Haysbert, third was Ruffalo. I'll bet that Watts is still to place on the list -- and maybe Linney, too -- but I'd rather see Moore top them both. She did wonderful work here.

Anonymous said...

Will there be some sort of official or unofficial "beat MuseMalade" contest wherein people try to guess the top 5?

md'a said...

Re: Moore. One thing to note is that she's now placed in both Decade polls, having finished 4th ten years ago for her performance in Safe. (Though I voted for her in Vanya on 42nd Street myself.) Very few actors—or directors, over on the Best Picture side—achieved that honor.

Re: Contest. I hadn't thought of holding one since there are only two categories, but if anyone feels like playing, e-mail me your guesses for the top five in both. If I get enough responses I'll declare a winner.

md'a said...

Also, I had a really tough time finding what I felt was a good clip for this performance, as it's super-reactive. (Not at all a bad thing, just not the stuff of Big Moments.) I ended up watching almost half the film trying to find something I liked. Not that that was torturous or anything.

Greg said...

And in the Best Plaid Jacket category, we have our winner in a walk.

Moore has ruled for rather a while now, hasn't she?

Private Joker said...

Goddammit, I just re-watched You Can Count on me this year and I still forgot about Linney for my ballot. Anon's post reminded me. She is sure to be the first of about a dozen omissions I'll remember over the next three weeks of this.

Sam's Myth said...

A general question to Skandie voters that has interested me:

When looking back on the decade in film and placing your votes, how important was it to you, if at all, to re-watch the film(s)?

Another way of looking at it: What has more weight -- the impact the film had on you at the time, the impact the film has had on you since, or the impact that the film has/could have on you watching it today?

I've found that a lot of films I once loved may have had an important role in my development as a film-watcher, yet don't stand up as well watching them years later compared to others. Their meaning to me is less timeless, though nonetheless valuable.

This of course opens up the whole can of worms, asking if these are your personal favorite films or the films you consider to be the best, or ideally both... But thought I'd ask in case anyone wants to comment on their thought-processes.

Bilge Ebiri said...

Sam, in my case I didn't really have any time to watch any of the films again, but almost all of the films on my shortlist were films I'd watched more than once -- and usually more than twice -- already. (With, I believe, one humongous exception.) So I felt fairly secure in my judgments.

However, this was mostly for the Picture category. The Performance category, sadly, was a bit more ad hoc for me. I'm sure I had some horrific omissions there. I tremble.

Froilan said...

For performances I went over my lists and the group results then tried to watch possible contenders that I hadn't seen. But, like Bilge, I didn't rewatch movies since, with one exception, I had already seen the ones on my shortlist at least twice.

md'a said...

I've found that a lot of films I once loved may have had an important role in my development as a film-watcher, yet don't stand up as well watching them years later compared to others.

Sam, I forget (if I ever knew) how old you are, but my own formative days are pretty well behind me. There are plenty of films that fall into the above category for me, but they're films I saw around 1984-1990 or so, when I was 16-22. I was 32 in 2000, and by then my taste was well-enough set that I'd be unlikely to look back and have a what-was-I-thinking experience. If I did it would much more likely involve loving a film I'd once hated.

Ryan said...

Didn't rewatch anything. I imagine if I'd watch my 25 favorite movies of the decade, the list would look a bit different than the one I submitted. My 90s list would probably look quite different because my views and sensibility have evolved substantialy since 1991, but my 2001 self, I'd give that guy the car keys, no prob.

Performances, just went through my ballots and went with the ones thatu resonated with me the most as of 8/2009. As it so happens, Ms. Moore was my number 1 of the decade. So good job 4 or whatever number of voters.

Victor said...

I didn't rewatch anything, specifically for the poll.

For the films, I see all my annual Top 10-or-contender films at least twice at the time, and if it's a serious decade-contender, more often than that, just for the pleasure of the film, if nothing else. I've seen MEMENTO, I think, 13 times -- 10 in theaters at the time. The only film I gave points to that I've seen as few as twice was SILENT LIGHT -- which I just can't imagine watching at home.

For the actors, it was a much harder call because you've gotta combined four categories that you kept apart at the time. But I went entirely with "what has stayed with me" when I looked over the short list of contenders on the day I devoted to it. Plus a few "auteur" votes -- one for the decade's greatest actor overall, one for the greatest director of actors overall.

Joshua said...

I didn't participate in the 2000s decade poll. However, I did participate in the 1990s decade poll, and I didn't go back and rewatch anything at the time.