Number 41: Marisa Tomei as Mona-Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Effectively, well…maybe not the most famous get in this classification but surely the most notorious – it even will come with its possess city legend. But why was it such a big upset that Marisa Tomei acquired the Oscar? Positive, she did not obtain any other awards focus, her competition have been 3 critical British and 1 serious Australian actresses, My Cousin Vinny is not specifically a masterpiece – still, the Academy has a lot more than once honored actors and actresses for scene-thieving comedy. So why was it alright for Whoopi Goldberg to win an Oscar for a purely comedic position just two several years earlier but not for Marisa Tomei? I guess we will never ever know but what is so fantastic is the reality that Marisa Tomei is one particular of the handful of people who truly survived the ‘Oscar curse’ – her submit-Oscar job experienced 1st absent fairly downhill but by now she has turned into a respected actress with two much more nominations to show her abilities.

In any case, as you can see I really do not share the common perspective that her get is a single of the most undeserved ever. Why should it be? Marisa Tomei is completely hilarious and steals the movie appropriate from below everybody’s noses. Sure, Mona-Lisa is not really a very complex character and one little scene in a cafe that is meant to demonstrate a far more severe facet when Vinny attacks her verbally isn’t exactly really memorable possibly but when it arrives to producing the audience chortle and creating one unforgettable comedy scene right after one more, you do not need to have to appear any additional.

The character of Mona-Lisa does not really allow a deeper appear or something like that – she is there to support Vinny in a scenario and toss about amusing remarks. It’s a stereotypical overall performance from each and every angle but when Marisa Tomei provides lines like ‘How’s your Chinese foodstuff?’ or ‘What are you? A f**king world traveler?’ it’s easy to fail to remember about all this. There are no true feelings, the much more quiet times amongst her and Vinny are significantly less than enjoyable but Marisa Tomei is this sort of a pressure of nature (indeed) in this role that everything else seems to vanish following to her.

When you feel of My Cousin Vinny, is not she the initial element that comes to your head? Don’t you immediately believe of ‘Imagine you are a deer. You are thirsty…You put your minor nose in the cool water…BAM! A F**KING BULLET BLOWS OFF Portion OF YOUR HEAD!’ or ‘My biological clock is ticking like this!’?

Of course Mona-Lisa was only invented by the writers to have at minimum 1 woman existence in the story, to toss in some jokes and to use her for the ultimate scenes in the court docket space – but Marisa Tomei by no means permitted the character to be reduced in any way but instead created her bigger than the entire remaining cast. And speaking of the scene in the court docket room – could Marisa Tomei have been any far more excellent listed here?

So, the character of Mona-Lisa is surely among the least challenging in this group but Marisa Tomei used her talent for comedy in so many superb techniques that it’s effortless to forget about this the 1st time she enters the screen.