Hours away from the Oscar broadcast, I wanted to recognize a couple of actresses in movies I've watched recently who nearly stole the show - playing "straight men" women -- from their more celebrated and more glitzy fellow actors. Rosemarie Dewitt (above), from TV's "Mad Men" (which I've never seen), held her own versus more flamboyant sister (Oscar-nominated) Anne Hathaway and dark mother Debra Winger in Jonathan Demme's marvelous "Rachel Getting Married." Rebecca Hall, who we'd seen several years ago in a more tragic role in "The Prestige," also held her own vs. (Oscar-nominated) rival Penelope Cruz and friend/rival Scarlett Johansson (along recent Oscar winner Javier Bardem, pictured with Hall below) in Woody Allen's breezy but brilliant "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
In a lighter and more glamorous role, Hall (also below) went on this year to also practically steal the show from (Oscar-nominated) Frank Langella and beau Michael Sheen, in Ron Howard's subtlely sophisticated (Oscar-nominated) "Frost/Nixon."
And speaking of actresses stealing the show from celebrated co-stars, one has to mention the brief monologue by half-Korean actress Moon Bloodgood - with Robert DeNiro (pictured below) in this fall's confused but interesting "What Just Happened."
Good luck at the mike, Hugh!
-- Perry
2 comments:
Speaking of unheralded performances, the scariest performance I saw this year was Colin Farrell as a family man and very bad police officer in last fall's harrowing "Pride and Glory."
And the absolutely funniest performance of the year: Tom Cruise - completely unrecognizable in "Tropic Thunder."
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