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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Interview: Rachel Weisz on "The Favourite" and why she hasn't peaked yet.

by Nathaniel R

Rachel with her BAFTAWhen we sat down with Rachel Weisz to discuss The Favourite, she was as intimidating as the Lady Sarah Marlborough. Not, we think, on purpose. Sometimes an actor so slays a role that, if you've never met them before and have a tendency to live for the movies, it's like looking straight into the character's eyes. Weisz, cool and measured, impeccably dressed, offered tea. Remembering Lady Sarah's own downfall, I chose water.

We'd both seen The Favourite just once at the time but were eager for round two. "I'm so glad you liked it," she cooed, if somewhat cooly. All business, and why not, ready for questions but not any question. Taking the hint I steered clear of the past though I couldn't resist a brief question about one early role (The Shape of Things), since it had been a rare chance and my first to ever see an actor do a role on stage and then watch them repeat it on film. She found it, "a bit hard, that particular one" citing the need for freshness and spontanity in filmmaking and "...we'd said the words so many times before."  But we were there to discuss The Favourite, and spontaneity and freshness are in no short supply in that electric movie. She even shared how they managed to get them.

She hadn't yet been nominated when we spoke but the honors would soon, quite obviously, pile up including a BAFTA win for Best Supporting Actress and the Oscar nomination. Our interview, edited for length, follows:

NATHANIEL R: You've had such a strong handful of years now: The Deep Blue Sea, The Lobster, Disobedience, The Favourite. But you won an Oscar 14 years back or so and I wonder if at that point, before these recent peaks, you thought 'well, what now?' 

RACHEL WEISZ: I mean, it’s a thing [The Oscar] that you never think will happen to you. I don’t really feel like I can rest on my laurels and it’s all over now. I just don’t feel like that. There’s so much to explore. Hopefully I get better at my job. I think the more work you do… well, for me, the more I've done, the more I’ve figured out what kind of work I want to do...

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Beauty vs Beast: Who's the Boss

Happy Monday, Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll -- this week we're tackling the two Oscar-moninated performances at the heart of my favorite film of 2018, Alfonso Cuarón's ROMA. Yalitza Aparicio is Cleo, whose pregnancy via local ne'er-do-well charts the course of the film; Marina de Tavira plays Senora Sofia, Cleo's boss whose own relationship is faltering. Two women ghosted, but which is your tops?

online polls

PREVIOUSLY Rachel Weisz won a BAFTA yesterday for The Favourite but even more importantly today she officially won last week's Disobedience poll against her fellow Rachel, McAdams -- might as well toss that BAFTA in the trash, Rach! Said David S:

"Rachel Weisz... love her forever, and I never foresaw her career picking up now instead of ten years ago. I love how proud she is of the love scene, which is one of the best and most specific I've ever seen. I would nominate her for Best Actress and Best Supporting this year, if I had the power! The performance even improves on the second viewing. So does McAdams's. It's all just very subtle... I noticed on Letterboxd that almost no one I follow actually saw this. I hope it gets more viewers over time."

Beauty vs Beast: Lesbian Love Song

Jason Adams from MNPP here -- at the Tribeca Film Fest last year I weirdly reviewed two movies involving Alessandro Nivola and Orthodox Judaism. The first one is called To Dust and Nivola (along with his wife actress Emily Mortimer) produced it -- it stars Son of Saul's Géza Röhrig and Matthew Broderick as an extremely odd couple grappling with the afterlife. Here is my review, and you can watch the trailer over here. To Dust is finally hitting some theaters this weekend, and I highly recommend seeking it out. I really dig it.

The other movie I reviewed at Tribeca 2018 was Sebastian Lelio's Disobedience, which came out last year and which in a just world we'd be celebrating its several Oscar nominations just about now. Hey I did my part -- Disobedience got mentions in both end-of-year polls I have a say in, The Team Experience Awards here on this site as well as the Dorian Awards for the GALECA guild of LGBT critics. But being a great film is its own reward, and Disobedience will be remembered for a very long time as such. Now let's face off its Rachels -- McAdams is Esti, the one who stayed, and Weisz is Ronit, the one who went away...

survey tools

PREVIOUSLY Last week's Can You Ever Forgive Me poll was as close as two friends sweeping up cat turds could be, but Melissa McCarthy got the best of Richard E Grant in the end with 53% of the vote. Said /3rtful:

"Unprepared for how emotionally affected I would be by this movie. I think the casting of McCarthy and those initial cut trailers gave no clue of the emotional wallop this movie carries."