Best Supporting Actress – Page 2

204 – A Prairie Home Companion (with Clay Keller)

An episode long teased has finally arrived. Screen Drafts co-host (and proud Minnesotan) Clay Keller joins us to discuss the final film from beloved auteur Robert Altman, 2006′s A Prairie Home Companion. Based on and set within the eponymous radio show, the film follows the backstage goings-on during the show’s fictionalized final live recording, with a sprawling cast of Altman regulars and newbies including Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Maya Rudolph, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, and Virginia Madsen as an angel of death. Altman would pass the November after its release, but sadly did not receive posthumous recognition for the film due to its somewhat divided reception.

This episode, we’re discussing the dual summer roles for Streep between this and The Devil Wears Prada, and we’re celebrating our tenth Streep episode! We also discuss Lohan’s turmoil at the time, Paul Thomas Anderson as a contractually obligated backup director, and Clay brings us stories from his experience as an extra on the set of the film.

Topics also include the Streep/Tomlin tribute to Altman at the previous ceremony, bad jokes, and a Screen Drafts-style ranking of the film’s best performances.

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203 – Martha Marcy May Marlene

One of the major stories out of 2011′s Sundance Film Festival was the arrival of Elizabeth Olsen, a new actress who just happened to be the younger sibling of the Olsen twins. In Sean Durkin’s debut Martha Marcy May Marlene, Olsen stars as a young woman who escapes a cult and copes with her fractured identity in the wary arms of her estranged older sister, played by Sarah Paulson. The film earned rave reviews, a Directing prize for Durkin, and distribution with Fox Searchlight. The film would be sold in the shadow of the previous year’s Oscar success Winter’s Bone: a Sundance launch, a star-making debut performance, and a chilling supporting performance from John Hawkes. But the film was significantly less audience friendly thriller by comparison, and paired with Searchlight’s stacked lineup of films, Martha didn’t fit the Oscar mold.

However, Martha Marcy May Marlene remains a movie we are still haunted by. This episode, we talk about the film and its associated network of stars and directors that would become Sundance staples. We also discuss the stiff competition faced by Olsen in the Best Actress race, Paulson’s career prior to becoming a Ryan Murphy staple, and Hawkes’ run of awards-buzzed roles in the early 2010s.

Topics also include our love of Durkin’s The Nest, thoughts on The Staircase, and ugly QR code posters.

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198 – Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (with Christina Tucker)

YA-YA!! This week, Christina Tucker joins us once again to discuss popular literary adaptation and TNT staple, 2002′s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The directorial debut of Callie Khouri, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise, the film stars Ellen Burstyn and Sandra Bullock as mother and daughter feuding over the playwright daughter’s very public interview about her very tempestuous childhood. The mother’s friends (played by Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan, and Shirley Knight) then kidnap the daughter and return her to her southern home to reveal her mother’s side of the story. This made for a film of wildly conflicting tones, which critics roundly lambasted before the film became a summer disappointment.

This episode, we discuss the early 2000s for Bullock in star mode before her Oscar win and Ellen Burstyn in an unhinged mother era after her return Oscar nomination for Requiem for a Dream. We also discuss the remarkable performance by Ashley Judd as the young Burstyn, pride season, and the late career of James Garner.

Topics also include devastating Lisa Schwartzbaum pull quotes, TV’s Nashville, and the Mad Money poster.

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197 – Downsizing

And we’re back to your regularly scheduled episodes! This week, we return to our non-EW episodes with one of the more divisive high-profile bombs in recent years, 2017′s Downsizing. A globalization satire from Alexander Payne and his Sideways co-writer Jim Taylor, the film follows an everyman played by Matt Damon who decides to join the masses deciding to shrink themselves for the sake of green initiatives and a little outsized wealth. The film ran the 2017 fall festival gamut, opening the Venice Film Festival to raves only to see increasingly negative receptions at Telluride and Toronto. In the long wait to its eventual Christmastime release, the negative perceptions settled in and the film became a box office bomb.

By Oscar time, its biggest chances lied in the supporting turn from SAG, Globe, and Critics’ Choice nominee Hong Chau as a political activist forced into downsized life as punishment. This episode, we’ll be talking about the 2017 Supporting Actress race and how she was shut out at the last minute. We’ll also discuss Damon’s constant foot-in-mouth syndrome, 8 Kinds of F*cks, and the National Board of Review’s Top Ten Films of 2017.

Topics also include our thoughts on this year’s Cannes, talking head documentaries, and Paramount’s big year of bombs.

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Mail Bag: Vol. 2

And we’re back with the conclusion of our mailbag! This time, we are talking about a few Oscar What Ifs: what new categories should Oscar adopt? what if a different actress had won Supporting Actress in 2005? what if there was a Best Actress season of Survivor? We also answer your questions about the podcast, including our ongoing cash bets against eachother, what episodes would be on our Known For, and whether its more fun/interesting to discuss bad or good movies. Topics also include the best and worst acting winners of this century, nominee reaction shots, and character descriptions of acting nominees on the telecast.

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175 – Hustlers

This is an episode about control. We’ve tallied up the votes for our Listeners’ Choice episode and in a landslide victory, 2019′s Hustlers emerged quite victorious. One of our favorite films of 2019, the film (based on Jessica Pressler’s expose in The Cut) stars Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez as two exotic dancers who team up to drug and rob their wealthy Wall Street customers in the wake of the financial crisis. A highly fictionalized adaptation, the film is a nonstop ride of entertaining moments, all given an empathic treatment by writer/director Lorene Scafaria. Though we have much to say for the film’s many merits, its awards hopes hinged on a career-best Lopez in Supporting Actress, who ran the gauntlet of being nominated at every major precursor only to miss out on an Oscar nomination.

This episode, we discuss how the film’s subject matter was met with unfair indifference despite Scafaria’s thoughtful approach and the film’s surprise $100M box office success. We also dive into its stellar performances outside of Lopez, Scafaria’s directorial career, Lopez’s career from critical praise to romcom star, the film’s deftly handled morality, and “so wait a minute actresses.”

Topics also include Lopez’s notorious 1998 interview with Movieline, the film’s perfect use of pop music, and “we love you, Gary!”

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171 – The Mighty

This week, we are talking about Sharon Stone and The Mighty. Adpated from the young adult novel Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, the film follows a burgeoning friendship between a silent giant teenager Max (Elden Henson) and a King Arthur obsessed neighbor with a rare metabolic disorder Kevin (Kieran Culkin). But the film’s real awards play was a Globe-nominated Stone, inhabiting the role of Kevin’s mother Gwen shortly after her first nomination for Casino. However, a firmly locked Supporting Actress race left Stone fighting for fifth place, ultimately missing out to Rachel Griffiths in the equally forgotten Hilary and Jackie.

The film was one of Miramax’s many titles in 1998, and shifted to a awards lower priority once Shakespeare in Love and Life is Beautiful began to take off. This episode, we discuss the film’s very broad performance from Gillian Anderson, James Gandolfini joins our Six Timers Club, and we look at back at Oscar’s love for “suffering parent” roles and other adjacent tropes.

Topics also include the shared loving gaze of Redgrave/McKellen/Fraser, Lara Flynn Boyle in Wayne’s World, and Cincinnati cinema.

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156 – A Most Violent Year (with Kevin O’Keeffe)

“This was very disrespectful.” Once again, Kevin O’Keeffe joins us to talk about the one and only Jessica Chastain for A Most Violent Year. Starring an on-the-rise Oscar Isaac as an emerging entrepreneur in the 1980s trying to avoid crime in dirty business, the film chased Oscar after writer/director J.C. Chandor’s Original Screenplay nomination for his debut Margin Call. But the film’s closest shot at Oscar was the supporting performance by Chastain as Isaac’s wife with a secret or two, which earned her Critics Choice, Independent Spirit, and Golden Globe nominations. Though many predicted Chastain, a surprise nomination went to Laura Dern for Wild, and A Most Violent Year was left out in the Oscar cold.

This episode, we talk about the Oscar Isaac performances that deserved Oscar attention, including the year where the likes of he and Tom Hanks missed out on nominations. We also discuss genius cinematographer Bradford Young, the film’s Best Picture win with the National Board of Review, and just how many people actually watched Triple Frontier.

Topics also include the value of nail acting and coat acting, this current season of Drag Race All-Stars, and who might have been second place to Patricia Arquette in 2014.

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155 – Moonlight Mile

Jake Gyllenhaal is the latest to join our Six Timers Club this week with 2002′s Moonlight Mile. Written and directed by Brad Silberling, Gyllenhaal leads the film as a young man living with the parents (played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman) of his fiance’s parents in the aftermath of her murder. A light dramedy with semi-autobiographical elements from Silberling, the film set expectations high with an emotional trailer but quickly died after a poor TIFF reception and even dimmer box office. With an Oscar year that leaned heavily on December releases, this film was an awards afterthought.

This week, we look back at Gyllenhaal’s THOB history and Sarandon’s stellar triptych of very different (and all buzzed) screen moms in 2002. We also discuss the true story that inspired the film, distributor Touchstone’s buzzy 2002 that also includes 25th Hour and Signs, and the film’s onslaught of needle drops.

Topics also include the iconic 2002 Best Supporting Actress lineup, Brian Cox doing McDonald’s commericals, and why Goldie Hawn should be in the hypothetical third Mamma Mia! movie.

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136 – White Oleander (with Nathaniel Rogers)

Pfor this week’s episode, we’ve invited The Film Experience creator and Michelle Pfeiffer superpfan Nathaniel Rogers back to discuss one of our listeners most requested films, 2002′s White Oleander. Based on the beloved novel by Janet Fitch, the film stars Allison Lohman as the teenage Astrid, who is plunged into the foster care system after her manipulative artist mother Ingrid (a phenomenal Pfeiffer) kills her boyfriend and is sent to prison. The film suffers from moving too briskly between Astrid’s foster homes (with Robin Wright and Renée Zellweger cast as various mothers) and met poor anemic reviews that left the film and Pfeiffer’s work forgotten in a backloaded awards season.

This week, we talk about the 2002 Supporting Actress race including who we think placed fifth in the nominations and the performance Nathaniel thinks derailed her chances. We also look at Oprah’s Book Club, Pfeiffer’s reticence with doing press, and personal Oscar grudges over Pfeiffer’s best work.

Topics also include Melissa McCarthy as an EMT, Robin Wright pronouncing the word “virus”, and Sheryl Crow’s The Globe Sessions (which, yeah, Chris misremembers instead of C’Mon C’Mon).

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