Sunday 11 July 2010

Best Supporting Actor 1985: William Hickey in Prizzi's Honor

William Hickey received his only Oscar nomination for playing Don Corrado Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor.

William Hickey is just strange in his performance here. He plays the Don in a manner of a living corpse who is still able to get out orders. He does an Italian accent (I guess) that is odd, and never really commands any presence with his performance. He never really seems like he would actually be the head of the crime family, and his performance is just odd.

It is a performance much like Jack Nicholson's where I guess they were trying to be funny. After all Prizzi's Honor is suppose to be a comedy even though I never really detected very much of it. I think Hickey's whole routine with acting like he basically is dead is suppose to be funny but it just comes off as strange and not funny. Hickey technically is not horrendous though he has some moments which focus on him, where he does an okay job. When he is commanding his men, he method is bizarre but it technically goes in line with the movie even if what the movie is trying to do does not really work. He technically is just going along with the film's odd attempts at comedy and I guess he tries his best, but the effort is wasted.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree on this one too...

Brandon said...

The old dude's scary!

dinasztie said...

I felt quite neutral to this performance. I guess he's gonna be third.

Fritz said...

Mmh, I rather liked him. I thought you might, too, but I guess this year doesn't offer anything good. Let's see if Klaus can save this line-up.

Tom said...

someone from Back to the Future should have been nominated.

Louis Morgan said...

Sage: This seems like a year that cannot allow too much of a debate.

Twister: Hickey certainly was odd.

Dansztie: Seems quite possible.

Fritz: Well it seems it is up to him.

Tom: Yes someone from that should have been nominated.

Unknown said...

What do you think about Anjelica Huston in this one? Is her Oscar deserved?

Louis Morgan said...

I liked her, she was the best thing about the film, and she certainly was deserving.

Anonymous said...

Since we're turning this around to something more interesting, I'm glad to hear you thought Huston was deserving...

My opinion, she saved the movie from being one big ball of hot air.

Louis Morgan said...

She sure did.

Anonymous said...

I only know him as the mad doctor from nightmare before christmas.