OVP: Days of Heaven (1978)

Film: Days of Heaven (1978)

Stars: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz

Director: Terrence Malick

Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Sound, Cinematography*, Costume Design, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As part of our month-long celebration of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, I am completing all of the remaining gaps in my Terrence Malick filmography (one of my favorite film directors) with what we're calling "Terry Tuesdays" throughout June.

One of the fascinating aspects of Terrence Malick's filmography, especially for me looking backward right now (I have seen virtually all of his recent work but until this month had never seen his first three pictures) is that by the time The New World and especially The Tree of Life had come around, there was very little plot in the films in a traditional sense.  Many actors have complained about this (perhaps the most vocal being Christopher Plummer), but it's one of the things I love about his movies.  They're gorgeous, but they're also very much mood portraits, about trying to capture a feeling or a belief or a meaning beyond what you'd normally get with a film.  Days of Heaven, Malick's second feature film, was not well-received by audiences in 1978 when it came out (it was not particularly successful, despite some critical praise and getting four Oscar nominations), but by Malick's standards the plot of this one is pretty structured, and provides a meaningful story in addition to breathtaking photography.

(Spoilers Ahead) Taking place in the 1910's, Bill (Gere), his girlfriend Abby (Adams), and his kid sister Linda (Manz) are on the run after Bill accidentally kills the steel mill foreman at his job.  They ride across the country on trains (with Abby pretending to be Bill's sister to prevent the gossip of them being unmarried but clearly having sex), and come across a man that is simply known as the Farmer (Shepard) in the movie, who is a wealthy man who runs a gigantic estate.  Initially they are just day laborers on his farm, but Bill soon learns that the Farmer is dying, and will only have about a year to live.  Eyeing an easier life for he & his makeshift family, Bill hatches a plot-he'll remain Abby's brother and convince her to marry the Farmer.  Then, when the Farmer dies, Abby will inherit the entire estate.  This works for a while-the Farmer loves & marries Abby, but the plan begins to work too well-Abby begins to fall for the Farmer, and he doesn't seem to be getting any sicker.  When the Farmer finds out about Bill & Abby's plan, he flies into a rage (during a locust swarm), and sets fire to his wheat fields.  This leads to a standoff between Bill & the Farmer which results in Bill killing him with a screwdriver.  Bill runs away with Abby & Linda, but is quickly caught and killed, with Abby inheriting the farm, though her boundless spirit continues, with both she and Linda eventually running off in opposite directions, continuing their lives as drifters.

Though the film has more plot than your average Malick film, as I said, it does feel like it's operating on a different plane.  The fact that the Farmer doesn't have a name should tell you something about it being a bit dreamy, but it works really well.  We get to see a disarming treatise about love & betrayal, with each person in the love triangle distinct enough in their imperfections without ever feeling like they're caricatures or behaving badly to advance the plot.  I thought the acting was uniformly good, particularly Shepard as the Farmer.  The lovers don't care to define him, and I think that works really well as we begin to test his limits & what he's capable of as the film shifts toward him bitterly resenting these people taking advantage of him in his "final" days.

The movie won four Oscar nominations, all of them warranted.  Ennio Morricone famously disliked working with Malick, but you can't argue with the results.  A recurrent theme that feels like it's capturing the beauty of the American spirit before it is forever altered by World War I is felt throughout the movie.  The sound work, period costumes, & Jack Fisk's daring outdoor design are also worthy (though Fisk sadly wasn't nominated), but with Days of Heaven, you think first-and-foremost about the cinematography.  I say this knowing it's a recent film viewing, but I cannot help but indulge in some hyperbole...Days of Heaven might be the most beautiful film ever made.  Malick famously uses natural light, which feels awash on the house in the middle of a giant field, giving us just scene-after-scene of oil paintings (it doesn't hurt that he cast Richard Gere at his most ravishing, looking every bit the Raphael-inpsired young god).  The scene with the locusts, which had to be filmed backward to get a realistic effect (this was before CGI was widely-used), has to be seen to be believed.  In an era where you seemingly cannot win Best Cinematography without a Best Picture nomination, I'm glad Oscar realized what they had on their hands and gave Nestor Almendros his richly-deserved statue.

OVP: Unfaithful (2002)

Film: Unfaithful (2002)

Stars: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan

Director: Adrian Lyne

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Diane Lane)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the things to keep in mind when you talk about the Oscars is that oftentimes, the best movies are not across-the board successes in every category.  The Academy frequently forgets this, nominating a movie for every category it can conceivably be considered for, but most often a film can have, say, average Sound Recording or Art Direction even if it's overall an outstanding picture.  The opposite, though, is true too.  Terrible films can occasionally have jewels embedded in them, and it's weird to notice when Oscar realizes this, saving an otherwise forgettable film from obscurity, or just letting some hidden gem live on in the picture.  In 2002, they managed to do the former.  Diane Lane in 2002 was kind of a "has-been" or at least "someone who hadn't fulfilled their potential;" a promising child actress, her career languished in the 1980's due to the high-profile flops Streets of Fire & The Cotton Club, and while she'd had successes (most notably Lonesome Dove), she was not the headliner she could've been.  That changed, though, with Unfaithful, which won her her only (to date) Oscar nomination, and her first massive hit as an adult leading woman.  The movie in question might have given Lane a well-earned moment of true stardom, but it's also, well, really bad.

(Spoilers Ahead) We're getting ahead of ourselves, though-let's establish what the film itself is about.  Edward (Gere) and Connie (Lane) Sumner live in a posh Westchester home with their son Charlie (Per Sullivan).  The two have a seemingly idyllic marriage, but it's filled with boredom-they love each other, but the fire in the relationship has gone out.  One day (in a near comical windstorm), Connie meets Paul (Martinez), a younger book seller who treats her from an injury during the windstorm, and then comes onto her.  Connie resists, but she's intrigued by him, going back to see Paul, and eventually they start an affair.  Edward begins to catch onto the affair, which Connie begins to question particularly when it becomes clear that Paul is having this kind of relationship with other women.  Edward confronts Paul, and in a jealous rage (after seeing a snow globe he gave his wife & now she gave Paul), he hits Paul on the head with it, killing him instantly...and as he's cleaning up after the crime, Connie calls & breaks off the affair on Paul's answering machine, thus a sense of irony that he just killed a man who is no longer a threat to his marriage.  The remaining act of the film is Connie being a suspect for the crime, realizing that Edward knew about the affair & killed Paul, them reconciling, and then in the film's closing scenes, them making plans in front of a police station, likely just moments before Edward turns himself in.

Unfaithful is a film that at times is so ludicrous you almost think it should be played for comedy.  One of my main issues with movies is when they have otherwise intelligent people behave foolishly to advance the plot, and Unfaithful is just a seemingly continual series of that.  We're somehow meant to believe that Connie doesn't realize she's a notch in this guy's bedpost after she spots him with another women.  We're also expected to believe that Edward, a seemingly miild-mannered man, not only kills Paul in a jealous rage (in a weird scene where it seems like he's going to have a heart attack before he does it), and then somehow manages to lug a body wrapped in a rug in broad daylight (in Manhattan!) into the trunk of his car, brings the body to a dump site (where it's never actually found within the confines of the film)...and somehow still manages to put the murder weapon, the snow globe, back with his wife's snow globe collection, where she'll inevitably figure out that he stole it from Paul & murdered him?  Where is the logic here-it's utterly stupid to assume that he wouldn't discard the snow globe, even if he hadn't figured out how to forgive his wife or not?

Which brings us to the ending.  The film's ending is out-of-left-field.  The police have investigated Connie & Edward, and while she in particular is a suspect in the murder, there's nothing really tying her to Paul's actual death.  Apparently despite Edward's & Connie's fingerprints being in the apartment (proving they had been in Paul's home), they can't get their fingerprints to match them, and there's no body or murder weapon as far as the police are concerned so it's impossible to charge them (though a black light surely would have shown them that Paul had lost an immense amount of blood, and the lack of a body would indicate that he was murdered rather than suicide).  So why, exactly, after they reconcile & decide to have this terrible secret, does he seemingly turn himself into the police?  The logic here is mind-boggling, and the script gives us no hints as to the reason.

All of this is to say that Diane Lane getting a hit out of this movie is a surprise, and entirely resting on her shoulders.  Lane plays Connie as a complete woman, and one that cannot easily be pigeonholed.  She is a woman in her 40's who is still unbelievably gorgeous, a woman who clearly is living her life on autopilot.  You see that in the way she starts to give into Paul, at first tentatively, and then with a recklessness, showing in her relationship a passion she hasn't felt in years.  Even as the film continues, though, her ambivalence toward her old life never exactly tires-Lane plays her as someone who understands that what she has (her marriage, her wealth, her son) is something of value, but it's not something she particularly values.  That's smart acting, and a devotion to a character that the script really can't provide insight toward-she earned this Oscar nomination, and kudos to the Academy for finding this gem under so much garbage.

OVP: Bloodbrothers (1978)

Film: Bloodbrothers (1978)
Stars: Paul Sorvino, Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Gere, Lelia Goldoni, Yvonne Wilder, Marilu Henner
Director: Robert Mulligan
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Ugh.  I've actually got a whole mess of Oscar-winning and nominated films that I need to review (I'm kind of in a tug-of-war with my time this week with the DVR looking too plump to deny it time but also I have so many reviews I want to get out into the world-time is a precious resource in my universe at the moment).  But for some reason I'm going to start my return to film reviews after not too many in the last week with a look at one of the worst movies I've seen in a while, and that's saying something after the weekend of disappointments I've just endured.  Bloodbrothers, a little-remembered (I'd never heard of it, and it has some decently large names attached) film from the late 1970's got an inexplicable nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and so as a result I was forced to endure (in the good name of the Oscar Viewing Project) a chauvinistic, nasty piece of work about a poor Italian family in the Bronx and the quest for one of its members, Stony (Gere) to find a better life for himself.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film isn't, admittedly, in my wheelhouse to begin with, as I'm currently over the "young man finds himself" routine that the movies seem to rely so heavily upon, but this in particular is a film that grates on almost every level.  The film is utterly predictable, with Stony, an impossibly-gorgeous lug who lives under the shadow of his alcoholic, philandering father and uncle (played by Lo Bianco and Sorvino, respectively), getting a rare opportunity from a doctor who is treating his younger brother for anorexia to get out of the hardhat-union lifestyle that his family has preordained for him.  Stony begins working at a hospital helping children, and starts dating a girl that he previously called the Town Plug or something off-color (played by Marilu Henner in her breakout role before Taxi).  The film has Stony alternating back-and-forth between the hardhat life and pursuing his dream of working with children until, at the end of the film, his mother finds out his father is cheating, we as an audience are forced to endure her first being humiliated by a mentally-imbalanced man in the laundry room while he "relieves himself" in her presence, and then we have to watch her beaten, and then the screenplay has the audacity to have us try and feel sorry for not just her attacker, but pretty much everyone involved.

Stony gets away, but the script itself is so bad and sexist you half expect him to just stick around and get back together with Henner's Annette, even after repeatedly humiliating her.  The film suffers from not only a predictable plot, but one with very few likable characters.  Stony is meant to be a kind guy, but in many ways he's just like his father and uncle, and really the only nice thing about him is that he's a good older brother, we just forgive him more because he looks like Michelangelo's David.  The film might have something interesting to say about Henner, but her role is really just window dressing.  On the flip side, the movie frequently gives way to all of Lo Bianco's machismo, and we see him moan, sigh, and grunt so frequently you have the feeling the director had no opinion on the character and the way he's supposed to be shaped.  There's literally nothing redeeming about him, and the way he treats his family is appalling, but the script feels too complicit in trying to make him seem complicated when he's not-he's just a jackass.  However, Lo Bianco somehow doesn't give the worst performance in the film.  That prize goes to Lelia Goldoni, who does some of the worst acting I've ever seen in a major motion picture, certainly one that was nominated for an Academy Award.  Goldoni is awful as a mother who can't decide if she's psychotic or just deranged by anger at her situation in life, but she's a truly terrible human being and one that it's hard to feel for as Stony tries to forgive she and her father when he leaves their life behind.  Goldoni's performance makes Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest seem like a Charlotte Rampling-level act of subtlety.

The film's nomination is perplexing-was there just a dearth of contenders that year?  Walter Newman is a longtime favorite in Hollywood and wrote two other more memorable Oscar-blessed screenplays (Ace in the Hole and Cat Ballou), but unless the Academy thought this was actually a renamed version of his legendary Harrow Alley, this is pretty much unforgivable.  The script is predictable, maudlin, and has nothing but 2-dimensional characters.  I know this was a weak year for this category, looking at some of the also-rans, but surely Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, Death on the Nile, Superman, or Stevie have to be considered a better option than this dreadful movie and more worthy of the title Oscar-nominated.  I shall now not think of it anymore, except perhaps at how it weirdly objectified Richard Gere the entire movie and yet no one commented on his beauty once.  Honestly, it even had time to randomly make a gay guy look bad, because why not?

Those are my thoughts on this aggressively terrible picture-how about yours?  Anyone want to jump to its defense?  What films should have gotten this nomination instead?  And what's your favorite Richard Gere picture?  Share your comments below!

SAG Nominations ≠ Oscar Nominations

We've done it with Emmy.  We've done it with the Golden Globes.  And we've done it with BAFTA.  Sometimes a nomination at a precursor just doesn't equal with Oscar.  However, for the SAG Awards, it really does.  I had been holding off a bit on an article about the actors who have been nominated for film awards at the SAG Awards but never at the Oscars partially because the list is relatively small (SAG generally really does equal Oscar), and I wasn't sure how to do it.  However, I like the format I went with below, so let's take a dive into the unlucky few who have been nominated for SAG but not with Oscar.  As a reminder, there are some actors (such as Tilda Swinton and Forest Whitaker) who have been nominated for performances at the SAG Awards but not at the Oscars, but they are still Oscar nominees so they aren't on the below list, just those at the SAG Awards who have yet to dance with AMPAS.

Best Actress
Number of SAG Nominees without an Oscar Nod: 6 (Meg Ryan, Pam Grier, Jane Horrocks, Evan Rachel Wood, Ziyi Zhang, Jennifer Aniston)
Came the Closest with Oscar: The latter three were all in heavy contention for the nomination, with Aniston considered something of a lock.  All three got thrown out for surprises (Keisha Castle-Hughes moving to lead for Wood, Laura Linney and Marion Cotillard randomly landing a nod after being denied for most of the season for the latter).  If I had to go with one specifically, I would go with Aniston.
You Crazy SAG!: Meg Ryan's nomination for When a Man Loves a Woman is vintage SAG, the era when they would not only nominate The Birdcage for Best Cast, but give it the trophy.  Ryan also happened to land that nod in 1994, which was one of those "let's throw pasta at the wall and see what sticks" kind of years.
Who Has the Best Shot to Break the Cycle?: Ryan, Grier, and Horrocks have all seen their time pass and Zhang probably is firmly in the "international star" category, the kind thats get a screening during a Summer arthouse slot, but never actually gains awards traction again.  Aniston and Wood, however, have pretty vibrant careers going-Aniston clearly has a taste for the Oscar after her near miss with Cake (Peter Bogdonavich, anyone?) and probably has the slight edge for the next couple of years, though Wood is more consistently in Oscar-bait supporting roles.  I'll go with Wood, but if Aniston announces a bait-y project before 2017, I'm switching pretty quickly.

Best Actor
Number of SAG Nominees without an Oscar Nod: 5 (Joseph Fiennes, Jamie Bell, Richard Gere, Peter Dinklage, Emile Hirsch)
Came the Closest with Oscar: Richard Gere.  He'd won the Globe, was SAG-nominated, and was headlining a Best Picture winner.  The thing people forget about Gere is that he wasn't a frontrunner at the beginning of the cycle for the fifth slot, Michael Caine was.  It wasn't until he won the Globe and got a shock nod at the SAG Awards that he suddenly became invincible, but at that point some of the balloting had started and lead actors in musicals usually have a tough time getting nominated.  Still, this had to have been a close sixth place.
You Crazy SAG!: Peter Dinklage, the future Tyrion Lannister, managed a nomination for a miniscule film in 2003 knocking out far heavier hitters like Jude Law (Cold Mountain) and Russell Crowe (Master and Commander).  This was also the year that SAG threw a major monkey wrench in the winner predictions-after Bill Murray and Sean Penn won at the Globes, the SAG Awards decided randomly to give the trophy to Johnny Depp, giving us one of the most nail-biting races for the Oscar in a while.
Who Has the Best Shot to Break the Cycle?: Hmm, I kind of want to say none of them.  Gere probably makes the most sense in the Hollywood hierarchy, but they've passed him by a few times now and maybe he's just not their cup of tea.  Still, a stellar supporting turn would be hard to turn down in the right Best Picture nominee, so I'll go with that, as Fiennes/Hirsch have watched their time fade, Dinklage is too into TV now, and Jamie Bell has the curse of being nominated as a child actor.

Best Supporting Actress
Number of SAG Nominees without an Oscar Nod: 9 (Jamie Lee Curtis, Robin Wright, Gwen Verdon, Alison Elliott, Cameron Diaz, Dakota Fanning, Maria Bello, Diane Kruger, Mila Kunis)
Came the Closest with Oscar: Another tough call.  Wright, Diaz, Bello, and Kunis all also scored with the Globes, making them de facto predictions (so did Curtis, but in lead, and that performance's awards trajectory has always baffled me, though I can't wait to eventually see it).  I think I'm going to go with Robin Wright in Forrest Gump over the other three though.  She got snubbed in a MAJOR surprise with Jennifer Tilly randomly scoring for Bullets Over Broadway and her competition that year (Curtis, Jessica Tandy in Nobody's Fool, Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, and her costar Sally Field (who probably cost her the nomination with vote-splitting) all sort of pale to the baitiness of her role in a shallow year).
You Crazy SAG!: I actually don't find any of these truly egregious-Verdon and Elliott were both a little odd, but they were both riding coattails which isn't unusual.  Instead, I'm going to go with someone that made me shout "really?" even though she's an Oscar winner: Cloris Leachman in Spanglish!  An Adam Sandler movie?  And one that somehow flopped during his peak Box Office years?  I mean, it is James L. Brooks but when Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, and Kate Winslet are all there with prestige dramas, it's kind of hard to believe they randomly decided to honor Phyllis Lindstrom.
Who Has the Best Shot to Break the Cycle?: It should be noted that Diaz is the only person EVER to be nominated for two SAG Awards for film performances and not be an Oscar nominee (she was cited for both Being John Malkovich and Vanilla Sky), so she probably should be selected here but she never seems interested in such work anymore.  Still, if she were to find her Blind Side, she could be in the conversation again considering her celebrity.  Subtracting her from the conversation, I'm guessing that Robin Wright's new lease on life after House of Cards could give her a plum role ala Felicity Huffman in Transamerica.

Best Supporting Actor
Number of SAG Nominees without an Oscar Nod: 15 (John Turturro, Kevin Bacon, Nathan Lane, Hank Azaria, Noah Taylor, Billy Connolly, David Kelly, Hayden Christensen, Dennis Quaid, Alfred Molina, Freddie Highmore, Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Daniel Bruhl, James Gandolfini)
Came the Closest with Oscar: This is actually a pretty long list-SAG has a knack for nominating the sixth place finishers in the Oscar race.  I'm still beyond flummoxed by Dennis Quaid's lack of a nomination when it looked like he might win the Oscar at the time.  As weird as it is to say, though, I'd probably go with Hayden Christensen.  At the time, Life as a House was a top contender in both lead and supporting (Kevin Kline was on my prediction list) and Christensen was poised to be "the next big star."  In the end Jon Voight's work in Ali got in (Jon Voight always finds a way), and Christensen became something of a pop culture joke.  It's weird to think how different his career might have been if he'd made it with Oscar-could he have recovered?
You Crazy SAG!: Not one, but two of the Birdcage stars made it into the SAG Award category, and while it's awesome to see Hank Azaria's hilarious cook in the category, what exactly about Nathan Lane's performance is supporting? (raised eyebrow)
Who Has the Best Shot to Break the Cycle?: This is a long list, but none of them really pop as "Oscar must go to there!"  Alfred Molina works the most in prestige, but he can never seem to gain traction with Oscar.  Armie Hammer still gets cast in major movies (admittedly in side roles now) so he's a possibility but I continue to have trouble seeing him actually popping considering all of the opportunities he's had, so I'll go with either Kevin Bacon or Dennis Quaid.  Both of them are big enough stars that a key supporting turn would gain attention, and while I think a win might be out of the question, they've both worked with everyone so who knows if the right movie comes along.

And there you have it-the SAG actors who just can't win with AMPAS.  What are your thoughts?  Who do you think will be the next off this list?  Who are you surprised is still on it?  And whose nomination did you completely blank happened?  Share in the comments!

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

Film: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)
Stars: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Dev Patel, Richard Gere
Director: John Madden
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I will admit right up front that I wasn't planning on seeing The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It just wasn't on the To Do list, to be honest.  I had already added it to the Netflix queue, to pursue at my leisure, and will admit that the initial film hadn't worn particularly memorable in the old cranium.  The film seemed fine, but forgettable, a weird conundrum of a hit that I have to celebrate (I love living in a world where Maggie Smith and Judi Dench can open art house hits in a major way).  However, I have been desperate for quality films in recent weeks.  Seriously-what is going on at the movies lately?  Home and Get Hard are expected to drive whom, exactly, to the movies?  Bored parents and people who aren't sick of Kevin Hart or Will Ferrell?  So with my art house cinema slate almost completely viewed (Landmark Theaters, let's get on this, and let's all pray Women in Gold is a good movie), I ventured forward to see a sequel to a film I didn't love the first time around, but merely liked.

(Spoilers Ahead) I will admit that the film had more confidence in being memorable than it actually was in my memory, as the first twenty minutes were spent more on trying to recall exactly where the last film left-off.  Who was which character, and quite frankly I was flummoxed as to what had happened between Judi Dench and Bill Nighy's characters, as they clearly were romantically involved in my memory and yet they still hadn't quite sealed the "girlfriend/boyfriend" card yet in the film.

The movie is really just a check-in on the characters as we last saw them, and for the most part nothing really changes from there other than continued "moving on with life."  The film chronicles the lives of people who are getting on in India, though sadly without Tom Wilkinson (whose presence was much-missed).  The movie is refreshing in many ways.  For starters, death doesn't hang in the air nearly as ardently as it could have, or which is typical of people over the age of 70 in films.  The only character who has the linger of death in the air is Maggie Smith's Muriel, who gets distressing medical news offscreen but doesn't actually die onscreen.  Quite frankly, since they had dealt with this already in the first film and because Smith's character already had an arc to work here (becoming an entrepreneur so late in her life, and impressing with her candor), I kind of wish they had skipped that all together as it was unnecessary and took away from the other refreshing stories.

Some of those included Judi Dench's brilliant move to sales for a fabric distributor.  There's a marvelous scene when she gets a job offer where she says, "but I'm 79!" and the woman, at least 25 years her junior, proclaims, "it doesn't bother us if it doesn't bother you."  I thought this was brilliant, particularly because you so rarely see new career options so late in life in film (or even more sad, in real life), and because she clearly has a knack for this job, so why not hire her?  This was one of many touches in the film that I enjoyed-you also had the confusing but fascinating take on monogamy modeled by Diana Hardcastle's Carol and Ronald Pickup's Norman, the sexual awakening of Celia Imrie's Madge, and perhaps best of the side characters, the challenge of Penelope Wilton's Jean.  Really Wilton deserves special honors for taking a character that occasionally seemed too sharp to be believable in the last film and giving her a lonely humane edge.  There's a scene late in the movie where Dench confronts her about her imaginary fiance, and she admits that life hasn't been kind to her, and she's trying desperately to make it look the way that she wants.  There's something deeply honest in that that you rarely see in movies-we're not supposed to admit failure or loneliness or quite frankly even effort in real life, and I loved this moment as Dench's character doesn't view it as a victory or even a moment of pity, but one of recognition of a shared feeling.

This is really where the film works-it's quite frankly better as an adult drama, something we almost never get in cinema today, not unless it also revolves around being a parent (which is almost never an issue for even the parents seen onscreen in Second Best Exotic).  The movie falls apart when it focuses on Dev Patel's ludicrously over-the-top Sonny, who is constantly making a fool of himself, and while he's adorable, between Tina Desae and Freida Pinto it does appear that casting directors may be overestimating his sex appeal.

Overall, then, I will say that while it shares so much with its predecessor that I can't really go above three-stars, I actually found this trip more enjoyable.  Without character flaws to cling to and more fully-formed personalities we saw more realistic human beings in front of us, and I rather enjoyed my second stay at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel better than the first.

Jennifer Aniston & David Oyelowo: Are They Done with Oscar?

As part of my reaction to the Oscars, I've been thinking in particular the strangeness of Jennifer Aniston and David Oyelowo, and their surprise snubs at the Oscars, and I thought it would be interesting to put some numbers behind their particular misses, principally because of their Golden Globe nominations in the lead drama categories.

Now everyone knows that, particularly with Best Actress, a nomination in the Drama category doesn't necessarily translate into a nomination with Oscar.  Usually at least one person misses in translation, either for a lead in a Musical/Comedy or for a film that wasn't quite the HFPA's fancy.  However, from what I am gathering, most of the time the one that misses happens to be someone that either is an Oscar nominee or is about to be one.  With Best Actress, of the women that didn't get nominated for the Oscar in the past ten years, 76% of them were Oscar nominees or, in one case (Maggie Gyllenhaal) were about to become Oscar nominees; with men, it's 71%.  So adding in the preponderance for Globe nominees to make it to the Oscars, and that almost all Globe nominees either are or are eventually nominated for the Oscar, and you have to ask yourself-just how rare are Jennifer Aniston and David Oyelowo, and is this the end-of-the-road for their Oscar dreams?

It's actually extraordinarily rare to win a Golden Globe nomination for drama and not go on to win an Oscar nomination for the same role if it's your first chance, in fact.  In the 72 year history of the awards, only 18 men and 31 women have been nominated for a lead Golden Globe for Best Drama and not gotten an Oscar nomination at some point in their careers (including, now, Aniston and Oyelowo).  The bulk of these nominees, it should also be noted happened before 1984-in the past thirty years only 20 of these people have been part of this statistic.  This is partially because the modernized campaigns for Oscars make the actual field of potential nominees smaller.  We know headed into Oscar nomination morning, for example, that only 7-8 nominees have a legitimate shot at being selected, and that list almost always includes a Globe nominee for Best Drama.  Aniston and Oyelowo become even rarer when you subtract candidates such as Tobey Maguire in Brothers, Idris Elba in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and Maria Bello in A History of Violence, all three of whom were not considered serious candidates with AMPAS or were competing at the Oscars in a supporting category.

These 49 men and women run-the-gamut in terms of star power, though it's worth noting that most of them were giving what would be considered their defining cinematic performance.  Only a couple (such as Rita Hayworth and Jim Carrey) were superstars at the time or at any time in their career, making the bulk of those that missed more in-line with where Oyelowo is in his career rather than Aniston.  Many of them, in fact, largely gave up on their careers in film and went on to much more successful careers in television, including Rachel Chagall, Jessica Walter, and Treat Williams.  Others strayed away from dramatic acting as a vocation, moving over to comedy where they enjoyed success but where it is considerably harder to gain an Oscar nomination (Mia Farrow springs to mind).

But the question here is whether or not Aniston or Oyelowo have what it takes to get off this list and become an Oscar nominee, and while they had an incredibly bad string of luck headed to this point (being that it is unusually rare for them to have missed, statistically), they will need a solid amount of good luck to make the jump from just-miss back into Oscar's good graces.  That's because only 15 people have landed the Globe nomination, missed with Oscar, and then went on to gain an Oscar nomination for a later performance.  That's only 23%, which is not great for either of these actors.  It's worth noting that if Aniston or Oyelowo want to become Oscar nominees, they need to start cranking out the prestige fast.  60% of those nominees that made the jump from the Globes to the Oscars did it within five years, and all but three did it within ten.  The three standouts had second waves in their careers: Dean Stockwell making the leap to comedy 28 years later in Married to the Mob, Anthony Hopkins getting his scene-stealing work in The Silence of the Lambs thirteen years after Magic, and Kathleen Quinlan gaining a coattail nomination in Apollo 13 eighteen years after her schizophrenic turn as a young woman in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.  For Aniston in particular it may also pay off to go supporting-66% of the female Globe nominees got their first Oscar nomination in supporting.

A few more things before we finish this (very technical) article.  First, it should be noted that if Aniston or Oyelowo get nominated, that doesn't mean one-and-done.  Particularly for Oyelowo, many of the male nominees have gone on to win multiple nominations in their careers, including Anthony Hopkins (4 nods), Nick Nolte (3 nods), and Brad Pitt (5 nods and counting).  This also doesn't mean that they should give up on their dreams of actually holding an Oscar of their own-just under a third of the fifteen have won Oscars, and several of them (like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michael Fassbender) are relatively young in their careers.

And lastly, Aniston and Oyelowo aren't the only ones trying their darndest to get off of the list of 49 actors who have a Globe nomination but not Oscar.  As we mentioned above, Jim Carrey, Tobey Maguire, Idris Elba, and Maria Bello are still working constantly and could still score.  Other names such as Evan Rachel Wood, Zhang Ziyi, Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Scarlett Johansson, and Richard Gere all appear in movies quite frequently (it's worth noting that Gere and Johansson are the only two actors in history to twice be nominated for Globes in Drama and still not be Oscar nominees).  Blunt and Johansson, in particular, have made something of a career of being nominated for the Globes and not being cited with Oscar (both have four Globe nominations for film without an Oscar citation), and are arguably the two that seem most likely to jump off the list.

But in the meantime all we have to do is speculate-do you think Jennifer Aniston, David Oyelowo, or any of these contenders will make the jump from Golden Globe nominee to Oscar nominee?  If so, who, and which will go first?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Golden Globe Nominations ≠ Oscar Nominations, Part 1

The above statement should be obvious to anyone who follows the awards season with even a hint of regularity.  After all, there are ten lead performances nominated each year at the Golden Globes while there are only five at the Oscars, and at least one supporting performance almost always gets skipped in favor of a different performer at the Oscars.

However, I recently undertook a project (ie I was bored while watching Big Bang Theory reruns) and decided to list out all of the cinematic performances that the Golden Globes have honored through the years that didn't get a subsequent Oscar nomination (for the sake of my sanity, I stuck to the six modern film acting categories, and not to the "Best New Star" awards of yesteryear).

What I found was really interesting.  While it is a frequent occurrence where a performer is favored by the Globes, sometimes getting 6-7 more nominations from the HFPA than the Oscars, it is extremely rare for someone to rack up multiple Golden Globe nominations without also getting at least one Oscar nomination.  In fact, only eight performers have been nominated for four or more Golden Globe awards without winning at least one Oscar citation.

This smelled like a list to me, and so I'll be listing out the ten performers that have received the most film Golden Globe nods without also getting an Oscar nomination.  In order to break ties, I gave three points to a lead-drama, two to a supporting performance, and one for a comedic lead performance (and winning a trophy broke the tie after that).  Later this week, we'll investigate the far more frequent list of performers who have received at least one Oscar nod, but considerably more Globe nominations.

Honorable Mentions: Thanks to my tie-breaking, some three-time nominees got left out, ranging from classic movie stars like Tony Randall and Glenn Ford to modern stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Hugh Grant.

10. Emily Blunt (Tie)
Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Supporting Actress-2006 (The Devil Wears Prada)
• Best Actress (Drama)-2009 (The Young Victoria)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-2012 (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen)

Got the Closest On: This is arguable between Prada and Victoria, but I have to assume considering its awards haul in 2009 that it was The Young Victoria, when her best shot was taking out Helen Mirren.
Reasons She Missed: Yes, this is a good illustrator of how rare this is for a performer to miss on multiple Globe nominations.  Emily Blunt, with only three quick nominations before she turned thirty, is now in the top ten.  While Salmon appears to be a throwaway nomination in a rather weak year for comedies, the other two were at least part of the conversation.  I wasn't super-impressed with Blunt in The Young Victoria, but considering Oscar's preference for younger actresses, it's a bit odd that Helen Mirren got so much traction in 2009 (especially considering her recent win).  Blunt also had a shot with Devil, but she was not well-known then and it was going to be tough to throw out the scene-stealing Abigail Breslin (the performer who missed with the HFPA).

10. Donald Sutherland (Tie)
Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1970 (MASH)
• Best Actor (Drama)-1980 (Ordinary People)
• Best Supporting Actor-1998 (Without Limits)

Got the Closest On: For certain it was Ordinary People, a truly bizarre on-paper snub.
Reasons He Missed: I can explain the Without Limits miss (the Globes have always liked Sutherland, and occasionally throw a star a bone even if their film tanked), and MASH (comedy always has a tough time, even with a film as iconic as Altman's), but the Ordinary People snub is weird.  Yes, he's overshadowed by Hutton and Moore, but this film was universally adored by the Academy, and he's the only major cast member to not pick up a nomination.  Instead, the Oscars went with one of the actors they consistently like better than the Globes, Robert Duvall (in The Great Santini).

9. Raul Julia
Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Supporting Actor-1982 (Tempest)
• Best Actor (Drama)-1985 (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
• Best Supporting Actor-1988 (Moon Over Parador)

Got the Closest On: My gut is telling me that Tempest might have been the closest.
Reasons He Missed: Julia is now a largely forgotten actor, cut down in his prime, and is known to most movie audiences as Gomez Addams in the big screen versions of The Addams Family series.  Julia, however, had a strong run in the 1980's in cinema.  His 1982 snub was due to a combination of Oscar's love of men in drag (John Lithgow) and Robert Preston moving from lead to supporting from the Golden Globes to the Oscars, therefore securing a nomination for Victor/Victoria.  Kiss of the Spider Woman would have almost certainly marketed Julia as supporting nowadways (category fraud is more prevalent now), and he probably could have taken out William Hickey or Robert Loggia.  His final nomination came in a weird year for the Supporting Actor race, and since I know little of this race, I cannot tell if he was near a nomination or whether this was a Globe-honoring-a-favorite sort of citation.  If one of our awards show aficionados would like to shed some light on that race, I'd appreciate it.

8. Danny Kaye
Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1951 (On the Riviera)-Won the Golden Globe
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1952 (Hans Christian Andersen)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1956 (The Court Jester)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1958 (Me and the Colonel)-Won the Golden Globe

Got the Closest On: Not sure...probably none of them.
Reasons He Missed: Kaye is cheating a bit to include, as he did pick up a pair of Honorary Academy Awards, but I did want to acknowledge him, as he's one of the rare performers to have gotten four nominations in the Comedy category without ever getting cited for Drama.  The Court Jester is by far his best-known of these four films, but part of me thinks that he wasn't close for any of these.  Again, I'd love some discussion on this post, so share away in the comments if you have thoughts.

7. Carol Burnett
Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1972 (Pete n Tillie)
• Best Supporting Actress-1978 (A Wedding)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1981 (The Four Seasons)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1982 (Annie)

Got the Closest On: I'm going with Pete 'n' Tillie over A Wedding.  I'll get to why below.
Reasons She Missed: I kind of wish it was the 1970's again so I could get a gage of how big of a star Carol Burnett was at the time.  She could sell out Broadway, Carnegie Hall, had a top-rated TV series, and was regularly working in motion pictures.  She landed a couple of late-in-the-game nominations at the Globes (including for the ill-fated big-screen version of Annie), but her best shots were her first two nominations.  1972 was a strong and wild year for Best Actress (I love that Joanne Woodward got nominated for a film called The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds), and Burnett, along with Goldie Hawn in Butterflies are Free were probably on the hunt for a nomination against Maggie Smith in Travels with My Aunt.  Smith also potentially cost her a nomination in 1978, when she and Penelope Milford both managed nominations without being first cited by the Globes, but it's hard to feel bad for Burnett that year when you compare her to Mona Washbourne, a woman who has probably more precursors than anyone ever to not also win an Oscar nomination.  Washbourne's performance in Stevie won the NYFCC, LAFCA, National Board of Review, and Boston critics prizes, as well as Globe and BAFTA nominations, but due to a weird release schedule managed to miss at the Oscars.

6. Cameron Diaz

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1998 (There's Something About Mary)
• Best Supporting Actress-1999 (Being John Malkovich)
• Best Supporting Actress-2001 (Vanilla Sky)
• Best Supporting Actress-2002 (Gangs of New York)

Got the Closest On: My guess is that it was Being John Malkovich, where she was basically guaranteed as the sixth place position.

Reasons She Missed: Some people just have bad luck.  Diaz was surprisingly close in 1998, but the Academy was still smitten with Emily Watson (and felt the need to skip Susan Sarandon after honoring her three years earlier).  1999 was a year with six names in the mix, and hers was the one that got cut (though she did score SAG and BAFTA nominations, so you have to know she was damn close).  In 2001, the field was thrown asunder after the SAG Awards threw names like Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Dakota Fanning into the mix, and then the Oscars went with the Globe nominees almost verbatim (except that they nominated six people, and Diaz was once again cut).  Finally, there was Gangs of New York, which was a throwaway star-loving nomination by the Globes, and it was likely Michelle Pfeiffer who was tousling with Queen Latifah for the final nomination, not Diaz.

5. Richard Gere

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actor (Drama)-1982 (An Officer and a Gentleman)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1990 (Pretty Woman)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-2002 (Chicago)-Won the Golden Globe
• Best Actor (Drama)-2012 (Arbitrage)

Got the Closest On: Most certainly Chicago, where he was definitely the sixth place, and kind of stunningly not the fifth place.

Reasons He Missed: With the exception of Chicago, he likely never had a shot.  Officer was a hit with the Oscars, but the Academy doesn't seem to favor romantic male leads.  Pretty Woman was the sort of easy nomination that happens when you're in a hit romantic comedy.  And Arbitrage is the sort of nomination that happens in the rare year where one of the Comedy/Musical nominees (in this case, two) is certain to be nominated for the Oscar.  Chicago, however, was at first a rather odd fit for Oscar, but after the Globe win and the surprise SAG nomination, it looked like Gere would be able to make it and get the fifth slot, but the Oscars love them some Michael Caine, and so Gere just missed his shot (perhaps his only shot-he seems like the sort of actor who never makes it, doesn't he?).

4. Scarlett Johansson

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-2003 (Lost in Translation)
• Best Actress (Drama)-2003 (Girl with a Pearl Earring)
• Best Actress (Drama)-2004 (A Love Song for Bobby Long)
• Best Supporting Actress-2005 (Match Point)

Got the Closest On: Lost in Translation, though 2003 in general seemed like her best shot.

Reasons She Missed: Yes, ScarJo is technically the fourth most snubbed Globe nominee of all time, which seems weird because she picked up these four nominations over the course of three years.  It's hard to believe that she didn't get a nomination in 2003, and it was mostly because someone (the studio, her publicist, or perhaps ScarJo herself) decided to get greedy and campaign her for both films, and then tried to have it all by committing category fraud that the Academy just couldn't back by going supporting with Lost in Translation.  Considering the randomness of the Best Actress category that year, I suspect a unified front would have gotten her over Samantha Morton or Keisha Castle-Hughes.

3. Steve Martin

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1981 (Pennies From Heaven)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1984 (All of Me)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1987 (Roxanne)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1989 (Parenthood)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1995 (Father of the Bride, Part II)

Got the Closest On: All of Me, where he managed to also win the NYFCC Best Actor trophy, but was one one of only two men in the past thirty years to not win an Oscar nomination after taking the top prize at the NYFCC honors.

Reasons He Missed: Father of the Bride Part II aside, one could make the argument that any of these was within the reach of Oscar, but just couldn't quite make it.  Martin was the rage in the 1980's, hailed as a comedic genius, but unlike some of his high-flying contemporaries (Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg), he didn't go dramatic to grab his Oscar nomination.  At this point, I think there's still room for him to do it if he wanted to (he's still well-liked in the film community), but he's lost that edge that his films in the 1980's had, and I doubt he'll be able to make it without going with a sentimental, dramatic supporting turn.  His best shot was besting Albert Finney in Under the Volcano in 1984, but the loss at the Golden Globes coupled with Finney's continued losing streak probably kept him out of the competition.

2. Mia Farrow

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actress (Drama)-1968 (Rosemary's Baby)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1969 (John and Mary)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1984 (Broadway Danny Rose)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1985 (The Purple Rose of Cairo)
• Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-1990 (Alice)

Got the Closest On: Oddly enough, her first shot was probably the best, and had the Oscars known the legendary Farrow was going to have the career she would have, they probably would have picked her over Vanessa Redgrave in Isadora.

Reasons She Missed: I don't have a clue.  It's hard to believe that Rosemary's Baby, one of the great horror films and one of the few to gain the Academy's favor, didn't garner her a nomination (perhaps she was too known as a tabloid fixture at the time, considering she divorced Frank Sinatra that year).  The weirder thing is that, considering she made thirteen films with Woody Allen through the years, she somehow missed out on being one of the sixteen actors who received nominations for Allen films.  At this point, she rarely acts and doesn't have Woody to push her to a nomination, and so probably will never get nominated, but she had quite a run.

1. Jim Carrey

Golden Globe Nominations:

• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1994 (The Mask)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1997 (Liar Liar)
• Best Actor (Drama)-1998 (The Truman Show)-Won the Golden Globe
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-1999 (Man on the Moon)-Won the Golden Globe
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-2000 (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)-2004 (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

Got the Closest On: The Truman Show, for sure.  Carrey's miss at the Oscars was the first time in 33 years that the winner in the Drama race couldn't parlay that into a nomination (and fifteen years later, it hasn't happened since).

Reasons He Missed: One could make the argument that Farrow deserves the top slot, since she arguably had a shot for all five of her films, but based on sheer numbers, Carrey earns this.  While three of his nominations (The Mask, Liar Liar, and The Grinch) were the sort that randomly show up at the Globes, the other three all garnered Oscar's notice, but not a nomination.  Man on the Moon had to have been darn close, but Matt Damon's Tom Ripley was probably the sixth place trying to take out Sean Penn, not Carrey.  In 2004, there wasn't actually a strong shot that Carrey would win for his Joel Barish, even though he was better than anyone that actually got nominated.  However, 1998 is unforgivable for the Academy.  Somehow The Truman Show managed to score nominations for Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actor, but Carrey couldn't get in over Edward Norton (I know Carrey blamed Benigni, but it was Norton that was in fifth place).

And those are the Top 10.  Julia and Kaye are obviously never going to have this rectified, but what are your thoughts on which of the remaining nine could actually pull off a nomination (my bet's on Blunt and possibly Johansson, but what's your guess)?