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Oscar
Time! Best Supporting Actor
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Updates 03/24/03
Early frontrunner CHRIS COOPER grabs Oscar gold. Well deserved!
PreCeremony
Thought:
Christopher Walken won't make
this an easy win for the longtime frontrunner, Chris Cooper.
But I expect that he'll still, in the end, get the gold for his unusual
star turn.
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Chris
Cooper
ADAPTATION |
Ed Harris
THE HOURS |
Paul Newman
ROAD TO PERDITION |
John C
Reilly
CHICAGO |
Christopher
Walken
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN |
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first
nomination!
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4 noms
/ 0 wins
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9 noms
/ 1 win
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first
nomination!
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2
noms / 1 win
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Precursor Awards:
GLOBE, BFCA, NBR, LA, San Francisco, Toronto, Florida, Seattle, San Diego Role: Horticulturist John LaRoche |
Precursor Awards:
None. Role: Richard, a dying hallucinatory poet, soon to be honored with a Caruthers Award at a friend's party. |
Precursor Awards:
None. Role: A mob boss who must turn own his own employee, who has been like a son to him. |
Precursor Awards:
Las Vegas Role: Amos Hart (Mr. Cellophane) the dimwitted cuckolded husband of Roxie. |
Precursor Awards:
SAG, NSFC, & BAFTA Role: Tax evader and broke divorced father of a con-artist on the run from the FBI. |
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How'd They Get Nominated?
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65% Performance. It's a
doozy of a role but it could have gone either direction, really.
21% The role. "That's how much Fuck Fish" A great one if you know what to do with it. 9% Career achievement. 4% Look, Ma, no teeth! 1% American Beauty leftover goodwill. |
44% Crucial connective role
in Best Pic nominee.
22% Gay characters just the way the Academy likes them: Dying of AIDS! 18 % Oscarbait actor who can't seem to catch anything on his hook. 10% Sharing scenes with Meryl Streep. 6% Performance. |
50% He's the legendary Paul
Newman, isn't he?
25% Performance. Imbues the film with the gravitas that it thinks it has throughout. 12% Early frontrunner. 10%"There are only murderers here." 3% Conrad Hall's cinematography adds to his imposing majesty. |
55% Conscience role in sweeping
frontrunner for best picture.
30 % Gangs of New York. The Hours. The Good Girl. Having a Jim Broadbent sort of year with roles in several high profile films and three best pic nominees. 13% Wow. He can sing! 2% Performance. |
61% Timing and role:
Playing highly likeable character in mainstream flick that was a
Dec' hit.
25% Performance. Against type as he usually plays shady men. 13% Highly respected actor with last Oscar attention 3 decades back. 1% That Weapon of Choice video. |
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How'd I do?
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I scored 3/5
. I missed Reilly's Mr Cellophane and Harris's dying
gay man (what was I thinking...more on this below) in favor of Molina
which wasn't a stupid guess considering how well Frida performed
overall and Dennis Quaid who was considered a virtual lock.
Back in the days of the April Fools predictions I correctly guessed
Harris and Newman as shortlisters for a respectable 2/5.
Two of my other choices were almost rans who I stuck with 'til the
end, Quaid and Molina. The fifth was the strangely never in the
running Jim Broadbent from Gangs of New York.
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Who Got Robbed?
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 My
ballot is completely different than Oscar's aside from Chris
Cooper. Mine includes Dennis Quaid and it's a rather telling
travesty that Oscar didn't nominate him. He had all the elements
in place for a nomination. A multiple nominee film, a role that
was practically a lead, several precursor awards (second only to
Cooper) , plus Hollywood's favorite story: a huge comeback. Quaid
kicked off the year with a big box office hit The Rookie and ended
it with critical acclaim (and awards). What went wrong? One
can only assume the worst. Now Quaid isn't gay of course but his
character was. Maybe they would have liked him better had he been
dying of AIDS? Just thinking aloud. This is all to reminiscent of
the Oscar race in 1997 when Rupert Everett, considered a virtual
lock, was also shut out for playing a gay man who was happy and
wasn't dying of AIDS. Quaid's character Frank Whitaker wasn't happy
by any stretch of the imagination but he was sexually active, healthy
as a horse, and seeking self actualization as opposed to victimhood.
Naughty naughty. Doesn't he know his place? Oscar only likes their
gays as victims (As Good As It Gets) drag queens (Kiss
of the Spider-Woman) or dying of AIDS (Philadelphia, Before
Night Falls, etc...) Pretty
disgusting, no? |
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Which Film Clips Should
Oscar Show? Send
Your Suggestions!
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Taking notes: Delusions of grandeur -Ryan
"F*** Fish" -James |
In the window -James
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"I'm glad it was you" -David
Talking to Sullivan in the Church basement -Cedric |
"I'm gonna be a father?" -David
"Mr Cellophane" ending in "Yeah, I'm still here". Aw, bless -Rachel Explaining to Billy Flynn where he got the money -James |
Eating in the restaurant with his son -Ted 'Two mice fell in a bucket of cream' -Rachel |
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Who Might Think About
Writing a Speech
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Post SAG: I guess it's a two man race after
all. Walken has been gaining
but I still think Cooper will
eventually take it.
Pre-SAG I wrote: With his only real competitioin (that'd be Dennis Quaid) egregiously snubbed and out of the running, Chris Cooper can sit back and relax because there's no way he isn't winning. It's the surest thing going for Oscar night...he's like the Jennifer Connelly of 2002. |
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Who Should Win?
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Chris Cooper. Everyone knows the performance
is great. Even me. I don't think it's soooo much better than everyone
else's that he deserved such a sweep of critics awards but of the
performances that managed to snag nominations, it stands head and
shoulders above.The only one remotely comparable in overall impact
and quality is Paul Newman. My MUCH DIFFERENT ballot is here.
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