Philip Seymour Hoffman had a breakout 1999, winning critics prizes for performances in two films that just missed the Best Picture cut but landed his flashier costars with Supporting Actor nominations: Magnolia and The Talented Mr. Ripley. But this week, we’re discussing another less-praised film of his that year that nevertheless landed him a Lead Actor nomination at SAG: Joel Schumacher’s Flawless.
Hoffman stars in the film as drag performer and trans woman Rusty, who starts singing lessons with his bigot ex-cop neighbor Walt (Robert DeNiro) to help him recover from a stroke that was onset by violence in their building. This episode, we talk about the Oscar momentum Hoffman built over several beloved performances before his steamroll to a win for Capote. We also discuss the recently departed Schumacher, including battling over his Batman films and looking at his remarkable range of movies (and their quality).
Topics also include the film’s spotty relationship with trans and queer representation, DeNiro’s long gap between nominations post-Cape Fear, and cufflink guns.
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