Jodie Foster's new film, The Brave One, opens tonight across the country. While most of the reviews have been tepid, I'll probably end up seeing it anyway at some point, 'cause Jodie (I call her "Jodie") is one of my favorite actresses. Taxi Driver provided her feature film breakout, in which she played a preteen hooker who is "rescued" by a discomfiting Vietnam War vet (Robert De Niro). Only 13 at the time the movie was filmed, she received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
Jodie went on to win Oscars for her leading roles in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs (as well as another nomination for Nell), but I would have to rank her work in Taxi Driver as one of the Best Female Movie Performances EVER!!
But maybe I'm just a sucker for prodigious youngsters - I was blown away by 11-year-old Anna Paquin in 1993's The Piano. (And, given that she was working in the shadow of another of my favorites, Holly Hunter, Anna - I call her "Anna" - had her work cut out for her.)
Now I must admit I'm also a sucker for Hot Women Not Looking Hot. Anytime an attractive member of the opposite sex can make me forget how attractive they are, that's what I call acting. (I realize some people might call it "makeup," but whatever.) Hence my belief that Charlize Theron's turn as mass murderer Aileen Wuornos in Monster was among the Best Female Movie Performances EVER!! Neck-and-neck with Theron's (I don't call her "Charlize") turn in that Not Exactly A "Date Movie" was Felicity Huffman's stellar performance in another sobering film, Transamerica, wherein she played a man with gender-identity issues awkwardly trying to bond with a son she barely knows.
Other top examples of HWNLH: Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, and Nicole Kidman in The Hours.
Disabilities are another easy mark for me. So, it's natural that Patty Duke's portrayal of Helen Keller in 1962's The Miracle Worker makes my list. But when Marlee Matlin and William Hurt burned up the screen in 1986's Children of a Lesser God, it didn't really matter that Matlin was hearing impaired - her acting was top-drawer, too.
Then there are the Women-Who-Make-Your-Skin-Crawl roles. Louise Fletcher added a term to the modern lexicon with her rage-inducing performance in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Her Nurse Ratched was the bete noir to Jack Nicholson's McMurphy. In 1990's Misery, Kathy Bates took fan obsession to new depths as the, shall we say, doting but misguided hostess for her favorite author, played by James Caan.
But probably the women whose work I most admire are those for whom I cannot name a single standout performance, but rather whose ouevre as a whole is unquestionably among the Best Female Movie Performance(s) EVER!!
Meryl Streep, of course (Silkwood, Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer). Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen, The Philadelphia Story, The Lion in Winter). Cate Blanchett (playing, ironically, Kate Hepburn in The Aviator; Elizabeth). Holly Hunter (The Piano, Raising Arizona, Broadcast News).
So, there. Undoubtedly I've left the out the most important one. In that case, please - enlighten us: Exactly which is the Best Female Movie Performance EVER!!??