OVP: Supporting Actor (2000)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Jeff Bridges, The Contender

Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire

Benicio del Toro, Traffic

Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich

Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator

My Thoughts: And we are back again today with 2000, moving into the acting categories today.  At the time in 2000, none of these men had won Academy Awards, but while we're writing it today, three of them have taken Oscars, one sadly died without one (not that he would've shown up for it), and the fifth probably just missed a nomination this year by inches.  All of this is to say, the Oscars are snapshots-in-time, but if you can get in once, you probably have a decent shot of getting in again (they love keeping people in the club).

We rarely start with the winner, so let's start with Benicio del Toro.  Del Toro's career since his Oscar win has been a mixed bag, from critical darlings like Che and Sicario to a mess of paycheck gigs (The Wolfman, whatever he's doing in the MCU), all of which is a bummer when you remember how sensational he is in Traffic.  He brings an unexpected sensitivity to a cop being forced into the world of crime, and not being given a chance to get out (until he forges one).  The monologues about baseball, and wanting a better life for himself...there's a reason a previously unknown character actor bested a screen actor who'd been waiting 40 years for his Academy Award in 2000.

Though Finney is not without points in his direction.  The reviews of Erin Brockovich usually center around Julia Roberts in her dynamic titular role, but she's not the only one doing bravura work here.  The interplay with Finney's good guy lawyer (who still needs to make a buck) is really strong.  I love the way he seems impressed with Erin largely from the start, but he has to temper that and the reveal is him showing he knew there was something there from the beginning.  It's good, earnest work from a man who had at that point been headlining films for decades, but slid perfectly into the number two spot.

The same could be said for Jeff Bridges, another reliable leading man-turned-character actor who in 2000 was still on the hunt for his Oscar.  Bridges' work here is solid.  The way that he plays a laid-back, Clinton-esque president who seems to not be in with the sharks like Gary Oldman, and instead proves to be just as cunning as them, using that guise to his advantage, is really strong stuff (kudos to the casting director here).  I will say that I wanted something more from Bridges, though that might not be fair because he's doing the part, playing well against the more scenery-chewing acting from Gary Oldman, but it doesn't quite feel complete-more a great idea than a great character.  Still good though.

Willem Dafoe is in a similar boat, though in a much lesser film.  Shadow of a Vampire sounds great on paper (an actual vampire cast to play a fictional vampire), but it doesn't deliver.  It's a horror film that plays like a staid drama, and the seams show throughout.  I think Dafoe's work here is good-he owns this part, but it does occasionally feel like his over-the-top attitude looks better because the film around him is such a snooze.  I don't think there's enough of Dafoe's trademark grace (for a man who plays villains a lot, he generally has some sort of decency in his best work like Platoon and The Florida Project), and I suspect he won this nomination because of the makeup design (which I also wasn't super impressed by) and the film's final scene (which I was impressed by).

Our final nominee is Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator.  Phoenix, I'd like to point out, is a very good actor.  I give him back-to-back gold medals in 2012 & 2013 for my My Ballot, the only actor other than Nicole Kidman to have done that to date in our 22 seasons.  I say that because two of his Oscar-cited works left me so cold, Joker and today's film.  His Commodus swings for the rafters in virtually every scene.  There's no baseline here, playing a sniveling, power-hungry figure without any depth.  I know I don't love Gladiator, but there are at least 2-3 better supporting actor performances happening in his movie alone...Phoenix got in because he had the biggest part.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went for exactly the same lineup as Oscar, giving the statue to Benicio del Toro, and del Toro won the SAG Award...but in lead actor (I can't remember if this was a filing error or not...the same thing would happen with Jennifer Connelly the following year, as this was a weird trend with SAG at the time).  Supporting Actor instead went to Albert Finney with SAG, besting the Oscar lineup + Gary Oldman in The Contender.  The BAFTA also went to del Toro, but with a much different lineup as Finney & Phoenix were joined by Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot) and Oliver Reed (Gladiator), which was a posthumous citation for Reed.  In sixth place, I'm guessing it was Gary Oldman or maybe Bruce Greenwood in the now-forgotten Thirteen Days, though there are a lot of supporting actors in the Best Picture lineup (Reed, Richard Harris, Michael Douglas, Johnny Depp) that could've gotten in as well...this being such a set lineup most of the season makes sixth place hard to guess.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: One of the primary reasons that Michael Douglas would become one of my favorite actors in high school was his work in Traffic, some of the best stuff of his career and a grand look at a rich white man who has to solve actual problems, not ones that just present themselves as opportunities.

Oscar’s Choice: Gone were the 1980's, when an aging actor would routinely beat an upstart for a sentimental Oscar win-del Toro bested Finney, and probably by a decent amount.

My Choice: Oscar made the right choice, picking del Toro over Finney (the two best nominated works).  Behind them I'd go Bridges, Dafoe, and then Phoenix.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are we all joining Team Benicio, or do you want someone else?  Should Albert Finney have won an Oscar, or was he correctly a bridesmaid (and if so, what)?  And in a pretty open-and-shut year for the final quintet, who was in sixth place looking in the window?  Share in the comments!

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

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

OVP: Supporting Actor (2017)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

My Thoughts: We are hitting the final stretch of the 2017 races over the next week-and-a-half, doing our supporting races in the next three days, and then the final four (plus our ballot!) all of next week.  We'll start that out as always with Best Supporting Actor, a field that included a lot of names but that I (looking back on my predictions) got exactly right.  Part of that was correctly calling out an actor who was only in this category accidentally, the late Christopher Plummer.  Plummer had one of the biggest late-staged comebacks in Oscar history, getting three nominations over the age of eighty, an unrivaled situation that no one else will likely ever match.  We'll commence our writeup thus with Plummer as our entry point.

Plummer plays his J. Paul Getty less as a feeble old miser and more as someone who has lost his grip on reality decades earlier, having unlimited wealth in a way no man can have without it warping his mind.  Plummer's performance here is good, particularly his chaotic one-on-one scenes with both Mark Wahlberg & Michelle Williams, where he unfolds what it's like to be a man no one says no to in real time.  The performance feels a little bit half-baked, as Plummer famously only had a few weeks before the movie's release date to replace Kevin Spacey after Spacey became unemployable, and there's a whiff of the industry acknowledging Plummer for doing them a favor by stepping in at the last minute to this nomination...you get the sense that even if he was terrible he'd have gotten this citation as a "thank you."  He's not, he's good, but it's a pity he hadn't been cast at the beginning since I think some more time to parcel through this role might've made this his worthiest of nominations.

Richard Jenkins was cast from the beginning, but I can't help but feeling he also should've been recast in The Shape of Water.  It's refreshing to have an average-looking man play a gay character onscreen (too often we see aging gay men only when they're about to die in the movies), but I couldn't help but feeling there's something authentic lacking here.  Quite frankly Jenkins, who is straight in real life, is not convincing as a gay man, never understanding the tragedy of his sad character and other than one late scene, feeling simply to exist as a "sassy gay friend" for our more fully-drawn main character of Eliza.  The script doesn't care about him, and Jenkins doesn't define the role enough to rise above that castoff.

Willem Dafoe has been on fire in recent years, getting a well-deserved career renaissance that spurred from The Florida Project.  His work as a motel manager, left to deal with people living week-to-week, paycheck-to-paycheck is so well-done because his motives remain unclear.  Whom does he care about other than himself as the movie progresses...how much did he actually help the patrons who are clearly about to have their lives thrown away if they can't stay in this motel (it's literally the only place keeping them out of shelters or the streets)...Dafoe keeps this vested inside, but lets enough out to finally get you to understand his character in the movie's final moments.  It's a master class of understatement from an actor not necessarily known for such restraint.

Our final two nominees are both from Three Billboards, the first time there was a double supporting actor nominee from the same film since 1991's Bugsy.  Of the two, Woody Harrelson is my favorite.  I loved the way that his world-weary cop unfolds against the plot.  Harrelson, like Dafoe, is not known for understatement in his professional work, but here he finds it as a man who is in a new marriage, someone who understands the plight of our main character of Mildred, but also knows the parameters of what the law will allow him to do-he is the center of this film, keeping it tethered to reality, and also bears the weight of all of the unsolved cases that have come before him.  It's a great, small piece of acting in a film that loses its grounding when he disappears from the story.

Which leads us to Sam Rockwell.  Rockwell is not one of my favorite actors...in fact, I've always struggled with him as an onscreen performer, frequently feeling too flashy, too scenery-chewing...in some ways my reaction to him is similar to some of that of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the early Aughts, an actor who could be great but oftentimes gave into his theatrical roots when the character doesn't call for it.  It doesn't help Rockwell that the script doesn't have a clue how to handle his racist cop, but you shouldn't be forgiven & given an Oscar if you get saddled with a bad screenplay and don't make it worse.  Throw in a borderline case of category fraud, and I'm still baffled as to why this was the performance that finally won the long-neglected Rockwell over to the Academy.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Sam Rockwell as their victor against Plummer, Jenkins, Dafoe, & Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name), while SAG chose Rockwell atop Jenkins, Harrelson, Dafoe, & Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes).  BAFTA completed the set for Rockwell, beating Plummer, Dafoe, Harrelson, & Hugh Grant (Paddington 2), the latter of whom wasn't eligible for Oscar until the following year due to release date timing (he didn't get nominated for the Oscar, but I nominated him in 2018 for My Ballot as he's excellent in this movie).  In terms of sixth place, I called this entire lineup right (as I said above), mostly because I figured that the two actors from Call Me By Your Name (Hammer & Michael Stuhlbarg) would split the vote enough that neither would make it.  My gut says that Stuhlbarg, who has the aura of a "character actor who gets his one Oscar nomination at some point" was in sixth since he was also in Best Picture nominees The Shape of Water and The Post, but Hammer in 2017 had also been itching around an Oscar nomination for a while & that would've been a possible place for him (at this point, of course, Hammer, like the aforementioned Kevin Spacey, is unemployable, but coming off of The Social Network and J. Edgar a nomination felt inevitable).

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Hammer is undoubtedly the lead in his movie, and while I'll try to base that category solely on the performance (so he's a probable nominee for me even with his personal life being a horror show), this is not the place for him.  Stuhlbarg, on the other hand, with his fantastic final monologue...Oscar has no excuse for skipping.

Oscar’s Choice: The Globes had a choice between honoring the long-neglected Rockwell or the long-neglected Dafoe, and they chose the former...to which every other awards body followed suit in the most lock-step acting award season in recent memory.

My Choice: Easily it's Dafoe-this is the performance of his career, and deserved the Oscar, particularly against an otherwise average lineup.  I'd follow with Harrelson, Plummer, Jenkins, & Rockwell in the back.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you go with the entire awards season & the work of Sam Rockwell, or do you want to come over and sun with Willem Dafoe & I in The Florida Project?  Why do you think it's so rare to have double nominees from the same film in supporting categories today (it used to be far more common)?  And which of the Call Me By Your Name men was in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2017: Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017

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

OVP: Actor (2018)

OVP: Best Actor (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Christian Bale, Vice

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Willem Dafoe, At Eternity's Gate

Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

My Thoughts: Oscar should always be a starting point when it comes to film & an appreciation of it.  Many classic movie fans use Oscar as a guide into this world, as he presents an overview of what the public & the industry thought was work worth highlighting in a given year.  But he shouldn't be taken as a grand authority on film itself, because there are times that he gets it so wrong as to be flabbergasted.  2018's Best Actor lineup is, for me, potentially the worst acting lineup in the history of the Academy.  With one exception, none of these are even good performances, much less award-worthy, and I have spent much of our 2018 OVP dreading having to get into these men & the ridiculousness of a lineup which could've been exponentially better.

We're going to start with Willem Dafoe not because he's noteworthy, but because he's the easiest of the quartet of lackluster performances to forgive.  That's partially because no one really thought this nomination would happen-Dafoe was cited by the Globes, but that felt like a "we love a celebrity" scenario more than anything.  Dafoe's work is rudimentary.  He plays van Gogh sensitively, but is lost in a gimmicky movie that had just had its gimmick utilized better in the animated Loving Vincent.  As a result, you leave wanting more from Dafoe, a terrific actor who otherwise has had solid runs with Oscar in terms of his nominations.  Let's just forget this even happened (I suspect Dafoe has).

It's harder to forget Christian Bale in Vice.  Bale as Cheney is a weird decision.  Obviously the handsome Bale doesn't resemble the Mr. Potter-villain that is Dick Cheney one physical iota, so you'd hope that Adam McKay would have seen something in Bale's persona that would lift Cheney, rather than just being a second nomination for the makeup team.  That's not the case.  Cheney feels like a cartoon, never really admitting the reasoning behind his ruthlessness, just that he happens to be ruthless-Vice is a sloppy movie, and Bale as its main player should hold a bunch of the blame there.  I still think this is mostly the fault of the writers, but he couldn't find a way to use his deep introversion onscreen to more impressive affect, and so I left lost as to the celebration of this man.

Viggo Mortensen, like Willem Dafoe, would probably prefer to forget this nomination even happened.  Eastern Promises and Captain Fantastic are both movies that I was middling on, but at least they are movies that have pockets of support around the internet.  Mortensen brings some physicality to his Tony, but there's not enough going on underneath, which is strange because Mortensen (like Bale) has made a career out of well-playing the strong, silent type into three-dimensionality.  If you know me at all, you know I'm not impressed by physicality as a rule, and that's not enough for me to get behind Mortensen even though he brings something to his character in a way a few of these nominees don't.

Bradley Cooper is the one performance in this lineup that is going to encounter "but what about's..." from anyone reading who sees "worst lineup ever" and protests.  Cooper is solid in A Star is Born, much better than his costars.  He does such intricate character work with mirroring the mannerisms of Sam Elliott (the true younger brother, trying to be his own idealized version of his hero), and the way that he plays Jackson as a man who has been famous for so long it takes genuine work for him to understand what is real & what is mirage as the movie continues.  He also, especially in the film's first half, has solid chemistry with Lady Gaga.  This is Cooper's best performance to date, and it's probably the performance that will win him an Oscar someday (even though it would've been easier had AMPAS just given him the Oscar here for the actual performance).

But instead they gave it to Rami Malek, a man who I wonder if he'd have preferred to have just lost at this point.  Malek's win is so maligned that it's easy to risk hyperbole, but I'll be honest-other than make George Arliss in Disraeli, you'd be hard-pressed to find a worse lead actor winner.  Malek doesn't do his own singing, so he starts out with a deficit, and then takes it from there.  A movie that seems hell-bent on condemning Malek's character despite him being the assumed hero, Malek can't ground him in anything-there's no understanding of Freddie Mercury's sexuality, of his drive, of his vanity.  Malek uses his expressive eyes as often as he can, but getting a look right doesn't give your character a soul.  The film is offensive, long, & gross...Malek's work as Freddie might not always cause those descriptors, but it adds another one: boring.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama gave us the victorious Malek, beating out Cooper, Dafoe, Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased), and John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), while Comedy/Musical went to Bale over Mortensen, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns), Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun), and John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie).  SAG also favored Malek, with an exact replica of the Oscar lineup except Dafoe is ousted for Washington, while BAFTA did a similar trick, having Malek on top and Dafoe beaten for Steve Coogan of Stan & Ollie.  In terms of sixth place, you have to assume it was John David Washington, inexplicably missing for BlacKkKlansman, though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ethan Hawke in First Reformed, which had a lot of buzz throughout the season even if it went nowhere.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: We will get to "My Ballot" next week, so I'm not giving away anything quite yet, other than to tell you to stay tuned, as I pick an entirely different lineup from Oscar (all five new names coming).

Oscar’s Choice: Malek won in a landslide, a win that even on the night looked like it would age poorly.  In a different universe they would've realized the error of their ways sooner & gotten Cooper the trophy they'll eventually be forced to give him.

My Choice: Cooper, and it's not a close contest (Cooper, for the record, will be my seventh place for 2018 showing just how far off I am from Oscar).  Follow him with Mortensen, Dafoe, Bale, & Malek, though really everyone other than Cooper has just earned embarrassment.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you joining me on Team Bradley Cooper, or does Malek still have his defenders?  Anyone have any explanation how Dafoe ended up here for a movie so few people saw?  And is this Oscar's weakest lineup ever?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2018: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

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

OVP: The Lighthouse (2019)

Film: The Lighthouse (2019)
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
Director: Robert Eggers
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Sophomore efforts can be a challenge, particularly when your first film was critically-lauded.  Robert Eggers' The VVitch was at once instantly iconic (you can buy "Black Phillip" Funko dolls if you wish to live deliciously) and a mesmerizing film.  It was also the sort of movie that likely stays in your head for years, rumbling around as a truly great idea with a twist ending that shocks the audience.  How, precisely, do you follow up a clear passion project with something equally challenging and provocative?  This has been a question mark for several filmmakers this year, including Ari Aster & Jordan Peele, and today we'll discuss a third notable "horror film" sophomore effort of 2019, The Lighthouse, a film that takes the motif of The VVitch and then continually challenges us as an audience in a way that makes you forget the lessons you learned from Eggers' original picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) This film is an acting duet between Robert Pattinson as Ephraim Winslow and Willem Dafoe as Thomas Wake (they are the only two actors in the picture with speaking parts).  They are tasked with manning a lighthouse deep off the coast of somewhere (presumably North America, but we'll get to this in a second), with Wake as the one in command and Ephraim doing most of the menial chores, never getting to actually man the lighthouse.  What is initially supposed to be a four-week stint turns into a time indeterminate, as no boat shows up to relieve the two men of their duties and they are essentially stranded at sea, their rations depleting, and slowly even their booze, to the point where they mix kerosene with spirits to continue a drunken haze, as they seem to only be able to stand each other while in some state of inebriation.  Eventually secrets start to come out-Ephraim is really Thomas Howard, as Ephraim Winslow was a young man whose death he had declined to prevent, and whose life he then overtook, and it's revealed that despite a friendliness between the two men, Wake has been secretly recommending that Winslow not be paid for his efforts, citing him for insubordination and drunkenness on the job (even though it was Wake who forced Winslow to partake in the alcohol).  The film's closing scenes are of the men violently attacking each other, with Howard killing Wake in pursuit of looking into the light in the lighthouse, and seemingly going mad from what he sees (though it's possible he'd already reached that point by the time he stared into the abyss).  The film ends with Howard dead and naked on a beach, seagulls feasting on his intestines.

There's a lot more to this film I could get into, quite frankly-the film is brimming with plot and detail, which is a fascinating juxtaposition to the bleak and empty island that the lighthouse inhabits.  The film uses a lot of metaphor (other authors have noted the film borrowing from Greek mythology, particularly the legend of Prometheus giving fire to man), and it's hard not to see some of the clear parables about man's fight with one's self.  There is no indication of life off of this lighthouse, and the fact that both men eventually share the same name lends credence to the idea that they are in fact the same person, fighting different sides of themselves.  I personally wonder if this is a case of "they were dead the whole time," with the Lighthouse serving as some version of hell for the real Thomas Howard's inaction to save the real Ephraim Winslow, forever haunted by the false ambitions he held in life (in the form of Thomas Wade).  It's hard to fold in the mermaids, predatory gulls, and tentacled Willem Dafoe into this vision, though, and this might be my biggest problem with The Lighthouse-while it's breathtaking to behold, it's also packed with too many ideas.  This was also a problem with Ari Aster's Midsommar (though weirdly not Jordan Peele's Us, which had a brilliantly clear through line running through its plot), and perhaps it would hold up on repeat viewings, but I feel like some of the illusions were just there to keep us flabbergasted, rather than to aid the film.

The movie is shocking enough when it just comes to the two lead performances, as Dafoe & Pattinson give excellent work in this duet.  The performances are not particularly glamorous (Dafoe's character's flatulence is a recurring theme, as is Pattinson's character's habitual masterbation), with Dafoe sporting an unkempt beard and Pattinson's natural beauty hidden under a veneer of soot and sweat, but they still find a strange eroticism.  It's not clear if the two want to kill each other or just fuck by the end of the film, but it's probably some combination of the two.  Pattinson, derided for so long as just "that guy from Twilight" should shut up pretty much filmgoer who claims he can't act here in the same way Kristen Stewart did in Clouds of Sils Maria, bringing a tortured soul out, though not always needing his humanity.  Dafoe, who has been consistently dazzling his whole career, but particularly the last few years, lends a cartoonish bellow to his character that so easily could have become overacting, but instead is just manic & terrifying.  He gets the flashier role, but it's also going to be the one people remember from The Lighthouse, his haunting glare as he throws out Shakespearean-style soliloquies, casting all (including the audience) into the unforgiving deep.

OVP: The English Patient (1996)

Film: The English Patient (1996)
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth
Director: Anthony Minghella
Oscar History: 12 nods/9 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actor-Ralph Fiennes, Actress-Kristin Scott Thomas, Supporting Actress-Juliette Binoche*, Art Direction*, Cinematography*, Adapted Screenplay, Costume*, Sound*, Film Editing*, Original Score*)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Stating a favorite movie has gotten harder as I've gotten older.  For years, it was a de facto answer (Casablanca), as sure as I could tell you my name is John or that I would definitely have sex with Colin Farrell if given the option.  But recently I've started to poke holes in that facade, realizing that as I've seen more movies than the average person will see in their entire lifetime at this point that it's okay to bring up Chinatown or Call Me By Your Name or Once Upon a Time in the West as potentially my favorite film ever made.  One of the movies that most strongly comes up when I decide to stray away from Casablanca as the Grand Teton of movies is The English Patient, a movie I was blessed enough to see at a "secret movie night" recently.  The English Patient is so ingrained in me that not only did I know it from literally the opening chord of the score (I literally squealed to my mom, sitting next to me, "it's my favorite movie!"), but also I have seen this film so often that I could literally mouth along to the words, as if I was at a rock concert and suddenly a favorite anthem began to play.  Since the film is arguably the movie I have the most arched eyebrows for when I mention it as potentially my favorite movie ever (even my mom who has known of my obsession with the film since I used to watch it alone in my bedroom every two months or so in high school, didn't quite get it after watching it with me for the second time), I figured I should rescue it today from the annals of being a Seinfeld punchline and talk about my English Patient.

(Spoilers Ahead) Okay, so the plot of The English Patient is somewhat hard to summarize as it's essentially two stories told chronologically and concurrently, so you're getting back story to one tale (about our present-day "English Patient" who has suffered terrible burns in a plane crash, and what happened to him before he was burned), and our current-state tale of Hana the Nurse (Binoche) who keeps losing everyone that she loves in horrible accidents toward the end of World War II.  The first half follows Almasy (Fiennes), the "English Patient," as he has a torrid affair with Katherine Clifton (Scott Thomas) who is married to Geoffrey (Firth).  All of them are helping to create maps of Northern Africa, which initially just feels like a past-time for bored and wealthy Europeans, but becomes crucially important as World War II breaks out, and increasingly battles are being fought between the Allies and the Axis powers in Africa.  Meanwhile, we learn seemingly contradictory things about Almasy in present-day, with him claiming to have been married to Katherine, and having him be accused of betraying the Allies (and his team, including the Cliftons) to the Germans, and in the process causing a thief named Caravaggio (Dafoe) who has traced down Almasy to come seeking his revenge, as Caravaggio blames Almasy for him being maimed (he had his thumbs cut off during illegal torture) during the war.  The film even has time for a second romance in the modern-day, between Hana and a young Sikh named Kip (Andrews), who disarms bombs and mines for a living.

The movie functions at once as a melodrama, a pair of doomed romances, and a mystery.  The first time you see it, it's not entirely clear what to do with our misleading narrator, who lies frequently in the present, so you don't know until the end that he's been telling the truth in the past.  The film kind of has something for everyone in this regard-if you don't really love the romances, you can always latch onto the "war is hell" portion of the story, as well as the central mystery, and of course there's two romances to point you toward, both of which feel fully-fleshed out (that's not a nudity joke, though there is ample nudity in the picture).

What I love about The English Patient (and this could honestly be a book, so for your own eyes I'll try to keep this relatively brief) is the way that it feels like a complete, epic story.  Frequently when a director like Minghella were to shoot for a big-picture sweeping tale there would be sluggish, potentially even ancillary aspects to the movie that don't keep it going; look at Minghella's impressive but less successful Cold Mountain for an example of a movie that can occasionally be spellbinding but gets lost along the way, never quite justifying its run-time.  The English Patient doesn't do that-it leaves layers for future viewings (it's impossible to get the depth of Binoche's Hana, and her misery the first time you see it, realizing what she has to go through while still maintaining a relatively caring-and-cheerful demeanor), but it's also a complete story all on its own.  It's not an epic that is long for the sake of being grand-it's long because the story demands it, and there isn't a lot of "spare" in the picture.  Unless you truly hate, say, the romance between Hana/Kip (and how could you do such a thing?), The English Patient is that rare movie that justifies heading into 3-hour territory without ever being dull.

The performances are brilliant.  All three of the Oscar-nominated leads are giving their best work here, and considering we're talking about Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, & Kristin Scott Thomas, that's saying something.  I can never quite decide my favorite performance in the picture, though I'd probably lean toward Fiennes on most days; he finds a thoroughly caddish rogue, someone we shouldn't sympathize with, and makes him a Heathcliff of the 20th Century.  Almasy is a brute, and probably not worthy of Katherine (or Hana, for that matter), but you understand the attraction here, and why he'd be the great love of her life.  Binoche finds an openness in Hana that is her trademark, but I love the quieter moments in her performance, the way that she is genuinely curious about the man she's caring for (always falling in love again), upon reflection.  Scott Thomas is in full-on glamour mode, never looking lovelier, but also is a woman who understands how to toe the line between being in a man's world, where she's frequently dismissed because of her gender and beauty, and someone who still manages to get things she wants, the way she wants them.  Along with sensitive portrayals from Dafoe & Andrews, the film's acting is just as good as the costumes, cinematography, and scoring, something you can't claim for a lot of romantic epics.

All-in-all, this is a movie I will always love, and that pretty much every age (even as I am now the age of the characters onscreen falling madly in love, rather than just someone imagining being so) of my existence will latch onto.  I am self-aware enough to know this isn't a picture for everyone-the dialogue is highly-stylized ("the heart is an organ of fire," "find that plant-cut out its heart,") but watching it in a packed theater, where the sparing jokes still land and the tender walk up to the Cave of Swimmers still had a number of wet eyes, I am reminded of why I love the movies-the very best ones unite us and captivate us in their stories.  The English Patient is a melodrama, one brimming with romantic tragedy, but it's also the very best of what the cinema can encapsulate-it's an escapist but all-too-human look at the lives of ordinary people put into extraordinary circumstances.

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.