A good rule of thumb.dws1982 wrote
Winslet - Lead. A movie I definitely should rewatch.
Correcting Oscar 2004
Re: Correcting Oscar 2004
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Re: Correcting Oscar 2004
A curious year.
Linney was clearly support and should have won that category.
Church was borderline - he could have been considered either as lead or support. I think support was appropriate given that the story is told from Giamatti's character's perspective.
Foxx, Owen, and Portman were all co-leads who would not have been nominated in lead - Foxx because was already there as the frontrunner and eventual winner for Ray, and Owen and Portman because they would have been left out in the cold with Roberts and Law. Owen and Portman may have been listed as lead for SAG which would explain why they were ignored there. I have them in support only because it was not a strong year for supporting performances and neither was at the time a major star, so it wasn't slumming at the expense of others.
Eternal Sunshine is a film I've watched several times over the years. I still don't get its popularity. My vote for Winslet that year was for Finding Neverland where she had a more limited role but was the film's leading lady with a traditional Oscar throughline. If Greer Garson could be nominated in lead for Goodbye, Mr. Chips in which she arrives late and leaves early, and Walter Pidgeon could get a Best Actor nod for playing Garson's husband who dies in the first reel of Madame Curie, any major player in a similar role should be considered for lead as well.
Julie Christie was the Finding Neverland player who was robbed. She should have been nominated in support as Winslet's mother. Had Winslet been nominated in support, she would have had even less of a chance at a nomination. Both actresses were better than the film's male stars - a curiously nominated Johnny Depp and an out of his depth Dustin Hoffman. SAG also recognized Freddie Highmore who in the old days might have been given a special juvenile performance Oscar.
Linney was clearly support and should have won that category.
Church was borderline - he could have been considered either as lead or support. I think support was appropriate given that the story is told from Giamatti's character's perspective.
Foxx, Owen, and Portman were all co-leads who would not have been nominated in lead - Foxx because was already there as the frontrunner and eventual winner for Ray, and Owen and Portman because they would have been left out in the cold with Roberts and Law. Owen and Portman may have been listed as lead for SAG which would explain why they were ignored there. I have them in support only because it was not a strong year for supporting performances and neither was at the time a major star, so it wasn't slumming at the expense of others.
Eternal Sunshine is a film I've watched several times over the years. I still don't get its popularity. My vote for Winslet that year was for Finding Neverland where she had a more limited role but was the film's leading lady with a traditional Oscar throughline. If Greer Garson could be nominated in lead for Goodbye, Mr. Chips in which she arrives late and leaves early, and Walter Pidgeon could get a Best Actor nod for playing Garson's husband who dies in the first reel of Madame Curie, any major player in a similar role should be considered for lead as well.
Julie Christie was the Finding Neverland player who was robbed. She should have been nominated in support as Winslet's mother. Had Winslet been nominated in support, she would have had even less of a chance at a nomination. Both actresses were better than the film's male stars - a curiously nominated Johnny Depp and an out of his depth Dustin Hoffman. SAG also recognized Freddie Highmore who in the old days might have been given a special juvenile performance Oscar.
Re: Correcting Oscar 2004
Church - Support. In terms of screen time, he's on the high end of support, but this is really Miles' story. Sideways is one of those movies that tends to jump around on different streaming services, and I like it much more than I did in 2004. I don't know if Church would make my top five, but he is very good.
Foxx - Lead. One of those weird cases where he wouldn't have gotten a nomination in Lead because of Ray and he also probably wouldn't have gotten the nomination for this in Support without Ray. People were not talking about Collateral in terms of acting nominations before Ray came out. But the correct category would've been Lead. I don't think I would have nominated him, but I think he was better and probably not far from my ballot in Collateral.
Owen/Portman - Lead. Other than the fact that they were lesser names at the time than Law and Roberts and the Closer team wanted to try to get everyone nominated and didn't think they could get four Lead nominations, there's no reason why Owen and Portman should've been campaigned in Support. No one of the roles is less important than another. (Roberts, for what it's worth, has the least screen time by a couple of minutes.)
Linney - Support, probably, although I haven't seen the movie in a long time. This one doesn't stream as freely as Sideways or Collateral.
Winslet - Lead. A movie I definitely should rewatch.
Foxx - Lead. One of those weird cases where he wouldn't have gotten a nomination in Lead because of Ray and he also probably wouldn't have gotten the nomination for this in Support without Ray. People were not talking about Collateral in terms of acting nominations before Ray came out. But the correct category would've been Lead. I don't think I would have nominated him, but I think he was better and probably not far from my ballot in Collateral.
Owen/Portman - Lead. Other than the fact that they were lesser names at the time than Law and Roberts and the Closer team wanted to try to get everyone nominated and didn't think they could get four Lead nominations, there's no reason why Owen and Portman should've been campaigned in Support. No one of the roles is less important than another. (Roberts, for what it's worth, has the least screen time by a couple of minutes.)
Linney - Support, probably, although I haven't seen the movie in a long time. This one doesn't stream as freely as Sideways or Collateral.
Winslet - Lead. A movie I definitely should rewatch.
Correcting Oscar 2004
The most egregious contender who might have made the cut would be Kate Winslet for Finding Neverland. I think she was the de facto fifth choice in supporting by most prognosticators despite the fact that her sole major citation in the awards season was from BAFTA as lead, getting a nomination alongside a nomination for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It wouldn't have been a deserving nomination (nothing for Finding Neverland was) but two nominations for Kate Winslet in 2004 made sense.
Two for Jamie Foxx did not, despite the fact that his Collateral performance was pretty terrific. He became the first actor to score two SAG nominations and the first double nominee since Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter in 1993. To his credit, his one-two punch of Collateral and Ray are more significant flexes of talent than those actors' second nominations that year (for The Firm and In the Name of the Father, respectively). But that's the problem. His work in Collateral is by no means supporting. He's the lead. He starts the film, ends the film. There are a few moments outside of his POV. He's in the film for 53.60% of the time. I'm voting that he should have been considered in the other category but wouldn't register a nomination because he was already due to win for Ray. The only excuse I have for his nomination is that 2004's field was curiously lacking possibilities. It seems as though the prime alternatives were James Garner (The Notebook), David Carradine (Kill Bill: Vol. 2), and Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland). Peter Sarsgaard seemed like a very strong option before Kinsey largely flamed out. His lack of much more than one showy outburst probably affected his chances as well. I would've suggested Mark Wahlberg (I Heart Huckabees).
Another contender in this category is Thomas Haden Church for Sideways for which I'm of two minds about. He's in the film for 47.72% of the running time. It's hard to look at Sideways as anything other than a two-hander. It's the (sublime) Miles and Jack show by minute three until about five minutes before the end of the film. Jack is just about the definition of a co-lead. On the other hand, he's entirely seen through Miles' POV. There are no scenes of Jack without Miles. I just rewatched the wonderful film recently and I was struck by how much Jack occasionally feels like a sitcom character, with his utterances of "We're here to party, man!" It's excusable as seen through Miles' POV. Elsewhere on this board today, I mentioned that I think Brendan Gleeson is a co-lead in The Banshees of Inisherin because he has plenty of autonomy beyond Farrell. Thomas Haden Church does and he doesn't. I think he has enough screen-time to justify a lead nomination but because it's entirely seen through Miles' POV, I'm vote to keep him in support.
It's been ages since I last saw Closer and I doubt I will watch it again but can anybody tell me if Clive Owen and Natalie Portman are really more supporting than Jude Law and Julia Roberts? Is this a case of star power trumping placement? My recollection of the film is that Clive Owen's character has plenty of autonomy and inner-life beyond the two leads while Natalie Portman is largely viewed through male gaze. Owen is on-screen for 35.91% of the time while Portman is on-screen for 36.94%. I'll hold off on my vote. Looking forward to thoughts and best recollections of this Oscar film that wasn't.
I'm quite surprised that Laura Linney is only on-screen for 27.06% in Kinsey because I recall her being quite a dominant presence in the film and could be considered a co-lead. I see no significant mentions of her for a leading role beyond the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, and it is a "wife" role who supports Prok in his journey and largely reacts to his discoveries, so I suppose keep her in supporting.
Finally, I'm throwing in Kate Winslet for good measure for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She's in the film for 43.17% of the screen-time, about two-thirds of which has to be Jim Carrey's memory of her. She's granted individual agency only when on-screen with Elijah Wood's creep. But she is the film's inciting incident about five minutes in when Carrey meets her (if not less time into the film) and she's there until the very end. Plus genre rules suggest that this is very much a romantic comedy, and the rules of the format plus the vibrancy of Winslet's performance keep her as a lead. I've never seen a Manic Pixie Dream Girl performance where criticism is more off-limits.
Two for Jamie Foxx did not, despite the fact that his Collateral performance was pretty terrific. He became the first actor to score two SAG nominations and the first double nominee since Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter in 1993. To his credit, his one-two punch of Collateral and Ray are more significant flexes of talent than those actors' second nominations that year (for The Firm and In the Name of the Father, respectively). But that's the problem. His work in Collateral is by no means supporting. He's the lead. He starts the film, ends the film. There are a few moments outside of his POV. He's in the film for 53.60% of the time. I'm voting that he should have been considered in the other category but wouldn't register a nomination because he was already due to win for Ray. The only excuse I have for his nomination is that 2004's field was curiously lacking possibilities. It seems as though the prime alternatives were James Garner (The Notebook), David Carradine (Kill Bill: Vol. 2), and Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland). Peter Sarsgaard seemed like a very strong option before Kinsey largely flamed out. His lack of much more than one showy outburst probably affected his chances as well. I would've suggested Mark Wahlberg (I Heart Huckabees).
Another contender in this category is Thomas Haden Church for Sideways for which I'm of two minds about. He's in the film for 47.72% of the running time. It's hard to look at Sideways as anything other than a two-hander. It's the (sublime) Miles and Jack show by minute three until about five minutes before the end of the film. Jack is just about the definition of a co-lead. On the other hand, he's entirely seen through Miles' POV. There are no scenes of Jack without Miles. I just rewatched the wonderful film recently and I was struck by how much Jack occasionally feels like a sitcom character, with his utterances of "We're here to party, man!" It's excusable as seen through Miles' POV. Elsewhere on this board today, I mentioned that I think Brendan Gleeson is a co-lead in The Banshees of Inisherin because he has plenty of autonomy beyond Farrell. Thomas Haden Church does and he doesn't. I think he has enough screen-time to justify a lead nomination but because it's entirely seen through Miles' POV, I'm vote to keep him in support.
It's been ages since I last saw Closer and I doubt I will watch it again but can anybody tell me if Clive Owen and Natalie Portman are really more supporting than Jude Law and Julia Roberts? Is this a case of star power trumping placement? My recollection of the film is that Clive Owen's character has plenty of autonomy and inner-life beyond the two leads while Natalie Portman is largely viewed through male gaze. Owen is on-screen for 35.91% of the time while Portman is on-screen for 36.94%. I'll hold off on my vote. Looking forward to thoughts and best recollections of this Oscar film that wasn't.
I'm quite surprised that Laura Linney is only on-screen for 27.06% in Kinsey because I recall her being quite a dominant presence in the film and could be considered a co-lead. I see no significant mentions of her for a leading role beyond the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, and it is a "wife" role who supports Prok in his journey and largely reacts to his discoveries, so I suppose keep her in supporting.
Finally, I'm throwing in Kate Winslet for good measure for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She's in the film for 43.17% of the screen-time, about two-thirds of which has to be Jim Carrey's memory of her. She's granted individual agency only when on-screen with Elijah Wood's creep. But she is the film's inciting incident about five minutes in when Carrey meets her (if not less time into the film) and she's there until the very end. Plus genre rules suggest that this is very much a romantic comedy, and the rules of the format plus the vibrancy of Winslet's performance keep her as a lead. I've never seen a Manic Pixie Dream Girl performance where criticism is more off-limits.
"How's the despair?"