OVP: The Thin Red Line (1998)

Film: The Thin Red Line (1998)

Stars: Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta

Director: Terrence Malick

Oscar History: 7 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Score, Sound, Cinematography)

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.

Terrence Malick took 20 years between Days of Heaven and his next picture.  During that time, he wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced, including one called Q that would later serve as the basis for two of his films, The Tree of Life and Voyage of Time.  He finally returned, after two decades of time off to film an adaptation of James Jones' classic novel about World War II, The Thin Red Line.  Malick at this point had not entirely abandoned the concept of a truly linear plot, but it was obvious that was where he was headed.  You could make a legitimate argument that this is the last movie with characters that really seem to run together, with actual spoken dialogue that grounds together a story (though The New World and The Tree of Life have this to some degree, even though they become more-and-more abstract).  The film, though, would become legendary given it would establish Malick's strange reputation as someone who could assemble a gargantuan movie star lineup...and then become distracted by a parrot in the cutting room floor.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with Private Witt (Caviezel) stuck on an island in the South Pacific after going AWOL.  After being captured, he's allowed to return to the military rather than face certain imprisonment, but he must do so as a member of the 25th Infantry Division as a stretcher bearer, as they are invading the island of the Guadalcanal.  The days that follow are a series of attacks on the island against the Japanese, as they come face-to-face with death, intimately seeing the perils & pitfalls of war.  One soldier (played by Woody Harrelson) dies not from enemy fire but from accidentally pulling the pin out of his grenade and blowing himself in half.  Throughout this time, we see personifications of the glory of war in Nick Nolte, the glory of peace through Caviezel's Witt, the glory of humanity in Elias Koteas loving Captain Staros, and the reality of survival through Sgt. Welsh (Penn).

The movie has about a 50/50 split between spoken dialogue and narration, and there are moments when this is confusing.  The movie hires a number of well-known actors, some of whom are easily identifiable as narrators (Sean Penn & Nick Nolte are difficult to mistake), but because there's so little traditional character-buildling outside of Nolte, Penn, Koteas, & Caviezel, when they aren't the narrators (which is often) it's sometimes hard to distinguish who is who.  Similar to The Tree of Life, which was overwhelming the first time I viewed it, I suspect I'll find that it's easier to decipher upon repeat viewings.

Because there will be repeat viewings of this.  We are 3/3 in masterpieces out of Malick, as I see the last "important" film of his career (we have one more late stage Malick next week that I haven't seen that will cap this collection).  The movie is probably the most-lauded of Malick's epics, getting seven Oscar nominations, and while part of that is the subject matter (war films tend to do well with AMPAS), it's also deserved.  The film's alternating perspectives on different characters gives it a sense of balance while sticking to its central thesis that war is tragic, no matter one's views on the merits of the conflict.  We see young men, barely into the prime of life, torn apart.  There's a terrific bit of dialogue late in the picture where a young man says something along the lines of "I've had a long life even if I'm young" and while in another movie that would've read as "proud & brave...imagine what these men have been through" here it reads as pablum.  This man is ready to give up his life, but he hasn't even lived it yet & has no concept of what he's saying, sacrificing his youth for ivory tower figures like those played by John Travolta who has no concept of the early days of war anymore it is such a distant memory they only believe the pablum.

The cinematography, by Oscar winner John Toll, is stupendous.  Malick & Toll underline their script not just with grand looks at the ocean & tall grass providing these men minimal cover for their lives, but also with throwaway shots like a panning look across a rocky cliff, the only sign of these men's sacrifice a littered pile of bullet casings that may sit on this island in the middle of the Pacific for the next 50 years without movement, the entire lifetime of the men who shot them...had they not died.  Combined with an iconic Hans Zimmer score (some of his best work) and realistic movie makeup (the dying-and-blood feels very real, particularly by the standards of 1998 with only traditional visual effects on display), and you have one of Malick's most proficient technical films.

The editing, apparently cut down from a five-hour runtime, is the stuff of Hollywood legend at this point.  George Clooney has laughed about this in interviews, saying how much he was basically trimmed out of the story to only appear onscreen for about 90 seconds.  Adrien Brody found it less funny.  In the book, his character is central to the story, and so for Brody, who was a young actor who  hadn't struck it big yet (unlike Clooney, then in his ER heyday), it was a big deal.  But at the premiere of the film, Brody supposedly found out that he was not only not the lead, but had been trimmed down so much that he was barely in the movie.  Indeed, if there was an actual line spoken by Brody directly onscreen as opposed to just talking in a group shot, I missed it...his wide eyes more a prop to help him standout in a crowd shot than the lead part, which is delegated to Caviezel in particular.  This would become something of a refrain for Malick, who would increasingly see major stars trimmed from his movies, some deeply upset about it even when they're still in a large chunk of the movie like Christopher Plummer (whom, it's worth noting, I would've cited for the Oscar for his work in The New World).  Next week we will conclude our look at the films of Terrence Malick as I watch my final gap in his filmography.

Oscar's Long-Suffering Gentlemen

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

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

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

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

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

12. Viggo Mortensen

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

11. Woody Harrelson

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

10. Mark Ruffalo

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

9. Edward Norton

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

8. Joaquin Phoenix

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

7. Nick Nolte

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

6. Johnny Depp

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

5. Tom Cruise

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

4. Kirk Douglas

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

3. Bradley Cooper

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

2. Willem Dafoe

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

1. Ed Harris

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

OVP: Afterglow (1997)

Film: Afterglow (1997)
Stars: Nick Nolte, Julie Christie, Lara Flynn Boyle, Jonny Lee Miller
Director: Alan Rudolph
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Julie Christie)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each cinematic era has its quirks, and you have to remember them, as oftentimes what feels like a weird aesthetic choice in the present was very common sense at the time.  Take, for example, Afterglow, where now-pop culture punching bag Nick Nolte is playing an aging lothario, who somehow has women throwing themselves at him despite, from my vantage point, having virtually no  sex appeal whatsoever.  This might sound cruel, and quite frankly it probably is, but considering it's a crux of this particular picture, you have to let it go (anyone want to take bets on which current leading man will come across as bizarre as a romantic love interest in the future?).  This is, however, one of many suspensions of belief in the very-90's Afterglow which scored a precursor-less nomination for Best Actress with Julie Christie over Jessica Lange & Pam Grier.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, by Alan Rudolph, reads a lot like a chamber play.  We have four central characters in the form of two couples.  There's the older of these two pairs, Phyllis (an aging B-movie actress played by Christie) and Lucky Mann (yes, that's really the name they give him with not enough of a wink, played by Nolte), who is an aging handyman who regularly sleeps with the women for whom he works.  The younger couple is Marianne (Boyle), a woman in a sexless marriage who wants a baby with her husband Jeffrey (Miller), a suicidal corporate executive who is struggling with some sort of crisis-of-faith, and also really has a thing for older women.  The movie unfolds with the pairs starting to intermingle, with Lucky & Marianne starting an affair, while Jeffrey has an emotional fling with Phyllis.

The film would feel pretty standard-fare on the stage, and probably would work better there as it could handle the "too much plot" angle a bit better.  Here, though, they gloss over many of the essential details and perhaps should have worked better on where to focus the story.  For starters, with the exception of Christie, none of these roles really work in hindsight.  Even suspending belief for a moment, it's hard to picture Nolte's handyman as being something of a sex symbol.  He's haggard, not-particularly-attractive, and has little actual charm other than being able to carry out a series of double entendres with a woman shoving her bosom in his face.  That's literally it, and it's a problem in particular because none of this movie really works if you don't buy that multiple different women are madly in love with Nolte's Lucky Mann, and I never did.

But this is only part of the problem.  Even if you're like "to each his own," the younger couple is all kinds of messed up.  Boyle brings nothing to this role other than looking thin in a negligee, and her  marriage to Jeffrey is absurd-how the hell was he nice enough to her to begin with to have us buy that she actually would marry him; they're both attractive, but these two play so polar opposite and so bitter it's impossible to imagine them ever finding each other desirable.  There's not even a sign from either actor that this is a George-and-Martha, where time has made them bitter, but instead every indication they've always been like this.  Then there's Miller, who only brings a blank handsomeness to his Jeffrey, and clearly cannot connect to his scripted mother obsession.  Bennett doesn't help him at all by casting Christie, who even in her early 60's looks decades younger and is the sort of beautiful that only an aging movie star can be.  As an audience member, you think less when he's enamored with her that "he has a thing for older women" and more "yeah, I'd try for that too."  Miller's the weakest link here, which is a bad sign (as Nolte & Boyle are giving bad performances), mostly because you leave knowing virtually nothing about him except what's on the page, and there's a lot on the page left for him to handle (homophobia, loss of libido, issues with masculinity), but he can't connect with any of it.  It's am embarrassingly bad piece of work, and perhaps a sign of why his star never took off like his movie star wife Angelina Jolie's.

The sole redeeming factor is Christie, who is still able to manage endless movie memories with her face still the ethereal beauty of our Lara (fun fact-Boyle is named after Christie's character in Doctor Zhivago).  Here she's playing a B-movie actress and has some fun with the script, which is a juicy part.  She lands some of the absurd comedy of the role, and the scenes where she's struggling with her betrayal of Lucky years previously, and the deadness that resulted from her having to give up her daughter, are solid work.  But there's still a lot missing in this performance, which is kind of why I was shocked after watching the film that it landed the Oscar nomination over showier parts like Lange, Grier, or Julia Roberts big comeback in My Best Friend's Wedding.  You don't buy the film's climax, where she's upset with Lucky for breaking their agreement, perhaps because you never buy them as a couple who cares about one another, or understand why they never broke up.  Christie feels too detached in her scenes where she isn't pining for a time gone by or trying to charm a charmless Miller.  Some might market this as a diamond in the rough, but it's really more the vanilla sitting between the arsenic and cyanide-it's the only item on the menu that's not going to kill you.

My Thoughts on the 2014 Fall Season

I recently asked my brother to, with Community now off the air, name the smartest show on network television.  It was honestly a struggle for both of us to come up with a reply.  Eventually he said The Good Wife (which I don't watch but hear excellent things about-I'm just averse to serials and a bit too late to the party though I'm smart enough to know it's the only show on CBS that television connoisseurs will actively cop to watching) and I said Bob's Burgers (which at its best hits early Simpsons level quality) and we moved on, but the fact is that people just don't go to network television anymore for smart TV.  HBO, Showtime, AMC, FX, Netflix-these are where the truly groundbreaking television shows are.  People certainly still watch network television, but it's not where the best-of-the-best is housed, and no one expects the next zeitgeist hit to be on network television.

Honestly-if someone asked you to name your favorite shows, would you even list more than one network show?  There are still some that people would list (Scandal, The Good Wife, Nashville, and Parks and Recreation come to mind), but even those would be on your guilty pleasure list.  I still watch some, but most are more out of habit than anything else, and even those are relics.  Community and How I Met Your Mother both disappeared this past year, I couldn't handle New Girl anymore, my once beloved Glee I'm so behind on I'll just catch up when it's all over on DVD, and all but three of the remaining shows are FOX Animation Domination Sunday, which is more of a before-bed comfort food than something that I actively involve myself in.  Of the three live-action shows, the newest is five seasons' old Modern Family (which actually had a pretty strong fifth season, even though it's totally uncool to say that).  The other two are The Big Bang Theory (which, while occasionally funny, has long since slipped from clever into cloying and probably would be headed to a pasture next year except the money is too good) and Parks and Recreation (enjoying that brilliant rejuvenated confidence that comes with knowing you're about to have your final season).  Overall, though, I watch no network dramas anymore (and that's generally the genre I gravitate toward) and haven't picked up a new series in three seasons.

So I look into this new list of shows with a lot of heartache and fingers crossed-I don't want to give up on network television (there's still a place for quality half-hour sitcoms and I still wave the flag for Lost), but I'm being given little choice since most of the new season seems like a letdown already. The below are the top five (the number one being of the most interest) that I want to watch this fall.

5. Uninteresting Shows with Interesting Actors

No, that's not the name of the series (though, in a season with The Mysteries of Laura...).  There are a number of shows that have actors that I am particularly intrigued by and generally enjoy, but their shows have giant red flags.  Octavia Spencer is perfectly-fitted for a lead role on a television series with her comic timing and ability to balance it with gravitas (that Murder, She Wrote reboot idea was great and I don't know why it didn't go anywhere), but Red Band Society looks like the sort of thing I just couldn't handle every week (though the trailer got me a bit choked up).  I am all for gay characters on television and Laurie Metcalf is wildly under-appreciated, but she could do so much better than The McCarthys (which looks like it was from Will and Grace season one except it's sixteen years later).  Alfre Woodard should be president, but not when I have to also watch Katherine Heigl.  Casey Wilson was a riot on Happy Endings and has terrific sitcom timing, but Marry Me seems like it will be cancelled by November.  And John Mulaney is adorable and funny in his stand-up, but should have been able to swing better than what FOX just gave him.  If the reviews improve on any of these shows or there's a surprise ratings hit I'll probably check in because I want these actors to do well, but I'd really prefer them to have good material more.

4. The Flash (The CW)

I don't watch anything on The CW.  To the point where while I was researching it I referred to it as the WB.  That's how both old and out-of-it I am.  That said, I cannot help but be intrigued enough by The Flash to want to put it in an actual listing here instead of just dismiss it.  The show seems to have that nice comic-book vibe but without going so heavy-handed quite yet.  I also am marveling at how the show is able to sustain the special effects.  The thing I don't think that network television has quite realized about what people are craving in cable and premium television is the anthology sort of story-the way that there's a patience in the plotting and that people don't have to worry that the show won't be here next week (you at least get a season finale, for example).  There is a place and a time for serials, but if networks want to get back to creating great, watchable dramas like Lost or Desperate Housewives (or wonder why Scandal works so well) it's because there's a vision for the show.  The Flash seems to have an understanding of that.  Plus, Grant Gustin is crazy hot.

3. Gotham (FOX)

I didn't really want to list both of the comic book shows in the Top 4, but you give me a better solution. The cast isn't what you'd call awe-inspiring (I rather enjoy Ben McKenzie, but have never been able to say the same about Jada Pinkett Smith, and I'm not really familiar with the rest), but again-I'm willing to get behind a series that clearly has a story and a direction to tell, even if it's a story and direction we've seen before.  I'm in desperate need of a network drama to work, and this has that vibe that it could be a huge hit.  Plus, there's at least some fireworks and potential in the trailer, and unlike some past fall seasons, this is probably the highest concept series that we're going to get this year (it's really light on high-concept, probably because Revolution failed so spectacularly).  Color me intrigued, though wishing we could find another universe to play around with.

2. How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)

An incredibly saucy title, this trailer is the only one I actually watched twice.  Dean Thomas goes to law school is initially what I got (Alfie Enoch plays what looks to be a main character), but really, this trailer is all about Viola Davis.  Davis' momentum couldn't be hotter right now (I'd argue she may well have deserved both of those Oscars), and while I think that she isn't quite right for television (she's more of a movie star), that doesn't mean she cannot sell it, and she genuinely seems to be having fun with a sly role.  Throw in the only gay character that seems to actually, you know, be gay in one of these trailers (The McCarthys subscribes to the sexless Will Truman avenue of portrayal) and a wickedly fun plot (is the entire trailer just from the pilot or throughout a season-it has the vibes of both, which shows that it could be quite sustainable) and you have the recipe for something I want to watch.  Finally, after years of oddly protesting, I will be watching a Shonda Rhimes' series.

1. Gracepoint (FOX)

I'm aware this is super bratty to put at number one, and honestly, I probably should have just gone with HTGAWM at the top slot, but this trailer is so good.  The only problem with it, quite frankly, is that it's a limited series (based off the hit Broadchurch from the BBC, the show will only run for ten episodes).  Otherwise, the show has a Twin Peaks meets Prisoners vibe, and what a cast!  David Tennant, Anna Gunn, Nick Nolte, Jacki freaking Weaver!  You couldn't ask for a better crew, and Nolte and Weaver in particular seem to be A) incredibly well-cast and B) wickedly fun to watch.  I genuinely cannot wait for this series to premiere.  If only the networks would have this sort of confidence with an open-run series, they'd be in a far better place.

Those are my list (decidedly light on comedies-I'm not big on any of them at this point).  What are yours?  What are you dying to see this fall?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Supporting Actor (2011)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees Were...

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

My Thoughts: And now, it's time for the four categories people tend to most discuss the-those of the actors.  There are always performances to be heralded in each of the four lineups (or at least, there were performances given throughout the year worth heralding in the lineups), but of the four categories, this is probably the one I most often disagree with Oscar on when it comes to their nominations.  Because of the demographics of the Academy, while Supporting Actress oftentimes celebrates the ingenues struggling to make it big in the industry, this category is typically reserved for the veterans of the industry-the marquee stars of yesteryear who are now playing fathers and grandfathers, and no longer get the roles they once coveted.  It will oftentimes ignore the character actors in the middle or beginnings of their careers, and more so than the other three categories, feels too often like an "Honorary Award."  The lineup is typically not quite as lopsided as this one (Kenneth Branagh, at 51, is the second youngest of these nominees), but you see my point in most years of the Oscars.  It's a true pity, because some of my favorite performances in a given year would qualify in this race, but Oscar rarely decides to go that direction.

Let's start out then, with the two eldest statesman of this lineup-Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow.  Plummer has embraced almost every role Shakespeare ever wrote outside of Lady Macbeth, and has appeared in dozens upon dozens of films, but is most well-known to audiences as the man with the whistle, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (a film he famously detested).  In 2009, he got a consolation prize of sorts when he was nominated for playing Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, a huge relief for the Academy, who had long been harangued for not nominating this legendary actor (Donald Sutherland and Mia Farrow-there's always hope!).  At the time, it didn't seem like he would be returning so quickly (or ever) to the Kodak Theatre, but he defied expectations with the independent dramedy Beginners.

Plummer's character is a long-closeted gay man who, after many decades of seemingly happy marriage to his wife, comes out to his son after his wife's death.  The film follows Plummer's late-in-life declaration of his sexuality, as well as his son's (Ewan McGregor) coping with his father's new path and decaying health.  Plummer brings a real sense of happiness to his role, something not always easy to do onscreen.  Dying is easy, comedy is hard has long been a saying, but it may just as well be depressed is easy, keeping happy interesting is impossible.  Plummer's decaying health gives him a few great speech moments, but it's the happiness that is probably the hardest thing he's doing onscreen, as we get to celebrate the joy of being who you are, even if we find our youth-oriented brains wondering "why now?"  I was not of the group who thought this was a cosmic, brilliant sort of turn (it's well-acted, to be sure, but I don't quite push the button toward Oscar-worthy), but it's nice to see an actor of Plummer's talents still being challenged onscreen in his 80's.

Max von Sydow is also being challenged in his 80's in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Von Sydow is most well-known to audiences today as one of Ingmar Bergman's muses and the father in Pelle the Conqueror (his only other Oscar nomination), but he's continued working steadily during a time-of-life that most people are golfing in Palm Springs (most recently, he wowed as the father in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).  This film was deservedly much-maligned, and while I won't get into that too much now (I'll reserve judgment when we discuss its bizarre Best Picture nomination), von Sydow is not the issue.  I spent so much of this film hoping that Thomas Horn and his nails-on-the-chalkboard performance would lead us to any of the other actors onscreen, and though I didn't get this reward (he stayed the entire film), he at least brought excellent performers out, particularly in the form of von Sydow.  His mute old man with a mysterious past is a rich, complicated performance that has no business in a film this one-dimensional and treacly.  While von Sydow is limited in how much of an impact he can make with Horn's loud performance taking up much of the onscreen air, his weathered glances and searches for approval and internal conflict over human connection are far-and-away the best part of this terrible movie.

Another senior citizen of the screen, gaining his third nomination for Warrior, is Nick Nolte.  Not many actors have gone through more transformations than Nolte, a one-time screen star and "Sexiest Man Alive" who became a tabloid joke after his drunk driving arrest in 2002.  Few people expected him to attempt a comeback, but he did just that as the drunk, abusive father in this sports film.  Nolte gives the long, tedious film a shot in the arm, but is ultimately far too one-dimensional for me to take serious as a legitimate contender for the "best" of the year.  Nolte has given some incredible performances before, particularly in Affliction, but this is a case where the role was nominated rather than the shaky, sometimes workable performance.  And also, for the record, just because someone mumbles their way through a movie it doesn't mean that they're doing Brando-level work.

Kenneth Branagh has one of the strangest histories ever with Oscar-he is the first person to ever be nominated in five separate categories, and he did it in five nominations-Best Actor and Director (Henry V), Live Action Short Film (Swan Song), Adapted Screenplay (Hamlet), and in this category for My Week with Marilyn.  For an actor who has spent much of his career being favorably compared to the greatest of all modern Shakespearean actors, Laurence Olivier, it seems either genius or stunt casting to put him in that role in this film about the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.  Either way, the casting is serviceable, though it limits the hammy Branagh a bit.  I have to admit that I was so spellbound by Williams in this film (not necessarily due to her performance, since she's always good and typically better, but because she does a marvelous Marilyn transformation) that Branagh sort of falls by the wayside, and nothing about his performance calls out to me.  He gets meaty, over-the-top readings throughout the film, but it doesn't translate to great acting.  About the only scene where he works is his "little girl lost" soliloquy, but one strong speech from one of the world's finest Shakespearean actors is not enough to warrant inclusion in this category.

As you may have guessed, even by the standards of this not being my favorite Oscar acting category, this is not a lineup I'm at all happy with, and that unfortunately doesn't stop when AMPAS includes a token "guy under 40" to fill out the category, Jonah Hill in Moneyball.  I have to hand it to Hill, who managed to be one of the first guys of my generation to score an Oscar nomination, and he was not one of the ones I was ever expecting to make it (and neither were you, let's be honest) and is not an actor I greatly anticipate making it here again (note that he's the only one of the five actors I'm not ready to give his own tag).  He manages to luck into the second biggest role in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and has a wonderful screen partner in Pitt, who is doing his cocky excellence thing in this movie.  Hill's character has little depth, and aside from strong one-liners and a true chemistry with Pitt, there's nothing exceptional about this role or performance.  It was a nice way to round out a weak lineup with an actor who seems like a nice guy, but it, and I sound like a broken record at this point, is not Oscar-worthy.

Other Precursor Contenders: Like writing, acting has a treasure trove of contenders to deal with, so we'll just stick to the Globes, the BAFTA's, and the SAG Awards.  The Globes, always a bit more star heavy, skipped von Sydow and Nolte, instead going for Viggo Mortenson's calculating Dr. Freud in A Dangerous Method and Albert Brooks cold-hearted villain in Drive.  BAFTA also kicked out Nolte and von Sydow, though they favored Philip Seymour Hoffman's exhausted campaign official in The Ides of March and hometown favorite Jim Broadbent playing Denis Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  Finally, the SAG Awards kept all but von Sydow in their lineup, instead favoring the closeted lover that Armie Hammer portrays in J. Edgar.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Here's where my anger at this category really lights up, because there were excellent performances in supporting roles last year worth honoring.  Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken are a heartbreaking father-and-son in The Tree of Life.  Pitt, in particular, is giving the best performance of his career as a domineering, unsuccessful husband-and-father.  There's also John Hawkes creepy and intoxicating cult leader in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene that would have been a fine choice after his worthy inclusion for Winter's Bone.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar loves a comeback and honoring a celebrated and elderly thespian, and the precursor onslaught showered upon Christopher Plummer made this an easy landslide decision for the Academy.

My Choice: As I've mentioned, I probably wouldn't have included any of these five men in my personal lineup, and Pitt or Hawkes would have been such an easy decision.  However, I have to work within the confines of the game, which means that von Sydow beats out Plummer for the trophy.  Von Sydow's work is a bit more effective and he has a much more difficult film to be able to excel in than Plummer.  Third place goes to Branagh, and I'll give Hill the slot just above Nolte.

And now, what about you-which of these five gentlemen deserved to win Best Supporting Actor?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Supporting Actor of 2011?

Also in 2011: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap