OVP: The Rock (1996)

Film: The Rock (1996)

Stars: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, David Morse, John Spencer

Director: Michael Bay

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Sean Connery: click here to learn more about Mr. Connery (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned in our last entry on Saturdays with the Stars, Sean Connery's career got a new life in the late 1980's when he won an Oscar for The Untouchables and followed that up with a mammoth hit in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  These two films set up the course for the remainder of his career-Connery would still star in major action films, but would take on an advisory role, frequently the vaunted elder who would mentor younger, more "age-appropriate" leads like Richard Gere, Wesley Snipes, and in today's film, Nicolas Cage.  These movies were hits.  Much was made (we'll get there in a second) about how Connery really ended his career with a sluggish slump into retirement, but this ignores that during the late 1980's, 1990's & into the 21st Century, when Connery was being knighted and being named the oldest man ever to achieve the title of "Sexiest Man Alive" from People Magazine, Connery starred in a number of smash hit movies like The Hunt for Red October, First Knight, The Rock, and Entrapment.  While other actors of his generation like Paul Newman and Marlon Brando had, by-and-large, been relegated to old man dramas (and in more cases than not, cemetery plots), Connery was a box office draw in the way that men decades younger than him were and was talked about as a still-relevant movie star.

(Spoilers Ahead) Perhaps this is best boiled down by talking about The Rock, the biggest hit he had during this era (the film would make $335M, adjusted for inflation that'd be $709M, which is basically impossible to do today without it being established IP).  The movie itself is made by Michael Bay, who at the time would've been short-hand for crap (or at least was headed in that direction), and in the past decade, has been saved by Millennial film fans (nostalgic for an era when IP wasn't the only way to make a movie) as being more worthy-of-praise than he was at the time.  The movie makes little sense, and not just because its politics so closely resemble Bay's rather sketchy takes on Libertarianism.  We have Brigadier General Frank Hummel (Harris) holding Alcatraz hostage in hopes of securing $100M for the families of those who died in top secret missions.  He is holding dozens of hostages on the island (tourists who have visited it), and the government sends in a team of agents, though they're quickly boiled down to just two: Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Cage), a chemical weapons expert with little field experience, and retired Captain John Patrick Mason (Connery), the only man to ever successfully escape from Alcatraz.  The two team up to not only stop Hummel from detonating a chemical weapon that could destroy tens of thousands, but also to see if Mason can get his freedom, which is dangled as incentive but all involved know is just a ruse to get his help.

The real enemy in this movie, it's worth noting, isn't Harris's general, but instead FBI Director James Womack (played by John Spencer), and that's because you don't get a government that wants to help the people in a Michael Bay picture.  Even more so than Clint Eastwood, Bay's films are quintessentially glorious, tech-savvy propaganda for government incompetence.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing (lord knows there's a case to be made that government incompetence dominates our collective consciousness in the Trump Era, and has to a degree in every administration), but it also means that The Rock is a movie you don't really want to think about too much, as it becomes too ridiculous & frequently too absurd to consider it technically.  A lot of your mileage with the movie will depend on your take on Connery & Cage's unlikely friendship, and your tolerance for gratuitous violence.  The violence here is less artful and more just disgusting, and I will own that I don't think Cage & Connery work at all.  Connery's performances with Costner & especially Ford in the late 1980's worked better because there was a subtlety, a clear driving friction with which they can find common ground.  But Cage is not a subtle actor, and Connery can't seem to find any sort of chemistry with him...it just feels like they're making two different movies.

Connery would continue making films regularly until 2003.  He ended his career with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a bad superhero movie that made a lot of money, which hadn't been the case for some of Connery's most recent endeavors like Playing by Heart and The Avengers (for the record, not a superhero movie).  He retired, and with the weird exception of an animated adventure film, never made another movie despite entreaties to join later installments in the Indiana Jones & 007 franchises, dying in 2020 at the age of 90 from a combination of pneumonia & dementia.  Despite decades of trying to escape it, the first line of his New York Times obituary of course included the words "James Bond."

Next month we're going to talk about one of Connery's peers, someone who would dominate action films in the 1960's and especially the 1970's.  Like Connery he wouldn't really get the credit for being the fine actor that he was, but unlike Connery, he didn't seem to care, finding "selling out" a bit more palatable when one gigantic smash hit that changed his career's trajectory captured the public consciousness (and divided critics, both cinematic & political).

OVP: Actor (2000)

OVP: Best Actor (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls

Russell Crowe, Gladiator

Tom Hanks, Cast Away

Ed Harris, Pollock

Geoffrey Rush, Quills

My Thoughts: All right, let's move into the lead actors, and a reminder of how I miss the era of the 5-wide Best Picture nominees sometimes.  In 2000, if you can believe it, only one of the Best Actor nominees (usually the category with the most correlation with Best Picture) was from one of the top films of the night.  This isn't to say that there weren't films that would've made it in a ten-wide field.  In a ten-wide field Cast Away for sure and maybe Quills is going to get into the top race, making this feel more generic than it seems, but in 2000 it was only one man, getting his second of three back-to-back nominations from the Academy (his only three nominations to date, bizarrely enough).

That man is Russell Crowe, who gets to be one of the final vessels for me to complain about Ridley Scott's Gladiator.  It's not that Crowe is necessarily bad here.  He gives, for my money, the best performance in Gladiator, and finds some humanity in a characterization that easily could've been a bland, Mel Gibson-style performance.  There's just not enough of it.  I needed more swagger...it might've helped if Crowe had had a little more chemistry with Nielsen (or hell, Phoenix), but for someone who was billed as a sex symbol at the time, the film is not interested in capitalizing on that.  It's also just not written to be a great performance-Crowe would need more swagger as an actor to make this jump off-the-screen in a bigger way, and that's not how he's playing it.

Quills is a film that is very much written to be sexy, but it's not, and not because Rush is not generally considered a sex symbol in the way that Crowe is (though Rush does have more sexual chemistry with Joaquin Phoenix than Crowe does in his movie!).  This is the least of Rush's Oscar-nominated work, and it's a performance that indulges many of his worst traits as an actor.  Rush is not a subtle performer, and pretending he is always gets you into trouble (his best performance is in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, which uses that overacting to its advantage).  That's a problem in the messy back-half of Quills, where he takes an already "too much" character and turns him up to eleven, which is a bad counter to some of the more grounded work Kate Winslet is doing here.

Ed Harris is also at-odds with his work in Pollock, though it's not always his fault as an actor.  Harris (as director) is pulling double duty, and in the process he feels like he's pulling away from the character onscreen.  Pollock writes Jackson as being full of misery, and only focuses on that misery.  This makes the film feel like half a picture, and the characterization as half a performance-we're meant to understand that Jackson has at least some draw beyond just his art (that people are fascinated by him), but it doesn't come across in Harris's work (in many ways, this is how I felt about Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, another actor, like Harris, I generally enjoy but was in the minority on one of their most lauded performances).

Speaking of actors I run hot-and-cold on, let's get to Javier Bardem.  I do not generally enjoy the films of Julian Schnabel, whose films feel like they're stuck in a kaleidoscope (and not in as pleasant of a way as that sounds, as generally that'd be my thing).  Bardem's work here is surprisingly nuanced.  Like Rush, he's someone that frequently overacts, but as a dying gay poet, a role filled with indulgences, he is far more naturalistic than you'd expect.  I just wish the movie was able to anchor around that work a bit more, finding a way to steady itself so they felt more in sync.

Tom Hanks in 2000 was at the top of his game, and it would be so weird to think that he'd soon be entering his "Oscar wilderness phase."  This is particularly true because Oscar would pick such a fine piece-of-work to go out on until he became Mr. Rogers.  Cast Away has been parodied quite a bit in the years since Hanks made it a genuine blockbuster (the film is, after all, a movie about a man obsessed with a volleyball), but that doesn't take away from his achievement here.  The work he does, oftentimes having to have chemistry with an inanimate object, and giving us a hopeful, human story is really splendid work.  For an actor that I think is thought of more as a "movie star" than a thespian, there are scenes here that number amongst the best of his career (particularly the "Wilson goodbye").

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Hanks, atop Bardem, Crowe, Rush, & Michael Douglas (Wonder Boys) while Comedy/Musical went to George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), besting Jim Carrey (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), John Cusack (High Fidelity), Robert de Niro (Meet the Parents), & Mel Gibson (What Women Want)...side note, but don't you miss the era where they would only have proper comedies in this category & we'd get five names that weren't in contention at the Oscars?  SAG gave their statue to Benicio del Toro for Traffic (I believe this was a mistake in filing for the wrong category that showed just how unstoppable del Toro was for Supporting Actor), against Crowe, Hanks, Rush, & Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), while BAFTA favored Bell against Rush, Douglas, Crowe, & Hanks.  At the time, most assumed Michael Douglas would get in for the spot that went to Harris, and that's probably the case even if Bell makes more sense based on how we think about the Oscars as a game of math today (an article for another day, but I do think that that over-prognostication of awards season may have inadvertently ruined awards season), given that the Academy has never been kind to nominating young male actors for lead acting roles.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I don't generally nominate young actors either (I do think there's something to be said for them being a product of strong direction), but there's no way I'd miss Bell here, particularly knowing what a fine actor he'd grow up to be.  His work in Billy Elliot is aces, and adds so much to a film that could've been an otherwise disposable coming-of-age picture.

Oscar’s Choice: Crowe's win at the time was something of a surprise (Hanks was expected to win his third statue even with Crowe's name in the game, and a lot of heat for Ed Harris), and would unknowingly make Denzel Washington's win the following year possible.

My Choice: It's easily Hanks, who is the only person in this lineup giving a truly Oscar-worthy performance.  I debated between Bardem & Harris for second, and while I had Harris in that position when I started this article, I've talked myself into giving it to Bardem, whose work is subtler and better for his picture.  Crowe is in fourth, and I'll leave Rush in last place.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you think Oscar got it right with the Gladiator, or will you be stuck at sea with Tom & I?  What do you think Ed Harris's, a four-times nominated actor who likely will never win, best performance is?  And was it Jamie Bell or Michael Douglas in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2000: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Actor Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Supporting Actor (2002)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Chris Cooper, Adaptation

Ed Harris, The Hours

Paul Newman, Road to Perdition

John C. Reilly, Chicago

Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

My Thoughts: We are heading into the home stretch of 2002 today with the Best Supporting Actor field and the start of the Big 6.  This field featured five white, middle-to-late aged men, four of whom were/are noted character actors and the fifth being one of the most iconic movie stars of all-time, an actor getting the only supporting nomination of his career.  Don't feel bad for him, though, as Newman would amass ten nominations in his long career so we'll be discussing him for a while in this series...this is also the latest of four nominations for Ed Harris so we're starting our discussion of him as well.  So to kick us off, though, let's look at an actor who got his only nomination (to date) that managed to also snag him a trophy.

Chris Cooper's performance is kind of extraordinary, both because it should be a caricature (it's not even clear at first if it's written intending to be a caricature), and it's so multi-layered.  I loved the way that he indulges celebrity in the character, the idea of being famous being a perverse thrill for all of us, having us be found interesting enough to write an article about or for the public to ask us a series of questions...even the most mundane can find that intoxicating, and he brings that to life.  I will say, though Cage gets the worst of it, some of the meta-focuses in the center cost him slightly (no one does a great job of bringing that to life), but this is easily the longtime screen presence's best work.

John C. Reilly was having a remarkable year in 2002.  It sometimes gets lost in supporting nominations that the nomination is not "just" for that performance, but for their career or the year they've had, but Reilly wasn't just in Chicago, but also in Gangs of New York and The Hours (gaining him the rare distinction of an actor who appeared in three Best Picture nominees in one year), and had been doing bravura work for Paul Thomas Anderson for a while.  But OVP rules clearly state that we only award for the performance at hand, and with Chicago's Amos, that's just okay.  This performance feels a bit one-note, and while "Mr. Cellophane" is a good number (he can sing), it's nowhere near the most memorable in the film.  Amos is meant to be forgotten in the script, and it's hard to imagine him being remembered here had Reilly not had the year he'd had in 2002.

Paul Newman's work in Road to Perdition is inarguably the last great performance of one of the Golden Age's final movie stars (I don't believe in the concept of the "final movie star" because every few years that crown gets handed down, but in terms of Golden Age, Studio System stars...Newman's one of the final ones).  This is bravura stuff-he plays a man who has lived by a unique criminal code that shapes his worldview.  He understands the worthlessness of his son, but the point-of-pride that comes with knowing that he's his son, and there's that great monologue at the end with Tom Hanks where he said "no one here will see heaven" that just chills.  Proof that decades in the spotlight never totally get rid of the thespian within.

Ed Harris's work in The Hours is not for everyone, and there was a time that this performance might have aged in a different direction than me.  Everything about The Hours is hyper-stylized, and Harris might be pitching the most to the rafters of the bunch.  But watching this through the years, I've found that it works better the further you go into the film, particularly when you know his character's fate.  Playing a man who was a noted writer, but had a novel that was ill-received despite high expectations, Harris is a man adrift, knowing that AIDS is going to ensure that his chapter in life is about to be over.  The way he plays off of Streep is marvelous-every sentence feels like it's cutting through the air in the final scene, not just of her Clarissa, but also of everything we've seen before us, the ways we hang onto the best parts of our lives even when they've become antiques in our memories...it's beautiful work.

Our final nomination is Christopher Walken.  Walken is an odd actor when it comes to Oscar because (to date-he's still working regularly at the age of 79), he's only been nominated twice, including his initial win for The Deer Hunter.  His work here is a slightly odd fit, as he's not a big part of this movie, and it's hard not to notice it feels like an "old age" citation even though he wasn't even sixty when this was released.  But he does provide a sentimental heart to the film, one that DiCaprio infuses in the later scenes, sort of projecting on what you know is coming, and he's winning even if he's not lifting any major acting muscles here.  Sometimes adding a pleasant note to the film is what you're supposed to do as an actor.  I don't know if that's Oscar-worthy, but it's important to make your movie work.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes gave their statue to Chris Cooper atop Harris, Newman, Reilly, and Dennis Quaid (Far from Heaven), while BAFTA favored Walken against Cooper, Harris, Newman, and Alfred Molina (Frida).  SAG also picked Walken, with Cooper, Harris, Molina, & Quaid the nominees.  This puts you in a quandary when it comes to who was in sixth place, as Molina & Quaid strike very similar profiles.  Both were nominated for two precursors, both were in Best Actress-cited films that did well in the tech categories, and both were trying to get what might've been their only real shot at a nomination (both still work today, but neither have been nominated for an Oscar yet).  The Weinstein factor probably means I should pick Molina, but I'm going to guess it was Quaid, mostly because Quaid was also getting good notices for The Rookie in 2002, which was a surprise hit for Disney that spring and marked a proper comeback arch for the star who'd just been through a very messy public divorce.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I don't entirely know how to categorize Andy Serkis, and I'm never entirely sure if voiceover performances are deemed eligible by the Academy.  But what he does here is remarkable-we have been quoting and mirroring Gollum for a reason, and his work here basically became the prototype for how motion-capture performances were done in the decades to come.  That deserved some sort of prize.

Oscar’s Choice: Walken & Cooper were in a close race, and Walken definitely was closing well in 2002, but Cooper ultimately picked up the trophy in the "Battle of the Chris's."

My Choice: I'm going to go with Paul Newman, who is giving some of the best work of his career here, and does a good job of trading on his movie star persona while also just giving great acting.  Ed Harris (silver) and Chris Cooper (bronze) would've made worthy winners, and picking between them would've been so hard that I'm glad Newman is my easy out here.  Walken and then Reilly bring up the back.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you side with Oscar's choice of Mr. Cooper, or do you want to join me celebrating Paul Newman?  Why do you think actors like Christopher Walken go such long stints without Oscar remembering that they're a fan?  And who was in sixth place-Molina or Quaid?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2002: Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002

Past Best Supporting Actor Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Losing the EGOT

Occasionally I find myself sorting through particularly random trivia (this happened a few days ago in a conversation with a friend), and one of my favorite bits of trivia surrounds the younger of the acting Redgrave sisters.  While Vanessa was the great actor of her generation, Lynn had something else special about her.  Lynn managed to be the only person in the history of entertainment to receive nominations for an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony award...and not win any.

This is of course both a huge compliment and an enormous disappointment.  Redgrave managed to get nominated for three Tonys, two Emmys, two Oscars, and a Grammy in her career, something almost every actor would kill for, but you have to assume that she wishes she could have taken the stage just once to accept one of those major awards (to her credit, she did pick up a pair of Golden Globe Awards).

We took a look at Redgrave's record six years ago, but I was curious after the conversation with my friend if there had been any new additions to this list, if any people who had been on the list had migrated off of it, and most importantly, if someone had tied Redgrave's record.  Below you'll find that her record is still intact, though there's still room for some performers to go after it, and a few more have been added to the challenge since six years ago.  I've listed below every living performer I could find that has been nominated for (and lost) three of the four of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, & Tony.  If you have a name I don't have on the list, please bring it to the comments (particularly for the Grammys, this is hard to research), and I'll update accordingly!

(Note: All of these are listed alphabetically)

Lauren Ambrose

Nomination She's Missing: Oscar

Emmys Lost: 2002 & 2003-Lead Actress in a Drama (Six Feet Under)

Grammys Lost: 2019-Best Musical Theater Album (My Fair Lady)

Tonys Lost: 2018-Best Actress in a Musical (My Fair Lady)

She Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: She won two SAG Awards for her work on Six Feet Under.

Can She Seal the Deal?: I would assume not.  Ambrose getting the lead in My Fair Lady is surprising in retrospect (her career had been relatively mixed since her breakout role in Six Feet Under ended, and I suppose this was a case of the "play" selling tickets more than any of the stars).  Currently she is on Servant for AppleTV, but hasn't done a film role in almost a decade, so an Oscar nomination would be a surprise.

Antonio Banderas

Nomination He's Missing: Grammy

Emmys Lost: 2004-Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie (And Starring Pancho Villas Himself), 2018-Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie (Genius)

Oscars Lost: 2019-Best Actor (Pain and Glory)

Tonys Lost: 2003-Best Actor in a Musical (Nine)

He Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: Banderas won a Drama Desk for Nine, and finally pulled off a Goya earlier this year for his work in Pain and Glory

Can He Seal the Deal?: Of all of the people on this list, Banderas has the most grounds to be mad, as under current awards rules he would have tied Lynn Redgrave for this award.  Banderas was a key vocalist on the cast recording on Nine, and that was nominated in 2004 for Best Musical Theater Album (but lost to the Bernadette Peters revival of Gypsy).  Today Banderas would've been nominated for a Grammy for the award as a principle vocalist, but at the time he wasn't because it was only the producers of the album that got nominated.  I don't know if Banderas has it in him to do another play (he hasn't gone back to either musicals or the theater in recent years), and so I kind of wonder if this is a trivia answer that will never be, but was very close to becoming reality.

Gabriel Byrne

Nomination He's Missing: Oscar
Emmys Lost: 2008 & 2009-Lead Actor in a Drama (In Treatment)
Grammys Lost: 1998-Spoken Word Album (The Nightingale and the Rose)
Tonys Lost: 2000-Lead Actor in a Play (A Moon for the Misbegotten), 2016-Lead Actor in a Play (Long Day's Journey Into Night)
He Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: He did win a Golden Globe for his work on In Treatment

Can He Seal the Deal?: The trick to "pulling a Lynn Redgrave" (patent-pending) is to be able to make positions second through fifth, but not manage to grab first.  I think that Byrne could well nab an Oscar nomination, considering he is a multi-hyphenate entertainer (he not only acts, but also writes, directs, and produces), and doesn't seem too likely to win any of the other awards anytime soon.  He rarely does Broadway and his television show isn't on anymore.

Adam Driver

Nomination He's Missing: Grammy

Emmys Lost: 2013, 2014, & 2015-Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Girls), 2020-Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Saturday Night Live)

Oscars Lost: 2018-Supporting Actor (BlacKkKlansman), 2019-Actor (Marriage Story)

Tonys Lost: 2019-Lead Actor in a Play (Burn This)

He Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: Driver has failed to secure any major entertainment award in his career, so there should be some sympathy for him, but it feels doubtful he's going to end his career empty-handed considering its current trajectory, so don't worry if you're a fan.

Can He Seal the Deal?: I would assume that Adam Driver is the type that might randomly get a Spoken Word Album nomination at some point (not for a memoir, but more so for a table read recording of The Crucible or something similar).  But Driver's career trajectory (he has been nominated for three of these awards in the past two years alone) indicates that a win is more likely to stop him from reaching Redgrave's record than a missing Grammy nomination.  He seems certain to win one (probably the Oscar or Tony) in the next few years.

James Franco

Nomination He's Mising: Tony
Emmys Lost: 2002-Lead Actor in a Miniseries (James Dean), 2011-Outstanding Special Class Programs (The 83rd Academy Awards...yes, James Franco was nominated for an Emmy for his comically bad hosting of the Oscars...let that sink in for a second), 2016-Outstanding Short Form Variety Series (Making a Scene)
Oscars Lost: 2010-Best Actor (127 Hours)
Grammys Lost: 2014-Spoken Word Album (Actors Anonymous)
He Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: Franco missed the Emmy but picked up the Golden Globe for his work in James Dean, and he missed the Oscar but pulled off another Globe for The Disaster Artist.

Can He Seal the Deal? I'm starting to think no.  Franco has done stage work (he did a turn in Of Mice and Men six years ago), but he wasn't nominated for a Tony Award (instead they went for his costar Chris O'Dowd).  Franco's sexual misconduct allegations have hurt his career; after his surprise Oscar snub in 2017 for The Disaster Artist, he has made direct-to-video & unreleased films, and his only more mainstream work was a cameo in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Deuce, which was a middling success at best for HBO.  Winning an Emmy at this point seems more probable than a Tony nomination.

Ed Harris

Nomination He's Missing: Grammy
Emmys Lost: 2005-Lead Actor in a Miniseries (Empire Falls), 2012-Supporting Actor in a Miniseries (Game Change), 2018-Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Westworld)
Oscars Lost: 1995-Supporting Actor (Apollo 13), 1998-Supporting Actor (The Truman Show), 2000-Lead Actor (Pollock), 2002-Supporting Actor (The Hours)
Tonys Lost: 1986-Actor in a Play (Precious Sons)
He Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: He has two Golden Globe awards, for The Truman Show and Game Change

Can He Seal the Deal?: For a long time there, it seemed like Ed Harris would surely win an Oscar.  He received a staggering four nominations in the span of seven years, and one could make a pretty convincing argument that he was in second in two, if not three of those years (Amy Adams-take note).  Harris has since fallen on hard times with the Academy and has had no more luck with Emmy (not even his grand return to TV with Westworld has gotten him a trophy so far).  This of course could happen, as the Spoken Word Album category can slip someone in at almost any time, and Harris is famous enough that he could make it for some reading of Shakespeare or Arthur Miller.  However, he's never been a particularly "awards-seeking" performer (otherwise he would have beaten James Coburn in 1998), and I don't see this happening.

Marsha Mason

Nomination She's Missing: Tony
Emmys Lost: 1997-Guest Actress in a Comedy (Frasier)
Oscars Lost: 1973-Best Actress (Cinderella Liberty), 1977-Best Actress (The Goodbye Girl), 1979-Best Actress (Cinderella Liberty), and 1981-Best Actress (Only When I Laugh)
Grammys Lost: 2000-Best Comedy Album (The Prisoner of Second Avenue)
She Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: Mason won Golden Globes for both Cinderella Liberty and The Goodbye Girl

Can She Seal the Deal? The better question has to be how has she not?  Marsha Mason is one of my minor obsessions (she's been nominated for four Oscars, is still living, and yet somehow she disappeared off the face of the public sphere after her divorce to Neil Simon), and the real question was how was she ever going to get a Grammy nomination considering how minor her celebrity is.  With the Comedy Album citation, though, she's actually most well-known these days for her work on Broadway, as she's done six different productions in her career and is constantly working in the New York stage.  Make it happen Marcie!

Kate Nelligan

Nomination She's Missing: Grammy
Emmys Lost: 1989-Actress in a Drama Series (Road to Avonlea)
Oscars Lost: 1991-Supporting Actress (The Prince of Tides)
Tonys Lost: 1983-Actress in a Play (Plenty), 1984-Actress in a Play (A Moon for the Misbegotten), 1988-Featured Actress in a Play (Serious Money), 1989-Actress in a Play (Spoils of War)
She Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: She did win a BAFTA for Frankie and Johnny

Can She Seal the Deal?: The longtime Canadian stage actress enjoyed most of her awards-success at the Tonys, where in the 1980's she was a frequent contender but always missed (it can't feel too bad losing to the likes of Jessica Tandy and Glenn Close, though).  Her one-and-done nomination in 1991 at the Oscars makes her the person who has been on this list the longest, and as a whole she rarely acts anymore (on the stage or otherwise), so unless she has a particular penchant to get involved with an album and score a truly random nomination, this seems like the least likely of the list to happen.  It is interesting, though, how such a comparatively obscure (certainly the least well-known of these performers) actress could so quickly score 3/4 of an EGOT loss.

Kathleen Turner

Nomination She's Missing: Emmy
Grammys Lost: 2001-Spoken Word Album (The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets)
Oscars Lost: 1986-Lead Actress (Peggy Sue Got Married)
Tonys Lost: 1990-Actress in a Play (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), 2005-Actress in a Play (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
She Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: She has two Golden Globes for Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor.

Can She Seal the Deal?: Of the people on this list, I think this is probably the most shocking person on the list, considering that she almost certainly was close to getting nominated at the Emmys for playing Chandler's mother on Friends.  I would suspect, therefore, that she's also the most likely person to pull the Lynn Redgrave of anyone listed here.  She just needs a solid guest spot on a cable television series (probably not too hard considering their penchant for going for former headliners of a certain age for guest roles), and to not win the Tony Award (she probably would have won in 2005, but no one was going to take out Cherry Jones in Doubt).  I think that's manageable, and that she's probably going to make it thanks to the bizarre dozens-of-people-nominated Shakespeare Sonnets nomination she got in 2001.

Vanessa Williams

Nominations She's Missing: Oscar
Emmys Lost: 2007, 2008, and 2009-Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Ugly Betty), 2009-Performer in an Animated Program (Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies)
Grammys Lost: 1989-New Artist and Female R and B Performance ("The Right Stuff"), 1990-Female R and B Performance ("Dreamin"), 1992-Female R and B Performance ("Runnin' Back to You"), 1993-Record of the Year ("Save the Best for Last"), Female Pop Vocal Performance ("Save the Best for Last"), Female R and B Vocal Performance ("The Comfort Zone"), & Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals ("Love Is"), 1995-Female Pop Vocal Performance ("Colors of the Wind") & Female R and B Performance ("The Way That You Love"), 1997-Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album (Star Bright)
Tonys Lost: 2002-Actress in a Musical (Into the Woods)
She Shouldn't Feel Too Sad: She was Miss America, but umm, yeah, maybe she should get a little pity here.

Can She Seal the Deal?: Yeah, that list of Grammy losses is massive.  Williams is one of the most nominated women in the Recording Academy to never win.  Despite her seventeen year absence, I think her best shot would be to pick up one of the below-the-line Grammy Awards rather than take an Oscar nomination.  Williams did sing an Oscar-winning song, of course (1995's "Color of the Wind"), but she's not very much of a songwriter, and the movies have oddly never taken to her like music, television, and the theater.  So my gut says no, she can't quite get there (prove me wrong, casting directors), but may well win one of the other three awards before all is said and done.

And those are the ten!  Like I said, I researched pretty thoroughly, but if you trivia sleuths have an eleventh person let me know!

Oscar's Long-Suffering Gentlemen

As you may have guessed due to the massive increase in articles on this blog in the past two weeks, I'm in a bit of a house-cleaning mode for the blog, getting all of the articles I meant to write in 2018 but never had time to, out the door for your enjoyment before we dive into some of the new series/articles of 2019.  While doing so, I was looking through my drafts folder and realized that I owe you a sequel to an article about Oscar bridesmaids that I wrote in December.  There I took a look at the living actresses who have been nominated 3+ times but never won a competitive Academy Award.  At the time, it seemed possible that both Glenn Close & Amy Adams could be removed from such a list, but instead they just moved further into the front, both still waiting for an Oscar that might never come (but don't tell them that).

Today we're going to look at the 12 men who are living and don't have an Oscar, but have lost at least three times.  Despite the focus on Close & Adams, there are actually three men on this list who moved up thanks to this past year's ceremony, and we actually had a tragic change in this list from what it would have been had I finished it in December, as the man who would have been our #1, Albert Finney, passed away last month.  Since I didn't have time to write him an obituary at the time, consider this a bit of a memorial post to the fine actor.

Finney was very rare when he died.  I wrote in my December article that only 11 women have died with 3+ Oscar nominations and never winning a competitive one, but for men it's nearly as rare, with 13 such men who have died without a competitive Oscar.  This list includes such icons as Mickey Rooney, Peter O'Toole, and Charles Boyer, all of whom won Honorary Oscars, as well as noted character actors such as Clifton Webb and Charles Bickford.  Below you will find an additional dozen that are waiting for that competitive Oscar-speculate in the comments which ones you think have the best shot at actually taking a trophy home before their final curtain call.

Honorable Mention: Warren Beatty, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt have 3+ acting nominations without ever taking a trophy for their thespian abilities (and are still with us), but they all have competitive Oscars of their own.  Beatty won Best Director for 1981's Reds, Pitt won Best Picture in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave, and Damon won Best Original Screenplay for 1997's Good Will Hunting.  As a result, I kept them off of the list even though technically they'd qualify.

Note: These are ranked by how many nominations an actress made, then by who got their most recent nomination the latest, and then by who got their first nomination first.

12. Viggo Mortensen

Nominations: Eastern Promises (Actor in 2007), Captain Fantastic (Actor in 2016), & Green Book (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Casey Affleck, & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: It would have been 2018 had awards bodies not A) fallen weirdly in love with Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody and B) Green Book hadn't gotten a significant amount of flack for its treatment of black characters, though that latter hardly stopped it in the Best Picture & Screenplay categories so maybe it was just the former.  You could make an argument that Mortensen may have been a more palatable choice than, say, Christian Bale had Malek not been on a missile trajectory to winning his Oscar.
Well, He Still Won...: Mortensen hasn't been very lucky with awards bodies.  About the most notable trophy he's picked up would be for Best SAG Ensemble for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but he's never won a significant award for his solo acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't know.  Aside from Green Book, Mortensen's past nominations were genuine surprises, and ones that had no chance of actually winning.  If he continues to make populist films like Green Book this could theoretically happen, but he's not the type of actor who seems comfortable with campaigning, and as a result I'd wager he won't take this, unless he gets the right biopic.

11. Woody Harrelson

Nominations: The People vs. Larry Flynt (Actor in 1996), The Messenger (Supporting Actor in 2009), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Supporting Actor in 2017)
He Lost to: Geoffrey Rush, Christoph Waltz, & Sam Rockwell
Closest to the Win: The Messenger?  1996 he was in fourth or fifth place, and Three Billboards was a near-miss for a nomination, so The Messenger you could quite plausibly state that he was second place, though a distant second place to Waltz.
Well, He Still Won...: Harrelson has never won a major trophy for film, but he did take an Emmy for his time in Cheers.
Is This Happening Someday?: I think so.  Harrelson is the sort of actor who demands respect at this point, and appears in prestige films regularly (he works regularly, period).  Give him the right supporting part in a film, and it feels like he'd be able to sneak in as a career-capper sort of trophy.

10. Mark Ruffalo

Nominations: The Kids are All Right (Supporting Actor in 2010), Foxcatcher (Supporting Actor in 2013), & Spotlight (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Christian Bale, JK Simmons, & Mark Rylance
Closest to the Win: None of these movies.  I honestly can't even wager-he was at least in third for all of them, perhaps no higher than fourth.  Ruffalo's nominations are weird because all of these felt like citations you could predict, but also are for work that was never going to come close to an actual win.
Well, He Still Won...: Ruffalo took the Emmy for Best TV Movie for his work as a producer on The Normal Heart but he hasn't picked up a major trophy yet for acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: Yes, it is.  Ruffalo just turned fifty, is well-liked (all of his costars seem to adore him), and now that he's not under contractual obligation to Marvel, he's got more time to make arthouse films, which feels like where he's at home.  He just needs to get in on a Best Picture nominee, and he could win...I honestly think he's famous enough he could win lead.

9. Edward Norton

Nominations: Primal Fear (Supporting Actor in 1996), American History X (Actor in 1998), & Birdman (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Roberto Benigni, & JK Simmons
Closest to the Win: Call me crazy, but maybe 1996?  The Academy was feeling frisky that year (just ask Lauren Bacall), and he had just won a Golden Globe.  Most pundits, if you look back, thought it was a battle between Gooding and William H. Macy for Fargo, but I wonder if Norton (who also appeared in Everyone Says I Love You and The People vs. Larry Flynt) was more in the thick of the wins than people gave him credit for at the time.
Well, He Still Won...: Norton lost the Oscar to Gooding, but managed to pick up a Golden Globe in 1996 for Primal Fear.
Is This Happening Someday?: I'm going to guess no.  Norton has had a lot more pits than valleys in a career where he's never really stopped working.  I think he's the definition of an actor who starts out strong (surely everyone assumed he was the next big thing by 1999), but Birdman feels more the exception than the rule, and he's not the type that will go after the (quality) Oscar-bait projects.  They'll need to come to him.

8. Joaquin Phoenix

Nominations: Gladiator (Supporting Actor in 2000), Walk the Line (Actor in 2005), & The Master (Actor in 2012)
He Lost to: Benicio del Toro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: None of these are close wins.  Walk the Line couldn't even get a Best Picture nomination, and that's the one that makes the most sense when you compare it to its competition (and he's at best in third behind Hoffman & Heath Ledger).
Well, He Still Won...: It always feels weird to say this, but the only major trophy that the deeply method & dark Phoenix has ever won was for the Comedy Golden Globe (for Walk the Line).
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't think so.  If anyone on this list is the modern successor to Albert Finney, it's Phoenix, who is an actor that is too good not to occasionally be nominated for awards, but also clearly hates them and I doubt the Academy would ever want to give him a microphone.

7. Nick Nolte

Nominations: The Prince of Tides (Actor in 1991), Affliction (Actor in 1998), & Warrior (Supporting Actor in 2011)
He Lost to: Anthony Hopkins, Roberto Benigni, & Christopher Plummer
Closest to the Win: You could make a sincere argument that he was the frontrunner in 1991, with tough competition from Hopkins and Warren Beatty (Hopkins victory has aged very well, to the point where we feel like it was inevitable but that was not what people thought at the time).  However, he was also in the thick of things in 1998, when James Coburn stunned for a victory in Supporting Actor, so there was clearly a lot of support for Affliction (considering how Benigni's career aged, the Academy probably wishes they had given it to Nolte).
Well, He Still Won...: Nolte nabbed the Golden Globe for his work in The Prince of Tides (hard to believe in this era of uniform awards seasons, but Nolte managed to win Drama Actor over the man who'd eventually take the Oscar)...please take note AMPAS-creativity is a good thing.
Is This Happening Someday?: No.  Nolte's shot at ever winning this Oscar died the day that infamous mugshot was taken.  He's nearly 80 years old, and he wouldn't be an awful choice for an Honorary Oscar if it would occur to anyone, but a competitive trophy ain't going to happen-the Warrior nomination was probably the closest he was ever going to get to a career honor.

6. Johnny Depp

Nominations: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Actor in 2003), Finding Neverland (Actor in 2004), & Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Actor in 2007)
He Lost to: Sean Penn, Jamie Foxx, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: Pirates, for sure.  The 2003 Best Actor race was a genuinely close affair, with Penn, Depp, and Bill Murray all in a threeway locked race.  I remember at the time some people even speculated that it could end in a tie of sorts.  Can you imagine a year where the Globes and SAG honored three different lead performers in this era?
Well, He Still Won...: Depp is beloved by the Golden Globes (he's been nominated ten times, including multiple citations before Oscar gave him the time of day), but only won once, for Sweeney Todd (the year of the strike, so we've never seen a major Johnny Depp speech)
Is This Happening Someday?: Probably not.  Depp has become something of a pariah, a sellout on-par with Nic Cage at this point, and the abuse allegations against him will age more poorly as time goes by.  I honestly don't think he'll even get an Honorary Oscar considering how much of his once darling arthouse reputation has been drowned in a series of big-budget schlock.

5. Tom Cruise

Nominations: Born on the Fourth of July (Actor in 1989), Jerry Maguire (Actor in 1996), & Magnolia (Supporting Actor in 1999)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, & Michael Caine
Closest to the Win: Cruise has genuinely been close to winning all three times he's been nominated.  Day-Lewis won in 1989 because Cruise was too young and too new to prestige, Jerry Maguire was a loss because Cruise, like his idol Paul Newman, probably was still too rich & famous to need an Oscar to complete the ensemble, and Magnolia would have happened had Miramax not been shoving caviar down the entire Academy's throat (also, everyone's worked with Mike Caine, and seems to love him, so him being thirsty for the thing probably helped).
Well, He Still Won...: Proving you learn something new every time you research an article, Cruise won the Golden Globe every single time he was nominated for the Oscar for the same film.  Oscar just never bit compared to the starstruck HFPA.
Is This Happening Someday?: I can't tell.  Cruise is still famous enough that he could make this work if he really wanted to, and I think (unlike Depp) he'd be forgiven his baggage.  I just don't think he wants to make the types of pictures that would allow him into an awards season, and honestly-can he still pull off such a character?  He hasn't done something like Magnolia or even Jerry Maguire in so long I honestly don't know if he still can, well, act.  An Honorary Oscar could be in the cards though, especially if they set precedence with Harrison Ford or Sly Stallone.  A lot of Academy members paid their mortgages thanks to Cruise's star power.

4. Kirk Douglas

Nominations: Champion (Actor in 1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (Actor in 1952), & Lust for Life (Actor in 1956)
He Lost to: Broderick Crawford, Gary Cooper, & Yul Brynner
Closest to the Win: At the time, most people assumed that Kirk Douglas, then one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was a shoo-in for a trophy for Lust for Life.  The Academy, though, seemed to like Oscar-lookalike Yul Brynner more in the crowd-pleasing The King & I and so Douglas went empty-handed.  One has to assume if they had known at the time that he'd never get another nomination that he might have won, but who knows what the Academy would do, even with hindsight.
Well, He Still Won...: Douglas deservedly won the Honorary Award at the 1995 Oscars, back when they still broadcast the Honorary winners at the ceremony, so the world was treated to his emotional tribute to his son.  In addition to a slew of Honorary trophies (everything from the DeMille to the Kennedy Center Honors to the AFI Life Achievement Award), he picked up the Golden Globe in 1956 for Lust for Life.
Is This Happening Someday?: No, obviously not.  Douglas is retired and 102.  He got his Honorary Award, and basically every other lifetime achievement award the industry could throw at him, and he'll die a legend.  Kirk Douglas will still be one of the iconic movie stars of all time even without a competitive Oscar, which is surely better than a statue.

3. Bradley Cooper

Nominations: Silver Linings Playbook (Actor in 2012), American Hustle (Supporting Actor in 2013), American Sniper (Actor in 2014), & A Star is Born (Actor in 2018)...he also was nominated for Best Picture for American Sniper & for Picture/Adapted Screenplay for A Star is Born
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: American Sniper felt at the time like it was on the rise, and honestly I wonder if with two more weeks of gargantuan box office if Cooper could have bested Eddie Redmayne.  Also, still not sure what happened this year with the similarly-gargantuan box office for A Star is Born...though at least there Malek came with his own pile of gold.
Well, He Still Won...: Cooper has competed at the Golden Globes, BAFTA's, and Tonys in addition to the Oscars, but like Dafoe, he's never picked up a major trophy.
Is This Happening Someday?: We enter a trio of actors who have been nominated four times without a victory (with Finney's death, no living male actor has received five nominations without winning at least one of them).  Cooper arguably should be first on this list since he has more losses than anyone, but I'm only counting acting trophies.  Also, he's going to win someday unless we're witnessing a Kirk Douglas situation.  Cooper surely has the respect of the industry, and has a hunger for that trophy, which they usually award (especially in men), though he may have to be a little less pretty to finally get there.

2. Willem Dafoe

Nominations: Platoon (Supporting Actor in 1986), Shadow of the Vampire (Supporting Actor in 2000), The Florida Project (Supporting Actor in 2017), & At Eternity's Gate (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Michael Caine, Benicio del Toro, Sam Rockwell & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: I would guess that last year Dafoe was in second place, and I still think it's a bummer that he didn't gain more traction for a clearly better role than Rockwell's, but he hasn't really been close for any of his other work, so I'd go with that film.
Well, He Still Won...: Dafoe has won a mountain of critics' prizes, but never picked up one of the major televised awards.
Is This Happening Someday?: I would assume not, but honestly that fourth nomination threw me a bit.  There were other more obvious contenders (John David Washington, for example) that could have easily snuck in and taken the fifth slot for Best Actor, and Dafoe doing so indicates that there's some appetite to get him an Oscar...but if there was a proper appetite, wouldn't he have won for Florida?  He works with high-profile auteurs, so if one of them gets a film with a little more traction/nominations it could happen, but it'd help if it was in the next couple of years since he's got some recent losses under his belt.

1. Ed Harris

Nominations: Apollo 13 (Supporting Actor in 1995), The Truman Show (Supporting Actor in 1998), Pollock (Actor in 2000), and The Hours (Supporting Actor in 2002)
He Lost to: Kevin Spacey, James Coburn, Russell Crowe, & Chris Cooper
Closest to the Win: Other than The Hours, Harris was close on all three of the other films.  It was down to he & Kevin Spacey in 1995.  In 1998, it was down to he and Robert Duvall (and then in a huge upset James Coburn won, proving that this "closest to the win" is very much a guessing game).  And in 2000, he was surging at the last minute enough to get his costar Marcia Gay Harden across the finish line, but he wasn't able to invade the Crowe/Hanks battle.
Well, He Still Won...: Harris grabbed Golden Globe awards for The Truman Show and Game Change (the HBO TV movie).
Is This Happening Someday?: I doubt it.  Harris still works (Westworld), but he refuses to campaign, and honestly has gotten to the point where I don't even think he'd show up to accept it (he didn't for Game Change), and unless you're Maggie Smith, you don't win if you don't show up.

Mother! (2017)

Film: Mother! (2017)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I am sitting in an airport right now, desperately trying to fight off jet lag (I never got used to my new time zone, so the next three hours of my life could be rough as I’m not good at being tired, and I’m already starting to fade).  That being said, I am going to try and keep myself awake while writing film reviews, and boy-howdy is it hard to sleep when you’re thinking about something as strange, controversial, and genuinely confusing as Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!.  So, let’s give this a shot.

(Spoilers Ahead…and genuinely, avoid spoilers if you are planning on seeing this movie at any point, as the punch isn’t going to work if you don’t) The film focuses on Mother (Lawrence-all of the characters are unnamed in the picture), a beautiful young woman who is refurbishing the house she shares with her husband, creating something from nothing as he fruitlessly works to create something great from his writing (he is the Poet).  One day, a strange Man (Harris), shows up at the door, dying but clearly enamored with the work of the Poet.  He is soon joined by the Woman (Pfeiffer), his wife, who prods at Mother over why she hasn’t had children, and continually shows misguided scorn toward her.  The film unfolds with the two being intensely rude guests, breaking a stone that at the beginning of the film had transformed the house, and having sex after Mother tries to throw them out.  When one of their two sons kills the other one, an impromptu funeral unfolds, and at the end after taunting the Poet, Mother becomes pregnant and the Poet is suddenly inspired to write as a result.

This may sound a bit strange, but honestly-this is the normal part of the movie.  In the second half of the film, utter madness ensues.  While we have lost the Man and Woman, the Poet is worshiped by hordes of increasingly lecherous intruders, ripping the floor apart and destroying the house that Mother has so cared for, and eventually even killing her baby, breaking his neck and eating his remains.  The movie eventually has her burning the house to the ground, giving her love to her husband in the form of a hardened crystal similar to the beginning of the movie, and then being reincarnated as a different fair-faced young woman, seemingly doomed to repeat the same scenario over and over again.

The film is, for its many, many faults, quite ambitious.  Aronofsky is not pulling any punches here, literally having a baby die during a crowd surf and then being eaten whole by a mob of people.  The movie, at least in its first half, is a pretty clear biblical metaphor, with Adam & Eve represented in the form of Man and Woman, with their sons being Cain-and-Abel (the elder kills the younger after learning that his inheritance was to be tossed aside), and the Poet is a god of some sorts, while Mother represents the Earth prior to humanity.  The similarities here are too direct to not clearly be alluding to the Bible, though one could argue the film also has an environmental message, is an allegory for social media, or even is as direct as the destructive nature between artist/muse.  But for me, the first half feels pretty similar to a biblical story.

This means the second half fails, in my opinion, quite miserably.  The idea of reincarnation of the planet seems more at home in other religions (Hinduism or Buddhism), than a Judeo-Christian one housed in the first half of the picture.  The movie also loses all direction when there isn’t any goodness or misunderstanding in some of those who ravage the house, the planet that Mother so deeply cares for-is Aronofsky’s view of humanity so bleak that he doesn’t have room for goodness?  It doesn’t help that it’s obvious by the film’s midway point that the only thing that we can’t predict is how disgusting the imagery is willing to be (oh, and Kristin Wiig-genuinely didn’t see her cameo coming as I didn’t realize she was signed up for the film-if the religious allegory works, she seems to be some sort of opportunistic religious zealot, trying to use the Poet while caring little for his muse, perhaps like a politician who claims to be Christian but then destroys everything that his God holds dear).  Pretty much any interpretation of the first half of the picture doesn’t work with the second half-Aronofsky is trying hard for a provocative metaphor, but metaphor only works if you make it consistent.  Otherwise it’s just shocking, which is what I feel like the second half achieves.  It’s an interesting failure, but a failure narratively-speaking.

The acting, though, is at least worth recommending.  Lawrence has never done a part like this before, and it’s fascinating work even if it isn’t always successful; her movie star charisma is shelved in favor of a blank loveliness, passive to the point of frustration, and naïve to the point where the audience was laughing at certain points of the picture, but she does the trick.  It’s nowhere near her best work (still think that’s American Hustle), but it’s miles away from the boredom of Passengers, so she’s at least recovered in that regard.  Her male costars are underwhelming-Bardem in particular feels too all-over-the-place, playing a role that at once feels almost typecast for him and yet one that he doesn’t uncover much of its heart within, playing everything surface-level.  The best of the bunch, though, is Pfeiffer, who gives the film some heat where it seriously would have lacked it otherwise.  She is knowing, specific, and anchors the movie’s scarier tendencies before Aronofsky completely discards the picture you were promised in the trailers.  If the film were more accessible, I suspect we’d be hearing about a comeback fourth Oscar nomination, but I have to wonder if AMPAS voters won’t stop the film an hour in, wondering what they’re being subjected to from Aronofsky.

Those are my thoughts?  Anyone want to share theirs?  Anyone else wishing they’d seen the film that they’d been promised in the trailers, or is this bizarre jumble up-your-alley?  Share your thoughts in the comments!