Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Film: Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Stars: Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Lily Tomlin, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin

Director: David O. Russell

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Mary Tyler Moore: click here to learn more about Ms. Moore (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Despite starring in a Best Picture winner (and nearly taking an Oscar herself), Mary Tyler Moore was never able to have the kind of success in film that she had in television outside of Ordinary People.  She'd make just two movies in the 1980's, and would largely stick to stage work, here as a producer rather than an actress (she would win a Tony in 1985 for Best Revival for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), and she'd have continued sporadic success on television (she'd get nominated for acting in four TV Movie/Miniseries, winning for 1993's Stolen Babies), but film work simply didn't happen for Moore.  The most significant film she made was in 1996, one of David O. Russell's earlier pictures, called Flirting with Disaster, which was a surprise hit for Miramax at the time, during an era where Miramax still meant edgy new voices in cinema rather than plush Oscar prestige projects.  So we will end our discussion of Moore with this movie, where she plays a supporting part as Ben Stiller's adoptive mother.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Mel (Stiller), who has recently had a son with his wife Nancy (Arquette), but is unable to know what to name the baby until he knows where he comes from.  Mel was adopted as a baby by Pearl (Moore) & Ed (Segal), but has always wanted to know his birth parents.  He is trying to find this through Tina (Leoni), an adoption agent who is also clearly sparking a romantic connection with Mel, exacerbated by him seemingly not finding his wife attractive as she has not lost her baby weight yet.  This leads to a series of mishaps, including Tina incorrectly getting the birth parents wrong twice before finding out that it's Mary (Tomlin) & Richard (Alda) who are his birth parents...but they're also drug producers who after accidentally drugging one of the ATF agents that have started following Mel, Nancy, & Tina around, go on the run from the law.  Mel decides in the end that he didn't need to find his birth parents to find his identity, and ends up naming the baby Garcia after Jerry Garcia.  The end credits shows he and Nancy now happy after the anguish of finding his family.

I will own that I don't like the movies of David O. Russell as a rule (the one exception being Silver Linings Playbook).  I find the films too mean, the characters so irredeemable that I don't want them to get happy endings.  This is true for Flirting with Disaster.  Mel is an awful man, basically mistreating his wife because he thinks she's too fat, and actively trying to have a relationship with Tina even while he is putting his wife through hell.  That he gets a fully happy ending feels like a Woody Allen movie, and indeed, that's what Russell is attempting to do here without the sophistication.  All of the supporting parts, including Moore, are played as caricatures.  The best of the bunch is Josh Brolin as the world's most adorable gay ATF agent, smitten with Nancy, though clearly also gay, but he's not in enough of the movie for you to care.  A waste of your time, even if I get that this might've read as fresh still in 1996.

Moore would work sporadically in TV guest spots throughout the rest of her life, and write two memoirs.  She'd also reunite with all of the Mary Tyler Moore ladies briefly on Hot in Cleveland (which starred her sitcom costar Betty White), a bittersweet moment because at the time their former costar Valerie Harper had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and wasn't expected to live much longer.  It was Moore, though, who would die first of the five women on the show.  After years of liver & kidney complications driven by diabetes and issues with alcohol, she passed away in 2017 at the age of 80 from pneumonia.  Next month, we're going to talk about another woman who, like Moore, would get her start in TV sitcoms in the 1960's, but unlike Moore, would graduate into proper movie stardom (and Oscar glory) in the years that followed.

OVP: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Film: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin
Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I wrote when Captain Marvel came out that it had become impossible for me to judge the films in the franchise without seeing how they ended, and so I (like every person on the planet, apparently) went out the first week Avengers 4 was in theaters and caught the final(?) chapter of the movie franchise.  The film is destined for a slice of immortality, certain to overtake Avatar as the highest-grossing film (a title it may hold forever considering global box office trends-like Avatar and Titanic before it, it’s hard to imagine what kind of movie would eventually trounce such a film).  But the better question is-is it any good?  After 11 years and 22 films, what was the series finale like?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie picks up almost exactly after we left off, with an opening eerily similar to The Leftovers (a series that is heavily borrowed from in terms of aesthetic, though not in gravitas by this picture).  Hawkeye (Renner) watches as his entire family goes up in smoke (similar to Carrie Coon's Nora on The Leftovers), and soon we find out what life is like in a world where half the planet has disappeared. Each Avenger that got left behind takes their lives in different directions.  Iron Man (Downey) settles down with Pepper Potts and has a child, Black Widow (Johansson) takes on the Nick Fury role, Hawkeye becomes an assassin, the Hulk (Ruffalo) becomes a kinder, gentler being, Captain America (Evans) runs grief sessions, and Thor (Hemsworth) just is a drunk who lets his Adonis-like figure go in favor of a Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski sort of aesthetic (though he’s still hot, and anyone who says otherwise needs corrective lenses).  The return of Ant-Man (Rudd) gives them hope that they can go back-in-time and stop Thanos, but Nebula (Gillan), Thanos’s daughter accidentally informs her father in the past that they are trying to undo his work, and as a result they have a gigantic battle where literally every character you can think of from the MCU pops up to fight Thanos.  This journey ultimately ends in the death of not only Thanos, but also Black Widow & Iron Man, and Captain America becoming too old to be an Avenger.

Here’s the deal-there’s a lot to really like about Avengers: Endgame.  The casting budget on the film had to be just impossibly large (when you’re willing to spend money to, say, just have Michelle Pfeiffer & Marisa Tomei stand at a funeral, you know you’ve entered new territory), but it’s a joy to see something so spectacular. The fight scene with Thanos is wonderful, with major moments from Captain America (people cheered in my theater when he took Thor’s hammer) and for girl power (it was hokey as hell, but I loved the “Women of Marvel Assemble” sequence, and so did the packed theater I was in).  In my opinion we have Evans, Hemsworth, & Gillan as the movie’s MVP’s (the movement to get Robert Downey Jr. an acting Oscarcitation feels a stretch, and more a nod to a truly remarkable comeback than a true acting achievement).  Gillan is giving a strong performance, and Evans/Hemsworth have carved out such wonderful dimensions with these noble guys (and have such great chemistry with everyone) that it’s terrific to get to see them together for the last time.  And there’s something to be said for the movie feeling permanently over.  The next franchises are clearly set up (Spider-Man in a few weeks, but also there’s obvious potential for a future Captain America (with Anthony Mackie as the star), Black Panther, Captain Marvel, & Guardians pictures), but it also feels like an end to at least the chapter that started in 2008, a true achievement in a world where we have to stretch movies until their story breaks.

But there’s also a lot of slog here.  Trying to fit 40-odd characters into a movie is a tough task, and certain people (Black Widow & Hulk especially) get the short end of the stick in this picture.  The movie is overlong, predictable, and doesn’t have the emotional heft of the last film’s surprise snap.  Everything in this movie feels exactly how you would have expected it to turn out.  That might be the sign of a good finale (everything was as it was supposed to be), but a movie should have at least some unexpected twists, and it might have been more interesting if we’d had characters die whom we thought might actually exist in the MCU in the future.  As a result, I’m giving this movie a 3 star rating, and think it rates under Infinity War, which felt more epic and more urgent. As a franchise, it’s hard not to commend the achievements of Kevin Feige over the past 11 years, and I’d probably go with a 4-star for the 22 parts as a whole, even if only a couple actual movies in the series rose to that same level.

OVP: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Film: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elisabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Peter Dinklage, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt (okay, seriously-what was the actor budget like on this film-this cast easily could have cost $200 million by itself)
Director: Anthony and Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (read the review though, as it's really more a 2-4 star range based on the sequel)

Movies and television have started to collide in being the same mediums, something that I have never been okay with but apparently everyone else is so I've learned to deal.  The reality is that in a world where we simply rely upon "awesome franchises" for so much of our entertainment, and everything old is, well, not necessarily new but more a shattered shell of its former self (but comfortable so "who cares!"), it makes sense that a multi-billion dollar asset like the Avengers series would become essentially a multi-film TV series.  This picture, the 19th in the franchise (I believe I've seen all but two of these movies, though I'd have to double-check) is about as certain of a blockbuster hit as one can get, and because we live in an era where we need to suck up even if we aren't impressed (see also the White House Correspondents' Dinner), it's surely going to be a critical smash.  But I have been hit-or-miss with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I was genuinely curious if I was going to leave The Avengers duly-impressed or finding the film lacking.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the aftermath of our last few installments of Captain America, Thor, and Black Panther, and most-importantly finally puts Thanos (Brolin) front-and-center as our villain, as he's been whom we've been building toward for nearly a decade now as our ultimate baddie who will take over the world.  Played in dull purple by Brolin, Thanos is an all-powerful villain that never quite feels as interesting as he should; one of the cardinal sins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they never approach the intrigue or a Joker or Lex Luthor when it comes to their bad guys.  Thanos could be more interesting if we let him breath a bit more on his personal philosophy, as in many ways he resembles Bane in his battle for a better humanity through brutal results (he essentially wants to wipe out half of the population of the universe in order to reduce hunger and resource-deprivation).  It's entirely possible they're saving that for the sequel, but that points to perhaps the greatest problem with this movie: it needs a sequel to function, and it needs to be television to work.

Film functioning as television has always had one major flaw: TV shows end, and film franchises frequently do not, at least not while there's serious money on the table.  The best television series allow you to love characters, but also occasionally give you consequences or events that can never be undone.  Look at, say, Lost or Game of Thrones or Mad Men, and how these shows would occasionally kill off characters or end romances or have betrayals that shape the course of the series, never to be entirely glossed over.  As a result, there was genuine risk in what the series was bringing to the viewers, knowing that season finales could shape your viewpoint entirely of what might come next in the franchise.

Here, though, we watch as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Star-Lord, roughly a dozen major characters in the franchise vanish with a literal snap of the fingers in the film's final moments, as Thanos vision for a universe where half of the citizens die suddenly becomes reality.  It's a staggering sequence, with fine work from Danai Gurira (watching her invincible king evaporate in her hands), and especially a squeaky-voiced Tom Holland pleading with Iron Man to save him, the scared teenager behind the superhero emerging as he realizes the consequences of fighting for good.  In a television series, particularly one where I assumed there is only one film left, I would have thought this was a jaw-dropping moment.  Holland's fine protestations would have brought me to tears, realizing that he would leave us too quickly, and I would have been shocked that it hadn't been the actors whose contracts were about to expire (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) who left us but the theoretical future of the series.  But I'm smart enough to realize that these characters already have films lined up (Spider-Man, in particular, is going to have to start airing trailers before Avengers is seen next year, so I'm not sure how that will even work).  Theoretically, of course, we could see the roles in these films recast, but that seems preposterous-Holland, Boseman, Pratt, these are major stars now that the public wants to see play these roles.  They aren't going to quickly disappear from the franchises, and Disney has too much money on the line to let them go.

As a result, we get a cheap ending to the film.  It's probable that we'll see them brought back next time, and then watch as the expected characters go into the sunset, with a new series of Avengers ready to take the stage, perhaps with Downey, Hemsworth, or Evans a possibility to return in 5-7 years if their careers are suffering.  But it doesn't make this film particularly interesting, and it proves that perpetual stories are too lazy.  There's a lot to like in The Avengers, even if I feel it fails on the most important element (plotting).  The victor of the movies has always truly been the casting directors, finding relative unknowns who ooze movie star charisma to play larger-than-life characters.  There is so much plot, but it's relatively brisk all-things-considered, and were it not for the inevitable deletion of the ending, it would surely stand apart as a great action film.  The movie's performances are uniformly good, with Holland, Cumberbatch, & Saldana being the standouts, and they take the time to give us fun pairings (Rocket & Thor being an obvious highlight, though I also particularly liked Spidey & Doctor Strange).

Were it not for the film's ending inevitably being deleted for something more conventional and keeping the story going perpetually (until we eventually tire of comic book heroes, which may be never), I'd give this a higher ranking, perhaps even a four-star.  But it doesn't work like that.  I know how this game plays out, and I'm not stupid enough to think that the shocking, arguably quite smart, ending to this picture won't be erased for something less intriguing.  As a result, I'm going to go with three stars, though in my head it's more like 2.5  If they keep most of the characters dead in the next film, I'll vote for a 4 star change at that time, but until then they've removed any element of surprise or sacrifice by giving us this ending, and as a result I can't applaud this picture, even if I see its value.

OVP: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Film: Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Stars: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Production Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I never quite know whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing when I spend an entire movie just thinking about another movie, but for some reason throughout the entirety of Hail, Caesar! I couldn't help but recall select scenes of Roger Altman's excellent The Player while watching the newer film.  Both pictures skewer the idea of celebrity by using actual celebrities onscreen, though in the case of Altman the celebrities are frequently playing themselves while here they are playing versions of classic celebrities.  Still, it's a fun bit of tongue-in-cheek, and while the film lacks the wicked observation of Fargo and the overall brilliance of No Country for Old Men holding any director to the standards of such a high bar is probably unfair.  Hail, Caesar! is a fun movie, one that occasionally even tries to veer into greatness, that is anchored by being more a lovely string of vignettes than an overall cohesive picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) What I mean there is that the film itself is more focused and at its best when it is skewering Old Hollywood and our romance with it.  It's not new to present select old movie stars as being real-we've been seeing that since A Star is Born, but it's not common to see the actual movies themselves come across as rather, well, awful, but that's true here.  The films that onscreen stars like Clooney, ScarJo, Tatum, Fiennes, and Ehrenreich are all making are clearly spoofing on the classic films of people like Charlton Heston, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, George Cukor, and Roy Rogers, respectively, but not the better parts of their filmographies as all of those movies look, well, awful.  The film is supremely capable in its knowledge of old Hollywood, particularly since main character Eddie Mannix (Brolin) was actually based on a real-life "fixer" named Eddie Mannix who would cover-up stories of major Hollywood stars back in the 1940's and 50's.

These moments are great, and comedically fun set-pieces.  I think my favorite was Channing Tatum's Burt Gurney, who sings a tune about wanting dames to come into his bar and how he'll be stuck at sea without any women, but then proceeds to go into a deeply homosexual song-and-dance number that actually ends up turning the bar into a gay bar and has him being thrusted against by two backup dancers.  In a tongue-in-cheek wink to the many gay men who were paraded as straight during the period, Gurney is himself gay in real-life, but also in a twist defecting to the Russians and being aided by a team of screenwriters who are all Communist-sympathizers.  Coming in second to this hilarious comedic subplot for me was Scarlett Johansson, angelic in one of those ridiculously over-the-top water ballets that they always put in Esther Williams movies, playing a fast-talking broad offscreen, and they create an elaborate hoax to cover her pregnancy (in many ways mirroring the scandal involving Loretta Young and Clark Gable)-Johansson, who is so good so often these days as to be taken for granted, is fun in an underwritten part.

It's fun just to name-check all of these old and new movie star names, but the larger question is if the film is actually any good, and it is, but never really rising above that adjective.  Most of the film gains from its homages to old Hollywood, and really only the scenes with Ehrenreich, who clearly stands out as the only non-famous star of that cast list up-top, pop for me, perhaps because he's an unknown and I wasn't expecting him to be so wonderfully eager and charming.  He's a delight as a young, popular cowboy star who is hoping to prove that he has slightly more acting chops than the B-movie pictures that he has become famous for; Ehrenreich is terrific in this role, and I'm hoping gets more exposure after this film.  Otherwise the film probably juggles one too many plots (the entire George Clooney sequence feels largely unnecessary and like a side gag that's just there to prove that this is the quirky Coen Brothers behind the camera), and though it works in terms of watchability, it's nothing more than a passing fancy from two directors who have made films that will stay with you always.  Still, all-in-all it's a lot of fun.

Those are my thoughts on Hail, Caesar!, one of several films I've caught in the last week (we're also getting back in the swing of daily reviews on TMROJ) that we'll be discussing.  For those of you who saw this (and it was a pretty big hit all things considered, so I'm guessing that's quite a few of you)-what were your thoughts?  Did you enjoy the Old Hollywood homages, or were you leaving disappointed that it didn't have the cerebral ticks of something like A Serious Man?  Share your thoughts below!

OVP: Sicario (2015)

Film: Sicario (2015)
Stars: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Cinematography, Sound Editing, Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

If you have read this blog for very long, you know that I have a complicated history with Denis Villeneuve.  I first loved his film Incendies, giving it my OVP in 2010, and followed it with a complicated loathing of the movie Prisoners, and finally was fully back onboard with his cerebral Enemy last year.  Overall, though, he's at that point where I will pay for the ticket pretty much regardless of the reviews as none of his films have been short on fascination, and that's the case with Sicario, which landed somewhere in the middle for me in terms of the Villeneuve filmography.  The film's heavy on atmosphere, but light on character and works as often as it shouldn't.  It's yet another rich movie with some angles that I didn't care for, so let's get started.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Kate Macer (Blunt), an FBI agent who is drawn into the world of the Mexican drug cartel to work with a CIA officer Matt Graver (Brolin), who is unorthodox but appears insistent that Kate be his partner for the mission, dismissing her current partner Reggie (Kaluuya) to the background.  As they proceed, they give Kate little information about what is actually happening, and even when his seemingly more forthcoming partner Alejandro (del Toro) comes into the picture and they are more revealing of their plans (that they are headed to Juarez, Mexico, instead of El Paso), Kate remains lost, though savvy audience members will see that clearly Kate is a bit of a pawn at this point in the plot, a reputable alibi for the seediness that both Matt and Alejandro are doing in Mexico in trying to find some semblance of balance and order regarding the deeply violent Mexican drug cartels.  The film continues along this path, with Kate doing that most classic of cinematic motifs (descent into hell), as she gets further and further outside the law and into the raw danger of this world.

That raw danger is clearly the best asset this movie has going for it  Frequently the film seems to be borrowing from films like No Country for Old Men and The Counselor, as Texas is framed not as a a welcoming desert but instead as something vast and isolated-we get a sense quickly of how the constant quiet sort of mesmerizes you and leaves you wondering what happens next door.  There is also a sense of the violence that happens in the Mexican drug cartels, and why this feels like an unwinnable war, enough so that when you realize that Alejandro is only working with the CIA to avenge his wife and take back control of the drug cartel for himself, you're almost left with a sense of justification (better the enemy we know...), even though he's going to continue to perpetrate violence on people and give people access to dangerous and deadly drugs.

Del Toro has been winning raves for the role, and it is indeed the kind of performance that Oscar notices (though you have to wonder if del Toro is tired of being nominated for playing convicts and criminals at this point in his career), and he's too strong of an actor not to excel in the role, though I do wonder if Villeneuve might have underwritten not his Alejandro (who gains from underwriting) but everything around him so that his showdown is a bit more heightened.  Del Toro is basically the lead, in reality, as Blunt's Kate is at once completely alien to this world and too little is known about her.  Kate is clearly someone who joined the FBI for the right reasons, to make a difference, but the film's interest in her is more to watch her go from naive to worldly, but we never get the sense of why she's so alone, why she's so passive, and she doesn't get Alejandro's intriguing storyline to really drive that home.  Blunt's a good actor (admittedly not as good so far in her career as del Toro), but she doesn't handle underwritten roles quite as well as she should, and I have yet to be really blown away by her as a dramatic actor (I wasn't wild about her in either Edge of Tomorrow or The Young Victoria, her too most lauded serious turns).  Kate is a character that, like Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men, we need to see a little bit more of the turn into the dark side and her descent to get a full picture of the movie, and that is missing in Sicario.

So all-in-all I'd put this more on the Prisoners side of things for Villeneuve in the "some great moments, some frustrating, but not a classic," though I will point out the that the film has yet to infuriate me in the same way that the Hugh Jackman picture did.  What are your thoughts?  Do you feel that Sicario is one of Villeneuve's better pictures?  Do you think it has a chance with Oscar?  Do you think the sequel idea is as stupid as I do since it would give too much information regarding del Toro's Alejandro?  And what role do you think will finally make Emily Blunt live up to the potential she exhibited in The Devil Wears Prada? Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Supporting Actor (2008)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2008)

The Nominees Were...

Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

My Thoughts: We have finally arrived-the Big 6.  The categories where even if you haven't seen the films, it's more-than-likely that you'll have an opinion on the actors that are nominated.  And why shouldn't you?  In many ways this category represents best the five men you were most likely to have seen on big screens in the past decade or so.  There's the highest-paid actor in Hollywood (at least it feels like it), there's an omnipresent character actor, another omnipresent character actor, and then two actors who were considered amongst the best of their generation until they tragically died.  Yes, this is one of two times that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger strangely competed against each other for an Oscar (they emerged 1-1 from the battles), and yet both died tragically from drug use before they could break the tie.  Since they're clearly the focus as we start discussing, let's start with them.

Hoffman's Father Flynn is, let's be honest here, a leading character in Doubt.  In the same way that Ledger's Joker is questionably in this category, Hoffman probably has a bit too much screen-time to qualify as a "supporting actor" (you might remember that that didn't stop me from giving him the OVP in 2012, though).  I also have to admit that in general I wasn't wild about Hoffman in this role.  PSH is a great stage actor (I had the incredible honor of seeing him in Death of a Salesman, which I found spellbinding), but that rarely translates well onscreen which is why I've only once been a huge fan of him in a movie role (again, click that link).  There's too much over-the-top with Father Flynn when I feel like he could have been quieter and taken better, more cautious choices.  This is my opinion in general with Doubt, which doesn't really know that it's stopped being a play and gain from a little subtlety, but it's Hoffman's work as Father Flynn that takes the biggest heat-his yelling over Streep makes both of them a little careless with their impressive acting instruments, and the film suffers as a result.

Ledger, on the other hand, finds a way to bring an oversized character to life in The Dark Knight.  So much has been written about this role, both how it became larger when Ledger died prior to the film's release, as well as how fanboys flocked to its instant iconography, but who can blame them?  There's really no false notes here-Ledger creates a ruthless, menacing villain who steals the film from out from under the rest of the cast, but yet doesn't seem to be committing highway robbery with the film.  The movie simmers with electricity both when he's onstage, constantly creating a character that is unknowable yet instantly feared, and when he's offstage you are always waiting for if the Joker might arrive and create a moment of tragedy.  All-in-all, it's the sort of performance that cannot be denied the title of great, and one that weirdly lives up to the almost insurmountable hype.

Robert Downey, Jr. completes this trio of over-the-top performances, and I have to say that I love Tropic Thunder more every time that I see it, particularly due to Downey's work.  The film borders frequently on the distasteful, but Downey knows how to milk the comedy out of every single line, and I adore the way that he consistently finds ways to mock both the character that he's playing as a real-person and the character he's playing as the fake actor onscreen.  There's so many wonderful layers of comedy here you might expect you're in a Mel Brooks film.  In the years since I've felt like Downey was slouching, and some might say this nomination was in part due to Iron Man, but that doesn't mean it wasn't wholly worthy of a citation, and I like that this strange little comedy (starring Ben Stiller and Jack Black of all people) managed such an unusual Oscar nomination for acting.

Josh Brolin by this point in 2008 was bound to be getting an Oscar nomination (he had been in SO many Oscar-nominated films in the three years prior), and thankfully it was for arguably his best work, bringing Dan White to the screen.  I think the best part about what Brolin does here is not just that he creates yet another villain for this category, but that he makes Dan White confused as to why he is the villain.  You see that in the looks on his face and his reactions to Harvey-he's the one who the institution should favor-the straight, white man with the family, and yet it's the gay man from the Castro who is getting all of the glory.  I like that Brolin comes at the prejudice from a point of privilege and confusion rather than just hate as it makes Dan White a far more interesting and complicated foil.

I distinctly remember the shock on everyone's (figurative) face that Michael Shannon scored an Oscar nomination for Revolutionary Road when Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes both were skipped over; James Franco or Dev Patel had seemed more likely scenarios for the fifth slot.  I particularly remember being floored as I wasn't particularly taken with Shannon in this role.  The entire concept of his John in the film seems wholly unnecessary-the story is Frank and April's, and his angry "crazy" man next door isn't really conducive to the plot and feels added-on and occasionally distracting.  It doesn't help, though, that Shannon is frequently milking the scenes and chewing on them-the performance is over-the-top.  I like what it did for Shannon's career (he would go on to much better work, like Boardwalk Empire), and I'm always rooting for a shock nomination, but this wasn't really a worthy one.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes couldn't help but do a little bit of movie star plucking, skipping character actors Josh Brolin and Michael Shannon and instead going with Ralph Fiennes in The Duchess and Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder (another performance under a whole lot of makeup-remember when Les Grossman was a thing?).  The SAG Awards ,which don't have a choice over which category you submit yourself for, picked the clearly lead Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) in place of Michael Shannon, while the BAFTA Awards skipped both Brolin and Shannon to go with Brendan Gleeson in In Bruges and Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.  While Heath Ledger won all three trophies, I'm curious over who was in sixth-for years now I've thought Dev Patel, but considering Shannon probably got in with minimal support, there's a chance that one of the Best Picture contenders (Michael Sheen, Ralph Fiennes, James Franco) may have also been able to slide in for a nomination.  Fiennes, in particular seems likely, but for which of his three film contenders?

Performances I Would Have Nominated: This was a solid year for this category, which makes me a little bummed at some of the category fraud and that Michael Shannon managed the surprise.  Ralph Fiennes was doing brilliantly funny work in In Bruges, James Franco was wonderfully sexual in Milk, and Brad Pitt was comically inept and over-the-top in the underseen Burn After Reading.  I would have preferred any of these contenders (all of whom were at least in the conversation) over Hoffman or Shannon.

Oscar’s Choice: Heath Ledger became only the second actor to win an Oscar posthumously, likely taking out Hoffman and Brolin, in that order.

My Choice: There's just no denying Ledger.  For second place, I'm going to go with Brolin in a slight nod over Downey (they're close, though), as I think Dan White is a harder stand-out.  Hoffman and Shannon finish out the five.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does anyone out there want to make a case for Heath Ledger to lose?  Are you with me that Michael Shannon's nomination seems strange not just for the surprise but also because the performance just isn't that good?  And who do you have in second place here?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2008: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2008

Past Best Supporting Actor Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

OVP: American Gangster (2007)

Film: American Gangster (2007)
Stars: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr., Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, John Hawkes, Lymari Nadal, Ruby Dee
Director: Ridley Scott
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Ruby Dee, Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Movie stars are a rare thing.  There are a lot of great actors out there, but very few movie stars, so when two bonafide, indisputable ones team up for the first time, it's noteworthy.  There's a reason that Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe managed to score a Box Office bonanza in 2007-both have been major draws on cinemas for decades now, and the two of them teaming up in that surest of film genres (the crime drama) meant Box Office gold.  It also meant, unfortunately, a batch of tepidity from both of the actors who seem to be a bit lazy in this movie which drags and while very occasionally it's exciting, it generally just sits there without any energy.  This is disappointing for multiple reasons, not least of which is because this is a 158-minute movie, which is already stretching my patience even if we're talking a quality picture.  But principally it's sad because these men can be electric onscreen-these are two true movie stars, men who can basically make any picture fascinating, and yet they at best coast and at worst seem to be just reading dialogue, waiting for a latte.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Denzel as a crime boss in Harlem moving heroin from war-addled Vietnam while Crowe is an impossibly good cop/aspiring attorney that never bends the rules, and sees himself punished for his actions.  The film is based on a true story, but you know how it goes by heart even if you weren't already aware of that fact.  The film rarely goes off the beaten path of the cliched bad guy who turns good, the good cop who is eventually validated, and the countless bodies both amass in the process of getting to the top, all-the-while both being vindicated in the end because they're the ones cashing the $20 million checks.  Honestly, the film is so tired that I almost don't want to even get into some of the worst aspects of it, but this is a review so I shall.

For starters, what's the deal with Denzel's girlfriend?  Did we really need the 24-year age gap between he and his onscreen girlfriend Lymari Nadal?  Was that really necessary?  Honestly, there's a point where perviness sets in, and I think it's when someone could comfortably be their love interest's father.  That really felt like something that needed to be commented on, quite frankly.  Crowe and his love interest had an 11-year age gap which feels a little eyebrow-raising, but at least that doesn't border on the paternal.

The characters themselves are deeply problematic, as we know very little about what motivates Crowe's Richie.  The detective is straight-laced in a world of corrupt cops, but why?  Where does this morality come from, particularly considering that it would be easier to be a little more corrupt (he likely would have kept his wife and son if this were the case)?  I don't buy "he's just a good guy" as an answer, quite frankly-no one is as ambitious as him and sacrifices as much as him and still ends up a "good guy" without a purpose.  Without it, he enters that unrealistic saint trope, which I find unappealing in films-no one is all good, and even if they are, they need a reason presented onscreen to be so.

I also feel the same way about Washington's Frank Lucas.  Frank is not all good, in fact he's ruthless and daring.  In one of only two scenes in the film that actually sent a jolt into the movie that I wasn't expecting, Frank shoots his enemy of the first half hour of the film, a seemingly low-grade competitor played by Idris Elba, straight in the forehead in the middle of a crowded street.  It recalls in many ways Sonny Corleone beating up his brother-in-law in its brutality, but unlike Sonny who has been established as an impetuous hothead, we don't see Frank make risks and mistakes like this very often, so what drove this?  His mentorship with a dead man at the beginning of the film is a cheap writing crutch-we have to assume that a lot of his personality has been formed offscreen, but that's still no excuse for these sorts of inconsistencies in the plot and character development.

The film received a pair of Oscar nominations, one quite memorably and one I'd frankly forgotten about until I started viewing the DVD.  The first was for longtime character actress Ruby Dee, who passed away last year and who played Washington's mother in the film.  Dee is a legend of the cinema, one who has won pretty much every acting award imaginable outside of the Oscar, so it's hard to begrudge the Academy wanting to correct a lapse that probably should have been addressed decades ago, but this is a pretty routine performance.  Dee gets one truly great scene, surely the one that cemented the nomination where she slaps her son while scolding him, but the rest of the film is completely forgettable.  I will say, in Dee's defense, that that scene is miles away the best scene of the movie, and the desperation in her voice speaks to a lot of character-development by the actress, enough that I wished her character had a bigger part, but it's just a 3-minute scene.  That's hardly worth an Oscar nomination.  I was a little bit more surprised at the adeptness of the Art Direction, which was also nominated-the scenes are brimming with tiny details, and we cover a groundswell of 1960's New York apartments.  This isn't showy work and certainly isn't glamorous, but it's very accurate and so I'm quite impressed that the Academy nominated it, as it's surely the best part of the  movie.

I'm not giving up much more time for this tedious little film (I am almost inclined to give it 1-star, but it never crosses that line into awful so I shall resist), and so I'll turn it over to you.  This film was wildly popular, so I'm sure it has its fans-are you one of them?  Does anyone think that Dee deserved an Oscar nod (or even a win), or was this entirely about honoring a cinematic legend late in her career?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: In the Valley of Elah (2007)

Film: In the Valley of Elah (2007)
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon, Jonathan Tucker, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Wes Chatham
Director: Paul Haggis
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actor-Tommy Lee Jones)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The words "directed by Paul Haggis" do not inspire much confidence in me when I see them attached to a movie poster or film opening credits.  Ten years later, I still have whiplash from Crash somehow beating Brokeback Mountain (if you think my write-ups have been snarky toward Slumdog Millionaire so far, just you wait Henry Higgins), but I try to enter every film I go into with an open mind, and quite frankly I didn't realize this was a Paul Haggis film until the end credits (I must have missed it at the beginning), so I met this film with few preconceived notions.  The movie, a surprise Oscar nominee (at the time most people figured that Emile Hirsch or Ryan Gosling, not Tommy Lee Jones, would be the fifth Best Actor nominee), follows Jones' Hank Deerfield as he tries to find the true reason for his son's death.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is told in a pretty dark, dry style, almost reminiscent of a Clint Eastwood picture (it should be noted that Haggis originally wanted Eastwood, and not Jones, to play the lead role), and follows through a small military town, with Hank upending a police investigation of his son (he is a former military police detective) by bringing in his experience, and wanting to figure out why the military is so quick to dismiss his son's death.  He is joined by a police detective (Theron) trying to prove herself with whom he becomes friends.  The film unfolds in an interesting way, and Haggis actually maintains a solid amount of the mystery as the movie progresses, with us eventually finding out that Mike was killed for largely inconsequential reasons, likely driven by his fellow soldiers' paranoia and PTSD.

The film is at its best when it's trying to state something interesting about the military, and perhaps something unpopular.  It's worth noting eight years after the fact that this film was made in 2007, during the nadir of public support of the Iraq War, and so a discussion of how the military was mistreating its veterans wasn't as politically radical as it might have seemed six years earlier or even eight years later, but it is something that seems odd from a filmmaker as politically conventional as Haggis.  The film moves at a leisurely pace, occasionally stopping off into sections of the movie that don't really work but usually making a detour that's of interest (particularly in examining the masculine energy and forced respect of the military).  It helps that Haggis hired an ace cinematographer (I swear I didn't know that Roger Deakins, whom I sing the praises of constantly on this blog, was the cinematographer until just now but I did write "beautiful, desolate shots" in my notes on the film) who gives the film a poshness that always makes it look like a great movie.  It also helps that most of the bigger moments are underplayed, such as the final revelation of who killed Hank's son Mike.  Tommy Lee Jones is not a showy actor, but he's one who gets the job done and never overplays his character.  Occasionally this feels a bit underwhelming, but for the most part I was convinced and liked what Jones brought to Hank.

The same cannot be said for the female characters in the film.  Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, like Jones, both have Oscars but you'd be right to question this fact based on this movie.  Sarandon's entire part could have been written out without anyone even noticing, and she does little aside from very easy story beats (like being sad when her son dies) to make the character more interesting.  The same could be said for Theron, who has the co-lead role but can't decide exactly what her motives are, and frequently relies on the underwritten script for inspiration, coming up short.  Is she a woman fighting to make it in a man's world, and that's her only motivation?  It's hard to be able to tell, and even she doesn't seem to understand her relationship with Hank.  As a result whenever Jones isn't onscreen you get nothing really from the rest of the cast (including James Franco, who has a bizarrely small part considering he was coming off the Spider-Man movies here and Josh Brolin, who since this is 2007 made his mandatory appearance in the film).

Overall, then, I was whelmed (10 Things I Hate About You joke!) and thought it was good but not great (and the final scene was ridiculously over-the-top, since I probably will never get to mention that again).  What did you think of the movie?  Are you a fan of Jones' surprise nomination or were you more Team Emile or Team Ryan?  Why do you think that Paul Haggis can't seem to direct decent parts for women?  And are you still reeling from Crash winning the Oscar?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Inherent Vice (2014)

Film: Inherent Vice (2014)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Adapted Screenplay, Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Remember being a kid and seeing certain flavors combined by your favorite candy or cereal company, and you think it'll be brilliant, and it ends up being just, well, different (like S'Mores Pop-Tarts).  Well, Inherent Vice is in fact the S'Mores Pop-Tarts of movies.  It's the sort of film that makes complete sense on-paper, and is occasionally wildly enjoyable, but it never really takes off in the way that you're hoping (here because of the acting, with the Pop-Tart probably because it always tasted a little too manufactured, even for a Pop-Tart), and will almost assuredly stay in the relatively unknown annals of Paul Thomas Anderson's greatest films, never brushing up against Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Doc (Phoenix), a frequently strung-out private investigator convinced by his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Waterston) to undertake a case to prevent her billionaire boyfriend Mickey (Eric Roberts), from being committed by his wife and her lover.  Meanwhile, Doc is hired by other clients to investigate a similar situation related to Mickey (why get paid once when you can get paid multiple times?), and soon he finds himself immersed in the occasionally kooky world of the 1970's Los Angeles drug trade.

The film is not for the faint-of-heart or the sort of people who thought the ending of Lost was a bummer.  This is a film with some answers (it's relatively straight-forward, if you think about it), but it doesn't just go out and state the characters' motives.  There's nothing expositional about Inherent Vice, which seems odd considering that this is a movie with a wealth of dialogue.  The movie instead has people talking like they normally do-much like Wild Tales earlier this week, Inherent Vice has people repeating each other, finding new information through deduction, and occasionally running off on red herring-style tangents (in the end, it doesn't really matter, for example, that Mickey's wife is having an affair, or Benicio del Toro's character despite relatively high billing in trailers, is largely inconsequential).

The movie's at its best when it's relying on the heavy charms of Joaquin Phoenix, who was my favorite part of the film.  He's so unsure, so jonesed out of his mind, that you half expect Tommy Chong to show up with a van, but he's still very good at his job, and the character himself unfolds rather nicely as we learn he's a strong detective behind the ludicrousness, and we learn so much about the case along with him (as I believe he's in every scene of the movie).  The rest of the cast is sporadic, in my opinion.  For every performance like Reese Witherspoon's, who has razor sharp comic instincts and is a jolt throughout, there's something banal and gaudy like Martin Short's coke-snorting dentist.  The film's most noted supporting players (Waterston and Brolin) were a mixed bag for me.  Both are brilliant at times (I loved Waterston's dreamy-eyed entrance into the movie and Brolin's pancake scene is every bit as amusing as the trailer makes out), but in a film where everyone borders reality, they're the only two characters that stretch outside of it; no one is as intoxicating as Shasta or as abrasive as Brolin's Bigfoot.

The film's best friend is the script, which is aided heavily by Thomas Pynchon's penchant for spectacular monikers (my personal favorite: Japonica Fenway, which sounds like a sports car and that totally fits the character).  The lines are irresistible despite not resembling any sort of speaking pattern you would find in real life.  I also loved the way that we don't get the story dumbed-down.  All of the pieces of the film are definitely there, and you can follow everything, but the film meanders, occasionally unsuccessfully, which is likely the reason that some critics haven't embraced this film as warmly as would be expected for a PTA movie.  Still, the patter is exceptional and the comedy usually lands.  It's the sort of movie that you watch and realize that it wasn't really made for its time slot-it was made for midnight movie marathons years from now, where people will dress up in one of Mark Bridges' absurdly stylized costumes and quote lines like "he's technically Jewish but wants to be a Nazi."

Those were my thoughts on this complicated, but not unpleasant film (it's grown on me with two days to mull)-what about yours?  Josh Brolin got mad plaudits for the film-anyone amongst that crowd?  Anyone think it can or should take one of those two Oscars?  Share below!

No Globe, No SAG...No Problem!

Jonah made it last year without HFPA or SAG...
who will do it this year?

Each year the alarms are sounded by Oscar pundits that "so-and-so" is out of the Oscar race due to them missing at either the SAG Awards or the Globes, and these warnings are not without merit.  The reality is that in this heavily publicized Oscar season more-and-more surprises are shut out each year as the Oscars voters rely heavily on what the press is saying to fill out their ballots.

And yet, each year there is always at least one candidate that manages to sail on through and grab a nomination without a public blessing from SAG or the HFPA.  In the past ten years, only one year (2006) didn't end up choosing an entirely new name to add to the festivities.  Below are a list of the candidates that were new to the night in their years:

2013: Jonah Hill
2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emannuelle Riva, Jacki Weaver
2011: Gary Oldman and Max von Sydow
2010: Javier Bardem
2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal
2008: Michael Shannon
2007: Laura Linney and Tommy Lee Jones
2006: Zero (let's pay attention people-we've already been over this)
2005: William Hurt
2004: Alan Alda and Clint Eastwood

As you can see, it helps a LOT to be in a film that people are already watching.  Over half of these people were in Best Picture nominees, and Tommy Lee Jones is the only contender that was his film's sole nomination (and lest we forget, he was headlining the Best Picture winner that year), so keep that in mind if you're, say, cheering for someone like Hilary Swank to still make the cut.

As this is an Oscar-oriented site, I figured it would be worthwhile to investigate which performances this year are most likely to make this list.  Below you will find the Top 10 performances ignored by HFPA and SAG that may still wind up with an Oscar nomination:

10. Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars)

For Her: Woodley has had a major blockbuster moment this year, and that's impossible to deny.  On the heels of kicking off a new franchise with Divergent, she somehow made an even MORE successful hit with The Fault in Our Stars.  The Best Actress field is starting to close, but not so much that the door is shut, and Hollywood has clearly noticed that they got a new movie star this year.  They may want to reward that on their ballots.  Plus, a character with cancer is always a strong hook with Oscar.
Against Her: Woodley should have been able to score at the Globes.  Her newfound fame and red carpet looks are surely something that HFPA would latch onto before AMPAS, and this film already has some major debits (summer film, going for a sole nomination, teen drama).  She needed her name to be a bit more prominent in the game before the year began (in a similar way that Aniston needed to have some precursor love to stay in the conversation).

9. Josh Brolin (Inherent Vice)

For Him: I'm not counting if you received a BFCA nomination for two reasons for the purposes of this article.  One, because they have six-wide fields and that's just cheating, and two, the BFCA's irk me something fierce (they always talk about how much they "predict" the Oscars rather than honoring a specific film or actor for their work-we have hundreds of Oscar pundits, if you have your own televised awards show, you should have your own opinions and not give a damn about the Oscars).  This is all to say that I'm aware Brolin made a big jump in the conversation with a BFCA (or Critics Choice, if you would) nomination, and that's part of why I'm featuring him here.  The other part is that despite the lack of buzz this film has attracted, Brolin has been on everyone's favorite list from the cast, and as a former Oscar nominee, he's not that much of a stretch to make it without too much press.
Against Him: This race looks very set, and when that happens, cracks in the wall usually happen by way of a Best Picture frontrunner, which Inherent Vice decidedly is not.  Brolin also has missed just as often as he was nominated with Oscar-his only nomination was the one that they "had" to give him for Milk and not something optional like No Country for Old Men.

8. Rene Russo (Nightcrawler)

For Her: It's hard to imagine anyone seeing Nightcrawler for Gyllenhaal and not coming out equally as impressed with Russo.  There's some precedent here-Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock, for example, or Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense.  You come for one performance and decide to put two on your ballot.  The big name of the game with these sorts of citations is that you have to be seen, and Russo will be.  Plus, Oscar loves a comeback and after years of random wallpaper roles like Thor's mom, Russo is clearly having a moment.
Against Her: If Jake is scoring everywhere, why isn't she?  How is it that Tilda Swinton, for example, managed the sixth BFCA slot for a very autre-film when the prediction-loving body may have gone with something a bit more likely such as Russo?  Keep in mind every year we have random supporting performances in major films that inexplicably get no traction, despite being superb (see Sarah Paulson last year).

7. Tim Roth (Selma)

For Him: Speaking of comebacks, Roth, a veteran character actor, managed to nab a nomination 19 years ago for Rob Roy, but hasn't been back since.  This year he plays a villain (great for supporting actor) and a real-life person (Gov. George Wallace), both of which could make him a stealth nominee if Selma continues to grab heat.
Against Him: I mean, all of these people have trouble because they don't have enough precursor love, but with Roth it means something more because there's less room to up-jump his costar Tom Wilkinson, who has a bigger part and a more recent history with Oscar.

6. Bradley Cooper (American Sniper)

For Him: It helps that AMPAS clearly adores him (back-to-back nominations), and though the Best Actor field is likely a six-man race, it's a pretty even six-man race, which means that there could be a candidate that's just barely missing like Cooper.  If he gets an uptick in Clint support from the Academy (they do love them some Mr. Eastwood), I wouldn't be stunned if he's that candidate.
Against Him: American Sniper hasn't registered at all this awards season (the NBR doesn't count), and critics haven't been rallying around it (have critics even seen the movie?!?).  Could this be another J Edgar (and even that film managed precursors)?

5. Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner)

For Him: The other stealth Best Actor nominee, Spall has done well this season.  He scored a major prize at Cannes and followed it with a significant prize at the NYFCC Awards, which are historically very strong at predicting Oscar nominees.  Once-upon-a-time Mike Leigh had the magic touch with getting Oscar nominations for his performers.  If this film is gaining (my predictions indicate that it might be), this isn't out of the question.
Against Him: Leigh has never been good at getting nominations for his male actors (he's never actually done it-not even with Jim Broadbent in Topsy-Turvy) and the NYFCC is hardly a strong benchmark when you realize that last year's winner was Robert Redford.

4. Laura Dern (Wild)

For Her: She's clearly beloved (did you see that Hollywood Reporter interview-it was just a giant Laura Dern love-in), and this is the sort of role that Hollywood notices (woman dying of cancer, inspiring her daughter-I mean, come on).  She's been working the circuit hard, and it'd be a nice recognition for both her incredible post-Rambling Rose career and her dad's recent resurgence.
Against Her: Why didn't she get in with the Globes, and in general-what is up with the reaction to Wild?  Is it frustration that no one can actually watch the movie?  Is it the odd prejudice that awards bodies have to female-driven stories?  Or is it just that after Into the Wild and 127 Hours that voters are tired of seeing beautiful people traipse through the wilderness?  Whatever the reason, Dern clearly isn't striking the chord she thought she would.

3. Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)

For Her: The BFCA is getting name-checked more in this article than it has been in years on this blog, but let's not forget that when the field went six-wide, she was the one that benefited.  Cotillard has been on a roll all year, with two major films in tow and this is a critically-acclaimed film.  The pundits seem to be rallying for her, and there's a lot of support there.  And let's face it here-she's due for a second nomination after all of the strong work she's done since La Vie en Rose (arguably stronger than that initial role!).
Against Her: It's hard to make it for foreign films (she knows this more than anyone) and for some reason (the Cate Blanchett curse?) she hasn't been able to score since her win.  Plus, this year she has The Immigrant potentially taking away crucial votes from herself, which may matter in a tight race.

2. Carmen Ejogo (Selma)

For Her: Ejogo isn't a household name, but she's playing one.  Coretta Scott King, as a long-suffering wife of a hero, is the exact sort of role that the Oscars usually gravitate toward in Supporting Actress.  You could hardly describe Jessica Chastain as particularly safe, and if the Academy responds well to Selma (this appears to be the most important question of Oscar season right now, doesn't it-what does AMPAS think of Selma?) she could make it via Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook.
Against Her: She's not a household name-will people remember her without a stronger push?  Plus, from what I've heard this isn't a particularly meaty part (though that hasn't stopped them before...see also Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook).

1. Tom Wilkinson (Selma)

For Him: Playing a real-life person?  Check.  Meaty role in a Best Picture frontrunner?  Check.  Former nominee that hasn't won yet, but is clearly recognizable for AMPAS voters?  Check (twice-2001 and 2007).  Category that is perceived as weak due to the winner being a foregone conclusion so someone could sneak in at the last minute?  Check.  Clearly there's a reason I put Wilkinson at Number One.
Against Him: About the only thing going against Wilkinson is that he's missed with SAG and the Globes (particularly with the Globes, since they saw Selma) and that he's battling some very popular former nominees in Mark Ruffalo and Robert Duvall.  Otherwise, I'd say this is easily the most likely of these ten to make it, and could well be considered a favorite depending on how Duvall's chances in particular play out.

And those are the ten-what do you think?  Who has the best chances of the ten?  Do you agree with the lineup or should someone like Tilda Swinton or Hilary Swank still be in the conversation?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Supporting Actor

We have tackled Actress, Actor, and Supporting Actress, so to finish off the quartet we will now head into Best Supporting Actor predictions.  Best Supporting Actor may be the hardest of the categories to predict this far in advance because frequently these nominations happen for films that aren't necessarily in the Best Picture race, (though historically these were most frequently Best Picture nominees, if a cursory look at former nominees are any indication), and so this is probably the prediction list most likely to change in the coming months.

The best way to start off in the Supporting Actor race is to think like a Republican, and find all of the older white men with major films out this year.  This category tends to be the most homogenous of the four in terms of its demographics, and so the best place to start is probably Robert Duvall in The Judge.  As we recently wrote about, Duvall is one of the most enduring stars with Oscar, but hasn't been nominated in sixteen years despite extremely strong reviews four years ago for Get Low (which I'm told is good but I didn't see because it missed the OVP-is this something I should be renting?).  I suspect that a father/son drama with Oscar nominee Robert Downey, Jr. would get him some attention.  Adding to the old white man cache would be Tom Wilkinson in Selma, where he'll do that greatest of Oscar tricks (play a famous real-life figure, in this case former President Lyndon Johnson), and I suspect he will probably be back (doesn't it feel weird that he is a recent two-time nominee that no one ever seems to talk about?).  Finally, J.K. Simmons could fill the frequent slot of character-actor-we-are-finally-acknowledging, as his performance in Whiplash seems to be both co-lead and scene-stealing, and I suspect Oscar will want to give him a citation in the same way they have other major famous faces (but not necessarily famous names).  Other older white dudes that could be in the conversation (though aren't as prevalent as these three) include Albert Brooks in A Most Violent Year (though if he couldn't score for Drive...), John Goodman in The Gambler (what is the deal with this movie?-for a film in December starring Mark Wahlberg and Jessica Lange it sure is under-performing, buzz-wise), and Tim Roth as Gov. George Wallace in Selma (though this category doesn't double-up as often in a film as Supporting Actress does).

Moving a bit out of the senior citizen bracket, probably your safest bet for a nomination would be Edward Norton in Birdman, where he appears to have a significant part and is the sort of actor Oscar has been itching to welcome back after his quick one-two punch in the 90's followed by a whole lack of loving from the Academy (AMPAS is a fickle mistress).  Josh Brolin got a nomination for Milk in 2008 but has been working consistently since without any other nominations-if he's a particular stand-out in Inherent Vice I suspect we may see him in this race again.  I'm not sure what it says about Ethan Hawke and the quality of this race versus Supporting Actress, but despite his equally good performance he doesn't seem to have the same sort of momentum as Patricia Arquette does for Boyhood.  Still, if the film does well with precursors expect to see his name at least thrown around a bit after a trio of past nominations.  Dominic West in Pride and Paul Jesson in Mr. Turner are both names that could factor into a race like this if the films strike, but the former has almost no buzz (is it it even going wide by art house standards?) and the latter is a Mike Leigh film, and Leigh is considerably better at getting women attention than men.  And there's always the possibility that someone like Johnny Depp makes it for Into the Woods, though that show usually seems to be about the ladies in terms of awards (and I suspect that recently on-a-roll James Corden would be the standout if there was going to be one).

There are of course "younger" potential nominees in this category as well, the most important being Logan Lerman in Fury.  Lerman was sensational (and Oscar-worthy) two years ago in Perks of Being a Wallflower, but way too young and cute to be nominated in lead.  He's probably younger and sexier than you'd expect for a male category either way, but supporting is a better bet, particularly when working opposite Brad Pitt (Pitt is really good at bringing out his costars, just ask Oscar-nominated Geena Davis, Casey Affleck, and Jonah Hill).  Domhnall Gleeson has a significant role in Unbroken and has been on the edges of stardom in a way his father frequently finds himself (anyone think it's odd that Brendan cannot seem to get any buzz for the well-received Calvary?).  And then there's the truly excellent question regarding Foxcatcher-how do they market Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo in this film (I've heard marvelous things in particular about the former)?  If they put them both as supporting, does Tatum overshadow Ruffalo?  Or do they market Tatum in lead, giving Ruffalo a strong chance at a nomination but hurting Tatum?  That's perhaps the biggest question of this Oscar season, campaign-wise, in my opinion.

My Predictions: I am guessing Simmons, Norton, Lerman, Duvall, and Wilkinson are at the top of the list at this point.  Norton seems the most likely to be nominated, Lerman seems the least just because of his age.  I'm intrigued by a couple of options on this list, though, and could see a few names popping up later in the year, particularly Goodman and the Foxcatcher lads.

Is There a Winner?: Like I said, Lerman is way too young to win here, I doubt that Wilkinson wins for playing a president so soon after Daniel Day-Lewis did, and I don't think that Norton will take it for what looks like a sidekick role.  Simmons or Duvall, on the other hand, have the vibe of a winner.  Simmons has been working in Hollywood for eons and is well-respected; plus, this is a role where he's set to dominate in a BIG way (have you seen the trailer?).  Duvall, on the other hand, has entered the last phase of his career (may it hopefully be extremely long), and has only won one Oscar while many of his peers (de Niro, Hoffman, and Nicholson) all have more than one.  I think that there may be a push to let him join that list (and hopefully get Al Pacino back into some good movies, damn it, to seal the quintet).

And there we have finished up the actors-we'll do the final September predictions (Best Picture!) this weekend, but before we close out our too-early guesses, what are your thoughts on this race?  Do you think I have the five guys pegged, or should I have picked another name?  Who am I missing on this list that may strike?  And most importantly, which of these performances are you most looking forward to? Share in the comments!