Best Supporting Actor 1994

[MovieFan]

Agreed with you guys that it is between Jackson and Landau but the Academy got it right this year. Martin Landau’s Bela Lugosi is the far greater acting achievement and it’s one of the most deserving supporting turns to win the Oscar. The comedic and dramatic aspects of the performance he absolutely gets right, he never pushes the humour and he never forces the sentimentality, he weaves this all perfectly into this monumental achievement.

The first is the fact that he has to play the horror icon Bela Lugosi, and it’s incredible how he introverts his whole body language, facial expression, head tics into such a natural way into the very distinct way that Lugosi walks and talks, and it’s done so effortlessly, not once do you ever question it or feel like Landau is overdoing it or ‘acting’. What’s even more impressive is how he still manages to create the mystery that surrounds Lugosi, in Landau’s eyes he conveys a similar mystery that Lugosi was able to do.

[ITALIANO]

Yes, it's an admittedly decent line-up - no bad performance in sight. But it's also a not especially exciting one, except for two nominees - THOSE two.

As for the others... Gary Sinise isn't a very charismatic actor, but his quiet bitterness was one of the best aspects of the movie he was in. I should see Forrest Gump again though - it has kind of vanished from my mind, but I remember that at the time I had some doubts about his character - and the way it was handled - in the context of the movie.

Paul Scofield was a very charismatic actor, and his quiet bitterness was one of the best aspects of the movie he was in. Very small role though.

During his (brief) golden period as America's most promising character actor, Chazz Palminteri did appear in a number of interesting and/or successful movies, and it was obvious that sooner or later he'd get an Oscar nomination (at the time most of us would have actually predicted several nominations). He's a good actor and was nicely used in Bullets over Broadway but I'm not sure that it's his best performance.

It's definitely between Martin Landau and Samuel Jackson. I might consider voting for Landau if I hadn't voted for him already (and for a more intense performance) and, to be honest, if I had liked Ed Wood better. It's not a bad movie and it's often visually impressive - but it's such a soft, chaste thing! That wonderful gallery of real-life losers, freaks and eccentrics deserved a Pedro Almodovar, or even a David Lynch, not a Walt Disney... Tim Burton's approach is wrong, wrong, wrong - and sexless, which considering the material is I think a major crime (what are B, C or Z-grade movies without sex? Ah but Ed Wood isn't a B movie, true...). Still Landau's affectionate caricature of Bela Lugosi was the most affecting side of the movie, and nobody complained when he finally won his Oscar.

But Samuel Jackson was electric in Pulp Fiction. Now he only seems to appear in dreadfully commercial things, but the man had and hopefully still has talent, and I'd say even an interesting physical presence. Denzel Washington he isn't. The myth that he had been put in the wrong category by the Ku Klux Klan started the day after nomination morning - but it's still a myth. His character is away from all the central part of the movie, so why Leading? (It's possible that nobody is Leading in Pulp Fiction, but that's another story. The point is - it's not such an evident case of category fraud). I'm not sure that Jackson's overall film career today deserves an Oscar - but I feel that he's the best of these five, and my pick.

[Greg]

Now if only he'd stop wasting his talent on all these franchise pictures and turn in a performance half as exciting as this one sometime soon.

Actually, after watching his and John Malkovich's work in their Siri commercials, I think they would make a great team for a buddy comedy.

[The Original BJ]

A lot of people have articulated my sentiments exactly -- I'll echo Bruce Lavigne's opinion that if you bumped up Jackson to lead and slipped in John Turturro, you'd have a slate full of deserving contenders. And, as Mister Tee said, Turturro was TOTALLY robbed -- it wasn't just that he dared to make the character annoying and repulsive. It's that, somehow, despite all that, you still managed to feel some sympathy for him, despite completely understanding why the producers of Quiz Show would have wanted him gone. I think it's a major performance, and it's truly disappointing he was excluded.

Which isn't to demean the quality of this very fine group of nominees:

Sinise is probably the least notable, but he gave a very solid performance with a decent amount of range. He's entertaining and full of life in his early combat scenes, and then quietly heartbreaking in some of his later, post-war moments. His "I never thanked you for saving my life" exchange with Tom Hanks is a beautiful moment. Not a winner, but a perfectly suitable nominee.

As I opined above, Turturro was the standout performer in Quiz Show, but Scofield was very worthy as well. It's a small role, but witty and authoritative enough to make an impression. His big scene -- when he admonishes Ralph Fiennes for tarnishing his name -- is great stuff. But he's another nominee whose work just isn't major enough to win with this competition.

Chazz Palminteri is a ton of fun in Bullets Over Broadway, clearly getting a lot of mileage out of the fact that his thuggish character ends up being far more articulate than he initially appears. Bullets is full of original, full-bodied comic characters, and Palminteri's is one of them, although I don't think he quite reaches the win-level highs of Dianne Wiest.

As with most here, I come down to Landau or Jackson. Either would be a glorious choice. Landau's performance in Ed Wood, Tim Burton's best film, is a thing of wonder. He perfectly embodies the over-the-top spirit of Bela Lugosi while making him a human, flesh-and-blood person. His performance is alternately hilarious and quite sad, as we observe a past-his-prime legend maintaining great enthusiasm for his craft even as he's wallowing in absolute swill. This is about as close to a star turn supporting performance as you can get, and I see no reason to do anything other than cheer for Landau's victory.

But Jackson is just a life force, spouting off Tarantino's great dialogue with bemused glee, and commanding the screen every minute he appears on it. I realize there was a lot of controversy at the time about his placement, but I'll say the following things: 1) Jackson's gone from enough of the movie that there's nothing fraudulent about his category placement in support, 2) given that Travolta has quite a bit more screen time, there was nothing racist about the fact that he was slotted in lead, while Jackson ended up in the lower category, and 3) Jackson was so explosive in his time on-screen that, like Anthony Hopkins in Silence, I think you COULD argue he is a lead. Either way, as Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor, Jackson merits a trophy, and he gets an enthusiastic vote from me. Now if only he'd stop wasting his talent on all these franchise pictures and turn in a performance half as exciting as this one sometime soon.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

I don't know if I'm necessarily surprised that 1993's lineup is generally considered superior to 1994's, but I do disagree with that assessment. 1994's Best Supporting Actor category gave me the one instance in the history of the Oscars where the Academy chose exactly the lineup I would have chosen -- or at least the one I would have chosen, if I believed that Samuel L. Jackson was a supporting player or that Paul Scofield's Quiz Show performance was superior to John Turturro's. If we move Jackson to the lead category where he belongs and replace him with Turturro, that is my ballot.

So we've got Scofield, who's wonderful in Quiz Show but clearly only the fifth-best in the category, and Sinise, who's even better in Forrest Gump – the one truly great element of a movie I don't care for much – but only the fourth-best performance here.

Jackson, Landau, and Palminteri are all phenomenal, with Jackson and Landau clearly a cut above. And since I don't vote for leads in the supporting category, no matter how much I may love their nominated performances, that makes Landau one of the easiest choices ever for me to make.

I will say that while '94 is far top-heavier than '93 in terms of Oscar-worthy supporting actors, '93 has a far deeper bench; of other potential candidates for this year's ballot, only James Whitmore in The Shawshank Redemption and Ian Holm in The Madness of King George really register strongly enough to merit consideration, and they're both considerably behind Scofield in my estimation.

[Mister Tee]

Two things keep this slate from being viewed as one of the strongest ever: the fact that it followed the legendary 1993 crew, and voters nominating the wrong actor from Quiz Show.

This isn't to say I don't like Paul Scofield's performance. I think it's quite solid, and funny, in a way little of Scofiel'ds work had been prior.

But I think John Turturro's performance in the film is amazing, and utterly brave. What's striking about his Herb Stempel is that it flies in the face of Hollywood tradition. The standard m. o. for depicting of nerds on film has always been to soften their edges -- making them seem hapless, harmless, even sympathetic. Yes, in life, many nerds ARE just that. But there's a sub-species that we almost never see on-screen the way we do in life: the nerd who's actively, aggressively annoying; who makes you want to turn away from his relentlessness, his obliviousness to what an offense to your senses he is. Turturro dives full-on into this persona. He makes you understand full well why viewers would be resistant to watching this man return to the show week after week...and especially why producers from the same ethnic strain would see him as an embarrassing stereotype with which they could be tainted by association. Along with doing all this, Turturro is also often hilariously funny -- tossing off quips like "You want to be worshipped? Go to India, and moo" with aplomb. I think it's an exceptional performance, one of an amazing three on display this year, all of which I'd have preferred over anyone nominated in 1991, 1997, 1998, 1999...

Of the chosen five, I'd probably rank Gary Sinise lowest. But it was nice to see him finally emerge from his position as junior partner in the Malkovich/Sinise tandem, a spot he'd occupied since the two burst forth in True West a decade earlier. Forrest Gump is obviously a shallow piece, and it became a far greater cultural phenomenon than it deserved to be, but it's enjoyable enough, and Sinise is perfectly fine in it.

Next would come Scofield, and, as I said, I found his portrait-of-the-waning-WASP touching and funny; just not on the same scale as Turturros's achievement. And, as Janet Maslin said at the time, the voters opting for Scofield over Turturro is in a sense coming to the same decision the Twenty One producers did: putting the presentable WASP out there in place of the embarrassing ethnic.

It's long forgotten now, but, for a brief period, Chazz Palminteri seemed like a charismatic performer who might go places. His breakout in A Bronx Tale was impressive, and his Cheech here was maybe even better -- comically convincing as he carries out the playwright's secret desires all too literally. A very commendable nomination, though not in win contention.

But I come down to the same two most have, Martin Landau and Samuel L. Jackson. I've already voted for Landau in 1988, but he clearly gives a performance here that's perfectly wonderful -- somehow managing to do a thorough Bela Lugosi impression and at the same time create a full-bodied character. His win is completely understandable, and admirable.

But, for me, Samuel Jackson's performance was a bolt of lightning. I hadn't so much responded to his much-vaunted work in Jungle Fever -- I thought he and Halle Berry both devoured scenery, in a segment that seemed barely connected to the remainder of the film. But here he wowed me: dripping charisma; being sort of wild-eyed and the voice of reason simultaneously. Sabin is right that, like Kevin Spacey, he's too often slipped into lazy, rote acting in the years since. But here he was a dynamo, my ultimate pick for the year's best.

[Big Magilla]

1994 was a great year for actors as opposed to actresses, who had one of their weakest.

A case could be made for moving Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction to support to make room for the likes of Tim Robbins in Shawshank; Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show; Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral; Johnny Depp in Ed Wood or Terence Stamp in The Adventures of Prisciall, Queen of the Desert. In fact, Stamp, too, could fit in either categroy.

The problem is if you move Freeman and/or Travolta to support, who would you replace?

Currently I have Freeman and Travolta in lead along with Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump; Paul Newman, who should have won for Nobody's Fool and Robbins, who replaces Nigel Hawthorne in The Madness of King George.

I have Stamp in support in place of Chazz Palminteri in Bullets Over Broadway, a good performance, but the weakest of a very strong lot.

I like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, but not as much as the other three.

Paul Scofield was an actor who was not only brilliant in his Oscar winning performance in A Man for All Seasons, but equally so in King Lear, for which he should also have been nominated for a lead Oscar in 1971. He returned to the screen after a long absence in two great supporting turns in Quiz Show and The Crucible, for which he won a BAFTA. Thankfully the Academy was wise enough to nominate him again this one time.

Gary Sinise's performance in Forrest Gump is iconic. A three time Tony Award nominee, an Emmy winner for portraying Harry Truman and a Presidential Citizens Award winner for his work with Iraqui orphans, he would still be a legend if he played nothign other than Lt. Dan, his signature role which has endeared him to U.S. vets.

No one this year, though, achieves the sheer exhilaation of Martin Landau's uncanny interpretation of Bela Lugosi in all his glory in Ed Wood, a master class in acting. The academy most certainly got this one right.

[Sabin]

If 1993 is ultimately better, it's because 1993's weak link is simply a better iconic performance. Sinise is merely well-cast and the sight of his leglessness is an amazing moment in the history of Vis FX. I kinda love Forrest Gump. I think it's pretty hilarious. I have no idea how Robin Wright or Sally Field weren't nominated in that weak of a field. But really what it comes down to is even though I find the film mildly ideologically troublesome (and really that's only because I'm a big ol' Lefty, not because the film is saying anything that bad), it just won me over. I think seeing it at the right moment of my life helped, but I liked it. In retrospect, it's a bit surprising Sinise didn't win or at least that Landau was viewed as a runaway favorite.

There hasn't been a better acted Woody Allen film since Bullets Over Broadway and Palmentari is a bit underrated. The way he plays Cheech is so off-hand, the way that he simply acts like it's this play is already written and he's doing nothing creative is a very wise choice. It's a very funny performance and his nomination is very deserved.

I would have gone 4/5 in this category, picking Turturro over Scofield and come nominations morning I'd have been glad to be wrong. Turturro probably gives the weakest performance in Quiz Show, and every moment Paul Scofield is on screen keeps you longing for more. He adds so many dimensions to the film. Just as Diane Keaton complains about "This Sicilian thing..." in The Godfather: Part II, Paul Scofield's collapse is a masterclass in WASP pride. There's something inherently facile about a father ignoring his son's celebrity, but not when Scofield is portraying it.

Ultimately it's between Jackson and Landau, my favorite leading performance and supporting performance of the year and I just have to go with Samuel L. Jackson. It's another case of being forced to choose between the uncanny chameleonic feat and the distillation of persona, and my tipping point is that I didn't know Jackson when I saw him. He was just this guy who commanded the screen like nobody else in the film. One of the little ace qualities at Tarantino's command is his ability to carve out more memorable characters (or memorable riffs on preexisting characters) than anybody else of his generation. For a minute, Wes Anderson looked like he would give him some competition, but now there's no competition. Even his lamer films like Death Proof offer a Stuntman Mike for approval. There is no character more memorable in his oeuvre than Jules and I can basically quote every line he says. Soon after, Samuel L. Jackson and his peer Kevin Spacey would be the worst kind of workhorse: lazy ones. But for a moment, he was incredibly exciting and every once in a while in films like Black Snake Moan and Changing Lanes you get a glimpse of the challenging actor he could have been. Pulp Fiction is one of those films where you can make the case that everybody truly is supporting, but that would have delegated John Travolta to this category as well and I don't know if he would have made the cut. As is known by now, Jackson placed 2nd for Best Actor and Supporting Actor at the National Society of Film Critics.

If Jackson gets my vote, it's certainly very hard to begrudge Martin Landau. Every once in a while, a performance wins an Oscar along with Best Makeup and you hear "Oh, it's just the makeup doing the work." Never heard that once with Landau. The makeup appears to be a tool at his service, at his command. Ed Wood is a magical film, Burton's best, and some days I prefer it to Pulp Fiction. And there's something so casually pathetic about Landau's Bela Lugosi and yet you're never laughing at him, only with him. His victory is a sweet one and I'm a bit surprised he was such a runaway favorite.

[Precious Doll]

This is a generally good line-up with the weak link for me being Gary Sinise in Gump.

My choices:

1. Martin Landau for Ed Wood
2. John Turturro for Quiz Show
3. David Paymer for Quiz Show
4. Bill Hunter for Muriel's Wedding
5. Paul Scofield for Quiz Show

[Reza]

My picks for 1994:

1. Martin Landau, Ed Wood
2. Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction
3. James Whitmore, The Shawshank Redemption
4. John Travolta, Pulp Fiction
5. Simon Callow, Four Weddings and a Funeral

The 6th Spot: Paul Scofield, Quiz Show

[mlrg]

Martin Landau - Ed Wood

[ksrymy]

A spectacular lineup just as good as the year before.

The only weakish link is Palminteri who is still very effective and well-cast in one of my favorite Woody Allen flicks.

Scofield is a veterean used at his best in Quiz Show, but it's hard to only nominate one person from the film. It has a spectacular ensemble. David Paymer deserves a nomination for this over Mr. Saturday Night. The highlight for Scofield's intense performance would be the "I own you" speech.

I've always loved Forrest Gump. It was one of the first "big-kid" movies I ever liked as a child. Gary Sinise is the best performer in the film too. He gets the opportunity to play through a huge range of emotions and handles them all very well. It's just a shame that Sinise never got as big a break as he did here. He's a wonderful actor. I'm excited to see what he does once CSI: NY is over.

Now between the two powerhouse performances.

In the first corner we have the jheri-curled, gun-toting, Bible verse-spouting badass motherfucker Jules Winnfield.

In the other corner we have the Hungarian heavyweight of horror and depressing heroin addict Bela Lugosi.

What Samuel L. Jackson did with his character in Pulp Fiction is spectacular. He delivers some of the best lines Tarantino ever wrote and does it with such terror and comedy that we cannot help but enjoy the ride alongside him. Of course his Ezekiel 25:17 speech is iconic in film now, but it's the more subtle lines that really get me. His calmer speech at the end of the film about Ringo being the weak and himself being the tyranny of evil men (but he's trying real hard to be the shepherd) is thrilling. The way he feeds off John Travolta is marvelous as well. The entire foot massage deal is roll-on-the-floor hilarious. His divine intervention speeches are wonderful too.

And what Martin Landau does in Ed Wood is also jaw-dropping but moreso than Jackson's work was. THIS is how a biopic should work. Even if Lugosi is not the main character, we get a deeply human portrayal of a famous person and not just a cutesy impersonation (*cough*JamieFoxx*cough*). My first time watching the film when I was sixteen, I was floored. Every time Johnny Depp picked up the phone and had to rush to Landau's side, my heart ripped at its seams ever so more than before. His accent never gets in the way. It is incredibly genuine. The soft "Eddy..."s he uses all his breath to force out in those scenes slays me. He has plenty of good comedic scenes too notably "This is the most uncomfortable coffin I've ever slept in in my life!" and the whole scene at the end of Bride of the Monster where he flails in the polar waters, drunk as a skunk, "fighting" the octopus/squid creature.

You know what. I'm going to go watch Ed Wood right now and relive (for the hundredth time) my absolute hands-down favorite win in this category. I've been waiting for this specific poll for months and I think it may be the biggest blowout in this category here if Jackson doesn't get too heavy a group behind him.

My picks
______________________________
1) Martin Landau - Ed Wood
2) Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction
3) Gary Oldman - Léon: The Professional
4) Gary Sinise - Forrest Gump
5) Terence Stamp - The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

6) James Whitmore - The Shawshank Redemption