Friday
Mar062015
Ask Nathaniel
Friday, March 6, 2015 at 10:00AM 
Since we restarted the "Q&A" column, it's time again to ask some questions again. I'll pick a handful or two to answer on Monday but let's try to avoid Oscar's "Best Actress" category this time since we did that last week.
This post is illustrated by Marilyn reading because it's a great photo. Also because if your question would require a book-length response, chances are good that it will be ignored... even if it's a great question.
You know what to do in the comments.
Reader Comments (42)
If you were able to finance a remake, what past film would you resurrect?
Now rate and rank the last 10 best actors
01. What Kathy Bates performance is your favorite?
02. Are women in film too fearful to band together in professional solidarity to battle patriarchal white supremacy once and for all?
03. Are you resentful of double digit ticket prices for the multiplex?
Mad Men will be over soon, and I'll be particularly sad if it's the end of the line for some of the actors involved. Elisabeth Moss seems to have her stuff together, but what kind of game plan should Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks, January Jones and Jessica Pare be working with?
Second the ranking of the best actors.
Do you have specific sources for information on future projects, do the studios and distributors keep you in the loop and what happens to all that swag?
Thanks.
If you could swap one Oscar winner in history in any category (so could be an acting one, Best Picture etc.) with one of the other nominees that year, what would it be?
Cast Lee Daniels' next movie.
I always have this in my mind... Which Tilda Swinton´s character, Nicole Kidman would have been amazing? and vice versa.
Or... who is the male Nicole Kidman? (about auteur-driven projects)
What are your three favorite Hitchcock films, Nathaniel?
Describe how it feels when a film you once loved just doesn't hold up. Cite at least 2 examples.
Can you do something next year for the 70th anniversary of The Best Years of Our Lives (my personal favorite movie)? And who is your best in show (male and female) of that wonderful ensemble?
Are you a fan of "The Golden Girls," Nathaniel? I've never seen you mention it before. If you are, whom do you find the strongest of this impeccable quartet, and which is your favorite episode? :)
What have been or are your biggest blind spots (i.e., classic movies that everyone raves about what took you ages to watch or still haven't got around to see)?
What is your favorite movie to watch on a sick/snow day? What is your favorite movie about sickness or a sick person? What is your favorite movie dealing with snow?
There is a short list of films with the honor of having five acting Oscar nominations: Mrs. Miniver, All About Eve, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Judgment at Nuremburg, Tom Jones, Bonnie and Clyde, The Last Picture Show, The Godfather Part II and Network. Could you go into why it's been so long since AMPAS has honored a film in this way. Does it reflect on the quality of acting or how the Academy judges actors, or is it something else.
Favorite dress from this awards season?
Both IndieWire and Fandor recently listed their top films of the decade so far. (Can you believe this decade is half over?) I went back through my yearly lists and see what my top of the decade looked like. It was a strange process, because I felt certain films were worse than I remembered and others should have been ranked higher. Are there any films of the past five years that you think you should have ranked higher than you did at the time? Or lower?
Oftentimes we see the best lone nominations in the Best Director or Best Screenplay categories (any David Lynch film, In Bruges, Happy Go Lucky, Another Year, Moonrise Kingdom, etc).
With the Best Picture race going back to five possibly, are you excited for these possible "one-nomination movies" and what are your top five favorite "one-offs" from the Academy.
brookesboy: Going through those? No thoughts on Mrs. Miniver, 5 noms for All About Eve (and agree on all of them), nothing for From Here to Eternity, 5 noms for On the Waterfront (and agree with all of them), no thoughts on Judgment at Nuremburg, no thoughts on Tom Jones, 2 noms from Bonnie and Clyde (Agree with Dunaway, reject the other four, Gene Wilder favoured over either of their choices), The Last Picture Show only got four (and I only really agree with Bridges and Leachman) and 5 noms for The Godfather Part II (Agree with Pacino and Strasberg in both quality and placement, agree with DeNiro in quality but not placement (he's a co-lead and I bump him where he belongs), disagree with V. Gazzo and Shire, replacing them with Cazale and Keaton).
Favorite rising actor/actress?
Volvagia, thank you for affirming my affection for Diane Keaton in GF2. When I saw this at the theater as a kid, she made such an impact on me--she became one of my first favorite actresses. She just made my heart ache, I felt such sympathy for her character. The third-act speech she gives is one of my favorite scenes of all time. Even in Godfather 3, whose quality is questionable, she is quite affecting in that part. She was the best part of the movie.
Sorry about the error on Last Picture Show, I always forget Timothy Bottoms wasn't nominated--probably because I feel so strongly he should have been.
You often say the Best Supporting Actor category is boring and unimaginative. But which year would you say had the best and worst line-up in the last 20 years?
I third the "rate and rank the last 10 best actors" suggestion.
Also, recommend a couple of movie star biographies or memoirs that you really like and would recommend to others.
Nat, what are your five favourite Drew Barrymore performances?
If the AFI were to do an update on their 100 Years, 100 Stars list, this time covering stars who had their screen debuts after 1950 but before 1999 when the list came out previously, who would be at top the list? The new list would exclude those who had debuts after 1950 but were included on the 1999 list because their death had marked a complete body of work, like James Dean.
Which old musical would you like the Oscars to randomly celebrate during next year's telecast? Something must bridge the gap between The Sound of Music and the highly anticipated Dr. Dolittle tribute in 2017.
Bensunce: Not speaking for the blog owner, but I'd guess the best is one where you agree with four of them as great SUPPORTING performances and the worst is where you agree with one to none of them as great SUPPORTING performances. Can't go to 1995 (too much unseen), but can start you through 05-now.
Going through:
2005: One unseen (Clooney), one count cat fraud (Jake Gyllenhaal), one count good job (William Hurt), two counts OKAY THEN (Dillon and Giamatti)
2006: All seen, one count cat fraud (Hounsou), two counts good job (Murphy and Wahlberg), two counts OKAY THEN (Arkin and Earle Haley).
2007: All seen, three counts cat fraud (Bardem, Affleck, Hoffman), one count good job (Holbrook), one count OKAY THEN (Wilkinson, who's in a pure scenery chewing crazy guy character and...he whiffs it. Gary Oldman, for example, could have done Art Edens brilliantly, but watching it, I realized the director is trying so hard to find the subtlety here (I love Wilkinson's Batman Begins scene munching) that he doesn't realize there is none and he should have been going MUCH bigger.)
2008: All seen, two counts cat fraud (Ledger and Hoffman), three counts good job (RDJ, Brolin, Shannon)
2009: Four unseen (all but Waltz), arguably one count cat fraud (Waltz).
2010: All seen, three counts cat fraud (Ruffalo, Rush, Bale), one count arguable cat fraud (Renner) one count good job (Hawkes).
2011: Two unseen (Branagh and Nolte), one count cat fraud (Hill), one count WHY!? (Von Sydow), one count good job (Plummer).
2012: All seen, two counts cat fraud (Hoffman and Waltz (if Inglourious was questionably lead, there is NO confusing the issue with Django and how that granted him a second win is beyond me), one count WHY!? (DeNiro), one count OKAY THEN (Arkin) and one count good job (Lee Jones)
2013: All seen, two counts cat fraud (Cooper and Abdi), two counts good job (Fassbender and Leto) and one count OKAY THEN (Jonah Hill).
2014: All seen, one count cat fraud (Simmons), one count good job (Hawke), two counts OKAY THEN (Ruffalo, Norton) and one count WHY!? (Duvall)
Because this is supporting actor? Three ground rules: 1. Cat fraud should NEVER happen. (In ten years, I've seen forty-four of the fifty turns and 16-18 read as cat fraud to my eyes. That's 16-18 other performances that would genuinely deserve it getting ignored.) 2. WHY!?'s should never happen. (That's another three (DeNiro, Von Sydow, Duvall) on the pile.) 3. OKAY THEN's should only happen on years that are spectacularly lean on both prestige AND tentpole spheres. (9 okay thens. That added together means, of 44 performances I've seen, they missed up in some way on 28-30/44. That's a 64-68% of the time failure rate in the category. Other people might tell you slightly higher or lower percentages, but its around 50% at minimum.)
Barbra Streisand started her film career with a bang, do you think it will end with a whimper.
...of course we hope not but....
Thanks
BJ: I agree with the excluding anyone on the prior list, but I have two additional caveats. 1. They actually make a full 100. 50 New Men. 50 New Women. 2. They expand the eligibility to at or before 1965.
Max, I hope not. My beloved Jennifer Jones launched her career by winning an Oscar for The Song of Bernadette, and her last film was The Towering Inferno. Both were nommed for Best Picture. Nice.
Is there a TV Star from your youth who you wished had translated to Movie Stardom?
I believe for some Film Experience readers (like myself), it's much easier to assess performances than it is to judge the merits what happens behind the camera, like directing, writing, and editing? I always blur the line between those three, particularly if I notice a problematic scene, it's hard to attribute fault to either the director or the writer or the editor? What do you use to draw the line between those three crafts?
I don't know if this is too long, but I'm asking it anyway: if you took this year's five Best Actresses and the five Best Actresses of 1964, fifty years earlier, and recast the modern actresses in the 1964 roles and the current roles with the 1964 actresses, what would you end up with? Julie Andrews, Anne Bancroft, Debbie Reynolds, Kim Stanley, and Sophia Loren would be fun to matchup with Juli, Reese, Marion, Felicity, and Rosamund.
John T, I would match them this way:
Julie Andrews = Reese. They both have a disarming and irresistible charm that can be used in a variety of loverly ways. And those smiles!
Anne Bancroft = Julianne. Anne had a way with technique and dark drama that was pretty much unsurpassed. Neither are afraid of reaching too far into that black void.
Sofia Loren = Marion. Beyond the obvious foreign language tie, they both have an earthy pluckiness and powers of persuasion perfect for this story. They would get the job done.
Kim Stanley = Rosamund. La Stanley had an icy beauty when she was young, not to mention an air of subversiveness; both Kim and Rosie would make easy prey of pretty boy Ben.
Debbie Reynolds = Felicity. Both ladies exhibit a direct way of performing pleasantly without digging too deep. And to me, The Theory of Everything title sounds like it should be a musical.
• * I would have subbed out Debbie or Sofia to get in Ava Gardner for her devastating work in The Night of the Iguana.
Julie Andrews in Wild, Brookesboy?
I would cast Debbie Reynolds in Wild, Kim Stanley in Gone Girl, Anne Bancroft in Still Alice (although all five nominees were too young for this role in 1964), Sophia Loren in Two Days, One Night, and Julie Andrews in The Theory of Everything.
Then Julianne Moore in The Pumpkin Eater, Rosamund Pike in Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Felicity Jones in Mary Poppins (can she sing?), Marion Cotillard in Marriage Italian-Style, and Reese Witherspoon in The Unsinkable Molly Brown
Which Oscar category consistently disappoints you each year?
For me, it's supporting actor. I'm obviously already more invested/interested in the actresses, but supporting actor always manages to pass up really interesting choices for bland lineups. When I think they could've nominated Dwight Henry in Beasts of the Southern Wild (they clearly loved it) or Matthew McC in Magic Mike but instead chose an all-winners lineup of old white dudes with choices like Alan Arkin in Argo???? And they gave a second Oscar to Christoph Waltz???? Not even going into how undeserving that was, but they literally could've chosen to nominate Leo or Samuel L Jackson in the same movie and gave one of them an Oscar. There, they aren't Oscarless anymore. Idk. Or even the recent ceremony, we had a fantastic lineup but then still, Robert Duvall in The Judge. No matter how solid these actors are, there are just really uninspired choices a lot of the time.
Unexpected rant. lol
Lol and next week they'll all ask about supporting actress ranks for the last ten years - my question for next week in advance :D
Which Best Actress winners do you still have left to see?
Paul--I know Julie's British but Wild has the better part lol. I'm kinda obsessed with Julie lol
@Morganisaqt, TFE readers' rankings in the comments here.
@ brookesboy: I just can't see young Julie doing any of the things Reese had to do in that role.
Though I may have overlooked this, I am still not sure how you ranked the 2014 best actor film bitch awards for 2013 performances. And as an aside, I think it would be fun to do a top ten list of best actress lead performances by decade (I've made that suggestion before) - betcha that would get a lively response from your followers.
In your opinion, will overdue actresses like Gena Rowlands and Glenn Close ever win a competitive Oscar, considering their age and the limited roles?