In Contention

Tag: Best Supporting Actor

  • Could Baldwin be a sure thing for ‘It’s Complicated?’

    Alec Baldwin in It's ComplicatedSince I made my first Oscar nomination predictions in early June, I’ve had a weird hunch about Nancy Meyers’s “It’s Complicated” being something of a surprise package in the race.

    Now while I’ve known all along that Best Picture and Best Actress nods for the film were in the extreme wild-card class of prediction, a Best Supporting Actor nod for Alec Baldwin always felt comfortably right to me. Well-loved character actor, successful career reinvention, showy comic role in a probable December hit … all that’s needed is for the performance to be terrific, and the work is done.

    Over the months, Baldwin has crept onto more pundits’ predictions lists, with the news of his Oscar hosting gig being taken as a good or bad omen from various angles. Now Jeff Wells quotes two industry insiders who’ve seen the film, and say Baldwin not only has a nom in the bag, but potentially even a win:

    A non-vested writer-director guy told me this afternoon that he can “absolutely confirm” that Baldwin is the shit in Meyers’ film and a prime candidate for Best Supporting Actor. A vested party who nonetheless tends to be blunt said Baldwin is “a lay-down hand for a nom, Jeff. And he could win. Total breakout performance. Bet on it.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Reflections, early predix, animated contenders

    Coraline• Kris boldly offered some early winner predictions … I (and you) followed.

    • AMPAS unveiled the official list of 20 animated feature contenders, guaranteeing five eventual nominees.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column picked through the leading Best Supporting Actor contenders.

    • In The Long Shot, we reflected on a handful of the Academy’s better moves this past decade.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 10 — The four to be seen, animated features, supporting categories and Tyson’s LAX punch-out

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk, your weekly kudocast featuring yours truly and Anne Thompson of indieWIRE’s Thompson on Hollywood.

    On the docket today:

    • Anne and I discuss the four perceived Oscar heavies that have yet to unveil — “Avatar,” “Invictus,” “The Lovely Bones” and “Nine” — and what being last out of the gate means vis a vis echo chamber buzz.

    • Spinning off of that, we dig into the “Avatar” budget story of the week.

    • With the list of qualifying animated features official, we take a brief survey of the category once more with thoughts on potential nominees.

    • With Movie City News’s Gurus o’ Gold chart collecting supporting category predictions, Anne and I take the opportunity to profile those two categories.

    • And Anne breaks down the impromptu Mike Tyson bout that went down at LAX Wednesday and whether it could hurt James Toback’s documentary feature on the fighter.

    Have a listen to this week’s podcast below.  And as always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

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    Subscribe to Oscar Talk

  • OFF THE CARPET: Looking at the supporting gentlemen

    Paul Schneider in Bright StarIn recent weeks we’ve been covering the performance categories in this space.  With little else of tangible interest, what else can we possibly discuss?  It’s as good a time as any to take note of what we have on our hands.  Be sure to check out our looks at Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress if you missed them.

    (Speaking of which, with the rise of “Crazy Heart” in this year’s race, it goes without saying Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal should be added to their respective fields as they are very much in this year’s race.)

    At first glance, the Best Supporting Actor category looks fairly established this season.  There have been, after all, a number of contenders already and plenty more to come.  But none have really stood out from the pack yet, making this race actually as up for grabs as any other.

    Possibly the most agreed-upon contender in the field has to be Christoph Waltz, who took acting honors in Cannes for his villainous portrayal in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” Waltz has made for quite the story off-screen as well, given his latter-career lift-off.  And even detractors of the film (yours truly included) have to consider his performance a highlight of the year so far.

    If anyone gives considerable chase here it’s going to be Christopher Plummer, smartly shifted to a supporting focus for his performance as Leo Tolstoy in “The Last Station.” Plummer will have sentiment (never been nominated) and added visibility (also appearing in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”) on his side.

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  • Comment of the day

    Supporting actor is where old-men-who-are-gonna-die-soon go to win Oscars. Isn’t that universally known?

    –Glenn in our discussion following Helen Mirren’s Rome fest victory.

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Foreign contenders and underdogs

    James McAvoy in The Last Station• The deadline for Best Foreign Language Film entries passed, as Israel and Italy bucked conventional wisdom with their selections.

    • Among the better-received contenders, however, were major festival prizewinners from Australia and Greece. A full list of submissions here.

    • As the smaller studios beef up their Oscar prospects, this week’s Off the Carpet column wondered if this could be the year of the underdog.

    • Speaking of which, Sony Pictures Classics acquired “The Last Station,” a potential awards vehicle for Helen Mirren amongst others.

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  • Supporting actors, step forward

    Christoph Waltz in Inglourious BasterdsA while back, certain folks were (rather unfairly) dredging up the routine annual complaint about the supposed scarcity of viable Best Actress contenders. Dave Karger, however, has located the real weak spot of this year’s awards race, and it concerns the opposite sex for a change: where, he asks, are the Best Supporting Actor standouts?

    Pound for pound, I tend to find Best Supporting Actor the least compelling of the acting races, a haven for affectionately regarded stalwarts in bit parts that are frequently less than challenging. The last two years have raised the bar considerably, but recent wins for Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin and Michael Caine are typical of the laziness with which the Academy often treats the category.

    Even by the category’s usual standards, however, this year’s pickings look unusually lean, as Karger narrows the serious contenders so far to a scant three.

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  • POLL: Who deserves it? — BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

    I think we all know how this will turn out, so a Sunday is as good a day as any.  Let us know in the sidebar poll.

  • RIP/FYC

    Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightThe New York Times put it to David Carr, a.k.a. The Carpetbagger, to write a feature in today’s paper about the tight-rope walk of campaigning for a deceased actor (Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight”), and it’s rather clear from the quotes that no one from Warner Bros. was willing to go on the record.  The first quote in the story is ripped from his outlet’s formal review of the film six months ago, then there’s some stuff from Christopher Nolan taken from his Golden Globes acceptance speech on Ledger’s behalf.

    I participated, apparently on background, for the piece and said essentially what Sasha Stone is quoted as saying (and what I imagine any of us in the media had to offer Carr in the midst of his reporting): the trick was there was no trick.  Remind of the performance and stay out of its way.  Flowering it up with an overabundance of “for your consideration” novelty could have sunk the ship (though I’m surprised Stone hedges her bet by saying she doesn’t think Ledger is locked to win — who steals it from him?).

    Here’s a bit from Carr’s piece:

    There is a kind of institutional graciousness at work. Many Oscar campaigns are executed not because of the quality of the movie — see the campaign for “Seven Pounds” [interesting bit of editorializing] — but because A-list talent requires it. Mr. Ledger, though, has no needs on this earth; a victory will not serve as a career booster and fee raiser…

    Is it wrong for us to stare, to reminisce, to regret? Hardly. Mr. Ledger’s death, which created a huge wave of public grief, was clearly a seminal moment in popular culture. The studio needed to navigate all those currents in releasing the film and in the Oscar ritual as well.

    More here.

  • Curiously human

    Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

    I expect the late Heath Ledger to win the Oscar for best supporting actor for “The Dark Knight,” but I’m not choosing his performance as the “most elevating” out of sympathy. It was elevating for an entirely separate reason: He transformed the character of the Joker, who we thought we knew so well, into a suffering, haunted being, stripped of all emotion except for ruthless self-pity.

    Exactly what wounded the Joker is hard to say (he tells conflicting stories, neither one necessarily true), but something certainly did. His role as the Joker is not performed to entertain himself, but as a necessary acting-out of turmoil. Its function as a deliberate performance is underlined by his makeup, deliberately cruder and messier than previous Jokers, as if he slops it on with anger. His laugh is maniacal.

    These feelings are a tribute to Ledger, to director Chris Nolan, and to the screenplay by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan. This Batman film, while still an over-the-top comic book extravaganza, is curiously more human than before, giving greater weight to the characters as if they actually were, however impossibly, human beings.

    From Roger Ebert’s recent article on the “most elevating” performance of the supporting actor contenders.  More “elevated” picks can be viewed here, best-of choices including Mickey Rourke, Melissa Leo, Viola Davis and “Milk.”

  • Celebrating Heath’s accomplishment

    Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightWhen Johnny Depp first read the role of Captain Jack Sparrow, there was nothing in the script to suggest the performance he would eventually give. That bizarre manner of speaking, sounding slightly stoned, the crazy off-kilter walk, and the way he moved his arms, all but flailing them about. That was an actor’s artistry, plain and simple, and it was something to behold. That is the genius of Johnny Depp.

    When Heath Ledger was given the role of the Joker I was mildly surprised, not because I did not think he could do it.  On the contrary.  It just never occurred to me to consider him for the role. Obviously Christopher Nolan knew something I did not. Then consider the obstacles facing Ledger, the largest being a performance from one of the greatest and most beloved actors in the history of the cinema in the same role back in 1989. “Batman” was still a hot DVD, plenty fresh in the minds of viewers.  Jack Nicholson’s Joker was, at the time, critically acclaimed.  He stole the movie right from under Michael Keaton’s nose — even had top billing.  Yet Tim Burton’s “Batman” was a fantasy, and Christopher Nolan has gone in an entirely different direction with his “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.”

    Ledger understood this and made the decision to portray the Joker as realistically as possible, as a terrorist, as a murderous maniac with a mind that was pure evil and twisted genius.  He walked differently, he moved differently, he spoke differently. The licking of the lips to soothe the scars of his mouth, the manner of speaking slowly as to challenge the other person, all of this was Ledger. He created something rather extraordinary in the film and that should be celebrated.

    I believe he gave the best performance of the year in 2005 for his breathtaking work in “Brokeback Mountain,” but the Academy thought otherwise.  But I don’t think that will happen this year. This is one of those performances like Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull” and recently, Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” that is so brilliant, so stunning to watch (and watch again), the Academy has to honor it. This is one for the ages, to be discussed and reviewed for years to come.

    Tom O’Neil is tossing the supporting actor race around with a couple of colleagues over at Gold Derby.  Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger brings up the issue of winds of changing, the “dynamic changes in momentum,” as O’Neil puts it.  But let’s face it.  The Academy will look like fools if they don’t hand Ledger this trophy, because this is the most discussed performance of the year.

    The best directors, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, they hire their actors and trust them to do the job, to come to the set prepared and having created something for the film that will work for the director’s vision.  Nolan did this with Ledger  He smartly stood out of the way and let him go, allowing the actor to enhance the film, give it an edge, bring to it a dark brilliance.  And what could “The Dark Knight” be without the darkest of villains?

  • Honored

    The Dark KnightEvery year I contribute to the Eye on the Oscars features issues at Variety, something I started long before my short-lived blogging stint at the trade last year.  We always come up with a list of contenders for each category to profile as the season pushes forward and sometimes the nature of longer leads makes some picks a bit out-of-date come publication time (i.e., James Cromwell on this year’s supporting actor list).

    One actor that was always going to be there was Heath Ledger, whose brilliant turn in “The Dark Knight” has become the stuff of legend.  I put a bug in my editor’s ear early on that, if it was in the cards, I really wanted the chance to tackle Ledger’s profile.  I generally do abot three or four of them every year, but I’ve never wanted an assignment, of any sort, as much as I wanted this one.

    Happily, I got it.  Heath is obviously no longer with us, so cranking out a profile with the right perspective was always going to be difficult.  But taking some insightful words from Aaron Eckhart and a nicely enlightening chat with producer Chuck Roven, I came up with something I’m proud of and that I hope does the actor some level of justice.

    Here’s a taste:

    “He was always part of a very short list of guys we had talked about, but so many things were wonderful surprises,” Roven says. “When we heard his voice, when we see his tongue flick, when he does that thing with his hair when he sees Rachel. The thing about this performance is it really pulls you in. You know this character is deeply disturbed, but you want to spend time with him.”

    Regarding that flick of the actor’s tongue, like some wicked clown serpent, Roven says Ledger researched what it would be like if someone had his mouth cut like the Joker’s horrific scarring suggests. In some cases, Ledger told Roven, a person might run the tongue along the wound. So the actor built that defining physical attribute into the character.

    Ledger was never able to see his finished performance, though Christopher Nolan did show him the film’s introductory scene, featuring a Joker-masterminded bank heist. For Roven, the portrayal lives on in the film’s popular and critical reception and, indeed, the awards chatter the late actor’s work has ignited throughout the year.

    Check out the rest here.

  • FYC brilliance

    Robert Downey Jr. For Your Consideration ad

  • That ‘Tropic Thunder’ ad

    A few of you guys have expressed some general enthusiasm for the “Tropic Thunder” FYC ad for Robert Downey Jr. at the top of the site here.  I agree, I think it’s a stroke of genius.  Well, FYI, I was at a party in honor of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” tonight (at the drop-dead-stunning home of producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall), and director Ben Stiller clued me into the fact that the scheme was his idea.  Paramount marketing kept coming back and trying to get something creative out of Stiller and finally he said, “Let’s just make it a campaign for the character he plays.”  Voila.  I love it.

  • Campaigning posthumously for Oscar…where’s the beef?

    Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightI read this Rachel Abramowitz story concerning the pitfalls of campaigning for a posthumous Oscar nomination on behalf of Heath Ledger twice.  Packed with anonymous sources (until 42 West’s Cynthia Swartz pops up at the end with some insight on hawking Massimo Troisi 13 years ago), it really is a brick-wall story.  Nothing gleaned, nothing of substance conveyed.

    Dare I say it, I would have killed it.  Not because of the subject, and Abramowitz does what she can at the whims of her sources, but because it doesn’t carry the weight it might have if certain parties had taken their heads out of the sand.

    At this point, I think it’s a bit ridiculous for Warner brass and campaigners to stay off the record for this stuff.  It’s understandable in certain cases and I get it, you don’t want to come across as taking advantage of Ledger’s death.  But other than idiot Terry Gilliam, I don’t think anyone really thinks that is happening or has happened.  It’s been a classy ride, and as Abramowitz notes, the studio “was deft in its initial marketing push for ‘The Dark Knight,’ for the campaign neither hid Ledger’s presence nor overly hyped it.”

    This could have been an insightful story with names in the mix, giving a real face to the realities of attempting to ensure a sort of prosperity for Ledger’s work through campaigning it for awards.  The most interesting point comes at the end of the article, when Abramowitz is forced to quote from the paper’s geek blog Hero Complex (from a Geoff Boucher interview with Christopher Nolan).  But otherwise, it’s just a lot of hot air and it really gets under my skin.

    The true infuriating quote, however, has to be this doosey from some moronic competitor (who we can only hope represents either a marginal Hollywood opinion or, at the very least, is indicative of nothing more than behind-the-scenes smearing that takes hold this time of year):

    “Until we wake up one day and we no longer are making any good movies — dramas — then the academy will not go this route, unless it’s outrageously different . . . . This picture is not so different from the first one. It’s still the Batman story. He wears a hat with ears, a cape that can fly.”

    I’ve been repressing my inner Bat-geek for some time this year, trying to keep an even keel, combatting the hyperbole when I can.  Because let’s face it, praise for “The Dark Knight” got out of hand this year.  But more and more, as I read stuff like this, as I talk to publicists whose antagonistic banter you can see through like crystal — oh yeah, believe me, there are people trying to take this thing down because it rightfully scares them — more and more I’m finding it necessary to beat the drum.

  • ‘Ballast,’ ‘River,’ ‘Rachel’ lead the Indie Spirit nods

    James Franco in MilkI’m late to the table on today’s Independent Spirit Award nominations because I’ve been toiling away on the latest Oscar column (which should be up shortly).  Obviously, Sony Pictures Classics dominated the scene but I’m glad to see that this year’s crop is more “independent” than in years past.

    One nomination that stuck out to me was James Franco in the supporting actor category for “Milk” (a film good enough for four nominations but not for Best Picture — explain that to me).  Early on the idea was that Josh Brolin’s foil character Dan White would be the better bid for the category at the Oscars.  Then word came that James Franco was the heartbeat of the piece and likely a better fit.  Finally, the film landed and I was not alone in thinking Brolin hit his performance out of the park.  Now this, so who knows?  I still get the feeling Emile Hirsch is lurking in the wings waiting for a surprise, maybe with SAG or even Oscar, but that’s a difficult trio of supporting contenders to work through at the moment.

    I get the feeling this year’s Indie Spirits will be dominated by “The Wrestler” and “Rachel Getting Married,” maybe some love for “Frozen River” here and there.  I’m happy to see “Synecdoche, New York” land the Robert Altman Award (which always seems to go to a highly deserving crew), and I’ll certainly be pulling for Harris Savides yet again in the cinematography category.

    The nominations:

    Best Feature
    “Rachel Getting Married” (Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt)
    “The Wrestler” (Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin)
    “Wendy and Lucy” (Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani)
    “Ballast” (Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh)
    “Frozen River” (Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae)

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  • 11/30 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Nathaniel Rogers muses on the Best Supporting Actor contest. [Film Experience]

    • Tom O’Neil ventures a tenuous (to me, at least) theory about gay roles and the Oscars. [Gold Derby]

    • Despite his fandom, Jeff Wells has some reservations about “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • A study of Hollywood’s ongoing fascination with the Holocaust. [The Independent]

    • Ron Howard on filming Nixon… and voting for him. [New York Post]

    • Gongs for “Frozen River” and “Hunger” in Stockholm. [Screen Daily]

    • A profile of Jon Hamm. Before you say that’s not film-related, he’s totally going to be a movie star. [The Times]

  • POLL: Is Heath Ledger a lock to win Best Supporting Actor?

    We really need a new poll this week.  That “Wrestler” query has run its course (the majority of you thinking, no, the film won’t suplex its way into the Best Picture line-up).

    This week, inspired by Guy’s post below, I figured we’d ask a question that has been on everyone’s mind for a few months now: Does Heath Ledger have the Best Supporting Actor Oscar sewn up for his performance in “The Dark Knight?”

    So…let us know in the sidebar poll!