Tues Top Ten: Stars Without (Competitive) Oscars

Do you miss Oscar season or are you glad it's over? I'm feeling a little bit of both right now, which is why this image that a reader sent me is so great. It's Glenn Close & Michelle Pfeiffer on Oscar night in 1989, when they both lost for their roles in Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Michelle did take the stage as a presenter that night (alongside Dennis Quaid).

Who knew that the Merquise de Merteuil and Madame Tourvel could exhibit any such tenderness for each other? (Or maybe the Merquise is just looking for the softest spot on Tourvel's neck in which to sink her fangs?)

So the picture got me to thinking about stars who've never won Oscars despite multiple nods. (Of course the most egregiously mistreated stars in Hollywood are the great actors who've never even been nominated... but that's a different list.) For this Tuesday Top Ten, I thought we'd do things a little differently and the rank will be determined not by my opinion but by Oscar's through the number of nominations. I determine the order if stars have the same number of losing nominations.

TOP TEN WORKING FILMS STARS
WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS WHO'VE
NEVER WON A COMPETITIVE OSCAR

Honorable Mentions: Mickey Rooney, Eleanor Parker, Kirk Douglas (yes, they're all still alive), Jane Alexander, Debra Winger, Diane Ladd and Marsha Mason each won three-to-four nominations but since none of these famous actors are working much or at all in features anymore, I decided to make this a list of top “working” stars instead. As for the bottom third of the top ten list, since there are a lot of stars who’ve earned three nominations without ever winning, I had to make judgement calls as to who to include. So my apologies to: Laura Linney, Joaquin Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver (and others with 3 nominations) who just-missed here.

Johnny Depp, The Dangerous Liaisons girls and more after the jump...

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Chloë Moretz is Ruining My Life

It's been so long since I had a cinematic arch-enemy: Daughter of Tippi who haunted my youth is rarely onscreen; The Swankster is hibernating (it can't be long before a "comeback" though, right?); Zeéeeee has receded so suddenly that it's feeling like Meg Ryan 2.0 (and Meg never deserved the sub zero shoulder she got so abruptly); and Nicolas Cage has marginalized himself into the peripheries of bargain bin movies... though he still has an uncanny ability to find ways to co-star with my most beloved leading ladies of various eras (Turner, Cher, Streep, Moore, Kidman).

Enter Chloë Grace Moretz.  

It's been so long since I had a cinematic arch-enemy maybe I should try to enjoy this. In a "boo hiss" sort of way, mind you. In addition to Chloë's general smug ubiquity and her sacriligeous miscasting in the Carrie remake alongside my goddess Julianne Moore (who should know better post Hannibal) she has now decided to double down on forcing me to look at her; she's attaching herself like a parasite to my all time favorite actress. She's already played Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter once in Dark Shadows. She's doing it again in Tim Robbins next directorial effort. The film, which Robbins will also star in, is called Man Under.

Variety describes it like so:

In the vein of "American Beauty" and "The Royal Tenenbaums," pic follows a Yonkers family whose lives are changed forever when a photo of them ends up in the Museum of Modern Art.

Now, there's no word yet on if they're officially mother and daughter again this time but considering it's a movie about a troubled family, it's a safe bet.

The silver lining? At least this means Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't lying when she said she wanted to get back to work. If filming gets under way soon on this one, we'll have two Pfeiffer pictures in 2013! See also the crime comedy Malavita. 

Feline Oscar Twins: Anne & Michelle?

In the hall of fame of superhero/villain catchphrases “oops” (Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises) never stood much of a prayer against “me-ow” (Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns), nor could the dark side self importance of 2012’s “there’s a storm coming Mr Wayne” ever best the sexier playful 1992 ‘dark side?’ retort “no darker than yours Bruce”  But catch phrases aren’t everything...even when you've got zingy ones like "life's a bitch now so am I" In the great Catwoman wars of popular culture, it’s always in some ways a draw. Every generation and every aesthetic gets their own James Bond and so it goes with all enduring characters which win several iterations. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle may never claim the easy universally agreed upon “Best Catwoman Evah!” victory you’d expect given Pfeiffer’s mammoth performance (give or take Heath Ledger, the most psychologically precise, overachieving & seismically inspired in superhero cinema) but what can you do? Before The Dark Knight Rises premiered I braced myself for the onslaught of “best catwoman ever” pieces which I knew would proliferate. In truth they would have even for a  performer less dazzling than Anne Hathaway’s.  Out with the old and in with the new is, generally speaking, the law that governs pop culture. It’s just How Things Work.

Catwoman watching Catwoman. Feline staring contest in 1...2...

With the recent news that Anne Hathaway would be campaigned as Best (Leading) Actress for the role, a strategic move which has been taken more seriously than I was expecting given that she has no prayer in hell of a nomination for everyone’s favorite good/bad girl in spandex, this Hathaway/Pfeiffer story wouldn’t leave me.

Twenty years back when Michelle Pfeiffer lept into the feline role vacated by Annette Bening she nailed the role winning “best in show” reviews, winning a massive new army of fans, achieving her biggest box office hit, and sailing on to an Oscar nomination for the year (albeit not as Catwoman). Leap forward a couple of decades and history repeats itself four times over…. Well three times over for now but we all know Anne Hathaway will make it four-for-four once Les Miz hits.

It's worth thinking about Hathaway and Oscar through the prism of Pfeiffer. It's not a perfect identical twin situation but the similarities don't end with "what happened with Catwoman." At the time of Batman Returns/Love Field Michelle was a 34 year old previous Oscar nominee who had been famous for 10 years and had already co-starred in one very major also-ran Best Picture nominee (Dangerous Liaisons). At the time of The Dark Knight Rises/Les Miserables Anne is a 30 year old previous Oscar nominee who has been famous for 11 years and has already co-starred in one extremely major also-ran Best Picture nominee (Brokeback Mountain). Both actresses played Catwoman in the summer and followed it up at Christmas time by starring in something more typically Oscar-friendly, Pfeiffer in a civil rights drama and Hathaway in an epic musical. 

On top of all of Fantine's problems... she never return her DVDs to the video store

But here's where the similarities end and Hathaway's Oscar story may have a much happier ending. For one, Anne Hathaway's Catwoman arrived in a culture that has moved past viewing superhero films as "fluff" and is therefore less shy about recognizing acting achievements inside of them. For another, the eventually nominated performance by Hathaway is likely to be "the right one of the two" whereas Michelle was chosen for the wrong performance -- not that she isn't very good in Love Field, but it's not the inspired no one else could do this work that her Selina Kyle was. Finally and most obviously Les Miserables will be no Love Field, a film that was barely released and was largely only acknowledged -- if it was acknowledged as all -- as a vehicle for a Michelle Pfeiffer nomination. If you want to stick to the Pfeiffer narrative Les Miserables is far more likely to be Hathaway's own Fabulous Baker Boys... only this time there's no Jessica Tandy in sight to steal the statue away from a glorious actress in the full bloom of her star power.

♪ we're gonna sco-o-ore tonight ♪ ♫

Who would you rather go bowling with? 

Don't lie! Who would you have the most fun with?

poll by twiigs.com

"Malavita" Before Cameras... All Kinds

Malavita, the new Pfeiffer film we've mentioned a couple of times, is starting its PR trek. The plot concept:

Malavita is the story of the Manzonis, a notorious mafia family who gets relocated to Normandy, France under the witness protection program. While they do their best to fit in, old habits die hard and they soon find themselves handling things the “family” way.

The cast has now gone before the lens, not just movie cameras, of multiple kinds. Like...

Photo Ops They aren't wasting any time announcing themselves since the cast including Tommy Lee Jones, Robert DeNiro, and Michelle Pfeiffer are already posing for cameras. This image is from the new Paris Match. The stars gathered for the opening of their director Luc Besson's Cite du Cinema which is the largest studio ever built in France and is hoping to attract more big productions.

Pity that La Pfeiffer is hidden in the fold!

More Malavita photos after the jump...

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