In Contention

Tag: Scent of a Woman

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 ‘right actor, wrong film’ Oscars

    As we head into the thick of awards season, one of the biggest “will-they-won’t-they” questions about this year’s Academy Awards concerns one of their most favored sons, Clint Eastwood. Specifically: despite wildly polarized responses to the film, and a widespread perception that he has already been amply rewarded in other categories, can Eastwood ride the wave of sentiment to a first acting victory for “Gran Torino?”

    That sneaky National Board of Review award last week suggests it’s still very much a possibility, whether or not people believe that it’s a performance for the ages — and, more to the point, whether or not it ranks with the best of Eastwood’s own onscreen work.

    It’s no secret that, in the acting races, the Academy frequently bases their vote less on the performance at hand than the actor delivering it — one can point to any number of Oscar victories determined less by merit than by personal affection for an already rewarded star (let’s say Michael Caine in “The Cider House Rules”) or industry guilt over an under-rewarded one (most recently, Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine”).

    Meanwhile, recent victories by the likes of Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett point to the familiar “deferred-Oscar” syndrome, where an actor widely believed to have been snubbed in the recent past is hastily handed a statuette as a kind of cumulative acknowledgment of their recent strong work, frequently for a performance that doesn’t represent any particular breakthrough. (Kate Winslet might be vying for one of those this year.)

    All are variations of the oft-lamented “right actor, wrong film” Oscars that are peppered throughout Academy history — a solution generally deemed more credible (though I’m not sure why) than the honorary “quick, before they die” lifetime achievement gongs doled out to the likes of Peter O’Toole and Kirk Douglas, actors who continually slip through the cracks in Oscar voting.

    Age isn’t always the determining factor, though.  The Academy has shown in recent years by passing over Lauren Bacall and Ruby Dee — both of whom would have been exemplary “right actor, wrong film” honorees — they’re not always in a sentimental mood.  As the following list shows, reasons for rewarding actors for lesser work are many and varied: genre bias on the Academy’s part, mainstream emergence on the actor’s, or simply the voters’ collective nostalgia for a familiar face at the podium.

    The one thing all these names have in common is that they’re distinguished, even great actors who deserve to have “Academy Award winner” forever attached to their monikers — just not necessarily for that performance. Will Clint Eastwood be the latest name to join their ranks? The jury is out.

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  • Where have you gone, Al Pacino?

    It has been more than 30 years since Al Pacino gave his career-defining performance as cold blooded Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II.” He radiated quiet danger the moment he appeared on screen without ever raising his voice or allowing his mouth to wrap its way around words and spit them out like venom.

    While a one-two punch of “88 Minutes” and “Righteous Kill” slithers its way to theaters this year, audiences are reminded once again that one of the cinema’s all-time legends has immersed himself once again in either sub-par material or, as has become his cliche, the tendency to overreach and overact on his way to becoming a walking spoof of himself.

    There was a time when Pacino was thought of as one of the greatest American actors in movies…period. His work in the 1970s was nothing short of sublime, with strong performances in “The Godfather,” “Serpico,” “Scarecrow,” the aforementioned sequel to Coppola’s study of La Cosa Nostra and “Dog Day Afternoon.” In the latter he gave his most electrifying and properly energized portrayal.

    Along with many of the fresh-faced actors of the day, Pacino owned the decade. Sure he faltered with “Bobby Deerfield,” which meant he was not the type for romantic films…right? Or was this his limitations beginning to become apparent?

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  • Best actor contenders join an eclectic list of recent winners

    Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Frank Langella seem to be the names bandied about for Oscar consideration this year, which would place them in some impressive company of nominees and winners these last 20 years. Of course, that said, there have also been some bizarre choices for the Best Actor award, which has often left me shaking my head in disgust and wondering what these voters were actually seeing.

    Since 1988, there have been 10 winners that perhaps should not have been, the award arguably deserved by another of the nominees, or worse, an actor not nominated! Consider Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man,” a widely acclaimed performance that asked that he not connect with anyone in the film, never make eye contact, rock back and forth and speak in a nasally voice.

    Stop what you are doing right now and try what he did in the film, and trust me it is very easy to do. Now do you deserve an Oscar for doing what Hoffman did in that film? The real perfortmance in “Rain Man” was that of Tom Cruise, who we watched evolve over the course of the film, and of course the best performance of that year was Gene Hackman as the tough investigator in “Mississippi Burning.” Hackman was nominated, but he stood no chance in the wake of the juggernaut of support for Hoffman, who in fact should have won years before for his miraculous work in “Tootsie!”

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