Big in one decade, gone in the next...

A system of cells interlinked

07-06-07

Man.... What a thread.... Awesome work, Holden!

Mad rep for you!

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Bill

He's Cuckoo

07-06-07

Holden.. you are brillant. I'm impressed.

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Phntmbanana

Mr.Banana

07-07-07

+rep

The Prestige

Now, where was I?

07-21-07

Lots of reps for this man indeed! That was pretty extensive and rightly so. I was happy to see Steve Guttenberg on the list. I remember him when I was a kid in that Short Circuit film! Nostalgic! But yeah, excellent thread.

Could I mention Arnold Schznegger being big in the 90s and not doing much in this decade?

kaizerdufrane

Registered User

07-22-07

Originally Posted by BobbyB

GREAT job Holden!!!

I still think Caan should have won the Oscar for The Godfather.

One guy I'm afraid may be slipping into a similar category is Kevin Spacey.

i can see what you mean because he hasnt made a "brilliant" movie since american beauty which was in 1999

but he has made some good ones for example pay it forward, the life of david gale , the big kahuna

life of david gale being most recent which was 2003

i think hell find his next brilliant script soon enough

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7thson

AMC Ape

07-22-07

Nice Thread,

I really want to see Elliott Gould shine again, this voice over stuff is not his thing IMO.

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��st��y

Yuck Fou!!!

08-23-07

Originally Posted by The Prestige

Could I mention Arnold Schwarzenegger being big in the 90s and not doing much in this decade?

Arnold Schwarzenegger

That may be more of a toss-up between the 80's, and 90's. Although Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994),and possibly Total Recall (1990) were really popular movies in the 90's, In the 80's he had Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Terminator (1984), Predator (1987), and possibly The Running Man (1987). I can't swear how popular all of these films were, or some of his others, for that matter, but it is a pretty even split. Also, I like more of his films than I have listed, but as far as ratings go, I don't believe the others did anywhere near as good.

Kathleen Turner

In my opinion, the 80's were her best. From what I have seen, her best films were Body Heat (1981), The Man with Two Brains (1983), Romancing the Stone (1984), The Accidental Tourist (1988), and The War of the Roses (1989). These are all great movies.
I have never had the desire to watch Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). I'm not even sure how popular it was/is. The Jewel of the Nile (1985) is watchable, in my opinion, but no where near as good as Romancing the Stone. I haven't watched Prizzi's Honor (1985) in forever. If memory serves, it was decent enough, but the simple fact that I haven't re-watched it, in over 10 years, says something. Maybe I will watch it again this weekend, before I say for sure. I've never heard of these next 3 films. A Breed Apart (1984), in all honesty, sounds a little boring. That's a shame, too, because it also stars Rutger Hauer, Donald Pleasance, and Powers Boothe. As we all know, just because you love the cast, doesn't mean the movie will be any good. I may still give it a try though, because of the cast. Crimes of Passion (1984) also sounds rather boring. It may be a little odd, watching Anthony Perkins playing a Reverend. I'm not too sure that I can get past picturing Norman Bates when it comes to him. Giulia e Giulia (1987), on the other hand, sounds as though it may be good. It is starring Gabriel Byrne, who is a favorite of mine. It is also co-starring Sting, who is not a favorite . . . Now, for Switching Channels (1988). This movie cover is driving me crazy . . .

I know I have at least seen this cover, but I can't remember watching it. I can't imagine forgetting it, if I have seen it, with it also starring Christopher Reeve, Burt Reynolds, and Ned Beatty. Maybe it was so damn bad, I have forced myself to forget. If any of you have seen this one, share your opinion. It is driving me crazy.

Now, although I swear that her best work is in the 80's, even with a few that were not so hot, and a few others that I have yet to see, I will bring notice to two of her films from the 90's. V.I. Warshawski (1991), and Serial Mom (1994), are two other favorites of mine. I really enjoyed both. As far as the other's that she has made since the 80's, I will admit that I haven't seen many, but that was usually by choice, after viewing the trailers. All in all, in my opinion, the 80's were her best.

p.s. I am rushing. Ignore the mess.

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Last edited by ��st��y; 05-11-08 at 08:01 PM. Reason: Yep, I was rushing! Broken links, now!

Holden Pike

One Ornery Sumbitch

08-23-07

Originally Posted by ��st��y

Now, for Switching Channels (1988). This movie cover is driving me crazy . . .

Switching Channels is a cheap disasterous remake of one of the greatest and most timeless Romantic Comedies ever made: His Girl Friday (1940). Burt is in the Cary Grant role (HA!), Turner Rosalind Russell's, and Reeve the Ralph Bellamy part. Ned Beatty is the stand-in for the Mayor, and Henry Gibson is the escaped convict. Howard Hawks and Chuck Lederer had a serious stroke of genius when they took the great Hecht & MacArthur play The Front Page (which has also been made into a couple movies, including the 1974 version directed by Billy Wilder starring Lemmon & Matthau) and infusing it with sex and romance by changing Hildy Johnson to a woman! What Ted Kotcheff and company did to it with Switching Channels is downright criminal! The setting has been updated to a Ted Turner-like satellite news network rather than a newspaper, and the finale has the convict hiding in a Xerox machine rather than a roll-top desk, but the real problem is that every ounce of charm, wit, and humor has been completely stripped. For the love of Pete, avoid Switching Channels at all costs!

Now, for anybody who's never seen His Girl Friday for some reason, get thee to a rentery immediately!!! It's one of the most joyous and endlessly entertaining pieces of cinema ever created. You can thank me later.

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Last edited by Holden Pike; 01-09-18 at 08:42 AM.

nebbit

Registered User

08-24-07

Originally Posted by ��st��y

Crimes of Passion (1984) also sounds rather boring. It may be a little odd, watching Anthony Perkins playing a Reverend. I'm not too sure that I can get past picturing Norman Bates when it comes to him.

Trust me his character is more like Norman Bates than a Reverend

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Holden Pike

One Ornery Sumbitch

11-01-07

Kelly McGillis

For much of the '80s, Kelly McGillis was one of the hottest, most in-demand actresses in Hollywood. She has a terrific debut in Reuben, Reuben (1983). That was Tom Conti's movie, he was rightly nominated for a Best Actor Oscar as the depressed alcoholic writer, but as great as he was the true find in the production was the twenty-six-year-old McGillis. Her next film was Witness (1985), another Oscar-nominated film that had a kind of mainstream popularity Reuben didn't. As the Amish woman unwillingly drawn into the modern world when her young son sees a murder in the Philadelphia train station and their alliance with the big city cop (Harrison Ford) who must protect them and himself when he realizes the identity of the murderers, Kelly's performance is charming and real, and the forbidden romance brewing between her and Ford's characters is believable and memorable. This pretty blonde young woman from Newport Beach truly became Amish on the screen. Her next film, while no prestigious art piece, is the mega-successful Top Gun (1986) which caught a wave of Regan-era rah-rah sentiment as well as some terrificly sexy footage of fighter jets, a M-TV sensibility and soundtrack and the anointing of Tom Cruise as a box office superstar. McGillis as the civilian instructor "Maverick" woos has a sexiness completely different from the Amish woman of Witness, and although Top Gun is pretty silly stuff she lends some credibility to the romantic subplot.

I'm sure after the back-to-back success of Witness and especially Top Gun she had no shortage of scripts to choose from. But rather than take the safe, star-building route that easy genre pictures and formula romantic comedies might have brought, she went a different way. Alan Rudolph's quirky afterlife romance Made in Heaven (1987) and Peter Yates' '50s period thriller The House on Carroll Street (1988) did not even enjoy the success of Reuben, Reuben, much less the blockbuster she had been associated with. It was her next film, the drama The Accused (1988) that thrust her back into an Oscar-nominated film. Kelly pursued the film about a woman who is raped and then must suffer through another trauma when she gets involved in the legal process. McGillis had survived a brutal attack and rape committed by two men who broke into her apartment in 1982, so the subject was an important one for her. Though she was offered the role of the woman who is raped, she found it too painful to even think about playing the victim, so she took the role of the woman's lawyer. Jodie Foster got the role of the brutalized woman and won her first Oscar for it.

Kelly was really at the top of the business and on every director's short list. But it was at this point in her career she turned back to the stage, starring in Shakespeare and others, and then decided even to cut back on that to raise her family (she now has two daughters). She did continue to show up in films now and again into the 1990s, but they were almost exclusively smaller independent projects and later made-for-TV movies that allowed her to spend as much time as possible with her kids rather than keep running on the Hollywood treadmill. But in the 1980s, there were fewer female stars as hot as Kelly McGillis.

nebbit

Registered User

11-14-07

Thanks Holden

Lennon

Will your system be alright, when you dream of home tonight?

02-11-08

Originally Posted by Holden Pike

Jimmy Caan

The White man's afro. The chest hair. The machismo. James Caan was a superstar in the '70s. He started with some really good supporting roles in the '60s, including the claustrophobic thriller Lady in a Cage (1964) terrorizing Olivia de Havilland, riding sawed-off shotgun in the Howard Hawks oater El Dorado (1966) with Duck Wayne and Bob Mitchum, and with Robert Duvall and Shirley Knight in Coppola's understated The Rain People (1969). Then came his time to shine.

In '71 he suited up as the tragic Brian Piccolo to Billy Dee Williams' Gale Sayers in the made-for-TV flick "Brian's Song". And while that raised his profile a bit, he became a true household name as part of the ensemble of The Godfather (1972 - Coppola). Playing the hot-headed, philandering Sonny Corleone who is gunned down at a tollbooth on the causeway, Caan rode the phenomenal success of the film like everybody else involved, and he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor with his co-stars Pacino and Duvall (Joel Grey in Cabaret won out over all of them). Next he starred in the gritty low-key romance Cinderella Liberty (1973 - Mark Rydell) as a sailor involved with Marsha Mason's hooker and her young son who he bonds with. Caan followed that with The Gambler (1974 - Karl Reisz) as an addict for action who keeps on spiraling downward trying to hit more and more dangerous longshots (love the final shot as he looks at himself bloody in the mirror of that cheap Harlem whorehouse). Sonny's brutal killing in the first flick left him out of all but a flashback scene in The Godfather Part II (1974), but that year he co-starred with Alan Arkin in one of the early attempts at the cop buddy genre in Freebie & the Bean (1974 - Richard Rush), and though it suffers from some tone problems the chemistry between him and Arkin is top notch.

He signed on to romance and bicker with Streisand in her Fanny Brice sequel Funny Lady (1975 - Herbert Ross), but there was no charm in that one. That year also found him in the near-future corporate bloodsport of Rollerball (1975 - Norman Jewison) and a double-crossed espionage expert in Sam Peckinpah's convoluted mess The Killer Elite (1975). He intersects with Mr. Gould in that period comedy I like but nobody else seems to (especially when it was released) called Harry & Walter Go to New York (1976 - Mark Rydell), also co-starring Diane Keaton and Michael Caine. He too joined Gould and Ryan O'Neal to A Bridge Too Far (1977 - Attenborough). Jimmy also stars in Frenchman Claude Lelouch's odd Western-set drama Another Man, Another Chance (1977) with Genevi�ve Bujold emigrating to the American frontier. But none of these projects were making any money or garnering the kind of critical acclaim he had just after The Godfather. Pakula's Comes a Horseman (1978) with Caan part of a love triangle with Jane Fonda and Jason Robards is another one I like much more than its reputation, but it didn't help kick-start his sagging career. He's actually quite good in Chapter Two (1979 - Robert Moore), standing in for Neil Simon in the story of how the playwrite made the difficult transition falling in love again after the death of his wife, with Marsha Mason in essence playing herself. But while Mason got an Oscar nomination (losing to Sally Field as Norma Rae), Caan did not make the cut.

The '80s opened with Jimmy trying to take a hold of things himself, starring in and making his directorial debut with Hide in Plain Sight (1980). It's competently helmed, and Caan is good as the man searching for his family, but yet again it didn't score at the boxoffice. He's very strong in Michael Mann's directorial debut Thief (1981), but it doesn't propel him back tot he A-list. He finishes up this period of his career with Lelouch's epic Bolero (1981) and a flat Neil Simon-wannabe romantic comedy Kiss Me Goodbye (1982 - Robert Mulligan) as a ghost haunting his ex Sally Field and her new lover Jeff Bridges.

Then he retired for about five years. He resurfaced at the end of the '80s in Coppola's Gardens of Stone (1987), where he gives a decent performance but the movie doesn't quite come together. Then he tried to see if he'd fit in the Sci-Fi action genre that was so damned popular by then with Alien Nation (1988). It's mid-level Sci-Fi, but Mandy Patinkin and Terence Stamp really steal the movie under make-up playing two of the alien Visitors, and the movie does mild business. Caan's real comeback is in Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's Misery (1990) as a trapped novelist imprisoned and tortured into bringing back a favorite character of an obsessed fan. Kathy Bates won the Oscar as the nutball, and Caan doesn't really have another lead role afterwards. Throughout the '90s he does become a steadily working character actor, and sometimes he flashes some of the star-quality brilliance that made him in the '70s (see especially the finale of Lars von Trier's Dogville - wow!). But oh to be back in the era of open shirts and gold chains matted in handfuls of chest hair....

You forgot ELF

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rufnek

Registered User

02-21-08

Great thread, Pike! I know a lot of folks out there loved Gould in films like MASH and The Long Goodbye, but for some reason I never could stand the guy! It wasn't so much his acting or the parts he played--it was almost a personal dislike, although I never met the fellow. It was like he was the personification of everything I disliked about the 1960s--maybe he reminded me of someone I knew in the Army or in college, I dunno. The only picture he made that I almost liked was Little Murders, but maybe that was Arkin's direction.

rufnek

Registered User

02-21-08

Originally Posted by Holden Pike

Starting with the violent pimp in Klute (1971 - Pakula), then the partner in The French Connection (1972 - Friedkin) - netting Roy a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Academy Awards, just as good starring in its Hackman-less unofficial sequel The Seven-Ups (1973 - Philip D'Antoni), to the underseen The Outside Man (1972 - Jacques Deray), and a little cult flick probably nobody ever heard of called Jaws (1975), Roy Scheider was incredibly successful in the first half of the 1970s. And he stayed pretty damn hot with Marathon Man (1976 - Schlesinger), Billy Friedkin's decent but panned reworking of Wages of Fear called Sorcerer (1977), begrudgingly signing on for only the first sequel in Jaws 2 (1978) - which still managed to do healthy boxoffice despite the fall-off in quality, Jonathan Demme's solid Hitchcock ode Last Embrace (1979) and capping it off with Bob Fosse's thinly-veiled nightmare-stylized autobiography All That Jazz (1979) which even earned him an Oscar nomination as Best Actor (the year Marathon Man co-star Hoffman finally won for Kramer vs. Kramer). By just about any standard, that was a monster decade for an actor. . . . I think he's fantastic in The Russia House (1990 - Fred Schepisi), Naked Lunch (1991 - Cronenberg) and Romeo is Bleeding (1993 - Peter Medak)
Sad. He was way frickin' cool back in the day.

I agree--Scheider was spectacular in The French Connection, The Seven-Ups, All That Jazz and Romeo is Bleeding, my favorites of his films. Jaws wasn't my cup of tea, but Scheider was a standout in his role.

kcurrin

Registered User

03-03-08

This is a great thread!

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FernTree

Colour out of Time

05-07-08

For me this amazing actress should have become a household name.

Susannah York

English actress who with her fair hair and sparkling blue eyes some touted her as the next big Hollywood leading lady of the 60's and 70's. However instead of playing the more conventional roles which would have ensured this, she enjoyed experimenting (even when uncomfortable with the role) with more off beat and psychologically complex characters.

She starred in some great films of various genres and worked with a veritable who's who in acting which include ...

Tunes of Glory (1960) as Morag Sinclair with Alec Guinness and John Mills.
Freud (1962) as Cecily Koertner with Montgomery Clift.
Tom Jones (1963) as Sophie Weston opposite Albert Finney.
A Man for All Seasons (1966) as Margaret More with Orson Welles and John Hurt.
Kaleidoscope (1966) Angel McGinnis as with Warren Beatty.
Sebastian (1968) as Elsa Shahn with Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud and Nigel Davenport.
The Killing of Sister George (1968) a controversial film as the lesbian Alice 'Childie' McNaught, a role she hated doing.
Duffy (1968) as Segolene with James Colburn and James Mason.
The Battle of Britain (1969) as section officer Maggie Harvey with Michael Caine.
Country Dance (1969) another non-main stream role as Hilary Dow with Peter O'Toole.
Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969) as Hilaret with Christopher Plummer.
They Shoot Horses Don't They? (1969) as Alice LeBlanc with Jane Fonda. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (she snubbed the award ceremony).
Images (1971) as the Schizophrenic housewife Cathryn, where she won Best Actress at Cannes.
Zee and Co. (1972) as Stella with Elizabeth Taylor.
Eliza Fraser (1976) in the title role with Trevor Howard and all the great Aussie's of that era.
The Shout (1978) as Rachel Fielding with Tim Curry and Alan Bates.
Superman (1978) as Lara (superman's mother) with Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman.
The Awakening (1980) as Jane Turner with Chalton Heston.
Superman II (1980) again as Lara.
Loophole (1981) as Dinah Booker with Martin Sheen.
Yellowbeard (1983) as Lady Churchill with Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Cheech and Chong, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Spike Milligan.
Superman IV (1987) the recurring role, but unfortunate flop of a movie.
The Higher Mortals (1993) as Miss Thorogood with John Altman.

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nebbit

Registered User

05-08-08

I was a fan of hers

FernTree

Colour out of Time

05-08-08

Grace Kelly
12th November 1929 - 14th September 1982.

Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a rich irish Catholic family. Her on screen career lasted a mere six years from 1951 to 1956. She was the top female box-office star of 1954, her status as icon takes in an 11-film screen career and a glamorous later life as Princess of Monaco. More than any other star, she was in three memorable films the quintessential Hitchcock blonde, delineating traits of cool beauty, depths of hidden passion, intelligence, playfulness and style, in short, the qualities that led biographer James Spada to call her �the pious man's Marilyn.�
To Hitchcock, Kelly was the perfect heroine and had what he described as "sexual elegance."
Yet Grace Kelly also showed her versatility and won her acting honors for playing against type in the title role in the grimly realistic movie The Country Girl. Grace Kelly was a classic beauty, a public figure, and serious actress representative of an era.

Fourteen Hours (1951) as Mrs. Louise Ann Fuller with Agnes Moorehead.

High Noon (1952) as Amy Fowler Kane with Gary Cooper and Lloyd Bridges.

Mogambo (1953) as Linda Nordley with Clarke Gable, Ava Gardner and Donald Sinden.

Dial M for Murder (1954) as Margot Mary Wendice, her first Hitchcock film where her costumes started bright and colourful which progressively darkened to fit the plot. She was nominated for BAFTA Best Foreign Actress.

Rear Window (1954) as Lisa Carol Fremont, her second Hitchcock film with James Stewart and Raymond Burr.

The Country Girl (1954) as Georgie Elgin with Bing Crosby and William Holden. She was nominated for a BAFTA Best Foreign Actress and won a Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama and an Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Oscar winners Grace Kelly and Marlon Brando pose with their statuettes on March 30, 1955.

Green Fire (1954) as Catherine Knowland with Stewart Granger.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) as Nancy Brubaker with William Holden and Mickey Rooney.

To Catch a Thief (1955) as Frances Stevens, her third Hitchcock film with Carey Grant.

The Swan (1956) as Princess Alexandra with Alec Guiness and Agnes Moorehead.

High Society (1956) as Tracy Samantha Lord with Bing Crosby and Frank Sanatra. Grace earned a Gold Record for her duet with Bing Crosby in the song "True Love".

Grace Kelly ended her acting career on 19th April 1956 when she married Prince Rainier III and became princess of Monaco. The couple had three children - Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie--and remained devoted to each other and their family.

Sadly, Princess Grace died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. She and her daughter Stephanie were driving on a winding road at Cap-d'Ail in the C�te d'Azur region of France when Princess Grace suffered a stroke and lost control of the car, which plunged down a 45-foot (13.7-metre) embankment.

Grace with hubby in her trade-mark scarf look.

Independent film maker Robert Dornhelm was directing Rearranged (1982) which starred Grace Kelly with Edward Meeks. The film was in mid filming when she died and therefore never finished. Prince Rainer did not want to release the film which was about 60 minutes long at that stage.

Princess Grace personfied beauty, class, and glamour and will never be forgotten by her fans and subjects.

Holden Pike

One Ornery Sumbitch

05-08-08

Yes, well Grace is a special case, obviously. It's no mystery why her career trajectory stopped abruptly. She did walk away from an A-list career, which is pretty interesting, but had she never married Rainier and then obviously not been driving that winding road that fateful day years later, I wonder what path her career would have taken in the 1960s and into the 1970s?

She was still in demand, and even though the culture and industry were about to take big shifts she was only twenty-seven when she left the business in 1956 and clearly was a stunning beauty until the day she died. I think as an Oscar-winning gorgeous actress she would have continued to have many different kinds of opportunities and there's a good chance her career wouldn't have petered out but that she would have remained an A-list star for certainly into the mid 1960s, and if she gravitated towards the right kinds of material and directors even beyond.

She's a special case. And why was that James Dean guy so big in the mid '50s, but then he, like, disappeared? And to make breakfast sausage, which is just weird.

Sedai