1978-1987 Best Supporting Actress Winners

[Sabin]

flipp525 wrote
I mean, no one has a gun to your head about it, Sabin (and I’m mostly just joking here). But California Suite does feature a very funny, Oscar-winning performance by Maggie Smith in which her character actually loses an Oscar.

I don’t know if it’s you MO per se, but I have noticed you talking about second and third viewings of the new fall offerings every year so there are several films every year you watch more than once (or, at least, report here that you do).

I took your humor, I was just curious. Yes, I watch quite a few older movies but I don't log them here like I should. I tend to log more on letterboxd and reserve my conversations here for Oscar prognostication, newer releases, and political doom-spiraling. I did do a big dump of those viewings on Latest Reviews a few weeks ago. I'll probably do that again once I get farther down the WGA list.

The movies that I grew up watching and loving don't really feel like they get made anymore like they used to. So, I get my kicks from older movies. Although to be fair, I am revisiting some older films as a form of comfort food from the real world as well as personal issues. I haven't put a strong focus on filling in blindspots in some time. I do take your point.

Unnecessary side note: I haven't personally owned a television of my own in over five years. It's certainly put a damper on my viewing habits. But today I went shopping for one which (when I settle on the model) will be the first entertainment unit purchased with money from being a full-time creative.

[Mister Tee]

flipp525 wrote
WHAT?!?

You need to stop watching new movies 2-3 times and check out these classics, sir . I would not even call them obscure or hard-to-find.

Is that my MO?
I watch fewer new movies than anyone I know. Currently I’m going through the list of WGA 101 best screenplays with my family. At no point did I think I had to watch California Suite.

Apart from the Smith/Caine segments, California Suite is borderline awful, so, no, there's no rush beyond Oscar-devotion to spend effort seeking it out.

The Year of Living Dangerously is actually a pretty mediocre movie, as well. However, Linda Hunt's performance was at the time considered spectacular. It presumably would now be viewed as inappropriate casting, for all sorts of cultural/gender reasons, but it's a terrific piece of acting.

A Passage to India is the one most worth seeing of the trio. It's got its now-winceworthy cultural issues as well (Alec Guinness was close to an embarrassment even in 1984). But this was the film that won best film from NY Critics and NBR. When David Lean got a "welcome back, grand master" Time Magazine cover in December, I thought the film was unstoppable for the best picture Oscar. (In spite of finding it a bit musty, myself -- "colonialism is bad" wasn't exactly a daring stance even during the Reagan years.) Amadeus not only overtaking it but basically trouncing it at the Oscars was the first real assertion that the LA Critics could rule over the long-established NY group. (You could make a case it was The Killing Fields that ran second rather than Passage, given its cinematography/editing prizes to go with its acting trophy) In any case, it's still a worthy film to track down, and Ashcroft is pretty much perfect.

[flipp525]

I mean, no one has a gun to your head about it, Sabin (and I’m mostly just joking here). But California Suite does feature a very funny, Oscar-winning performance by Maggie Smith in which her character actually loses an Oscar.

I don’t know if it’s you MO per se, but I have noticed you talking about second and third viewings of the new fall offerings every year so there are several films every year you watch more than once (or, at least, report here that you do).

[Sabin]

flipp525 wrote
WHAT?!?

You need to stop watching new movies 2-3 times and check out these classics, sir . I would not even call them obscure or hard-to-find.

Is that my MO?
I watch fewer new movies than anyone I know. Currently I’m going through the list of WGA 101 best screenplays with my family. At no point did I think I had to watch California Suite.

[flipp525]

Haven't seen California Suite, The Year of Living Dangerously, or A Passage to India so I can't vote.

WHAT?!?

You need to stop watching new movies 2-3 times and check out these classics, sir . I would not even call them obscure or hard-to-find.

[flipp525]

Both Maggie Smith in California Suite, who won the 1978 award, and Geraldine Page in Interiors, who contended but was nominated in lead, were considered in both lead and supporting categories. BAFTA reversed the two, giving Page its Supporting Actress award with Smith losing to Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome when eligible the following year. I considered them both supporting, but would have preferred Page this year.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this at the time, but back in 2017, I was dining at the Ivy in London and there were all sorts of celebrities in the restaurant that night for some reason. Maggie Smith was dining with Samantha Bond (Rosamund in Downton Abbey) and Maggie and I were both kind of hanging around the bar area after dinner. I came up to her and told her how much of a fan I was and that I loved her in California Suite. Her immediate reaction was, “THAT movie?!?” To which I quickly responded, “Well you did win an Oscar for it!” She and I both laughed. “That’s true,” she said. She was really lovely and funny.

I also had the chance to meet Hannah Waddingham that night who is simply breathtaking in person and so, so nice. As you know, she just won an Emmy for Ted Lasso.

[Mister Tee]

I've been a little busy of late, and have mostly just cast a vote rather than comment. But here, I find it almost impossible to make a choice. Why? Because the list is so exceptional. The lowest-rated of this set of 10 deserves at least a Very Good. And picking the best? It's more revealing of one's own taste, rather than any objective selection.

The closest I can come to making such a choice? I'd say it's someone in the 1983-86 run -- perhaps as fine a stretch of consecutive winners as any category has ever had. And it's not like Dukakis the following year does anything to interrupt the excellence; merely that, to me, Hunt/Ashcroft/Huston/Wiest was a series of such indisputably deserving, Oscar-worthy-in-any-year winners that it's impossible for me to narrow it down to just one of them.

[Reza]

In order: Maggie, Ashcroft, Huston, Weist, Hunt, Dukakis, Steenburgen, Stapleton, Streep, Lange.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
You could vote for your favorite now and change it later if you want.

Oh, I think it's going to be a minute before I see A Passage to India so I'll just hold out.

[Big Magilla]

You could vote for your favorite now and change it later if you want.

Dukakis was my second choice behind Ashcroft.

In order: Ashcroft, Dukakis, Smith, Hunt, Huston, Streep, Wiest, Stapleton, Lange

[Sabin]

Haven't seen California Suite, The Year of Living Dangerously, or A Passage to India so I can't vote, but I agree this is a good crop of winners full of different performances. Going from Joanna Kramer to Lynda Dummar to Emma Goldman in just three years.

I'm sure everything changes when I finally plop down to see A Passage to India but right now I would lean towards Olympia Dukakis. Yes, she's given absolutely wonderful things to say but it's so hard to play exhausted in a compelling way.

[Big Magilla]

A very interesting group of winners in this category this decade.

Both Maggie Smith in California Suite, who won the 1978 award, and Geraldine Page in Interiors, who contended but was nominated in lead, were considered in both lead and supporting categories. BAFTA reversed the two, giving Page its Supporting Actress award with Smith losing to Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome when eligible the following year. I considered them both supporting, but would have preferred Page this year.

Up-and-comer Meryl Streep was the" it" girl of 1979 and the prohibitive favorite to win for Kramer vs. Kramer. None of the other nominees had a chance.

Mary Steenburgen brought charm to spare in 1980's Melvin and Howard and easily won her year.

Maureen Stapleton was considered overdue when she won for 1981's Reds.

Jessica Lange, having been nominated in lead for Frances and in support for Tootsie in 1982, was expected to win for the latter as no performer nominated in both categories had yet to fail to win in support. In position to upset was fellow first-time nominee Glenn Close in The World According to Garp, but alas, there was no upset and Close lost as she would her subsequent seven nominations to date.

Linda Hunt's still unique win for believably playing a male character in 1983's The Year of Living Dangerously still holds up admirably well.

Peggy Ashcroft's superb Mrs. Moore in David Lean's A Passage of India could have won either in lead as she did with the New York Film Critics, National Board of Review, BAFTA, and others, or here as she did with the Los Angeles Film critics and the Golden Globes. Hers was easily the best female performance of 1984 no matter which category that they were ultimately going to place her in.

Anjelica Huston, after years of trying to break through, finally gave a mesmerizing performance in her father's 1985 film, Prizzi's Honor, becoming the second family member directed by John Huston to win an Oscar following the 1948 win for his father, Walter Huston in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Dianne Wiest was terrific in Hannah and Her Sisters, but 1986 was the year for which I would have given Maggie Smith her second Oscar for A Room with a View.

Olympia Dukakis was wonderful in Moonstruck and richly deserved her win for 1987.

My vote goes to Ashcroft.