Smackdown '05: Amy, Catherine, Frances, Michelle, and Rachel Weisz

The Supporting Actress Smackdown series picks an Oscar vintage -- 2005 this time -- and explores. 

THE NOMINEES 
A pregnant meercat obsessive, a gaslit housewife, a reckless activist, a tough union rep, and the perceptive companion to a famous writer.  For the Best Supporting Actress slate of 2005, the Academy went with two then fresh faces (Amy Adams in Junebug, Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain), and one mid-career actress stepping up her game (Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener). They filled out the remainder of the field with familiar players, an Oscar regular (Frances McDormand in North Country) and a previous nominee (Catherine Keener in Capote)

THE PANEL  
Here to discuss these actresses and films of 2005 are from left to right: cinephile and actress obsessive Ali Benzekri, Los Angeles Times' Justin Chang, Awards Daily's Joey Moser, the actress Kerry O'Malley (Snowpiercer, Boardwalk Empire, Strange Angel) and your host at the The Film Experience, Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

2005
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...

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Almost There: Cameron Diaz in "Being John Malkovich"

by Cláudio Alves

We asked you to choose the next two subjects of the Almost There series, and you came through. After more than 800 votes overall, Cameron Diaz won out from the new-to-streaming batch. Her against-type supporting turn in Spike Jonze's 1999 Being John Malkovich conquered around 24% of your votes, with Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind coming in as a close second. So, for now, let's focus on Diaz and her frizzy-haired Lotte…

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The New Classics: Capote

Michael Cusumano here to celebrate a film that is so much more than just another "based on a true story" prestige pic. I have noticed that Bennett Miller’s Capote is often shoved into the biopic genre in a way that diminishes the film’s achievements. 

Lesser biopics bask in the glow of reflected importance coming off their subjects. Significance through osmosis. They value the flush of recognition over insight, and the accumulation of incident over meaning. Capote on the other hand is crafted with a stark, unwavering discipline. It has more in common with a portrait of artistic self-destruction like Black Swan than with Walk Hard inspirations like Ray...

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"I don't see how I can go on living my life the way I've lived it before..."

Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #6: Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich

Review: "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"

by Chris Feil

That crowdsourced “fan” remake of The Last Jedi that made the rounds in the past week? The one rooted in thinly veiled misogyny, white supremacy, and general ill-advised sentiment to tool with material that’s perfectly fine on its own? Put yourself in front of Sicario: Day of the Soldado, the new prequel to Denis Villeneuve’s layered 2015 film musing on the pervasive institutional evils of the War on Drugs, and you might be convinced that those fans got their hands on this narrative as well.

The warning signs make themselves known immediately, this time focusing on the more enigmatic men in the thick of the corruption: Josh Brolin’s task force leader Matt Graver and Benicio Del Toro’s patiently vengeful hitman Alejandro. Kicking the film off with a demonstratively labored Islamophobic sequence, the audience is served a video game brand of warfare as Graver and Alejandro initiate a kidnapping plot across the Mexican-American border. The kidnappee is Isabel Reyes (played by Isabela Moner, the film’s brightest spot), the daughter of a major cartel leader that may be linked to Alejandro’s past. As expected, the men's hubris is turned in on itself...

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