Almost There: Mads Mikkelsen in "Another Round"

by Cláudio Alves

AMPAS isn't particularly open to the celebration of non-English-speaking performances. Still, once in a while, one or two manage to score big with the Academy, even win gold. That might very well happen this year with Youn Yuh-Jung's Best Supporting Actress bid for Minari. However, that doesn't mean that 2020 didn't have lots of other great non-Anglophone turns ignored by Oscar. For instance, in the Best Actor race, Mads Mikkelsen might have come close to his first nomination for Thomas Vinterberg's Best Director and Best International Feature nominee, Another Round…

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Almost There: Delroy Lindo in "Da 5 Bloods"

by Cláudio Alves

Last week, in the aftermath of the Oscar nominations, I asked you, dear readers, to vote on which performance should get an "Almost There" treatment. Of the fifteen possibilities, your choice was clear – Delroy Lindo in Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods. He got nearly a quarter of the votes, and so, here we are, ready to dissect an achievement that, months ago, seemed like a sure bet in the Best Actor race. The role in question is that of Paul, a war veteran who, along with his brothers in arms, returns to Vietnam in search of a lost treasure and the remains of a mentor…

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Almost There: Class of 2020

by Cláudio Alves

In this odd awards season, predicting the acting categories with accuracy was a difficult task. Many contenders seemed to vie for the limited spots and several actors garnered support from important precursors. The amount of legitimate "Almost There" cases is truly immense, especially when one considers such unexpected nods as that Supporting Actor citation for Lakeith Stanfield. In any case, with such a wealth of potential case studies, here goes an unusual entry in this series, one focused on multiple actors…

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Almost There: Anthony Hopkins in "The Lion in Winter"

by Cláudio Alves

As the Oscar nomination morning approaches, it seems certain that Anthony Hopkins is about to receive his sixth nod. Seeing as he's considered a wizened old thespian of stage and screen, it may be difficult to recall the days when he, like so many others, was a young actor. In 1968, Hopkins was nearing his 30th birthday when his second ever feature premiered. Thanks to that film, he got the first brush with film awards and might have even come close to an Oscar nomination. In Anthony Harvey's adaptation of James Goldman's The Lion in Winter, Hopkins plays Richard, future king of England, son of Henry II…

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Almost There: Jodie Foster in "Contact"

by Cláudio Alves

This past weekend, Jodie Foster threw a wrench into the Best Supporting Actress race, surprising pundits when she won the Golden Globe for The Mauritanian. Maybe we shouldn't have been so shocked; The Academy hasn't acknowledged Foster since her 1994 nomination for Nell, but the HFPA never stopped loving her (8 nominations, 3 wins, 1 lifetime achievement). Three years after her last Oscar nomination, she was back on the hunt for a Golden Globe. The movie was Robert Zemeckis' Contact and the role was one of the most challenging in the actress' long career…

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