Johnny Simmons

Twister is giving his opinion of the five worst Best Actress winners. It got me thinking of our love of ranking. Not because X amount of actresses are the worst of 80 means that their performances are bad. Of the four acting categories, even though I have hated the winners quite often. There are reasons Oscars pick who they pick. Strangely, I agree with none of

And I’m not saying these five persons are bad...although some of them...they are just my LEAST favourite.

I’m not a huge Alfred Hitchock fan, and I suppose I have not seen enough of his films…but I can say that this is one of his worst films. The discordant tone of this film edging between drama, suspense and comedy is annoying and Joan Fontaine’s performance is just not very good. And to add to it, Cary Grant plays his role as if he’s C.K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story and she seems to still think that she’s in Rebecca. It’s not a good performance at all, and the revelation at the end just makes her acting look even more insipid that it seemed before. Without a doubt my least favourite Best Actress win. I really don’t care who should have won – but I don’t see how any of the five could have been worse than this horrific trifle.

                       

After Ms. Fontaine, I can’t say that I think any of the winners were as horrible. Some just were not as good as others…they include

                         

Katharine Hepburn reportedly turned down this role. I don’t know if that true, I’m sure she wouldn’t have done well in the role. But for that matter neither did Ginger Rogers. Ginger Rogers is a hit or miss with me and this is a miss. This film is incessantly trivial and her performance is thus. It’s not that hard to see why she won – it’s one of those baity female roles. But ugh, so trivial. She does nothing to elevate the material.

                                         

One of the many films I looked at only because it had Oscar in it. This is another performance that screams baity – and that’s why she won. I figure many won’t agree with this, but I don’t see anything outstanding in this performance. And I when I found out she beat out Glenn Close AND Sigourney Weaver. Not right, not right. I’m not one to hate on a performance just because it beat out a favourite of mine. I mean Gwyneth Palthrow beat out Cate in Elizabeth…and Cate was unequivocally my favourite that year. But Gwyneth was fine, I just didn’t want her winning. Jodie’s performance though, I don’t think it’s very good and I didn’t want her winning.

The next two performances are fine…but

          

This performance is just okay, for me. And though I don’t hate it, I hate who that she beat out a deserving winner. Helena Bonham Carter, Helena Bonham Carter, Helena Bonham Carter. This movie is not a favourite of mine, other than Jack Nicholson and Greg Kinnear’s performance I wasn’t blown over by Helen. The performance is terrifically one note and sometimes she just seems shrill. No, Oscar...just no.

I write this in trepidation since Danny loves this performance… this actually made my top ten of Actresses that year, but there are MANY reasons I hate this performance. First, I think the lack of subtlety spoiled this for me. We get it, Maggie is an angel and her hillbilly family are undeserving of her. But there was no layering of character. I don’t like Hilary Swank as a star and I didn’t see her disappear in this role. What I saw was Hilary Swank playing Maggie…and it annoyed the crap out of me that everyone lauded the performance…and it’s not just because Annette Bening didn’t win either. Although I was emotionally invested in Bening that year many actors were more deserving – Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Imelda Staunton, even Julia Roberts. And this just was not a very good performance as far as I could see.

I'm anticipating disagreement. So have at it...I want to know who's your worst. Shout it out!