April Foolish Predictions: The Supporting Categories
Saturday, April 7, 2012 at 6:05PM Nowhere is the "April Foolish" descriptive more appropriate than in the Supporting Categories. They're generally the last major categories to clear up in each Oscar race since so much rides on the success of a film and/or its leading players. Coattails are often required even if the performance is great all by its lonesome. Witness the sad fate of Vanessa Redgrave's Coriolanus performance in the last race. She was easily the greatest but barely any awards group noticed since reviews for the film were lukewarm and it was barely released at that.
Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp are old married in "Song for Marion"
Redgrave might be in play again this year, though, with a warmer title role in Song For Marion. The last time she was in the Oscar race (20 years ago) she was playing a dying woman who worked as a catalyst for the protagonist's emotional journey and the same is probably true here in this film about her husband (Terence Stamp) who joins the church choir to please her. The supporting categories are often home to heartwarmers like that and they're much kinder to senior actors as well so the cast of Quartet (Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins) Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut about retired opera singers, might win kudos too.
If Oscar wants to lean darker -- they love villains in both of the supporting categories -- they might latch on to the sure to be controversial Django Unchained but it's worth noting that Pulp Fiction is the only Quentin Tarantino film that has managed multiple acting nominations. So it's anyone's guess as to who will be named "best in show" this time out but my money is currently on the villain (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his captive (Kerry Washington)
Crowded Films
We can't possibly know this early on who the standouts will be in various crowded films but we can guess. Ben Affleck's Argo, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, and Steven Spielberg's Lincoln might be key films to watch for the Supporting Actor category since they all involve dangerous military operations and the cast lists are deep. Les Misérables will undoubtedly be the film that will spark the most early discussion about the Supporting Actress category since Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Samantha Barks and Helena Bonham-Carter will all have key moments they can own.
Can David O. Russell get two of his supporting ladies nominated again? The Silver Linings Playbook has Jacki Weaver and Jennifer Lawrence
Double Dipping?
Oscar has really gone crazy for doubling up in Supporting Actress this past decade. It just keeps happening that two actresses are nominated from the same film. Two more films which might be in play for the ol' twice over are Hyde Park on Hudson (The Olivias, Williams and Colman) and David O. Russell's The Silver Lining Playbook (with previous nominees Jennifer Lawrence and Jacki Weaver)
Can all those "Rampart" raves, help Woody Harrelson in his next role as a dog-loving mobster?
The April Foolish Predictions...
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
See where they rank: Amy Adams, Redgrave, The Bening, JLaw hot off Hunger Games, Mary Todd "Sally" Lincoln, Nicole Kidman, The Olivias and the Les Mis girls.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
See where they rank: All those men still waiting for a win like Leo, Woody & Joaquin, plus previous winners Lee Jones, Waltz, and many more.
Naturally you'll want to sound off on all the wonderful possibilities. Which performances do you have warm fuzzy hunches about? Which performances do you think I'm overestimating?
Reader Comments (66)
Is it me or Jessica Chastain is becoming "some kind of Meryl Streep", but with more than the double of her movies per year???
I am very surprised of not seeing David Strathairn for Lincoln and Joel Edgerton and Isla Fisher for The great Gatsby. Strathairn because right now is the one with more buzz for that film after DDL, and Edgerton and Fisher because, of the book, their characters are the ones that have more award traction. I am can't even believe Fisher isn't not even in the top 25.
Just a couple of days ago I saw Octavia Spencer doing a 2 minutes (?) part in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. And now she's an Oscar winner.
I'd love to see Judy Davis and Cruz as the double supporting actress nomination this year, and see Davis winning. If one Davis couldn't win, maybe another one...
Jessica Chastain is No Meryl Streep....
John, Great Gatsby looks cheesy- even the stlls from the film production looks horrid.
I'll echo what was said above, Kerry Washington isn't going anywhere unless the leaked script was heavily rewritten. It's a horribly underdeveloped role, easily the weakest part of an otherwise interesting screenplay.
Dicaprio is probably a good bet since he's a well-liked superstar changing it up in a showy villain role, but Samuel L. Jackson definitely has the showier character. It's the best role he's had since Ordell Robbie, really. Perfectly suited to his skill set. I could honestly see him walking away with the award.
Waltz probably won't be a factor, too much competition from within the film.
Jessica Chastain is No Meryl Streep....
Finally we agree on something. Chastain's able to showcase genuine human emotion.
3rtful, what med means is that chastain as good actress she is she can't touched streeps
's talent
sdp -- well... i have a hard time picturing Quentin Tarantino NOT writing an interesting character for such a good actress so I assume there've been rewrites.
This is only barely apropos, but reading through this, I'm realizing that the next movies from Walter Salles, John Hilcoat, David Cronenberg, David O. Russell and Lee Daniels star the likes of Kristin Stewart, Shia LaBoeuf, Robert Pattinson, Bradley Cooper and Zac Efron. It seems a little ambitious to ask me to start taking all these people seriously in the very same film year.
After reading Django the screenplay. I would say dicaprio and Jackson have the best shots at nods. I definitely think Jackson is being underestimated right now. His role is arguably more villianous than dicaprio's and i know Jackson is going to wipe the floor with this role.
Anne Hathaway's cut all her hair off! Girl wants Oscar.
Hathaway is already campaigning hard!!! First with all the weight loss discussion and now the short hair.... She wants it badly and is already working on it.
The great gatsby looks awful, and mulligan is getting a bit too much. Overexposed, overused, overdone. There are other actresses her age!!!
Please don't count out the possibility of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (at least gets an editing nom) and Looper, especially Looper, getting into the race in huge ways. They're pretty weird as Academy Award choices go, but I don't think anyone knows how the Academy will react to Rian Johnson (this is their first chance to really bite after the bracingly weird but "too small for the Academy" Brick and the insubstantive May release The Brothers Bloom) or to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a film that I could best summarize as being prestige shlock. The question on the trashier of this year's TWO Lincoln movies is, "Will prestige (hopefully bolstered by very good reviews), allow the Academy to accept it, or will their reluctance to accept anything "low culture" force them to shun it?" I think these films actual food for thought and you might want to be a little riskier.
Mike in Canada: Bradley Cooper and Efron are not as much of a problem as those others because Neil Burger and Adam Shankman did a huge amount of the leg work with Limitless and Hairspray (Efron was very charming and natural in it, and I'd buy serious directors wanting to use him). Pattinson? Discounting a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, his released films are Little Ashes (a middling Dali biopic), Water for Elephants (got decent reviews, so presumably he's at least "watchable") and Bel Ami (which is generally getting bad reviews). At this point, I'd say he's learning on the job, which has the high likelihood of major hiccups. And Shia shows the embers of a very good actor in the otherwise average Golf film The Greatest Game Ever Played. Check out that film and Wall Street 2 for the actual comparison points on how he's developed as an actor. Kristen Stewart isn't nearly as bad as everyone says, it's just in Old Hollywood she'd be a life long character actor instead of being defined as a Lead performer (Yes, I'm saying that if Twilight were around in Old Hollywood, someone like Ms. Stewart would never have touched Bella Swan) and now that Twilight is ending, she might be easing back into the supporting roles that she's actually right for.
Amanda: Of the big three of "young British sounding Actresses" Wasikowska was busy and, even if Katie Jarvis (yes, I'm harping on THIS THING again (do casting directors want her to become (booming voice) The Terrence Malick Of Actors)), could pull off an American accent, I doubt (based on the ONE FILM we've seen) that she's the right fit for Daisy.