Sunday, November 27, 2005

Dear Oscar Hopeful...

Dear [Insert Name Here],

I know your heart may be pounding, your mouth inexplicably dry. Your friends keep telling you you have a real shot at an Oscar nomination this coming January. If yoga, scientology, or psycho-analytic therapy is not relaxing you whenever the big "O" is mentioned, please repeat the following chant while practicing focused breathing:

Jimmy Stewart "Vertigo". Susan Sarandon "Bull Durham". Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn "Bringing Up Baby". Jeremy Irons "Dead Ringers". "Isabelle Huppert "The Piano Teacher". Ingrid Bergman "Casablanca". Julianne Moore "Safe". Kathleen Turner "Body Heat". Robert Mitchum "Night of the Hunter". Gene Hackman "The Conversation".

I promise that'll help put it all in perspective. Don't worry so much. History will vindicate you should your worst fear come to pass.

Love,
the Film Bitch

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think Ingrid Bergman was very upset when she wasn't nominated for Casablanca, since she got a nomination for "For Whom the Bell Tolls" that same year.

Anyway, it's quite an impressive list. I would add recent omissions such as Paul Giamatti for "Sideways" or Dennis Quaid for "Far from Heaven"

adam k. said...

Hey Nathaniel, I am getting my blog going now and want to answer your questions there. But how do you do the thing where you writing something and then cross it out and then write something esle? Do you need special software to do that? I love that shit, and I wanna do it right now. Anyway, sorry, I am totally using your space shamelessly for my own purposes, but I promise that I will now redirect much of my excessive commentary over to my own blog, and you can read it there if you so choose.

adam k. said...

OK, my display name is now just adam, I think. ANd that it will remain.

adam k. said...

OK, maybe now.

adam k. said...

OK, now I think I'm just Adam.

adam k. said...

Awesome.

...

Sorry, Nat.

NATHANIEL R said...

you type " < strike > " and then " < / strike > " around the word you'd like to cross out. (without the spaces or quotes)

adam k. said...

Awesome. Thanks.

adam k. said...

Hey everyone who reads Nat's blog,

I have a blog now! Come see it! There are only two posts there right now, but soon there will probably be lots of film/film awards musings. Hopefully I will develop a following. If you like my comments on Nat's blog, please visit and comment on mine! My 7 things should be up soon, sometime before dec. 7 I'll be posting NBR predictions.

So anyway, enough shameless promotion. Please visit. As with anyone else's, the link to my blog/blogger profile can be found by clicking my name on a comment.

~Adam

adam k. said...

btw, add Naomi Watts "Mulholland Drive" to the list of worthy snubees. That exclusion was rather shameful.

And Pfeiffer from White Oleander of course.

And Sarsgaard from Shattered Glass.

NATHANIEL R said...

well the point of the list was the universally famed / brilliant performances rather than personal favorites or recent favorite snubees.

i mean holy mother mary of jesus what were they thinking to exclude Jeremy Irons for Dead Ringers etc... i mean he should have WON let alone been nominated. and they say that's in large part why he won for Reversal of Fortune two years later.

adam k. said...

Are people like Sarandon "Bull Durham" and Moore "Safe" really universally regarded as legendary, though? It seems like they're still have more of an intense cult following or personal love type thing, but I don't really know. Film culture is all a cult anyway.

I guess I didn't realize Sarandon in Bull Durham was so well regarded. Gotta see that.

Isn't it rather telling, though, that even now every year there's at LEAST one great great perf they ignore... at least according to your film bitch awards, which I generally agree with (Watts, the Moulin men, Pfeiffer, Huppert, Quaid, Thurman, Wood, Sarsgaard, Bridges,etc.). They just never learn.

Yaseen Ali said...

Ugh, so true about Jeremy Irons. I actually read an interview with Cronenberg somewhere on how he felt when Irons thanked and acknowledged him more in his Oscar speech than his "Reversal of Fortunes" director Barbet Schroeder. I guess even Jeremy knew that he was getting a make-up Oscar for past wrongs.

Anonymous said...

er, not to mention because he was brilliant in "Reversal of Fortune", maybe the best Best Actor win of the last 20 years. Just sayin'.

Glenn Dunks said...

Why is always that the anonymous posters are always the ones with the most bitchy attitudes?

lol.

Anyway.

I would also think Moore in Safe was more of a personal choice. The only pre-curser Moore won according to imdb was a nomination at the ISAs.

I would put Paul Giamatti for Sideways about that one too. Not that I liked Giamatti in Sideways all that much, but it seemed like everyone thought he was a shoo in.

And, i've said it in two other threads, but just like Adam I too have set up my own blog account that will include all my movie musings that I post at my actual blog (on livejournal) but am now posting here. We really do have our own little community.

-Glenn

russtifer said...

Nice call on Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo. Such a shame.

adam k. said...

I think particularly Moore in Safe was a real case of "ahead of her time" in terms of why she didn't win any awards. Well that and cause she was unknown at the time. But I think Safe was just SO "wtf!?" in terms of its stillness and sterility and seeming "nothingness" that it wouldn't get zlich with oscar even now, with Moore and Haynes' profiles both raised exponentially and even if it got all the critics' awards there are. It's just SO not an oscar movie, period.

But hopefully it will eventually be regarded as one of THE great un-oscared performances even if now it still seems like a mere personal favorite of some of us.

adam k. said...

Oh, and Glenn... I'll read your blog if you'll read mine. ;)

Anonymous said...

You forgot Jim Carrey for The Truman Show.

Anonymous said...

You forgot Jim Carrey for The Truman Show.

NATHANIEL R said...

much as i loved the truman show, i can't see much evidence that that's considered an all-time great snubbed performance.

i was trying to keep the list thin to make it chantable ;)

Glenn Dunks said...

I haven't seen Safe yet because it was only released theatrically in Australia THIS YEAR! And I don't think it's on DVD yet. Bonkers, i tellsya.

I have a suggestion for the list. Laura San Giacomo for sex, lies, & videotape? She won a bunch of awards and was this great newcomer, but no. And I've said it before and I'll say it again... Joan Allen in Pleasantville. Sorry... I'll stop now.

Adam? I'm there.

-Glenn

Anonymous said...

I would add Julianne Morre also for another film: for her performance in "Magnolia". She is gorgeos in it.

And I'd add Julia Roberts for "Closer" (sure to be not everyone's opinion...). She won the Oscar for "Erin Brockovich" but she's almost better in "Closer". Her performance is unexpected, absolutely suprising and brilliant.

adam k. said...

Julianne Moore in Magnolia isn't so bad cause she was nommed for End of the Affair that year, and had vote splitting issues in supporting (thought she still deserved the nod).

I don't think the Truman Show snub by itself was so bad, but the triple snub of the trinity of great Carrey performances (Truman, Man on the Moon, and Eternal Sunshine) is rather shocking and quite shameful.

I can get behind Joan Allen in Pleasantville, though. What the hell. She won BFCA and everything. I think that, and to some extent Pfieffer's White Oleander snub, was motivated in part by this feeling of "wait, if we nominated her again, we'd kind of have to let her win this time" and they didn't want to have to deal with that pressure. Like, in both years, it would've meant a genuine four-way race in supporting, and that's just unheard of. I dunno, that's the only explanation I can think of.

Anyway, that's all.

adam k. said...

Oh, re: Joan Allen, Nat's chicken-choking theory is really good, too. That didn't help, clearly. Combined with my theory, that'd mean they'd have to give her THE STATUE for that bathtub scene. And they clearly weren't gonna go there.

Oh, and as good as Julia was in Closer, I don't think deserved to unseat any of the 5 nominees, since it was barely a leading role. Just not enough screentime there.

adam k. said...

And now I just feel compelled to add that of the 25 previous comments on this thread, 13 are mine. Is that a record? Yikes.

Actually, that's, like, exactly Meryl Streep's track record of oscar noms vs. years she's been making movies, circa 2003. Astounding.

Man, my brain works in strange ways. I'm going to sleep now.

Read my blog. Peace out.

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed a lot! »