Smackdown '00: Chocolat, Billy Elliott, Pollock, and Almost Famous

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode goes back to the turn of the millenium, when Almost Famous, Pollock, Billy Elliot, and Chocolat were new in theaters and the following actresses were having a moment...

THE NOMINEES 2000 provided a bevy of possibilities in the supporting actress category but Oscar ignored the gifted comediennes (Parker Posey in Best in Show and  Elaine May in Smalltime Crooks), the foreign divas (Catherine Deneuve in Dancer in the Dark and Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger), indie darlings (Lupe Ontiveros in Chuck & Buck) and even women in Best Picture contenders (Catherine Zeta-Jones in Traffic, Connie Nielsen in Gladiator). What they came up with instead was an almost eerily archetypical shortlist which included five different kinds of traditional Oscar-friendly roles: long-suffering wife, feisty grandmother, manic pixie dream girl, mama bear, and the tough mentor. The mix of actors was also super traditional: Oscar voters invited back two recent previous winners (Judi Dench and Frances McDormand), one returning nominee (Julie Walters), and welcomed to the club one rising character actress (Marcia Gay Harden) and a golden child of Hollywood (Kate Hudson). 

THE PANELISTS Here to talk about their performances and films are (from left to right) actor Nicholas D'Agosto (Trial & Error, Masters of Sex), journalist Kyle Buchanan (New York Times), actress Vella Lovell (Mr Mayor, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), and from The Film Experience, Eric Blume and your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

 SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page... 

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Showbiz History: Peanuts Special, Dame Judi, and Young Tom Hardy in Prosthetics

5 random things that happened on this day, December 9th, in showbiz history

1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" premieres on CBS, the first of many TV specials (and later feature films) based on Charles M Schultz classic comic strip. It went on to receive a Grammy nomination and win the Emmy for Outstanding Children's Programming and the Peabody, too. 

1988 Mississippi Burning (the first of Frances McDormand's three soon-to-be-four appearances in a Best Picture nominee) and two comedies My Stepmother is an Alien and Twins open in movie theaters...

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Dame Judi Dench loves a feline theme

by Murtada Elfadl

The new trend in celebrity videos is about hand washing and social distancing. But trust a revered Oscar winner to add a dash of poetry. Dame Judi Dench appears in a short clip with her friend and fellow actor Gyles Brandreth as they lather up their hands for the required 20 seconds. Instead of singing a song or reciting a famous monologue they recite the opening verses of Edward Lear’s beloved poem The Owl and the Pussy-Cat.

Ever the showwoman, Dench even begins purring and nuzzling up to Brandreth when they reach the line “What a beautiful pussy you are.” Nice homage to your current movie, Dame Judi, but perhaps not keeping with the current guidelines for social distancing.  

A Public Service Poem - from Judi Dench & Gyles Brandreth pic.twitter.com/jocgJtjvVd

— Gyles Brandreth (@GylesB1) March 15, 2020

 Now that Cats is available at home, have you watched yet and what do you think of the Dame’s feline moves?

Soundtracking: Cats

by Chris Feil

One month after its catastrophic arrival and its official: Cats has entered the cult pantheon. But unlike the midnight musical tradition set before it by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this disaster isn’t simply finding an audience that appreciates its merits. If the ultimate schadenfreude response to the film felt pre-baked by the gleefully unhinged  reactions to its promotional material, we shouldn’t forget that much of its failed vision falls squarely in the lap of director Tom Hooper.

Cats as a musical is supposed to be earnest, its silly concept a vessel for unbridled imagination from the bombastic funhouse of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Of course, it has always had vocal detractors - it’s still a musical about cats. But for better or worse, it’s a more tuneful score than it’s often credited as, even if it grates...

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Review: "Cats"

by Cláudio Alves

Somewhere along the journey of popular cinema, an unholy change of standards occurred. Once upon a time, the artifice of movies was seen as a delightful feature, but it slowly started to be seen as an enemy of quality. The pursuit of "reality" began to preoccupy serious artists and Hollywood hacks alike. The audience’s taste was thus guided in the direction of pseudo-realism. The look of natural reality isn't the point, but the feel of it is. For instance, Lord of the Rings' fantasy isn't close to our reality in any significant way, but there's a sense of material credulity that satisfies modern audience's limited suspension of disbelief.

To speak of such matters in the context of a flimsily plotted musical populated by cat-human hybrids probably sounds preposterous. That said, I firmly believe the movie of the Broadway smash Cats would be altogether less horrifying if it had embraced the artifice and theatricality of its premise...

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