Glenn here to discuss one of his favourite topics: the career rejuvination of Jacki Weaver!
When Weaver scored a seemingly improbable Oscar nomination a few years back for Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom (a nomination I predicted an equally improbable year in advance), most expected the diminutive Aussie to crawl off back home with her pride, some glamorous memories and little else. The rest, however, as we all know, went much differently. She hasn't been working anywhere near as much the lady that bested her to the statue - that'd be Melissa Leo who's accepted everything in her path - but she's been afforded the chance to work with some great auteurs and got a second nomination earlier this year to boot. More...
I so frequently hear about how little value the Academy Awards have and how they're little more than Hollywood's self-congratulation instinct carried to extravagant degrees. However, one needs only to point to Weaver for an example of how they can be used for good and not evil. Who outside of Australia had even heard of the sextegenarian actor before Oscar shone a spotlight on her? And I think we can agree she never would have gotten the chance to work with David O. Russell, Chan-wook Park, Marjane Satrapi, or Charlie Kaufman without it. She had a perfectly fine career going on Australian stage and occasionally popping up on screen to remind us plebs who can't afford tickets to Uncle Vanya in Sydney how great she is.
And now she can add the one and only Woody Allen to her list of collaborators for his 2014 (still untitled) picture. Oh, sure, it seems like everybody is getting cast in a Woody Allen ensemble these days - lest we forget that Nicole Kidman thankfully avoided Whatever Works - and his efforts are more and more sporadic in their quality, but doesn't this just sound a teensy bit exciting? Could this new film be Weaver's ticket to not just her third nomination, but a win. "Third time's the charm", and all of that. She's obviously a popular figure in Hollywood with that surprise Silver Linings Playbook nomination to prove it (one, again, I predicted just by the way - she's my lucky charm, I guess) and Woody Allen has one of the best Oscar batting averages with female actors.
The cast is already a full one and appears to be blending older names like Weaver, Colin Firth, Marcia Gay Harden, and Eileen Atkins with younger ones like Emma Stone, Hamish Linklater, and Erica Leehrsen. What he's cooking up in the south of France we don't yet know, but the last time Woody ventured there he won a fourth Oscar and his biggest hit yet. Here's hoping Jacki has a role more in step with Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway) than Pauline Collins (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger).
"Sorry officer, I'm just on my way to the south of France to win myself an Oscar."
Tell me, dear readers. Am I dreaming? Do we think Woody Allen's recent Midnight in Paris win was the Academy's way of saying "Sail off into the sunset, Woody" or is their Oscar life in his filmography yet? How many actresses have actually won on their third try?