Meryl Streep - 📽️ The River Wild (Curtis Hanson, 1994) It’s like seeing a mirror universe where Streep thrives as action star, adeptly outthinking a wily and murderous Kevin Bacon. Her strained marriage storyline with David Strathairn would sink a lesser movie, but they give it such sexy sincerity.
Rosalind Russell - 📽️ Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955) The fast-talking comedy icon lent her talent to one of the strangest and messiest major semi-melodramas. Having her to ground its most desperately sad subplot saves the film from a descent into nonsense. She has a great dynamic with Arthur O’Connell.
Laura Dern - 📽️ Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra, 1985) Dern unsurprisingly crushed her first leading role as the bored, flirtatious teen Connie. Her tête-à-tête through her front doorway with the suspicious Arnold Friend (a devilish Treat Williams) is a masterclass in tone, tension, and concealing fear.
Bonnie Hunt - 📽️ Only You (Norman Jewison, 1994) This confidant (to Marisa Tomei) is the platonic ideal of Hunt characters. She’s being charmed by a local (Joaquim de Almeida) in Italy during strain with her husband (Fisher Stevens) back home, a winsome B-plot with as much juice as the main story.
Zach Grenier - 📽️ Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) One’s of the great character actor faces, Grenier’s fun as Edward Norton’s jerkish, blackmailed boss. In terms of canonical 1999 satires, he’s an angrier contrast to the more celebrated Gary Cole in Office Space. Fincher gets him (see also: Zodiac).
Gong Li - 📽️ Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006) Mann’s thriller soars highest visually when it detours to a dreamlike romance between Colin Farrell and a divinely mysterious Gong. One of our finest actresses gets perhaps the best female showcase in the Mann oeuvre through this slow, strange flirtation.
Martin Lawrence - 📽️ The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine, 2019) Lawrence is so funny in an absurd character role as the incompetent dolphin tour guide who befriends Moondog (Matthew McConaughey). He has a coke-addicted parrot and Vietnam flashbacks, though he never served. Korine has hinted at a spinoff.
Marg Helgenberger - 📽️ Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) In a movie full of gripping and satisfying scenes, hers are my favourites. The victim testimonials give the movie its enraging/inspiring oomph, and she plays off Julia Roberts so well their characters essentially become loyal friends.
Setsuko Hara - 📽️ Early Summer (Yasujirō Ozu, 1951) One of the most emotive stars ever, Hara’s best role is in this middle-era Ozu about generational differences. Her blank reactions to meddling relatives trying to find her a match is a hook, given the power of her concealed million dollar smile.
RIP to Kris Kristofferson who was great in John Sayles’ all-time classic LONE STAR. And while I was never crazy about any version of A STAR IS BORN, I did quite like his truly committed batshit performance of a self-destructive singer in the 70s version.
YouTube video by Sazzad Salmoon