The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Film: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone
Director: Francis Lawrence
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Reviewing one of the biggest films of the year always takes a bit of planning, and so I knew going into Catching Fire, the latest installment in the Adventure of Katniss Everdeen, that I had to pay attention.  For starters, I needed to pay attention because, like Harry Potter and Twilight before them, this film is brimming with ancillary characters that the film pays lip service to and that I’m expected to remember from the previous film (you can’t miss out on the chance to have a famous face play a character for twenty seconds, after all).  Secondly, unlike those previous two films, I haven’t really finished this series-I read Catching Fire when it came out in stores, but I’ll admit that it didn’t really bite me like the first book, which was a delicious, cruel delight.  This book has always seemed like a pale, cheap imitation-too repetitive, too focused on a love triangle (does every film series need one of these?), too tunnel-visioned on one specific character (who, notably, suffers from some intense tunnel vision).  But I wanted to see how they approached some of the characters and like all of America, I like to see how sequels take things even if I didn’t 100% care for the first installment.  Film series are my crack, and I indulged in an opening weekend hit.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, for the seven of you that have either never read the book or missed the movie this weekend, picks up almost exactly where we had left off-Katniss (Lawrence), after co-winning the Hunger Games with her new love interest Peeta (Hutcherson), is still hunting, flashing back to her time in the games, and is moodily angry at basically everyone.  After a showdown of sorts with President Snow (Sutherland), she is chosen to serve once again with Peeta in a special version of the Hunger Games, where all of the past winners are forced to compete against each other.  Unlike other seasons of the games, this year's event riles up both the districts and the Capitol, who have come to love their victors as the victors have been a part of their lives.  Once inside the games, the victors start their own plan, with Katniss, Peeta, and a cavalcade of former winners (including Sam Claflin’s Finnick and Jena Malone’s Johanna, the biggest highlights of the film), they manage to escape from the Hunger Games, most of them relatively intact, with only Peeta stuck behind.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve gotten some distance from the bad role model that Bella Swann was, but I spent most of this movie alternating between really loving Jennifer Lawrence and really hating Katniss Everdeen, something I don’t particularly remember from the books, though I will admit that I lost decided interest part way through the second book (Confession Time: I have never finished the third book, though I plan on doing so this weekend just so that I don’t get spoilered before I inevitably latch onto the next two films).  I think what bothered me so much about Katniss is that she’s too impetuous and too stupid for her own good.  Perhaps it’s because every guy around her is planning every move, but for a film with a strong-willed female character, there’s not much that she does except look pretty and shoot arrows.  Honestly-she’s not the most skilled player in the games (Johanna and Finnick both could best her on this front), she’s not the savviest person outside the games (both Harrelson’s Haymitch and Hoffman’s Plutarch are the puppetmasters here), and aside from occasional moments of faked charm, she’s not really our hero, but just a figurehead.  I loved the moment when Peeta challenges her about her family and friends-there are other people that she affects too, and the way that she constantly, foolishly yells through the woods of the games, giving away her location-it makes little to no sense.  Even at his moodiest Harry Potter was never this foolish, and Bella Swann’s actions rarely impacted others-Katniss, though, she’s a girl that doesn’t care if others catch on fire.

The film is really stunted by a couple of its casting decisions and cast members.  Lawrence’s Katniss may not be a likeable or even a strong character, but Lawrence is too good of an actress to not pull her off with solidity.  I loved the lighter moments (Lawrence was born for screwball comedy, despite that genre not really existing anymore)-the scene where Johanna strips in the elevator was a triumph not just for Malone (who really is terrific after floundering a bit on the road from child star to adult actress, sinking her teeth into the scenery-chewing like no other actor so far in this series), but also for Lawrence’s reaction shots.  When Lawrence is forced to opine for Prim, Peeta, and Gael, she doesn’t sell her nearly as well-you can see the anguish in her face, but perhaps because these other characters are so unknown to us, we don’t really connect as an audience with them.

One of the key problems with the series, particularly when they decided to make it a series, is that the books never really stop focusing on Katniss.  Rowling’s Harry Potter and to a lesser extent Meyer’s Twilight (everyone else compares them, why can’t I?) had a host of additional characters that got fleshed out in some fashion throughout the books, but Collins only wants to know her main character.  While I have admitted to not knowing what happens in the third book (again, I’ll fix it this weekend), so far we’ve seen this flaw rather handily in the movies.  Peeta, for example, is a complete blank slate-all we know about him is essentially what the Capitol knows about him.  We know him as sweet, kind, in love with Katniss, and willing to sacrifice himself at the drop of a hat.  That’s basically the image that is being projected by the Capitol.  I’d say this was a massive inside joke on Collins/the director’s behalf except it clearly isn’t-he just isn’t well-drawn.  Hutcherson doesn’t help by taking advantage of his relaxed moments like Lawrence does-he does what the script calls for, but doesn’t add anything additional to what’s on the page, and his portrayal comes across as flat.  He frequently gains comparisons to a young Tom Hanks, but Hanks would have never disappeared so fully into the background as Hutcherson does, and while he's a nice enough chap, I have yet to see much promise from him as an actor.  This is the same for Liam Hemsworth’s Gael, but he doesn’t get near the screentime that Hutcherson does, so he’s less at fault.  Also, on the note of Team Gael/Team Peeta-how is this a contest?  I mean, Peeta is sweet and Hutcherson is cute, but Hemsworth is a Greek god-it’s not really a fair fight.

Aside from Johanna, the only other new character worth mentioning is Sam Claflin’s Finnick.  Unlike Malone, who is clearly doing the biggest lifting with that character, Finnick starts out so interesting (what are his motives, whose side is he on) that Claflin gets a leg up on the fascinating front.  I love the way that he plays him ambiguously, and since the books always felt a bit like Finnick was bisexual, I wish the film had had the guts to pull a ParaNorman and change his Annie into an Andy.  Just saying, but unless you’re a hardcore shipper for that couple, you know I’m right.

One last note before I leave-the costumes are all intriguing, but did anyone else feel the film still had cinematography problems?  This could have just been the theater I was in, but I felt this way in the first film too-if they are trying to make the film appear darker and grimmer, there are a lot better ways to shoot the movie than in light-depleted shots.  I asked my friend Kate after this film, and she agreed (so it’s not a sign I need to visit the optometrist)-why not do more light and do some contrast with shadow?  It would have made the same impression without the eye strain.

Those are my thoughts, anyway-what are yours?  Did you enjoy this installment better than the first (I’m roughly equal)?  Do you also have an increasing annoyance with Katniss, or are you shouting the odds shouldn’t be in my favor?  And are you Team Gael or Team Peeta?  Share in the comments!

50 Years Later: Remembering JFK (And Why We Still Need Him)

President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and Sen. Ted Kennedy

The picture to the left (or right, top, bottom-it's sometimes hard to tell with Blogger) is not just an iconic portrait of three of the past sixty years' most important men: it's also the picture that adorns my library wall.  In fact, I have two portraits of President Kennedy in my library, as well as a stack or two of magazines featuring the late president and his family, and a worn copy of Profiles in Courage on a shelf.  In my car, I've listened to both the recent Jackie and Jack tapes that Caroline released, and remember standing in the doorway of Sen. Ted Kennedy's office in the Capitol before he died, and I remember watching and crying during his funeral.  When I was in high school, on my bedroom door (carefully taped so that I wouldn't ruin the finish) was a collage of my political heroes, and firmly in the center of that picture was John F. Kennedy.

More than any other group of politicians, the Kennedy brothers have shaped my attitude toward politics.  It's hard to talk to someone like me about the downside of Camelot, as I refuse to be particularly cynical about such things and have some rose-colored glasses about some aspects of the legacy of these great men.  I'm aware, of course, that they were not paragons of husbandly virtue, but I think of them more as men of accomplishment, and there's little to argue with that claim.  I meant to type this on the exact anniversary of the President's death, but time got a bit in the way.  However, I couldn't let this past week pass without at least mentioning his legacy in some fashion.

For me, the greatest lasting legacy of President Kennedy's time in office are two issues close to my heart: civil rights and the Space Race.  While Presidents Truman and Eisenhower admittedly started the ball rolling with desegregation of the military and continued pushes for Civil Rights bills (particularly toward the end of Eisenhower's second term), it was Kennedy's famous address on June 11, 1963, which transformed the issue of civil rights away from being a strictly legal issue and turned it more correctly into a moral one.  His words, "now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise" have been stated not just in reference to the Civil Rights movements of the 1960's, but in conjunction with civil rights for women, immigrants, disabled Americans, and still today in regard to the gay rights' movements.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would later declare that this was the "most sweeping and forthright (civil rights legislation) ever presented by an American president."

President Kennedy's work on the Space Race was also, admittedly, started during the Eisenhower administration (it goes to show how different politics have become that a Republican and Democratic president could have such a common set of goals).  President Kennedy, though, pushed the program considerably harder than President Eisenhower had, ensuring funding for a flight to the moon, and declaring in another famous speech, this time at Rice University, that "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."  This last statement could be attributed to most of the things that President Kennedy, along with his two younger brothers, set out to accomplish with his presidency.  His New Frontier had true, monumental goals for ending poverty, discrimination, and for expanding science and education to all.  Through President Kennedy and later through President Johnson, some of the most expansive domestic legislative achievements in over thirty years were achieved.  Everything from expanding school lunch programs to better economic security for the unemployed were achieved under the New Frontier.  For the first time ever people discussed mental health issues before Congress, and the Equal Pay Act took a bold step forward for addressing income inequality for women.  His Clean Air Act allowed regulations on the environmental safety of air.  He was a man of accomplishment, and his legacy lived on long after his 1000 days in office.  And he did many of these things knowing full-well it could be the end of his political career for pursuing them.

One of the harshest truths in modern politics is that guts, that willingness to go out on a limb seems to have evaporated, and the public's willingness to take a chance with an issue is gone.  Whether its the fault of the media, the politicians, or indeed, ourselves, ideas like the New Frontier and the Space Race don't exist today.  The most meaningful, change-oriented piece of legislation of the past five years has been thrown to the dogs in the past few weeks, with people abandoning it rather than trying to pick up the good and fix the bad.  The country has 46 million uninsured people, and health issues in this country can cripple a middle or lower income family.  People avoid going to the doctor to avoid having to have to pay the bills.  Senior citizens have to choose between food and their medicine.  That is the travesty in all of this-that is what we should be talking about on the news every night instead of random made-up stories on Sean Hannity or trying to play the blame game on why a website didn't work.  There's a reason that many people still wax nostalgic for the days of Jack, Bobby, and Ted, but it's not because they want to remember the days that they were in power-it's because they want that focus on issues, that honest discussion that came from finding an issue and solving it.

Because the reality is that 46 million people not having healthcare sadly isn't the only major issue in this country.  Income inequality has become such a major quagmire in America that we seem to toss it aside during interviews about issues of the day-the richest 400 people in the country have more money than the bottom 150 million combined-how is that of massive concern?  All across the country, gay citizens do not have the same marriage and employment rights as those in neighboring states.  Climate control legislation is an issue of vital importance to our planet's safety, and yet we get bogged down in issues as seemingly open-and-shut as fracking or drilling in ANWR.  The DREAM Act has yet to pass both the House and the Senate.  Gun control legislation can't even make it through a cable news panel, much less Congress, despite tragedies in Aurora, Tucson, and Sandy Hook.  The balance between civil liberties and "the common good" has gotten so off-base with programs like PRISM that it feels like the scales have been thrown in the garbage.  And forget the fact that we've abandoned the Space Race entirely-what about any sort of scientific race that doesn't involve a smart phone?  Why isn't there a national debate about ending cancer, AIDS, and diabetes in the next decade?  Not just treating and putting yet another bill on people's already shrinking monthly budgets, but curing.

These are real issues, and while this past week is a time to reflect on the great achievements put forth by the Kennedy brothers (in conjunction with millions of brave Americans who saw injustice and said "enough"), it should be a reminder that we have to strike forward with gusto when injustice comes into our purview.  President Kennedy once said, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  This week, more than ever, all of us should remember that we have to answer that question.

BAFTA Nominations ≠ Oscar Nominations: Part 2

Where we last left off, we had discussed the actors who had most been rewarded at the BAFTAs but persistently snubbed by the Oscars, and we were all a bit ticked off on Dirk Bogarde and Mia Farrow’s behalf’s.

Now, though, let’s investigate the actors that Oscar did in fact have something of a crush on, even though BAFTA was far more impressed.  Just like before, here are the tiebreakers:

1. If an actor received multiple nominations for different films in the same year, that counted as less for the rankings.

2. If the actor won a BAFTA Award for one of their performances.

3. If an actor received their nomination as a “British Actor” rather than the more all inclusive category.

10. Simone Signoret

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 2 (Room at the Top, Ship of Fools)

Nominated for Just Oscar: None

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 4 (Casque d’Or, The Crucible, The Deadly Affair, Games)

Winner? 1 Oscar (Room at the Top) and 3 BAFTA’s (Casque d’Or, The Crucible, Room at the Top)

Closest She Got to Another: Most likely none…if I had to pick one, maybe Deadly Affair?

Signoret is one of those foreign film actors that BAFTA became obsessed with during its early run, giving her multiple nominations for films that are little seen in the United States even now, much less when they originally ran, so Oscar probably didn’t notice aside from his two films that he nominated the French leading lady for.  I put Deadly Affair as most likely just because it did quite well with BAFTA, and had a lot of Academy favorites above and below the title (James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Sidney Lumet, Paul Dehn, Freddie Young) and sometimes that’s what it takes to get a nomination.

9. Gene Hackman

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 2 (The French Connection, Unforgiven)

Nominated for Just Oscar: 3 (Bonnie and Clyde, I Never Sang for My Father, Mississippi Burning)

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 5 (The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, The French Connection II, Night Moves, Superman)

Winner? 2 Oscars (The French Connection, Unforgiven) and 2 BAFTA’s (Dual win for French Connection/Poseidon Adventure and Unforgiven)

Closest He Got to Another: The Conversation

Hackman is one of only two actors to show up on our nominated but royally-missed actors at the Globes and the BAFTAs, and what’s even more bizarre is that three of his films at the BAFTAs (and three of his films here) didn’t get nominated.  Perhaps I’m underestimating the power of The French Connection II, since Hackman got Globe and BAFTA nominations for both, but I feel like he had a better shot for the Best Picture-nominated The Conversation.  The BAFTAs kept him in favor of Dustin Hoffman in Lenny and Art Carney in Harry and Tonto (who inexplicably won the Oscar) and the Globes skipped Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, so while everyone had a precursor to tout, Hackman had more.

8. Sir Ralph Richardson

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 1 (Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes)

Nominated for Just Oscar: 1 (The Heiress)

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 5 (The Sound Barrier, Doctor Zhivago, Khartoum, The Wrong Box, Lady Caroline Lamb)

Winner?: No Oscars, but he won the BAFTA for The Sound Barrier

Closest He Got to Another: Doctor Zhivago?

It has been many, many years since I last saw Doctor Zhivago and I have never seen Greystoke, so the next two observations are more “on-paper” than anything else, but considering how popular Zhivago was with the Academy, it’s safe to assume that Richardson’s next nomination probably would have come from that movie.  It should be noted, though, that the acting branch wasn’t wild for the film-despite major precursors for different actors (Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Ralph Richardson, and Geraldine Chaplin) it only got one Oscar nomination, and oddly for none of those four actors (it was for Tom Courtenay).

I will also say that I wonder, had he still been alive, whether Richardson would have been a threat for winning with Greystoke.  The 1980’s were the peak of “old age” Oscars (something we see less and less of today, particularly with more and more people winning Honorary Oscars at the Governor’s Ball), and names like Henry Fonda, Don Ameche, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, and Jessica Tandy all took home Oscars in the twilight of their careers.  Had they had another speech to enjoy from the witty Richardson, perhaps his name would have been on that list.

7. Lord Laurence Olivier

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 3 (all of these counts are just for acting, as clearly Olivier won nominations for other things during his career) Richard III, The Entertainer, Sleuth

Nominated for Just Oscar: 7 (to be fair, the bulk of these were before the BAFTA Awards existed) Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, Marathon Man, The Boys from Brazil

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 5 (Carrie, The Prince and the Showgirl, The Devil’s Disciple, Term of Trial, Oh! What a Lovely War)

Winner?: Olivier won one acting Oscar for Hamlet and picked up two BAFTA’s for Richard III and Oh! What a Lovely War

Closest He Got to Another: Carrie, probably

This is of course a tad bit ridiculous, as Olivier scored just as often with the Oscars as BAFTA and he’s one of the most rewarded men in the history of the Best Actor category.  That said, of course, he still had a relatively strong following in his native land, and especially during the 1950’s (when Olivier wasn’t as en vogue with Oscar) he seemed to do quite well.  Carrie was my selection more because it was one of the only films here that Oscar noticed, giving it Best Art Direction and Costume nominations, and Olivier’s costar was Oscar winner Jennifer Jones, so a film with two Academy favorites had to at least have been on the radar of Oscar.

6. Peter Finch

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 2 (Sunday Bloody Sunday, Network)

Nominated for Just Oscar: None

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 5 (A Town Like Alice, Windom’s Way, The Nun’s Story, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, No Love for Johnnie)

Winner? 1 Oscar (for Network, the only posthumous Oscar for acting until Heath Ledger) and 5 BAFTAs (A Town Like Alice, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, No Love for Johnnie, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Network)

Closest He Got to Another: Probably none-maybe The Nun’s Story?

Finch was one of those British actors who got so big in his native country that Oscar had to notice one time or another, and they did, late in his career.  By that point, though, thanks to the split British Actor categories, his place on this list was cemented.  I’ve always been curious what would have happened if he hadn’t died before Network.  He didn’t have an Oscar, so they may have just given him the trophy anyway (Howard Beale is a character not to be denied), but his fellow nominees, particularly costar William Holden and Best Picture lead Sylvester Stallone both look really strong for the win on paper if Finch didn’t have some sympathy factor in his direction.  Either way, I think that The Nun’s Story was his best shot of the misses, not because of his performance per say, but because the film, which was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, is the only one I can guarantee the bulk of the Academy saw in that year.

Julie Christie with fellow snubee
Dirk Bogarde

5. Julie Christie

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 2 (Darling, Away From Her)

Nominated for Just Oscar: 2 (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Afterglow)

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 6 (Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago, Fahrenheit 451, The Go-Between, Don’t Look Now, Finding Neverland)

Winner? She has one Oscar and one BAFTA, both for Darling

Closest She Got to Another: Tough call-maybe Billy Liar?

Julie Christie is such an iconic, beautiful actress of the 1960’s (…good reference, says Jessa), that you forget that she’s also one of Oscar’s most enduring actresses, being one of the few performers to score a nomination in four separate decades of her career.  It’s easier to make the argument that she came close to winning a second Oscar or BAFTA than to say she was on-track to get another nomination with Oscar (and quite frankly, if she was going to get another one I think it would have been for 1975’s Shampoo over any of the films that she got for BAFTA), but if I had to take a guess it’d be for Billy Liar.  The film was a hit and made Christie a star (she would have made it for supporting actress at Oscar, rather than lead like BAFTA, as they didn’t have supporting yet), but if the Academy hadn’t been so enamored with Tom Jones (which took 60% of the nominees in that category that year), Christie may have made it.

4. Shirley MacLaine

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 3 (The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Being There)

Nominated for Just Oscar: (again, for acting only) 2 (Some Came Running, The Turning Point)

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 6 (The Trouble with Harry, Ask Any Girl, What a Way to Go!, Being There, Postcards from the Edge, Steel Magnolias)

Winner? 1 Oscar (Terms of Endearment) and 2 BAFTAs (Ask Any Girl and The Apartment)

Closest She Got to Another: Postcards from the Edge

If you look at the Globes and BAFTA lists together, Mia Farrow is clearly the actor who was most screwed out of an actual nomination at some point in her career, making second place on both lists.  If you look at the people Oscar actually blessed with nominations, though, it’s hard not to feel like MacLaine was royally snubbed.  She topped the Globes list and manages to be the highest-ranking non Brit on this list, so you have to continually ask-what did Oscar have against MacLaine?  It doesn’t seem like it would have been the politics (Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda regularly got nominated during the same period).  You don’t hear a lot about her being particularly difficult to work with (and again, Brando was nominated).

Either way, Postcards seems to be the biggest miss-Diane Ladd did some interesting work in Wild at Heart, but it seems stunning that the more traditional MacLaine didn’t make it instead.  Perhaps there was category confusion (she was lead with BAFTA, after all)?  That’s about the only thing I can think of to explain it.

3. Dame Maggie Smith

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 2 (Room at the Top, Ship of Fools)

Nominated for Just Oscar: 2 (Othello, Travels with My Aunt)

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 6 (Young Cassidy, Death on the Nile, Quartet­-though the one from 1981, not the recent one, oddly enough, A Private Function, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Tea with Mussolini)

Winner? 2 Oscars (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite) and 5 BAFTAs (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Private Function, A Room with a View, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Tea with Mussolini)

Closest She Got to Another: None of these films, but she’s been very close before

Smith is one of my all-time favorite actresses of any era, and you don’t get enough chance to write about her in film anymore, so I relish the idea of doing so here.  The first really noteworthy thing about this list is that she’s made two films with the same name (Quartet, both of which landed her a precursor nomination and neither of which won her an Oscar nod)-can anyone think of another actor that’s done that without it being a remake/winking cameo?

Like Julie Christie, it’s easier to make an argument that Smith was closer to another Oscar win (A Room with a View, where she was fighting it out royally with Dianne Wiest and pulled off both the Globe and the BAFTA) than another nomination, particularly for these films.  You may recall she was definitely in the running for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and many people (including myself) expected her to score a nomination for that movie over Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook.  Perhaps the lack of a BAFTA nod should have been a telling sign to us all to look elsewhere?

Delliott with his Room with a View costar Judi Dench

2. Denholm Elliot

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 1 (A Room with a View)

Nominated for Just Oscar: None

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 6 (A Doll’s House, Saint Jack, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Trading Places, A Private Function, Defence of the Realm)

Winner? No Oscars, though he did pull off back-to-back-to-back wins for Trading Places, A Private Function, and Defence of the Realm (and A Room with a View was his fourth in that series, which he missed for but considering the film scored almost everywhere else, you know he was close).

Closest He Got to Another: You tell me.

The Denholm Elliot thing escapes probably a lot of us (well, me at least)-I hadn’t realized quite what a star the actor was in his native Britain before he managed to land a nod for Room with a View and become a noted supporting player in the Indiana Jones series as Marcus Brody.  Raiders was the only one of his BAFTA only films to make a major impression on the Academy, but the series never scored an Oscar nomination for acting despite a plethora of citations elsewhere, and one assumes that Harrison Ford or Sean Connery were more likely to score than Elliot if they did get a nomination.  His other work was very “British” (and not in a David Lean/James Ivory sort of way), so I don’t know that he would have gotten in for any of this latter two wins.  Trading Places did get an Oscar nomination (for score), but it’s not the sort of thing the Academy goes for, even in the 1980’s when it would have been a hit.

1. Dame Judi Dench

Nominated for Both Globes and Oscars: 6 (Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat, Iris, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal)

Nominated for Just Oscar: None

Nominated for Just BAFTA: 7 (Wetherby, A Room with a View, 84 Charing Cross Road, A Handful of Dust, The Shipping News, My Week with Marilyn, Skyfall)

Winner? 1 Oscar (Shakespeare in Love) and 5 BAFTAs for film (A Room with a View, A Handful of Dust, Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love, Iris)

Closest She Got to Another: The Shipping News, maybe?

Each of these lists has been won by someone clearly at the top of the heap-someone who is either obviously beloved by the one awards body or shamefully snubbed by AMPAS (depending on how you want to look at it).  With seven additional nominations (and two wins for those performances), Dench is obviously that candidate, and I suspect we all knew she’d be at the pole position.

Dench’s career is bizarre of course because she became a major film star late, late in her career.  She’d had a long and distinguished couple of decades in theater and television before Mrs. Brown managed to pop her onto the international circuit (it’s worth mentioning she was a noted supporting player in Britain for film at this time).  Had she been DAME JUDI DENCH in the eyes of the world in 1986, A Room with a View surely would have gotten her her first Oscar nomination, but I think it’s safe to assume she came the closest during one of her peak fame years: either The Shipping News or Skyfall, with The Shipping News’s SAG nomination breaking the tie for me.  With Philomena coming out in a few weeks, she’s the only actor on this list who seems guaranteed to add to her numbers soon-will it be for BAFTA, Oscar, or both is the question?

Those are the top ten-what is the most surprising name on the list?  Who do you think came the closest overall to another nomination (I’m torn between Smith and MacLaine)?  Who deserved another nomination the most?  And what part should they have cast Shirley MacLaine in in A Room with a View, since clearly the top three found success with it?  Share in the comments!

Ranting On...the Nuclear Option

President Obama with D.C. Court nominees Robert Wilkins, Patricia
Millett, and Nina Pillard.

This past month has been a nightmare for Democrats in Washington.  The Affordable Care Act has turned into a political calamity, and polls show that the Democrats have taken a hit (Kay Hagan and Mark Udall can attest to that).  However, sometimes when you're at your lowest you make the most crucial decisions, and that's what Harry Reid did yesterday when he decided to change the rules of the Senate in a major way: going forward, all the Senate has to do to get presidential appointments and non-Supreme Court judicial nominations through the body is to get a simple majority, rather than a filibuster-backed sixty votes.  This was greeted with a chorus of "you'll be sorrys" from Mitch McConnell and hosannas from liberals like Sen. Tom Harkin.  The question is, of course-was it the right thing to do?

In essence, the nuclear option has been itching to go off since the judicial fights over Owen, Brown, and Pryor in 2005, when Bush nominated all three and the Democrats wouldn't allow any of them to come up for a vote.  In the end, the Gang of 14 gave in and allowed votes on all three (all of which were confirmed) and the issue was laid partially to rest.  It came out with abandon, though, when the Republicans gained enough votes to filibuster President Obama's nominees and has been used with almost stunning frequency in the last few years, frequently on relatively non-controversial nominees.

The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was the nominations of three justices to the D.C. Circuit Court (along with the Mel Watt nomination, when the Republicans filibustered a sitting member of Congress for the first time since the Civil War), the second most powerful court in the country and a major jumping point for justices looking to be on the Supreme Court (Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsberg all four served on the court, and Justice Kagan was nominated to the court by President Clinton before having her name withdrawn).  Currently, the makeup of the court is 4-4 between Republican and Democratic nominees, and major Republicans, in particular Sen. Grassley of Iowa, have stated the court shouldn't need any other justices, and have not so subtly hinted that they don't want the makeup of a court that will have a huge impact on environmental law in this country to be too far to the left.

That's over now, though-Patricia Millett won confirmation to the court in the wake of the nuclear option being triggered, and it's largely expected that nominees Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins will also be confirmed by Senate Democrats, making the court considerably more liberal with a 7-4 majority for the Democrats, a margin that will be tough to change in the near future under a hypothetical President Christie.

The Republicans have rightfully said that the Democrats will end up in the minority someday, and have claimed that the Democrats will rue the day that they decided to do this.  Sen. Grassley has said he'd love to have more "Scalias and Thomases" on the Courts, and he's right-this process makes it easier for a Scalia or Thomas to get onto the court, but there's a catch there.  The Democrats are currently poised to have a miniscule majority, if a majority at all, in 2015 when the Senate reconvenes, but they still have a Democratic president who won't nominate a Scalia or a Thomas, even if he can't get his actual nominees through to positions.  Secondly, if the Democrats lose the White House in 2016 (not an easy task given the current state of the electoral college), that's no guarantee that they'll lose the Senate.  There are seven Republican senators up for reelection in states that voted for President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and only one of these senators (oddly enough, once again Chuck Grassley) have proven that they can win in a blue state with a presidential headwind. going against them.  The math is with the Democrats to at least have a trump card in the nuclear option debate until 2018, and certainly longer if Hillary Clinton wins the White House in three years (looking at these districts a bit more closely, a third Democratic term would be a massive blow for the Republicans when it comes to the judiciary, as most lower courts are run by Democratic appointees, unlike the Supreme Court).

The other question about this debate, though, shouldn't just be about practicality-it should be about whether this is right, and here's where my opinion comes in.  As a whole, I have long held that the filibuster is a vital tool for the minority in the Senate.  It prevents key legislation from being sluffed away thanks to a wave election (it's hard to imagine, for example, that the same electorate stuffed a Republican landslide between two Barack Obama victories).  However, it's hard to argue with the Democrats point here-this was not an argument anymore about preventing extremist nominees from joining the court.  It was all about preventing positions to be filled.  When it was Goodwin Liu, I could kind of understand it, but Patricia Millett?  Who worked for two separate presidential administrations, one of them Republican?  That hardly seems right, and the Republicans overplayed their hand and the Democrats called their bluff.  Mitch McConnell is right, this will come back at some point to bite the Democrats in the butt, but does anyone really believe that McConnell wouldn't have done the same damn thing if he was in Reid's shoes?  I'll tell you the answer-he would have told the minority caucus to screw themselves.

A practical opposite of the coin does emerge from this debate, though, and I will quickly share it before I let you back to your Friday morning, and it's this: the Democrats, particularly President Obama and Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy, have to act fast.  The reality is that with the Democrats near certain to lose seats in the Senate in 2014 (the ACA is compounding the fact that the Democrats were already behind thanks to states like South Dakota and West Virginia), President Obama's final two years will make this process even more precarious, particularly if the Republicans win the majority.  And you know that if the Republicans take both the Senate and the White House in 2016 that they'll fill every vacancy known to man.  So now is the time for President Obama and the Justice Department to start thinking legacy.  There are federal judicial positions that have been open for years (there's one on the ninth circuit that is coming on a decade), and there are myriad committee positions that have not been filled for just as long.  Were the President to fill all of the Court of Appeals positions, for example, he wouldn't just swing the D.C. court to a majority rule for Democratic-appointees, he'd also take the 10th, as well as eight district courts (Maine, Southern New York, South Carolina, Southern Texas, Western Kentucky, Eastern Arkansas, Arizona, and Middle Florida for the curious) and would tie four (Eastern Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern California, and Kansas, for the even more curious).  These are major opportunities for the Democrats, and it's hard not to see a president that is increasingly worried about legacy and in desperate need of a political and personal win these days not taking advantage of this new rule and filling seats that might otherwise stay open for years.

Those are my thoughts on the nuclear option-what are yours?  Do you think this will truly come back to bite the Democrats?  Do you think the President will start a massive run of nominees for these offices?

BAFTA Nominations ≠ Oscar Nominations: Part 1

Okay, so while we sadly don’t get very many comments on this blog (it’s SOOOO easy to rectify that situation-hint, hint), I notice quite readily when you enjoy a particular post or series based on traffic, and so I have been meaning to do something in regard to our series about the Golden Globes not equaling the Oscars, as you all seemed to enjoy it and it still gets lots of hits.  After all, if Hollywood has shown us anything, it’s that we need to make a sequel to anything that’s popular.

I’ve finally settled on the BAFTA Awards as our follow-up.  The BAFTA Awards, one of the most prestigious “precursor” (anyone else secretly hate that word?) awards, have come to mirror Oscar a bit more in recent years, but does have its own quirks and favorites.  Obviously, it has a penchant for nominating British actors; this was particularly true in the earlier years of the awards, when British Actors and Foreign Actors were in two separate categories.  However, like the Globes, it is extremely rare to ring up a large number of nominations at the BAFTA Awards without at least one nomination from Oscar.

Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of the ten actors that have received the most nominations at the BAFTA Awards without ever receiving an Oscar acting nomination (this is going to factor into one of the ten people below).  In order to break ties (there were a number of them), I did the following:

1. If an actor received multiple nominations for different films in the same year, that counted as less for the rankings.

2. If the actor won a BAFTA Award for one of their performances.

3. If an actor received their nomination as a “British Actor” rather than the more all inclusive category.

Any questions you can ask in the comments-otherwise, let’s dive in!

10. Ziyi Zhang

BAFTA Nominations: 3 nominations: 2000-Best Supporting Actress (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), 2004-Best Actress (House of Flying Daggers), 2005-Best Actress (Memoirs of a Geisha)

BAFTA Wins: None

Got the Closest On: Memoirs of a Geisha, hands down.

Reasons She Missed: The first two films likely fall into a penchant for BAFTA to favor international cinema more than AMPAS (everyone knows the awards body favors their fellow countrymen, but they actually do a better job of getting involved with international celebrities than the Oscars do).  The third nomination remains a conundrum.  Zhang was one of four women that year that scored nominations from HFPA, BAFTA, and the SAG Awards (the other three-Reese Witherspoon, Charlize Theron, and Judi Dench-all received Oscar nominations).  Felicity Huffman was ineligible for the BAFTA because of release issues, but was also a certainty.  Oddly, though, Zhang was one of those annual actors who hits every precursor but somehow misses with Oscar (in this case, to Keira Knightley for Pride & Prejudice).  It seems odd in particular that they snubbed her for Theron, who had just won, and Zhang's  film got six Oscar nominations.  It’s worth noting that this was a decidedly weak field and that Knightley’s performance was actually better than Zhang’s (or Dench’s or Theron’s or Huffman’s), but it’s still a weird one.

9. Edward Fox

BAFTA Nominations: 3 nominations: 1971-Best Supporting Actor (The Go-Between), 1977-Best Supporting Actor (A Bridge Too Far), 1982-Gandhi (Best Supporting Actor)

BAFTA Wins: Fox won for The Go-Between

Got the Closest On: A Bridge Too Far

Reasons He Missed: It’s worth noting that there were be several actors on this list who missed simply because BAFTA and AMPAS aren’t always looking at the same set of goals-BAFTA does want to well represent its countrymen and the vast majority of both of these write-ups will feature Brits.  That said, Fox’s snub for A Bridge Too Far seems odd if only because that film seems right up Oscar’s alley.  The film is a massive epic and even won Fox the NSFCA Best Supporting Actor trophy.  1977 is a hard year to explain Oscar's thinking.  Somehow an epic biopic about an Oscar-nominated writer from an Oscar-winning filmmaker missed to a short, modern romantic comedy, and was competing against a Sci-Fi adventure film and another mod-romantic comedy.  Oscar occasionally likes to prove he isn’t predictable, and that may have cost Fox.

8. Jack Hawkins

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1952-Best British Actor (Mandy), 1953-Best British Actor (The Cruel Sea), 1955-Best British Actor (The Prisoner), 1956-Best British Actor (The Long Arm)

BAFTA Wins: No wins

Got the Closest On: None of these, but that doesn’t mean Hawkins was never in contention.

Reasons He Missed: For these films, Hawkins was in the same boat as our next actor, in that he wasn’t a leading man outside of Britain.  However, unlike our next actor, Hawkins made a pretty solid splash in British films that played to international audiences.  He was a character actor in such Academy favorites as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, and Lawrence of Arabia.  All three of these films received Oscar nominations for a supporting actor, and it’s not a stretch to assume that Hawkins may have been in contention for at least one of them.

7. Kenneth More

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1953-Best British Actor (Genevieve), 1954-Best British Actor (Doctor in the House), 1955-Best British Actor (The Deep Blue Sea), 1956-Best British Actor (Reach for the Sky)

BAFTA Wins: More won for Doctor in the House

Got the Closest On: None of them

Reasons He Missed: More was never a major star in American film (I’m guessing most people who read this haven’t even heard of him, and I had to look him up to write this).  Unlike Olivier, Niven, and Burton, he didn’t star in American productions until later years and was primarily known as a British star.  His film The Deep Blue Sea did get close to an Oscar nomination some 57 years later when Rachel Weisz was in contention for a nomination for the lead role (Vivien Leigh played the part in the original).

6. Lord Richard Attenborough

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1960-Best British Actor (The Angry Silence), 1962-Best British Actor (The Dock Brief), 1964-Best British Actor (Guns at Batasi), 1964-Best British Actor (Séance on a Wet Afternoon)

BAFTA Wins: 1 win for two films in 1964

Got the Closest On: Okay here’s where I’m cheating a bit as Richard Attenborough famously won two Oscars for 1982’s Gandhi but as a producer and director rather than as an actor.  However, for acting, his closest draws were for different films than I’ve just listed, and I’ll get to them below.

Reasons He Missed: Attenborough’s nominated films for BAFTA are like Hawkins' and More's-it just doesn't sem like they were going to go for any of them (Seance was probably his best, very, very longshot).  More likely, though, were one of his nominated performances at the Golden Globes: Attenborough got nominated for Supporting Actor for The Sand Pebbles and Doctor Doolittle, both of which scored highly with AMPAS and were probably a better shot for Attenborough.

5. Billie Whitelaw

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1968-Best Supporting Actress (Twisted Nerve), 1968-Best Supporting Actress (Charlie Bubbles), 1976-Best Supporting Actress (The Omen), 1990-Best Supporting Actress (The Krays)

BAFTA Wins: 1 win for two films in 1968

Got the Closest On: I'm guessing The Omen, though she did win NSFCA for Charlie Bubbles

Reasons She Missed: With three of these films, Whitelaw was like many of the other performers a British actor over-indexing for films that were well-loved across the pond.  However, for millions of moviegoers, she is instantly recognizable as the evil Mrs. Baylock in The Omen (you also recognize her from Hot Fuzz, if you're under thirty and can't figure out why she looks familiar).  The Omen didn't pick up any Oscar nominations for acting, but it was a huge film in 1976 and got two music nominations, so I wouldn't be stunned if Whitelaw was in the field for her work in the film.

4. Stephane Audran

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1972-Best Actress (Le Boucher), 1973-Best Actress (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), 1973-Best Actress (Just Before Nightfall), 1988-Best Actress (Babette's Feast)

BAFTA Wins: She won a trophy in 1973 for both performances

Got the Closest On: Probably The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Reasons She Missed: Audran is one of those major European actors of her day that rarely get discussed now.  Two of her films won the Best Foreign Film Award (Discreet Charm and Babette's Feast) with AMPAS, so unlike someone like More, they were clearly aware that she existed.  I suspect that Discreet Charm would have been a better shot-the film got a Screenplay nomination (usually a sign of stronger support with AMPAS) and the 1970's had a number of foreign actresses scoring for films in their native languages.

3. Alan Rickman

BAFTA Nominations: 4 nominations: 1991-Best Actor (Truly Madly Deeply), 1991-Best Supporting Actor (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), 1995-Best Supporting Actor (Sense and Sensibility), 1996-Best Supporting Actor (Michael Collins)

BAFTA Wins: Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham picked him up his only BAFTA near the beginning of his fame.

Got the Closest On: Probably none of them, though it stands to reason that he was closest for Academy favorite Sense and Sensibility.

Reasons He Missed: That sigh of relief I'm hearing from you is that we're finally back on someone everyone's heard of-yes, Professor Snape is one of the most snubbed actors in the history of the Oscars through the lens of BAFTA, yet it's pretty clear none of these were really close.  Truly Madly Deeply was from a director that would land hard five years later with Oscar, but he didn't make it for this early film.  Sense and Sensibility was a major film with Oscar, but I don't remember reading much about Rickman getting a nomination for this film (it was all about the ladies).  That said, he's still working very regularly (he was in The Butler from this past year, which is certainly on Oscar's radar even if his performance isn't) and this isn't an impossible situation for him.

2. Mia Farrow

BAFTA Nominations: 5 nominations: 1969-Best Actress (John and Mary), 1969-Best Actress (Rosemary's Baby), 1969-Best Actress (Secret Ceremony), 1985-Best Actress (The Purple Rose of Cairo), 1986-Best Actress (Hannah and Her Sisters)

BAFTA Wins: No wins

Got the Closest On: Rosemary's Baby

Reasons She Missed: Proving just how much Farrow deserves an Honorary Oscar, not only was she in second place on the Globes list, she also manages second place at the BAFTA Awards.  Some of you may quibble that the Best Actress nomination in 1969 really was just one, rather than for all three films, but still, it's impossible to argue that Farrow should sport the title Oscar nominee by now.  Her closest shot was certainly Rosemary's Baby, and considering that she had two other films out in close proximity to Rosemary and that it was nominated in other Oscar categories, it's still bizarre that the young actress couldn't score that year.

1. Sir Dirk Bogarde

BAFTA Nominations: 6 nominations: 1961-Best British Actor (Victim), 1963-Best British Actor (The Servant), 1965-Best British Actor (Darling), 1967-Best British Actor (Our Mother's House), 1967-Best British Actor (Accident), 1971-Best Actor (Death in Venice)

BAFTA Wins: Two wins, for The Servant and Darling

Got the Closest On: Darling

Reasons He Missed: While it's easy to dismiss a few of these films as products of BAFTA's fascination with home product (I feel like I should see Victim immediately considering the subject matter), but Darling is another story entirely.  The film was a major player at the Oscars that year-it won Best Actress and Best Screenplay and was nominated for Picture and Director.  That's not a film that you easily dismiss the lead actor.  I've never seen the film (shame on me, I know), but I would imagine that Bogarde's youth, coupled with vote-splitting with a costar (Laurence Harvey, who was better known to the Oscars due to Room at the Top and Summer and Smoke) probably cost him.  Bogarde was famously closeted during his career (making the fact that he made Victim all the more bolder, since it shed a light on his life in a way that he likely didn't want to), and despite his good looks, he never enjoyed major success in Hollywood.  Legend has it that he was in contention for the leads in Gigi, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, which would have certainly gotten him at least one Oscar nomination had he been able to score them.  He also appeared with Edward Fox in A Bridge Too Far and had a very successful second career as an author.

There's the list.  Unlike the Golden Globes, there's not a lot of hope for these actors.  Bogarde, More, Hawkins, and Fox are all dead, Farrow, while Attenborough, Whitelaw, and Audran are all largely retired.  The only two people with legitimate shots of getting off of this list are Zhang and Rickman-do you think they will?  Which of these actors probably got the closest to an actual nomination in their career (my gut says either Farrow or Zhang)?  Which should have been nominated?  Share in the comments!