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knives wrote:If we're talking when Nolte should have won (and he should have several times over) my money is still on playing Boudu.

Except he was actually nominated for the Prince of Tides, unlike Down and Out in Beverly Hills! It would have been much harder to win for a film he wasn't nominated for (Though Bette Davis once almost pulled it off...)

Making it all the more an injustice. \:D/ (dear lord if this isn't the least obnoxious one)

I haven't seen Down And Out in a long time but I thought it was funny to observe that that character winds up in Tropic Thunder.

1969
Anne of the Thousand Days 1969's nominations, if one believes everyone's favorite Oscar book, were the result of one of the most shameful bought-and-sold, wine and dine, backdoor ambushes for Best Picture in Academy Award history. But the cumulative result of the five nominees doesn't turn out much better or worse than any other year, which is telling with regards to the entire concept of "the Oscars" as quality markers (as if there could be any doubt on this board after dozens of pages to the contrary in this and the other Oscar thread!). But even though this historical costume drama that no one really cared much for then (or now, it seems) still squeaked in with ten nominations, it could've happened to a far worse film (and has, trust me, before and since). I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this portrayal of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's doomed interplay, with much of the credit going to the three central performances in the film by Genevieve Bujold, Richard Burton, and Anthony Quayle (all three justly nommed), who fill in what could be polite proceedings with energy and vigor and, in the case of Bujold, a lovely feistiness as the doomed Queen who is forced into the relationship and gradually comes to see it as a means to an ends. There's some terrifically dark interplay between Bujold and Burton in the film's first half as they bring a quant naughtiness to what could have easily been polite entertainment. This one's place here is no embarrassment, and indeed I thought it to be five times the film last year's oddly revered the Lion in Winter was.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Arguably the only nominee from this year to retain widespread mass relevancy, this is still to my eyes a terminally weak film and a joke in this category. The stylistic blunders and needless obfuscations are there to distract from this being yet another interminable revisionist western, and like most such things, it doesn't age well. I like the two stars and I like westerns but I don't like whatever happened here.

Hello, Dolly! "Goodbye, shitty movie!" -- Only sane response after being driven slowly mad by this vanilla celebration of expensive looking nothingness, filled with horrible songs, poorly choreographed numbers filmed with zero imagination from gifted individuals who should know better. Streisand is miscast and Matthau is simply imitating poorly Paul Ford's signature portrayal of his character from the 1958 adaptation. And the performances by those not above the title are so gobsmackingly awful that it's unimaginable how they could have ever been allowed to transpire-- Was no one on this set willing to point out that you shouldn't populate a big budget musical with overacting muggers who wouldn't make callbacks at summer stock? If for some reason you'd prefer to see a good film using the same source material, for the love of god seek out Joseph Anthony's brilliant the Matchmaker, which is hilarious and well-acted and true entertainment. The only word from that sentence which could also describe this film is "Well..."

Midnight Cowboy An easy film to like, with charismatic central performances by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two unlucky and unlikely friends who start the film circling the drain and end it fully engulfed. I was expecting something more uplifting or comic from its reputation, but was surprised at the downbeat and sad central narrative (and Hoffman's pathetic Rizzo is really about as grotesque as is possible and still be sympathetic to a wide audience). This is a very good film (and unlike those who've posted so far in this thread, I enjoyed the "artsy" stylistic touches throughout) and while it wouldn't quite have my vote, this is a respectable choice by the Academy.

Z But this, this is the best film nominated this year (as is clear by the quorum thus far in ballots on this forum). A fast-paced and involving film of political corruption and conspiracies, Z is a movie both of its time and entirely prescient. What I remember most about this film is the sinking feeling in my stomach for the entire duration, as the injustices and inescapable outrages compound and intermingle and finally lead to a deceivingly "happy" ending before that brutal "newscast" finale, a sequence that may be the single greatest and most powerful use of epilogue in any film. This is a vital, entertaining, exciting, and great film, one that anticipates the mood American cinema will increasingly mimic as more and more became disillusioned with their own political prospects and questions. Unbelievably this film's placement here too was a product of extensive schmoozing of the Academy, but it was also apparently one of the highest grossing films of 1969 in America. So if it took some of the proceeds of the box office returns to get the Academy to see what the public already knew, that this is the most worthy film they could nominate (other than They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which managed nine nominations this year without a Best Pic spot), then good, fine. Studios and distros, if you can afford it, at least throw your money after a worthy cause and not your bloated financial disasters ***COUGH***Fox***COUGH***

My Vote Z

The best part of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is probably Hill's own call back to it in A Little Romance which is just a great, great movie. Lester's pseudo prequel is also really enjoyable to the point I like it more than the more revered film.

1998
Elizabeth A star vehicle for a talented young ingenue who had the misfortune of being nominated in a year where another ingenue already had it in the bag. Regardless, this is still the Cate Blanchett Show and while I enjoyed the typical period trappings and familiar royal intrigue, she's the only reason to give this a view (unless you, like me, have made a commitment to this list project-- maybe it can be like the Army: join up and I get $20!).

Since its sequel was included in the Blu-ray pack I bought, I figured what the heck and also watched Elizabeth: the Golden Age. That's right, as if there weren't enough films required to watch for this project, I even went out of the way for extra-credit. I will forever associate this film with Blanchett's embarrassed reaction at the ceremony when her clip from the film played during the Best Actress presentation, and that feeling of "What am I doing here? I'm sorry I'm here. Please don't hate me for being here" could describe the film as well. The Golden Age doesn't even bother to devote the screen-time to getting in as many Blanchett freakouts as possible, as for some reason equal screentime is given to Clive Owen and Abbie Cornish's bland romance, complete with sex scenes filmed, as in the first movie, with unironic attention and detail out of a Danielle Steel adaptation. If you ever wanted to watch Owen swing around a seafaring vessel like Eric from the Little Mermaid, then somehow the Elizabeth sequel is your movie! And only yours.

Life Is Beautiful The easiest parallel is also the most apt: this is the Great Dictator 2.0, with a gifted comedian performing physical humor amidst the dark circumstances of WWII. This sure sounded like tripe before I got around to seeing it but upon viewing I found the film almost totally lacking in treacle and the laughs, especially in the second half, bitter and suitably dark. There are moments of great sadness as the film goes on and it becomes clear that no matter how fantastical the narrative, the internal logic of the story being told can only lead to one inevitable outcome. This was of course the year Roberto Benigni went crazy on his way up to the podium, and while part of the reason he won the Best Actor trophy was the Academy wanting to see what crazy stunt he'd pull, to my surprise his win was merited: this is a warm and funny performance, made all the more impressive in its ballsiness. One step in the wrong direction and this would have been locked away in the vault next to Jerry Lewis' concentration camp film. Instead it's celebrated. That's a real feat.

Saving Private Ryan Well, outside of the inflated stature of its opening battle footage, the real meat of the film lies in the rest of the highly traditional war film he ended up making. Indeed, the homefront moments are all so inexplicably pitched to NutraSweet packet-levels of fakey sweetness that I think it was an intentional move on Spielberg's part to deflect some heat away from the generally pessimistic tone of the WWII movie he mostly made. As much as I enjoyed the majority of the film, which would fit right in with the post-WWII studio era's more gritty offerings in terms of narrative (if not content, obv), the film comes undone with its stupefyingly nonsensical, phony, bullshit wraparound device, one that hinges on a reveal that makes no narrative sense and leaves what had been a decent war flick with a less than fond farewell salute.

Shakespeare in Love Ah yes, the little film that could, the movie that swept an entire nation of viewers up in rapture at its young star, Joseph Fiennes. Seriously, between this and Elizabeth, who was working so hard this year to make him happen? His pretty-faced blandness is the weakest link here and it's sad to think of what a better film this could have been with almost anyone else in the role-- and that's a real shame, because against all odds this is the best film of the bunch, thanks almost solely to an actress who quickly worked herself into irrelevancy in the meantime. This movie is so clearly in the Roman Holiday, let's anoint a new star mode that it'd be totally shameless were its starlet not so deserving of the praise and attention she received. Watching this film erases all the treading-water baggage Gwyneth Paltrow brings with her in the present and I was simply charmed and delighted by her performance. Movies like this with such specific audience demands work only if they get the audience to fall for their subject, and, well, I fell. It's that simple, isn't it?

Yes, there are few tropes more annoying than "explain alleged biographical details from a known work of literature" (look at fellow Best Pic noms the Hours and the Life of Emile Zola for two particularly awful examples), but at least the film has the smarts to defile one of Shakespeare's worst plays for its silliness. What's more, the movie's bowdlerized on-screen adaptation is actually better than sitting through the real thing-- if any play was built for twenty minutes of excerpts, it's Romeo and Juliet! This doesn't get trotted out as much as it used to thanks to Crash taking the heat for biggest Best Picture upset (a title it will hold forever), but even though it was no-doubt aided in its usurpation by the Weinstein machine, the simple fact is: it was the best film nominated.

the Thin Red Line Mildly poetic minor work from Malick, the impact and import of which was blown-up and over-embelished thanks to it being the first slake after a decades-long thirst. The stories of all the wildly careening material that failed to make the final cut remain of greater interest than what ended up on-screen. This is, like every film nominated this year, at worst an okay film. But this one is the weakest shoulder shrug of the bunch.

My Vote Shakespeare in Love

For whatever reason, this year's ceremony/nominees/politics/&c is what I always think of when I think of the Academy Awards, so it was kinda nice to find myself not hating any of the five nominees for my go-to year!

If you want the extra credits on Life Is Beautiful I guess you could throw in Jakob The Liar!

And I think the best aspect of the first Elizabeth film was seeing Kathy Burke as Mary I!

colinr0380 wrote:If you want the extra credits on Life Is Beautiful I guess you could throw in Jakob The Liar!

No one wants brownie points that badly!

What about the East German version?

knives wrote:What about the East German version?

I've never seen the remake, but the original is fairly decent and would be a good fit for the 70s project.

1979
All That Jazz Typical syncopated editing and storytelling from Fosse, this time used to execute a no-doubt autobiographical study of the last days of a hard-living director of stage and film. There are some fine and flashy moments, and it's never dull, but Fosse goes to the same wells too often as the film enters its second half, and the endless stream of fantasy numbers offering commentary on the action by definition lose their novelty with each passing reiteration. It certainly belonged here more than the lousy Lenny did five years earlier, but not by much.

Apocalypse Now Classic Academy Awards move: Nominate the socially and artistically relevant film but don't give it the big prize. Hell, given the contentious production, it may have only ended up here in the fashion of the Sand Pebbles a decade earlier-- hey, it was tough but no one important died, here's some nominations! However, this remains one of the great works of filmic art and arguably the best film to tackle the impossible target of Vietnam. One of the reasons for its great success is that it perceptively tackles the war from an almost impressionistic vantage of barely contained insanity. No film has better captured the surreality of combat (maybe Come and See) while still filtering everything through aesthetically pleasing lenses. This is an odd year in that all five nominees have remained culturally relevant, but I'd place money on this one laying claim to that longest.

Breaking Away An intimate, fitfully entertaining portrayal of a small group of recent graduates who bum around Bloomington, Indiana doing not much in particular. The film's central figure fares best with his comic obsession with Italian culture and for whatever reason the Academy nominated Barbara Barrie for playing his patient mother but unbelievably didn't nom Paul Dooley as the kid's exasperated father. Dooley gives the universally recognized best performance in the film, snatching french fries and yammering on about "Ity" infiltrations while never crossing the line into actively stopping his son from following his whims. The rest of the cast fares okay (and Jackie Earle Haley's unappealing skin condition goes a long way towards explaining his post-Bad News Bears acting slump) and there are plenty of well-observed moments that make this a pleasant, if slight, experience.

Kramer vs Kramer It's interesting to read reviews from this film's initial release wherein mostly male reviewers praise the picture for its even-handed treatment of the custody issue. Excuse me, I think I need a glass of water. This is transparently a male fantasy, an open response to the burgeoning women's rights movement that openly challenges the perceived superiority of women as default caregiver. There's nothing wrong with that in theory. Reality is only too full of examples of men being better parents than women. But the film feels uncomfortably like an MRA fantasy, particularly in the courtroom scene where Dustin Hoffman is ridden over the rails for what any human being with eyes and ears could see was good parenting. It's a joke, but the film doesn't care. There are good performances here, I guess, but this is ultimately a regressive film in its sexual and social politics, and what better way to usher in a regressive decade than by awarding it Best Picture?

Norma Rae Sally Field's much imitated journey through unionization still retains all of the power and inspiration it ever held, and it's hard not to well-up at such finely observed scenes of oppression. The pic's greatest strength is in showing the difficulty of doing the right thing, the near-impossible struggle to fight with the limited tools at one's disposal to do what needs to be done. Field's colorful titular character, uneducated but personable, willing to work hard and smart enough to know the truth, is a complex figure, yet one ludicrously easy to root for-- if she can do it, we all can, the film says. And yet few of us really could. This is powerful filmmaking and Field's win was unquestionably deserved.

My Vote Apocalypse Now


1983
the Big Chill So I gather this isn't exactly too popular 'round these parts (and trust me, I will affirm love for more scorned films in forthcoming round-ups), but I found this film to be an interesting attempt at exploring the disconnect felt by many baby boomers as political activism and involvement in the sixties gave way to complacency and "selling out" by the early 80s. The characters we meet are vivid and entertaining, some more than others, and things like the much mocked AM Gold soundtrack only serves to highlight the characters' increasingly futile attempts to adhere to some form of insular nostalgia for one's younger self. Considering I was born the year this film was released, I can't say I know exactly the feeling, but the film imparts it in such a way that it can lay claim to being both universal and a well-observed commentary on a specific time and place. This is film that touched a nerve with a lot of viewers who shared one or more traits with the old college friends depicted, and that they are played by a gaggle of well-known or soon to be well-known attractive young actors and actresses is part of the appeal, no doubt. I haven't yet seen John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus 7, to which I understand this film owes a certain debt, but the Big Chill itself inspired a whole slew of inspired and less-than-inspired imitators in the wake of its popularity, in both film and TV (my personal favorite of the lot being Mike Binder's Indian Summer, though I think I'll find even fewer defenders of that film here), and it's easy to see why. I guess once Criterion announces its edition I'll have to get used to defending this to those who haven't seen it but assume it must be awful because, I don't know, they recognize the soundtrack?

the Dresser Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay were both nominated for Best Actor for their roles as the senile old Shakespeare vet and his titular effeminate preparer, and while I think both actors are talented and usually enjoyable in their film work, their over-the-top performances in this film grated on me endlessly. The entire film boils down to a long shriek-off between the two, and the resultant picture is a frustrating experience to put it mildly. Insufferably obnoxious might be more accurate, though. Something went terribly wrong here in a real way.

the Right Stuff In a year where the nominees are fraught with emotional power, it is striking that the best film of a good lot is one void of such traditional appeals. The Right Stuff is indeed so powerful and striking for how clear-headed and pessimistic it is about something as then-storied as the NASA program. The film bravely takes a critical, often satirical eye at all aspects of the space endeavors, and the resultant epic is so far removed from the bloated prestige picture it looks like from the outside that its greatness is like being blindsided. In a strong year for Best Pic noms where I honestly considered four of the five nominees for my vote, none could ultimately stand long against one of the best films of the '80s, period.

Tender Mercies A film that had no Oscar campaign and no faith in its award hopes from the studio, who released it ten months before the nominations and had already sold it to cable TV by the time it snuck into several major categories including this one, this is truly the little film that could, a small-scale and finely observed piece of observational humanism that proved highly influential in fostering the burgeoning indie movie scene of the 80s. Robert Duvall won his only Oscar for his central perf as a recovering alcoholic country singer who finds faith in more ways than one thanks to a patient single mother. That description makes this sound like a drastically different movie than it actually is, though: think a proto-Friday Night Lights, where characters surprise you and make you proud and make you frustrated but still provide a realistic, often low-stakes insight into lives that are convincingly real. I hope anyone reading this keeps it in mind for a future viewing, perhaps in conjunction with the upcoming 80s list-- not necessarily because I think it's a great film (it probably ranks last of the four good films this year for me) but because I suspect most of the board would really respond to its simple pleasures.

Terms of Endearment Sandwiched between James L Brooks' two masterpieces of comic observation, Staring Over and Broadcast News, this is the least of his Big Three and the one that the Academy loved most-- figures! But this is hardly a sweep to be upset about-- Brooks' trademark humorous humanism is in full-force with this examination of a complicated and always colorful mother-daughter relationship. Poor Debra Winger really gives the better performance as the daughter dragged down by Shirley MacLaine's overbearing mother, but it was finally MacLaine's trip to the podium (both were nommed for Best Actress). Jack Nicholson is a riot as the oversexed astronaut who moves in next to MacLaine and merited his win in Supporting. This is a film that's easy to like due in part to it allowing ambiguities and complex characterization-- I mean, Winger and Nicholson's characters should be taught in screenwriting classes by law. Here's how I'd start that lecture: "Look, you fucking idiots, here's how you make characters who are generally likable but complicated, often exasperating, and by no definition are they perfect little creatures. And that's what makes them interesting. That's what allows good actors to make these parts come alive. That's what good filmmaking enables, not cute tries at pleasing an audience written as though the author had never encountered a human being. Now go home and look at your DVD shelf and feel bad about your choices of idols." (ATTN potential univ employers: My CV is available upon request)

My Vote the Right Stuff

Sally Field is so amazing in the film that I really don't understand why she doesn't get more respect nowadays. It's simply one of the most affective and honest performances of the decade. I don't know if this is weird, but she reminds a lot of Roseanne in the sitcom when they would do workplace stuff which I guess is a compliment to the film's verisimilitude.

knives wrote:Sally Field is so amazing in the film that I really don't understand why she doesn't get more respect nowadays. It's simply one of the most affective and honest performances of the decade. I don't know if this is weird, but she reminds a lot of Roseanne in the sitcom when they would do workplace stuff which I guess is a compliment to the film's verisimilitude.

You could be cynical and chart her decline from the moment when she became more famous for giving a particular Oscar speech than for any of her roles, but I think it's more likely that she simply became a victim of the 'no decent roles for older women in Hollywood' syndrome. Which is ridiculous, since she was only 38 when she won her second Oscar.

She had tons of respect, and something of a golden run after Sybil revealed that she really had serious acting chops, but she had to drastically deglamourize herself for her signature roles (which is the other side of Hollywood's problem with women). Then, as is too often the case, she had to follow up her Oscar winning performances with lightweight roles, and never managed to achieve the momentum of somebody like Meryl Streep (and hardly anybody else in the last forty years).

knives wrote:Sally Field is so amazing in the film that I really don't understand why she doesn't get more respect nowadays.

For Lincoln, she was just nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, Chicago Film Critics Association Award, London Critics Circle Film Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, Online Film Critics Society Award, Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award and won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and New York Film Critics Circle Award. She won Emmys in 2001 and 2007 and was nominated for 4 others from 2000-onwards. After Meryl Streep, she's probably the most lauded and awarded actress of her generation, and she's worked consistently in television and film for 50 years. She's made some really awful choices along the way (Punchline, Where the Heart Is, Legally Blonde 2), but she's had about the best career and actress can have without actually being Meryl Streep.

As a 90s kid, most of my life was spent associating her with Mrs Doubtfire! Can't imagine a worse legacy to leave a generation of filmgoers


1997
As Good as It Gets Yet another Best Picture nominee in love with an asshole.

the Full Monty I put this off until now because it seemed like artificially uplifting pap, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well-executed this very sweet film is. There's an admirable clarity to the film's narrative, and it single-mindedly plows through feel-good characterizations and situations that legit earn the goofy smiles they inspire. There's a basic goodness to everyone populating the film, and the cheer masks the dark undercurrent of financial ruin and economic strife constantly in the background of all the niceties. It may be sixteen years old, but its setting will likely read as contemporary for the foreseeable future.

Good Will Hunting An effective feel-good movie that at least tries to address notions of intellectualism from a rare perspective of entertaining more options beyond disdain for academia. In a year where four out of the five nominees make a conscious effort to address issues of social class, this is probably the most effective in depicting the complicated interactions between the strata. The narrative of this film's fruition was of course one of Miramax's early perfect storms and that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were once two lively and personable nobodies with a winning success story was too irresistible for it to matter if the film was any good regardless. Good thing it is! Robin Williams' win was yet another Supporting win for the character and not the performance, but I've seen far more egregious examples. I suspect that if the Academy wasn't already sure of their win for Best Screenplay, Damon would have walked away with the Best Actor trophy over Nicholson-- can't let our once-starving lads get too successful though, eh?

L.A. Confidential Overstuffed period piece that wants to be six different kinds of noir films and ends up just being a bit of a mess. There's so much thrown into the pot here that by sheer magnitude some elements work: Danny Devito's gossip rag dirtbag is a real treat, and I liked the full-throated acknowledgement of the gay subcultures of Hollywood. But there's just as much that's a blurry cacophony, especially the finale, a tiresome shootout ineptly shot and ultimately useless. And I remember full well hearing from all the Oscar pundits when I was a kid during this year's awards season that Kim Basinger was a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress, and yet watching it in the present I have no earthly idea why. Some good ideas are present here, but not enough discipline to make them worth anything.

Titanic Oh no. I've long voiced opposition to this epic based on half-life memories-- a cursory search shows I went so far as to call it a "total piece of shit" on this very board (in the Avatar thread, which is where such a designation belongs, I just had the wrong pronoun!). But revisiting it now it didn't take me very long to admit to myself that James Cameron's film is-- gasp-- pretty great. Cameron's genius was in taking the once-popular disaster epic mold and instead of filling it with a gaggle of stars ala the 70s super productions, casting likable then-unknowns/untesteds and, most importantly, filtering the story to fit a target audience rarely tapped into this effectively by Hollywood-- teenage girls with enough discretionary income or dates to keep this thing afloat with repeat business long after the curious mainstream viewers had their look-see. And as a juvenile fantasy, with everything heightened to the most melodramatic extremes imaginable, it works. And as it gives itself over to spectacle, it works. This is an easy film to hate, especially for how inescapable it was for the year or so following its release, but now, looking at it again, it's far easier to love it. Protestations towards the other, significantly smaller films nominated are duly noted but summarily dismissed with great ease: Titanic is easily the best film of the lot. I guess I don't have Titanic to kick around any more!

My Vote Titanic

Matt wrote:

knives wrote:Sally Field is so amazing in the film that I really don't understand why she doesn't get more respect nowadays.

For Lincoln, she was just nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, Chicago Film Critics Association Award, London Critics Circle Film Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, Online Film Critics Society Award, Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award and won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and New York Film Critics Circle Award. She won Emmys in 2001 and 2007 and was nominated for 4 others from 2000-onwards. After Meryl Streep, she's probably the most lauded and awarded actress of her generation, and she's worked consistently in television and film for 50 years. She's made some really awful choices along the way (Punchline, Where the Heart Is, Legally Blonde 2), but she's had about the best career and actress can have without actually being Meryl Streep.

I don't mean awards so much as public perception. I remember a lot of hate directed at her for Lincoln and if I remember rightly she had to work ridiculously hard to get the role (though I suspect as already mentioned that probably has more to do with Hollywood's opinions on women than public perception of her in particular).

No one could have been more surprised than me. If nothing else, let it never be said I don't go into every film ready and willing to embrace it on its own terms assuming it merits such actions. Titanic does. Who knew? (Besides the millions of preexisting, loving fans of the picture, of course)

knives wrote:I don't mean awards so much as public perception. I remember a lot of hate directed at her for Lincoln and if I remember rightly she had to work ridiculously hard to get the role (though I suspect as already mentioned that probably has more to do with Hollywood's opinions on women than public perception of her in particular).

I suppose I see what you mean. For my parents' generation, she'll always be Gidget or The Flying Nun. For domino's generation, she'll always be Mrs. Mrs. Doubtfire or M'Lynn. For mine, we'll always see her sitting next to Burt Reynolds in a Trans Am. There's still a lot of condescension in Hollywood toward TV actors (which is what Field is mostly known for now), particularly women, and she has also committed the unforgivable sin of appearing in commercials.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who remembers Sally Field for Sybil and Norma Rae and not much else!

I would imagine her reputation abroad is generally quite different from her reputation in the US. Perhaps an analog might be Judi Dench? Many Americans think she's the height of actorly sophistication, but I bet a certain generation of Brits knows her best from her sitcoms.

Though her hanging out with Reynolds is a great height to me even if others don't consider Smokey and the Bandit excellent.

Matt wrote:I would imagine her reputation abroad is generally quite different from her reputation in the US. Perhaps an analog might be Judi Dench? Many Americans think she's the height of actorly sophistication, but I bet a certain generation of Brits knows her best from her sitcoms.

Do you think there's a country out there that collectively thinks of Helen Hunt as that Oscar winning actress and not Jamie Buchman?

I don't think you have to go out of the country. Never heard of that show.