Q&A Part 1: Leo's World.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 6:00PM Dear Readers, Last week I asked for more reader questions but since three of them at least were about Leonardo DiCaprio let's get them all out of the way as an appetizer to the main Q&A post. Ready... here we go.
LADY EDITH: Now that you have experienced the "Jonas blizzard" so recently how do you feel about giving "The Revenant" Oscars? [More]
a) Less inclined -snow wasn't so bad, I don't understand what Leo's complaining about.
b) More inclined - snow was terrible and I can't imagine dealing with the cold.
NATHANIEL: The cold never bothered me anyway... 🎵 I love winter. Total winter-lover / summer-hater here! If we had to give people Oscars based on how hard it was to make a movie, wouldn't everyone's assistants and underlings in Hollywood have Oscars instead of the stars and directors themselves? So, "less inclined".
Wait, can you say "less inclined" when you were never inclined at all?
STEPH: Nathaniel, like you, I am a huge fan/defender of Titanic but I don't know how you feel about DiCaprio's performance in it...
Now that DiCaprio insists on playing these tortured widowers, I'm ever more grateful that James Cameron avoided all that angst and got a charming/romantic performance out of him. My question is: do you love the performance, do you think it should have been nominated in 1997, and do you think DiCaprio should have won for it?
NATHANIEL: I don't know how to answer this. Is it weird to crazylove Titanic but not think Leo & Kate were worthy of nominations? I love them together but Best Acting seems to be stretching it. My nominations that year might have gone something like so... with Leo & Kate near but not in each field.
ACTRESS: Helena Bonham Carter (Wings of the Dove - winner); Judi Dench (Mrs Brown); Jodie Foster (Contact); Julia Roberts (My Best Friend's Wedding); and Julie Christie (Afterglow) or maybe Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) or maybe tiny Victoire Thivisol (Ponette) who I used to definitely have in there but I've gotten a little more hesitant about crediting children with performances that superb. And she was only 4.
ACTOR: Russell Crowe (LA Confidential);Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman); Johnny Depp (Donnie Brasco); Ian Holm (The Sweet Hereafter - winner); and either Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting),Al Pacino (Donnie Brasco) or Linus Roache (Wings of the Dove)
MARTIN: If the Revenant had been made in 1985, who do you think would have played Leo's character? And Tom Hardy's character? I know of course it depends on who directed it, and I know it's a weird question anyway but I'm very curious to know who you'd pick!
NATHANIEL: You know what's even weirder than the question: It's that the only possible answer is Mel Gibson! And that's weird to say since Tom Hardy is in this and also playing Mad Max and 1985 is the last time that Gibson played that particular road warrior. But Gibson would have obviously been all up in this masochist machismo brutality. And for his director I think if the soulful Peter Weir directed it it might have even had the spiritual heft that Inarritu thinks he's given it but which it's totally missing. I already like this time travel movie way more than The Revenant.
Gibson used to love to be tortured and martyred onscreen and/or seek brutal revenge. And he was still at the peak of his beauty and powers in the mid 80s; the crazy hadn't yet taken over and aged him even though it was probably already there in some form or another. The Tom Hardy role is trickier. Who was less A list than Gibson in the mid 80s and could successfully sell such a OTT villain and hold their own with him? I want to say Val Kilmer just before Top Gun or Michael Keaton between Mr Mom and Beetlejuice because it might be cheating to say Kurt Russell (my top choice) since we already know he'd prove to have great antagonistic chemistry with Gibson via their war over La Pfeiffer in Tequila Sunrise (1988). What'cha think?
YOUR TURN READERS:
Would you have nominated Leo for Titanic (1997). How would you have cast The Revenant in the 1980s... or the 1990s?
Reader Comments (55)
I will totally defend the love for Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding. She played a neurotic and unlikable New Yorker in the mid-'90s when almost every romantic comedy insist that the female lead always be sweet, kind and flawless like a Sandra Bullock or Drew Barrymore.
This post makes me sad that Peter Weir has been MIA for so long. I know he's had a lot of projects fall through but I hope we get something more from him before he retires! He's a classic example of a director who made mid-range studio movies for grown up, the kind that don't get made much anymore. :(
Re: Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding. I thought was good, but just good. I felt like she had to work SO HARD at playing the light comedy, and it really shows, whereas a more talented actress would have just tossed it off seemingly effortlessly. Roberts is way better with the more dramatic sequences, such as the scene on the tourist boat, where she doesn't say "it" to Dermott Mulroney, and then realizes, heartbroken, that she had her chance and missed it. That scene always gets to me.
Jakey -- agreed. I think it's her best performance outside of Erin B.
MSD -- i know M&C wasn't a huge hit based on its budget but it's still so strange that he doesn't get funded. or maybe he's only chasing big movies? Maybe he should do something small and haunting like Picnic at Hanging Rock again.
If I had my way, Kurt Russell would be cast in every movie. So there you go.