Bette Davis, The Star

The challenge in digesting a performance like Bette Davis' in The Star lies in the fact that it inherently conflicts with two dimensions of who I am as an individual. A moviegoer with a more modernist, art house-leaning eye might view Davis' performance as a relic of its time, one riddled with such grossly melodramatic narrative devices that it veers into farcical parody. A more lax moviegoer (dare I say, of the homosexual variety) might see Davis' performance as a fun, campy joyride - the film a befitting vehicle for an inherently dramatic diva to showcase all the qualities to which her fandom admires her for.

Susan Hayward, With a Song in My Heart

To watch With a Song in My Heart is to be fed a two-hour tale of an impossibly saintlike (and horribly basic, if you ask me) individual. This ought not come as a surprise to me or you by now, as biopics, especially those of the classical Hollywood variety, are often semi-fictionalized and scrubbed of its subjects' imperfections, revealing little to us about said subjects aside from the fact that they may have had to endure something traumatic once, and/or they may have been faced with a difficult decision they had to make. Jane Froman herself had a heavy hand in the production of With a Song in My Heart, perhaps an acting influence on the film's insignificant narrative weight.

Marlon Brando, Viva Zapata!

Won: Cannes Film Festival - Best Actor

It is only appropriate that the man often credited as being the trailblazing force behind bridging the gap between realism and film acting should also thrill us in his ability to bridge the gap between his own whiteness and other ethnicities. Viva Zapata! would not be the only film in the 1950s to which Marlon Brando attempted to play a character of an entirely different ethnicity from his own, and, based on what I've seen, Brando's Emiliano Zapata isn't nearly as jarring or disagreeable as his Sakini in The Teahouse of August Moon, released four years later. But Brando's interpretation of the Mexican revolutionary straddles the threshold of my own tolerance towards whitewashing - for at what point does it become a little too silly, thereby taking the viewer "out" of the picture?

Alec Guinness, The Lavender Hill Mob

I wasn't fond of The Lavender Hill Mob. In fact, it was a bit of a struggle for me to make my way through the film. I report this feeling queer about my overall sentiment, as though I've misunderstood something - for both the film and its lead performance from Alec Guinness seem to have favorable notices online. And yet, for whatever reason, neither registered for me.

Gary Cooper, High Noon

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor | Golden Globe (Drama) - Best Actor

Years ago, before Oscargasms came to fruition, I was haphazardly watching and reviewing various movies that piqued my interest. One of those films was Wings. For a picture that had very little surprises outside of Buddy Rogers' drunken hallucinogenic bubble episode, one moment that I can usually recall is that of Gary Cooper’s cameo at the half hour mark. We see Cooper waking up from a nap, hair perfectly coiffed, where in typical old-Hollywood fashion, he then smolders his way through his 2 or so minutes of screen time. Moments later, Cooper's character dies in a plane accident while practicing figure eights. While brief, he had about him a radiant energy in those moments that are effortless yet impactful. I ramble on about this because I find it ironic — and fitting — that my journey with Cooper should end at High Noon. For what Cooper delivers in the film is heavily silent, and there is a forcefulness in his presence I’d not felt since that very cameo in Wings.