best film: David Cronenberg’s Crash shines as the brightest beacon here in the ranking of Holly Hunter’s best film. This makes Jane Campion’s The Piano runner-up and puts the two Hunter collaborations with the Coen Brothers (O Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona) in the third and fourth spot. Cronenberg’s best film of the 1990s comes from J.G. Ballard’s novel and Hunter plays the role of Helen Remington. Hunter is opposite James Spader and Elias Koteas.
best performance: It is not by a landslide (Raising Arizona, Broadcast News in Hunter’s magnificent 1987) but The Piano is Holly Hunter’s strongest performance. She is mute but sets the tone with the almost mystic-like voice-over at the beginning (with a quick coda bookend). Needless to say, for the length of the film she gives us a mesmerizing pantomime performance. Harvey Keitel and the young Anna Paquin’s performances are not far behind in support.
after her big breakthrough of a year in 1987, it is Hunter’s work as Ada McGrath in Jane Campion’s The Piano that cements her placement on this list
stylistic innovations/traits: Holly Hunter is short (5’2) with a Southern accent. She has clear comic talents (Raising Arizona, and parts of Broadcast News) but can push back and stand tall with the best of them despite her small stature (as evidenced in The Piano, The Big Sick). She famously won the Oscar playing a mute character (only speaking in a very memorable voice-over). She had big years in 1987 (giving maybe the two best performances of the year by a female actor) and 1993 (getting two Oscar nominations- one for lead and one for supporting).
Hunter opposite William Hurt and Albert Brooks in James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News– part of Hunter’s brilliant 1987 year.
directors worked with: Coen Brothers (2), Sydney Pollack (1), Janes Campion (1), David Cronenberg
Hunter as “Ed” in The Coen Brother’s sophomore feature: Raising Arizona
top five performances:
- The Piano
- Broadcast News
- Raising Arizona
- The Big Sick
- Thirteen
archiveable films
| 1987- A Gathering of Old Men |
| 1987- Broadcast News |
| 1987- Raising Arizona |
| 1993- The Firm |
| 1993- The Piano |
| 1996- Crash |
| 1997- Contact |
| 2000- O Brother, Where Art Thou? |
| 2003- Moonlight Mile |
| 2003- Thirteen |
| 2005- Nine Lives |
| 2017- The Big Sick |
Drake how are you man? Its been a while since any reviews, and likely will be a little while more as you finish this series, so im just checking in if u have watched anything recently that you really liked, or if any of the new 2022 films have caught your eye (theres some good ones for sure, i think were almost back to normal)… thanks as always man. This series is great. I love holly hunter
@Big chungus- Good to hear from you. Yes, at least for the time being I have decided it was just too much to do the reviews. I do have some plans for some big updates in 2023 though- including a 2022 page at some point in early 2023. Currently I have a list of 27 archiveable films from 2022. There are some strong ones for sure- but I’m hoping the year’s best are still ahead of me here.
I’m hopeful that is the case with Chazelle and Inarritu still to come
I recently saw bardo in theatres, i wouldnt say its on par with his last two but its still great. Thematically pretty similar to birdman though, but the writing is not as strong in my opinion. I want to see Tar as well, have either of you guys seen?
Yes. It’s great and one of the strongest of the year, but the Raging Bull comparisons and MP shouts are way overdoing it for me. That crowd is massively overrating it