Best Supporting Actress – Page 3

135 – The House of the Spirits

By today’s standards, this week’s film stands out for its gobsmacking cast of Meryl streep, Gleen Close, Jeremy Irons, Antonio Banderas, and Winona Ryder. But back in the 90s, The House of the Spirits caught attention as both an adaptation of Isabel Allende’s beloved novel and the biggest acquisition Miramax had ever landed. Set over decades in Chile with mild mysticism and political revolution, the film whitewashed and condensed the novel into a poorly received epic long forgotten by year’s end – with Miramax enjoying their biggest success yet in Pulp Fiction.

The film was the follow-up to back-to-back Palme d’Or wins for director Bille August, after The Best Intentions and the Oscar-annointed Pelle the Conqueror. This episode, we look to Palme d”or winners for a round of Alter Egos as we discuss the film’s many problems. We discuss the false narrative of Streep vs. Close among Oscar obsessives, Ryder as a quintessentially 90s star, and Streep’s early 90s roadblocks.

Topics also include “an abundance of juices”, Irons’ expanding set of false teeth, and Close’s Oscar chances this year.

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131 – Tea with Mussolini

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t keep pushing this movie aside – and Tea with Mussolini breaks through for this episode for you! The film is one of Cher’s few post-Oscar films and stars the icon opposite acting legends Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Lily Tomlin – all cast as ex-pat women raising a young man during WWII Italy. While the film was an arthouse hit in the early summer and earned Smith a Supporting Actress BAFTA prize, this costume drama was left forgotten come Oscar time.

This week, we’re unpacking the reemergence of Cher in the late 90s, from If These Walls Could Talk to the megasmash success of “Believe” to her iconic Grammy Record of the Year competition. We also get into the 1999 Supporting Actress and the Globes Musical/Comedy field, the only absent dame from Tea With the Dames, and director Franco Zeffirelli.

Topics also include Cher shouting about her Picasso, movies that use “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, and the trauma of AOL Instant Messenger.

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130 – The Station Agent

For this episode, we’re returning to 2003 with the film that almost won the Listeners’ Choice for our previous 2003 miniseries: Tom McCarthy’s The Station Agent. Starring Peter Dinklage in his breakout role as Finn, a loner who inherits a vacant train station in rural New Jersey and reluctantly makes a small circle of friends with a grieving artist and food truck operator, respectively played by Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Canavale. Though a critical darling and major Sundance prize winner, scattered Oscar priorities for the film’s distriutor Miramax likely kept this one from Oscar success.

This week, we look at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and the triptych of prized Patricia Clarkson performances that were launched there, including this film, Pieces of April, and All the Real Girls. We also explore how Clarkson was nominated for the less beloved Pieces, the film’s three nominations with SAG, and the work of Tom McCarthy.

Topics also include Michelle Williams breaking out from the Dawson’s Creek mold, early 00s independent cinema as a comforting vibe, and another round of playing Alter Egos.

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108 – A Dangerous Method

If you look at many of the bizarre and not-safe-for-work fascinations embedded in the filmography of David Cronenberg, it might be surprising that the auteur’s work ever made it close to Oscar conversations. But this week, we’re looking at one of his films that did: 2011′s Freud and Jung horny costume drama A Dangerous Method. Starring Michael Fassbender as Jung and frequent Cronenberg star Viggo Mortensen as Freud, the film looks at the relationship between the two foundational psychologists and the women caught between their ideologies, Sabina Spielrein – played by Keira Knightley, in a divisively received performance.

The film also played a major part in Fassbender’s 2011 omnipresence, though Shame would be his closest Oscar contender of his many films this year. But it was the director’s then-increasing favor with Oscar that set most early predictions’ sights on this film. This episode, we take a close look at the Cronenberg resume and all of its fascinating perversions.

Topics also include 2011 Supporting Actress, Knightley’s relationship to costume dramas, and how A History of Violence came close to a deeper embrace by Oscar.

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107 – Prime

We’re back to discussing Meryl Streep (for the SIXTH time!) this episode for a film starring the legend opposite an actress who was overlooked for a defining work. After Oscar ignored the hyperviolent Kill Bill films and its iconic star, Uma Thurman seemed poised for future Oscar success. When she was cast opposite Streep for 2005′s Prime (in addition to a few other high profile roles that year), it looked like this could be more to Oscar’s tastes. Starring Thurman as a woman who falls for a younger man who happens to be the son of her beloved therapist, Prime ultimately was a misfire romantic comedy that quickly got forgotten.

This episode, we look at how the film is unsatisfying because it focuses too much on Bryan Greenberg as the male love interest and how it almost starred Meryl’s Oscar rival in a later season: Sandra Bullock. And we welcome Meryl to the THOB Six-Timers club and look back at the previous Streep films we have discussed.

Topics also include performer spouses of Real World castmembers, the accumulation of unhinged storylines on Boston Public, and “it’s fashion!”

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098 – Lee Daniels’ The Butler (with Jourdain Searles)

One year after giving us Nicole Kidman peeing on Zach Efron in The Paperboy, Lee Daniels delivered a late summer hit and Oscar hopeful with The Butler. Starring then-recent Best Actor winner Forrest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a White House butler to eight presidents, the film follows the arc of civil rights in America through the lens of one Black family. But it was the screen return of Oprah Winfrey that was the film’s closest brush with Oscar, and her work as Gloria Gaines remains an understated treasure.

This episode, we welcome back freelance writer and Bad Romance cohost Jourdain Searles to unpack the film’s high points as a family drama and shakier ground as a conveyor belt of cameos for famous people as presidents. We discuss the 2013 Supporting Actress contenders, and how the film’s Oscar chances were hindered three-fold: a summer release, a distributor that prioritized other films, and an Academy unwilling to consider multiple stories from Black filmmakers in one year.

Topics also include Yaya DaCosta, presidential movies, and the film’s sometimes effective, sometimes cringey makeup.

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042 – Evening (with Richard Lawson)

This Had Oscar Buzz has always been a long day’s journey into Evening! In 2007, the film strangely opened in the summer and quickly became the poster child for the “Oscar bait” moniker. Starring a massive female ensemble including [inhales sharply] Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins and Meryl Streep, the film is an unfortunately vague journey through one dying woman’s regretful memories of a fateful wedding weekend on the coast.

Joining us for this episode is Vanity Fair’s chief critic Richard Lawson to help unpack the many, many things that make Evening such a disappointment and a dreary, sex-negative enterprise. We also discuss our accidental obsession with Claire Danes (here discussed in her fifth episode), how the film borrowed heavily from our relationship with The Hours, and the 2007 era of Focus Features. Get ready to howl like Close and chase some moths!

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041 – The Ice Storm

Hello Charles! This week, we talk about a real headscratcher: how did Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm get no Oscar nominations? Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival and Lee’s follow-up to his first Oscar success Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm is perhaps even more critically beloved than when it debuted in 1997. But this was also the year of every other movie chasing Titanic’s shadow.

The film had several potential points of entry into the Oscar race – Adapted Screenplay, its authentic period design, and especially Sigourney Weaver as a near nominee in Supporting Actress. But we discuss some of why it was shut out, whether it was the fallout for small movies caught in Titanic’s wave or fledgling indie distributor Fox Searchlight focusing its energy on The Full Monty. Topics also include BAFTA’s emerging days as an Oscar forecaster, the Oscar field that surrounded that incomparable front runner, and the injustice of Joan Allen’s Oscar narrative.

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024 – Anywhere But Here

This week’s episode is a tale of two actresses at the opposite ends of their respective Oscar stories: 1999′s Anywhere But Here, with Natalie Portman’s kicking off her Oscar trajectory and Susan Surandon struggling to get the nomination that has eluded her since her win for Dead Man Walking. This is a mother-daughter film stooped in mid-90s adult contemporary songs and cozy cliches, so naturally we kind of loved it – even if Oscar forgot it.

This week we look at the career of director Wayne Wang, including showering some love on his other (also Oscar ignored) mother-daughter saga The Joy Luck Club. Also discussed: the much beloved film year that was 1999, what happens after Overdue Oscars, and a full dive into Fumbling Toward Ecstasy era Sarah McLachlan.

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021 – Tadpole

The Sundance Film Festival is an elusive mistress that giveth Oscar buzz only to taketh away when at lower altitudes. Case in point is this week’s would-be Oscar title: 2002′s Tadpole. The film was a sensation of the festival, winning a Best Director prize for Gary Winick and stirring buzz for newcomer Aaron Stanford and Bebe Neuwirth. But the newfangled digital technology that won praise at the festival for all the new filmmaking possibility it represented ended up looking amateurish and garish upon release.

Tadpole ultimately got lost in a slew of 2002′s rich boy movies and disappointed on release after Miramax’s big $6M acquisition. This riff on The Graduate by way of Voltaire quotes may have been lost to time, but for a minute, it was kind of A Thing. This week, we’re also talking about the distinctions between regular Oscar buzz and Sundance Oscar buzz, the Meryl Streepness of The Hours vs. the Nicole Kidmanness of The Hours, and the National Board of Review’s “prize as party invitation” special recognitions.

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