Theresa Basile

You may scoff at this choice, thinking that Miss Piggy is a creation by Jim Henson and a character, not an actress – but just try saying that to her face. You’ll get a well-deserved karate chop to the head punctuated by a “HIIIII-YA!”

The fact is, Miss Piggy is a consummate actress and brilliant performer, and in The Muppets Take Manhattan, she has to play the most challenging, yet rewarding, role: herself.

Look how quickly she transitions from one emotion to another – rage at the mugger, sweet gratitude for the women who help pick up the contents of her purse, joy at seeing her beloved Kermit again, jealousy of Jenny. Could you show such a range of emotion in three minutes? I couldn’t.

Speaking of terrifying performances, how about that Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Baby Jane is one of the scariest villains in the history of cinema. A former child star obsessed with reliving her youth and hating her more beloved older sister, she switches from reminiscing about her one hit song to planning the next round of torture for Blanche, all with the flick of a switch – or a sound from a buzzer. Baby Jane is an overgrown, selfish child that Blanche cannot escape from. After watching this movie, I understand completely why Bette Davis’s performance is beloved and imitated by gay men everywhere.

I saw The Hunger Games last weekend. I loved it. I’m probably going to see it again. But the film reminded me of another movie about teenagers fighting to the death, a film that The Hunger Games has been both fairly and unfairly compared to – Battle Royale.

I’ve seen the Japanese film Battle Royale five or six times and find something new to love about it each time. I would not recommend this film for the faint of heart, but if you have a moderate tolerance for violence, check out Battle Royale. If anything, it’s worth it for Mitsuko, the girl who haunts my dreams.

Mistuko is beautiful, dangerous, and deadly, one of the two teenagers trapped in this battle who takes pleasure in killing. Both haunting and haunted, she gives you the strong impression of someone who was damaged even before this terrible battle began, someone who never had any friends and couldn’t understand why. There’s a fierce sense of pride in her, a lust for the kill, and yet something pitiful and sad underlying all of that.

WARNING: THIS CLIP IS EXTREMELY VIOLENT.

I love every minute of this film, that combines scenes of graphic violence with scenes of friendship and beauty. From this scene, you can see that Mitsuko is a scary, effective villain. If you watch the rest of the movie, you can see more of her tragic character. Kudos to Kou Shibasaki for her work in this brutal story.

It’s well known that Shakespeare had a fondness for writing gender-bending characters. He loved gender-bending characters even more than Oscar voters do. One of his best gender-bending roles was Viola in Twelfth Night, a character brought to life by Imogen Stubbs.

At the time Trevor Nunn’s adaptation ofTwelfth Night was filmed, Imogen Stubbs was married to Nunn. Did nepotism play a part in her casting? Almost definitely. Do I care? Not a bit. She is wonderful in this film. In every moment, you can see her positively aching with love for Orsino, even when she’s trying to hide it – and she also never lets you forget that she’s still mourning for her brother Sebastian.

I can also see her love for Sebastian influence her behavior around Olivia. An actress could easily play all of the scenes between Olivia and Viola/Cesario for comedy, showing the awkwardness of the situation, or frustration that the man she loves is pining for Olivia. Stubbs does have fun playing Viola’s awkward fright, but she also shows great sympathy for Olivia. Why wouldn’t she? Olivia has also lost a brother, and Stubbs never lets me forget that sense of empathy and kindness.

She’s lovely. I want to give her a hug.

Aside from her performance, this is also an excellent movie, period – perhaps the best Shakespeare film adaptation I’ve seen.

A few years ago, I watched The Devil Wears Prada. This movie attempted to teach me many things about life. It attempted to teach me that you should always be true to yourself no matter what. It attempted to teach me that you should put your friends and boyfriend before your work. It attempted to teach me that learning to be successful is important, but you shouldn’t learn to be too successful, or your friends will be mad at you.

That’s not what the movie actually taught me. It taught me that if you have friends who try to “playfully” steal your phone while your boss is calling you, it’s time to get a new set of friends. It taught me that if you have a boyfriend who makes you feel guilty about your intense work schedule when he’s working as a chef, he’s a hypocrite, and it’s time to get a new boyfriend – one who isn’t from the cast of Entourage, because ew. It taught me that if you have the opportunity to work for Meryl Streep, you work for Meryl Streep, and when she says “jump,” you say “how high?” with a smile on your face.

Seriously, how am I supposed to watch this scene and think that I was supposed to root for anyone but Miranda Priestly? I know I’m supposed to look at this scene and think that Miranda is picking on some poor girl who’s just trying to make it as best as she can in a ruthless industry, but instead I look at this scene and think that Miranda is schooling some little snot who thinks she’s too good for the industry she’s chosen to work in.

Okay, this post wound up being more about the movie than Meryl Streep’s performance, so let me backtrack: Streep takes what could be a one-dimensional villain of a character and turns her into someone who manages to be both scary and fabulous, and even a little human. It’s too bad we couldn’t have her as a guest star on Ugly Betty once or twice.

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

I’m cheating a little bit because I don’t know if this was truly formative but she’s Barbara Stanwyck and she deserves a mention on any list of female performances. It was a toss up between this and “Double Indemnity” but that gets props pretty often so I’ll go with this one. Come on.

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

She’s the second best Disney princess but she has the best Disney princess hair.

Yesterday, I wrote about a performance that was subtle and quiet. Today, it’s time for something completely different.

I’ve only watched Casino once because parts of it were too disturbing for me to see a second time. Most of these scenes involved Sharon Stone’s character Ginger. She terrified me. She has many scenes where she goes absolutely nuts, screeching and yelling and being destructive to herself and everyone sucked into her orbit.

It would be easy to dismiss her performance as being too over-the-top, but everything she did made me cower in fear. As I watched her, I reminded myself, “There are people like this in the world. People like her actually exist.”

This following scene is her first in the movie, when Robert DeNiro’s character sees her for the first time. Her actions give just a small hint of the person she would turn into later – the seeds were there from the beginning. Yet, you completely buy why DeNiro would find her irresistible.

I want to pull my eyes away from her, but I can’t.

Also, Scorsese, way to ruin my Dirty Dancing-related memories of “Mickey and Sylvia.” Yeesh.