In Defense of Anna Paquin:

-


Andrew over at Encore's World of Film and TV is hosting a very extensive "Essential Performances of the 90s show down." Go over to his site and vote on your favorite performances.
Andrew has asked other bloggers to offer their defense on some of the performances in future polls. On Sunday, August 26th, and poll will go up between Anna Paquin in the Piano and Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility. Both performances are great, but I'm going to promote Anna here.


Not many young actors can deliver a powerhouse performance like then 11 year old Paquin did in The Piano. Especially on their first film. Flora, in my opinion was the most complicated character in the film. She is angry, she lies. (possibly as a way of coping.) She's drawn into some serious situations that she may or may not fully understand. Paquin really nailed this difficult character, and it's no surprise she's had lots of success since then. Not to mention her Oscar acceptance speech was the cutest thing ever.



Comments

  1. Andrew K.August 25, 2012 at 2:34 PM

    So true on the complexity of Flora. She's still a child, even as it's obvious that because her mother depends on her so much she's got this false sense of wisdom. And, some praise is due to Campion's direction but the performance itself is so much MORE than one expects/hope a child performer to do. And in a debut, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2013 at 4:28 AM

    Anna Paquin was downright AMAZING as Flora McGrath. In my opinion, she deserved every part of her Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamSeptember 8, 2013 at 3:04 PM

      Thanks for reading! I agree, she deserved every bit of that.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2013 at 4:22 PM

      And her Oscar speech WAS the cutest thing I've seen in a LONG time. Her stunned expression when her name is called out and her hyperventilating at the podium for 20 seconds after she was handed her Oscar was just adorable. Anna totally deserved it, her performance was one of the best of the best performances of 1993, and one of the best child performances I've ever seen.

      Delete
    3. Brittani BurnhamSeptember 16, 2013 at 9:32 AM

      Agreed. And how she walked back to her seat instead of going backstage? Loved it.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more