Podcast: The Smackdown Companion

This month's 'Smackdown' panelists: Murtada Elfadl, Chris Feil, Ginny O'Keefe, Robin Write, and Nathaniel R

 

A new season of the Supporting Actress Smackdown is kicking off, with the first installment being this year's Oscar competition. You've already read our blurbs on the five nominated performances and now a more in-depth conversation about those actresses, their films, and a few random asides to other movies and actors. You've already met the panel and here's our conversation in full!

Index (1 hour)
00:01 Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in The Favourite, Marina de Tavira in Roma
11:00 Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk
17:30 Amy Adams in Vice and our traditional thought-game of switching the actors around into each other's roles to see what would happen. Plus who is supporting these supporting women?
29:00 Random chatter: Vice, Bohemian Rhapsody, Never Look Away, Green Book
36:00 Other supporting women of the year: Ann Dowd, Sakura Ando, Claire Foy
45:00 Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman and BP to Black Panther? 
56:00 Where you could read, listen to, and follow the panelists. 

Referenced in the Podcast
• Smackdown blurbs
• This Had Oscar Buzz
• Filmotomy's Marina de Tavira article
• Nathaniel's Rachel Weisz interview

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Smackdown: Regina, Rachel, Marina, and More...

Smackdown 2018: Amy, Emma, Rachel, Marina, "and..." Regina King

Presenting Oscar's Chosen 'Supporting' Actresses of the Films of 2018.

Two warring ladies of the royal court, two desperate mothers, and an amoral ambitious politician's wife. That's the 'supporting' actress roll call for the 91st Oscars, though two of the characters are leading ladies. Still, we're here to talk performances, first and foremost. Who wowed us, whose take on their characters left us wanting, and are these actresses making the most of what's in their screenplays? [Sad Disclaimer: Unfortunately since we did not receive screeners this season (moving/address problems) we were unable to do the normal screentime count portion of the Smackdown though we're just as curious as you surely are about how the screentime in The Favourite actually measures up from actress-to-actress. We won't trust any report till we do our own because we've heard conflicting statements, so we will eventually do the count.]

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS   

Here to talk about these five nominated turns are actress Ginny O'Keefe, blogger Robin Write (Filmotomy), two senior Film Experience contributors Murtada Elfadl, Chris Feil, and your host Nathaniel R.  The final collective panelist is the Readers (hey, that means you!!!) who took the time to send us their votes. Okay, let's go!

2018
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN  

 

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Six days til Oscar. Six pieces of number 6 related trivia

Six is the number of the day so here are six different stats involving that number for distraction & fun.

1. BlacKkKlansman is the only movie this year with exactly six nominations. The other movies this decade with with exactly that number of nominations: Darkest Hour, Phantom Thread, Manchester by the Sea, Lion*, Hacksaw Ridge, Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, Carol*, Boyhood, American Sniper, Captain Philllips*, Nebraska*, Dallas Buyers Club, War Horse*, Moneyball*, and 127 Hours*. I was hoping to discover that one of those titles had EXACTLY the same category nominations as BlacKkKlansman but none did. Titles with an asterisk lost all their nominations but the bulk of the six-time nominees won at least 1 Oscar which is good news for Spike Lee's Adapted Screenplay bid for BlacKkKlansman, the category its most likely to win in this coming Sunday.

2. Carol is the only six-time nominee in the past decade not to score a Best Picture nomination... 

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It's BAFTA Time

As per usual the BAFTAs aren't broadcasting live but tape delayed but we'll be watching the arrivals and sharing the winners as we hear about them after the jump...

Right now we're watching clips from the nominee party yesterday and we learned that Melissa McCarthy is a huge fan of The Favourite, saying:

The Favourite broke my brain in the best possible way.

Ours too, Melissa, ours too...

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Who will win Supporting Actress? Who should win?

2018 may well go down in history as the most volatile supporting actress race since 2007 (wherein four different women won the 5 televised prizes: Globes, Critics Choice, SAG, BAFTA, and Oscar). If you'll recall that historic year, those five prizes went, in order, to Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Ruby Dee (American Gangster),and the final two went to Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). The only Oscar nominee that year that didn't win a televised prize was little Saoirse Ronan (Atonement). Saoirse even lost the "Young Actress" prize at Critics Choice but she got the last laugh, already being considered a Great by her early twenties with two more nominations since then and momentum for a win should the right role come along and she's still just 24 years old...

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