In our third pass of the Oscar nominees from 1997 through 2016, we take a look at the nominees for Best Supporting Actor. Each week, we’ll present a list of contenders from which you can select five to make up the Best Supporting Actor slate. There will be an “Other” option, but you can only use this once and you’ll have to specify your other in the comments. Now on to the game: Best Supporting Actor.
Loading ...
(May 19, 2019) Original
June 14, 2019
From IMDb: “A woman raises her young grandson after her daughter goes missing.”
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: Interesting is the best way to describe this trailer as it tries hard to suggest the film is in the vein of Winter’s Bone without genuinely evoking that film or its myriad possibilities.
There might be a distant chance that Sienna Miller enters the competition for Best Actress, but the deck is already pretty stacked, so I wouldn’t expect much traction.
(May 19, 2019) Original
October 18, 2019
From IMDb: “The complex relationship of Maleficent and Aurora continues to be explored as they face new threats to the magical land of the Moors.”
SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: A teaser that doesn’t give much, especially with the excessive amount of black being used, but it will work at its specified purpose.
SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: Everything you could imagine from a Maleficent sequel is here, but nothing quite strikes the viewer as being terribly compelling.
It could contend in Production Design or Costume Design, but it might be a tough hill to climb this year.
Born March 24, 1945 in Reno, Nevada and raised in Los Angeles, Curtis Hanson’s mother was a real estate agent, and his father, a teacher.
Hanson dropped out of school in his senior year but was later made entertainment editor of the Cal State L.A. campus newspaper, despite not being a student there. His uncle, editor of Cinema magazine, hired him as a gofer and he eventually became a photographer, editor and art director where he interviewed numerous Hollywood legends including John Ford, Vincente Minnelli, William Wyler and Dalton Trumbo. His first film credit was as one of three writers of the screenplay for 1970’s The Dunwich Horror directed by Daniel Haller from H.P. Lovecraft’s story.
Hanson’s directorial debut came with 1972’s Sweet Kill, a horror thriller starring Tab Hunter as a serial killer. He later directed 1977’s Evil Town and 1979’s The Little Dragons, but neither attracted much attention. Two 1983 films, Losin’ It starring Tom Cruise and Never Cry Wolf starring Charles Martin Smith, which he wrote but didn’t direct, were more successful but the film that put him on the Hollywood map was 1987’s The Bedroom Window starring Steve Guttenberg, Elizabeth McGovern and Isabelle Huppert.
Having hit pay dirt with The Bedroom Window, Hanson continued directing successful thrillers with 1990’s Bad Influence starring Rob Lowe and James Spader 1992’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle starring Annabella Sciorra and Rebecca De Mornay, 1994’s The River Wild starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon and 1997’s L.A> Confidential starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger. The latter received 11 Oscar nominations including three for Hanson for writing, producing and directing. He won for writing.
L.A. Confidential was the best reviewed film of 1997, winning the lion’s share of the year’s film critics’ awards but it lost the Oscar to the box-office phenomenon, Titanic.
Han (more…)
(May 19, 2019) Original
June 14, 2019
From IMDb: “An American widow finds unexpected love with a man living wild on Hampstead Heath when they take on the developers who want to destroy his home.”
Review: There was no poster immediately available for my review. Should one become available in the future, this section will be updated.
SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: A mildly diverty, modestly funny trailer that puts two fine actors through their paces with minimal challenge.
None.
(May 19, 2019) Original
September 27, 2019
From IMDb: “Legendary performer Judy Garland arrives in London in the winter of 1968 to perform a series of sold-out concerts.”
SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: That white background is distracting, as is the floral print dress. The glittery golden title is fitting, but also a bit tacky.
SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: There isn’t enough here to rush to judgement, but as a first glimpse, Renée Zellweger appears to have the right mannerisms to astound as the legendary Judy Garland. We’ll see how it works out.
The film’s quality may be in question and its Oscar chances are unfathomable right now, but based on the first trailer, Oscar winner Renée Zellweger may well be back in the competition this year for Best Actress.
Here we look at the upcoming month’s offerings.
Premise: From IMDb: “Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.”
Box Office Prospects: $175 M
Expectations: Good. While Disney hasn’t been the best marketers for their former Fox properties, the advertising here has been adequate. That said, although the original series of films were quite popular, the new series and cast has been less so, so I don’t expect to high a climb for this film.
Oscar Prospects: Weak. The Fox Marvel films have seldom fared well with the Oscars and I don’t see this one overcoming everything else Disney will likely promote ahead of it.
Cinema Sight Preview: See my preview of this title here.
With Avengers: Endgame effectively dethroned and John Wick: Chapter 3 debuting strong, the three new releases will have to overpower it to hit number one. Aladdin should be more than capable of accomplishing that. BrightBurn will either soar or falter and Booksmart will struggle opening wide.
Our Highest Rated Films: Aladdin
Our Best Awards Ratings: Aladdin
Echo in the Canyon
Funny Story
Halston
India’s Most Wanted
The Proposal
As is our tradition, May begins our first predictive look at the year’s Oscar hopefuls. A lot of factors will play into how well our guesses hold up. Expect many of them to fall by the wayside as the year progresses and new contenders to rise into their places.
As Spring turns into Summer, thoughts of next year’s Oscars start trickling into our subconscious thoughts. With our first predictions, it’s always interesting to see where everyone stands, where the early consensus is, and then compare later to the end results. Looking at only six categories (Picture, Directing, and the four acting awards), it’s interesting to note that six films make all four of our lists. Another fifteen appear on three. Out of a total of 35 potential nomination slots, that’s a surprisingly strong group of aligned predictions. We’ll see how things change over the months as we hope to have new predictions up every month through the end of the year, adding more categories as we go.
New Trailer (#2) / New Poster (#2)
Preview Link: CLICK HERE for all of the new content as well as the original.
New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#2-#5)
Preview Link: CLICK HERE for all of the new content as well as the original.
This Gun for Hire, The Big Clock, The Landlord, The Bedroom Window, and The House of Games have all now been given Blu-ray upgrades.
Alan Ladd had been in films since 1932, mostly in uncredited roles, when talent agent Sue Carol took charge of his career and the actor himself, marrying him in 1942, the year of his breakthrough performance as the tough-as-nails hitman in Frank Tuttle’s This Gun for Hire, a property that Paramount had been sitting on for six years.
Taken from a Graham Greene novel, the plot of This Gun for Hire is a bit convoluted, but it was the perfect vehicle for the type of film that would come to be known as film noir. Ladd was fourth billed below Veronica Lake as a nightclub singer whose fiancé Robert Preston is the local prosecutor, the only two actors billed above the title. Laird Cregar (two years before The Lodger) is the mob boss who hires Ladd to kill blackmailer Frank Ferguson and his girlfriend and then double-crosses him. He’s also the owner the nightclub in which Lake is performing.
Preston (Beau Geste) and Lake (Sullivan’s Travels) had no chemistry together, but Ladd and Lake in their one scene together sizzled, so much so that Paramount had the screenwriters add scene after scene for the two to appear in together. It would be the first of seven films in which the two appeared together, the most famous besides This Gun for Hire being 1942’s The Glass Key and 1946’s The Blue Dahlia.
Commentary on the Shout Select 4K restoration is provided by film historians Alan K. Rode and Steve Mitchell who also provided the commentary on The Glass Key and The Blue Dahlia, both of which were previously released by Shout Select.
Films noir don’t come any finer than 1948’s The Big Clock, directed by John Farrow (Wake Island), starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, and both Farrow’s wife (Maureen O’Sullivan) and Laughton’s (Elsa Lanchester).
