Best Supporting Actor 2012

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Who among Oscar's list of nominees is your pick for Best Supporting Actor of 2012?

Alan Arkin - Argo
2
6%
Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook
4
13%
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
12
38%
Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
10
31%
Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained
4
13%
 
Total votes: 32

Sabin
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Sabin »

MaxWilder wrote
Sabin wrote
The grossest offender of the repeat winner boy's club was Alan Arkin who gave a very funny performance that might seem slightly more nomination worthy had he not won for Little Miss Sunshine for essentially the same work.
You’re being very kind. He was nominated for a single line of dialogue. It’s possibly the worst nomination ever.
If you like Argo enough to call it the best film of the year, you probably like Alan Arkin enough to give him a nomination. I'm certainly not in either camp but it's not mistifying.. That being said, the three performers that probably came closest to a nomination but missed out (Javier Bardem for Skyfall, Leonardo DiCaprio for Django Unchained, and Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike) would all be sufficiently honored in due time.

That being said, I do wish that the Academy had just gotten it over with and honored Leonardo DiCaprio here. It would've been another movie star winning for slumming it a supporting role but it's a far better representation of his talents than The Revenant and it's certainly a memorable role. Although I like the work that Tarantino got from him in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood even more.
MaxWilder wrote
I like Waltz just fine but would have voted for PSH. Of course, that’s easy to say in hindsight. We expected many, many more nominations in his future. :(
A ridiculous loss.

It's strange in hindsight that Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn't nominated at all for the first half of his career where he played his most memorable, inward sad sacks (Boogie Nights, Happiness, Magnolia). He only got nominated during the second half of his career, the acclaimed character actor phase where he generally played more theatrical, outward parts. But yes, he should've won for The Master, the best of his nominated performances, and in my mind a performance of such clarity and quality that the rest of the film is always trying to catch up with but never quite reaches.
MaxWilder wrote
Django and Hollywood are his best performances. This is pure conjecture but did he decline to campaign for Django? It’s obvious best supporting actor is not the award he spent years chasing.
Yep, he campaigned for Best Supporting Actor. I'm not sure how enthusiastically he did because the film screened for the first time rather late (I'm not sure it was seen before December), and barely screened for SAG voters, and within a month and change of being seen for the first time, he was ignored by Academy voters. Leonardo DiCaprio IMO has the greatest track record of any actor today of delivering performances that likely almost get nominated for Oscars but didn't.
MaxWilder wrote
I need to revisit Wanderlust (liked it at the time). Wasn’t it a 2011 release, though?
It's 2012. It's not a great film but it's quite funny. There's a scene with Paul Rudd that is incredibly funny.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by MaxWilder »

mojoe92 wrote:I do not like Leonardo Di Caprio at all, I don't think he's a good actor what so ever. But I will say, he truly deserved to win this year for Django. I think it was a complete shitty snub for him not to be nominated or win...
...
Alternatives
3-Justin Theroux- Wanderlust
Django and Hollywood are his best performances. This is pure conjecture but did he decline to campaign for Django? It’s obvious best supporting actor is not the award he spent years chasing.

Serious question: Did anyone choose him in 2015 on the basis of his performance? If Glenn Close wins this year, surely some people will have admired the performance. Leo’s win had virtually nothing to do with acting. He had to suffer for it. It would have been joke had he won for playing a debauched rich guy married to Margot Robbie. Half the town would have done that role for the SAG minimum.

I need to revisit Wanderlust (liked it at the time). Wasn’t it a 2011 release, though?
Last edited by MaxWilder on Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by MaxWilder »

Sabin wrote:The grossest offender of the repeat winner boy's club was Alan Arkin who gave a very funny performance that might seem slightly more nomination worthy had he not won for Little Miss Sunshine for essentially the same work.
You’re being very kind. He was nominated for a single line of dialogue. It’s possibly the worst nomination ever.

I like Waltz just fine but would have voted for PSH. Of course, that’s easy to say in hindsight. We expected many, many more nominations in his future. :(
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Sabin »

Subsequent re-viewings of Django Unchained and The Master propel Philip Seymour Hoffman to my choice.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by mojoe92 »

I voted for De Niro here. The best in an extremely weak line-up.

I do not like Leonardo Di Caprio at all, I don't think he's a good actor what so ever. But I will say, he truly deserved to win this year for Django. I think it was a complete shitty snub for him not to be nominated or win...

My choices

1- Leonardo Di Caprio- Django Unchained
2- Dwight Henry- Beasts of the Southern Wild
3- Robert De Niro- Silver Linings Playbook
4- Matthias Schoenaerts- Rust & Bone
5- Christopher Walken- Seven Psychopaths

Alternatives
1- Dane DeHaan- Lawless
2- Thomas Haden Church- Killer Joe
3-Justin Theroux- Wanderlust
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by ITALIANO »

I don't think one can really complain about Christoph Waltz getting an Oscar - he's after all a clearly talented actor, one who has taken a long time before finally becoming (deservedly) famous, and maybe because he's European he has I believe the right approach to the movies and the characters Tarantino gives to him - he seems to enjoy himself, and he acts as if he has REALLY seen the B movies his directors openly uses as a model. But then it's true that he's almost a co-lead in Django and that this was essentially a variation on the same performance he won his first Oscar for. But most importantly, he wasn't the best of these five.

I think it's between Tommy Lee Jones and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I've voted for Hoffman - for two reasons. I liked The Master more than Lincoln - I actually think that The Master is a complex and fascinating movie, of the kind we don't get to see often these days. And also - I know that I said it before - I think that Hoffman is really one of the absolute best actors working in films today - and for once I'm not just talking about American movies. And this may be his best nominated performance till now.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by bizarre »

Niels Arestrup / Our Children
* James Franco / Spring Breakers
Kai Malina / Lore
Ezra Miller / The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Yu Jun-sang / In Another Country
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by mlrg »

voted for Hoffman
The Original BJ
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by The Original BJ »

NOTE: Edited in 2016 to reject category fraud.

I think my biggest disappointment on Oscar nom morning was the exclusion of Matthew McConaughey, who sold his Magic Mike showman with great energy, humor, and pathos. I wasn't surprised that more respected actors in more respected movies placed instead, but this year, his work stood above a number of them. I also thought Leonardo DiCaprio was the Django Unchained standout -- his charismatic villain was a real change of pace for the actor, who I'm finding more and more exciting as the years go by.

As for his nominated costar, I found his performance enjoyable -- he has a fun character and, as Sabin said, he's clearly having a good time with the role. But I didn't find it different enough from his Inglourious Basterds work that I wanted him to win another Oscar for it. It was certainly more fresh than the default-to-villain mode he'd been pigeonholed in after Basterds (in stuff like Water for Elephants), but I think I want to see what else he can do outside of Tarantino's world before I vote for him again. (In contrast, I think Dianne Wiest's two winning Woody Allen roles show far more range.) It's also a HUGE part -- I know Waltz disappears for the last act, but he drives so much of the movie it really does seem odd to see him in the supporting category.

Alan Arkin delivers some solid laughs in Argo, though this performance is also well within the range of the curmudgeonly thing Arkin has been doing for the last few years. I like him a lot more here than in Little Miss Sunshine -- probably just because I think his work here is in service of more interesting material -- but the performance isn't nearly substantial enough to choose as the winner.

Robert De Niro got a lot of credit for the fact that he turned in an actual performance after so many years of coasting...but I don't think that's anything to dismiss. It's De Niro, at one point a very formidable actor, finally creating another well-rounded, human character. He's a pretty funny, lively presence in Silver Linings, who has strong chemistry with both Weaver and Cooper throughout, and then he gets one really solid dramatic scene that makes an impact. I don't think the work was striking enough that I wanted him to win another Oscar -- in the grand scheme of his career, it's a minor triumph -- but I thought this nomination was well deserved.

As in so many of these races, I come down to a choice between my favorite supporting actor of the year, and an actor who I think would have been more appropriately placed in lead. Tommy Lee Jones is the former, and I think Lincoln might contain my favorite performance of his. He's a strong, intelligent presence throughout the film, with a gruff determination and, despite the actor's reputation for grouchiness, a welcome sense of humor. Jones's character is the one who best embodies one of the film's main spirits -- that the political is also the personal -- and his fierceness in passing the amendment no matter the moral sacrifices gives the film a lot of its contemporary relevance. I was rooting for his mostly-predicted win on Oscar night, and was a little disappointed he lost.

I think Philip Seymour Hoffman gives the finest performance on the ballot, though I also think he's a co-lead. I know Hoffman doesn't enter the movie until some minutes in, but once he appears, he goes toe to toe with Phoenix throughout, and for much of the second act, it seemed to me that HE was the dominant one driving the narrative. And he's fantastic, in a performance where the actor brings his big, full-bodied style of acting to a character as appropriately outsize as Lancaster Dodd. The comparisons to Burt Lancaster/Elmer Gantry weren't undeserved -- both actors play men who hide the basic vapidness of their message with the sheer intensity of their delivery. And I think this disturbing charlatan is the finest creation of Hoffman's career so far.

Although Hoffman isn't the worst case of fraud around, I'll still say that Jones is more clearly supporting and thus the best choice.
Last edited by The Original BJ on Fri Aug 19, 2016 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by ksrymy »

I voted for Waltz for almost the same exact reasons as Sabin said.

1. Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
2. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
3. Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
4. Simon Russell Beale, The Deep Blue Sea
5. Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild

6. Matthew McConaughey, Bernie
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Sabin »

Yes, and it's too thoughtful and complex a moment for John Williams' sledgehammer. To be fair, Williams tones down his sledgehammer considerably in this film.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Eric »

Sabin wrote:One of the worst decisions in Lincoln is Spielberg's choice to let John Williams' overwhelm Tommy Lee Jones' courthouse lie as if it was a huge emotional moment and not a betrayal of everything the character believes.
Disagree. The movie clearly thinks the greater good is serviced by this private capitulation. Whether or not you agree is obviously open for debate, but Spielberg/Kushner intend for this to be a moment of selflessness and enlightenment, while at the same time recognizing that there is an internal, necessary betrayal on his part.
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Re: Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Sabin »

The grossest offender of the repeat winner boy's club was Alan Arkin who gave a very funny performance that might seem slightly more nomination worthy had he not won for Little Miss Sunshine for essentially the same work. On the other hand, that didn't bother me with Christoph Waltz's Oscar-winning performance for Django Unchained. He is my choice. It's possible he gives a better performance in Django, or rather his character's choices makes 75% sense rather than Inglorious Basterds where it's really the flip of a coin. I wanted to like Django but once they get to Candy Land it becomes a fairly lazy experience for me. Everything before is a joy and it's largely because of Christoph Waltz. I think Marco wrote that he didn't know if Christoph was a great actor but he clearly enjoys acting a lot. I found that to be incredibly infectious.

His only real competition for me is Philip Seymour Hoffman who is terrific in The Master and gives the kind of performance I wish a stronger, more dramatized film had been written for. It might be his best nominated performance. Its only real competition in my mind would be his hysterical work in Charlie Wilson's War, which is less great acting and more a plummy part. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he got the fewest votes on Oscar night.

I got the sense that Tommy Lee Jones was going to lose, but I thought that Robert De Niro was going to be the winner, which a lot of wrong people said. Ultimately, the performance isn't that great. I prefer Jacki Weaver's work in Silver Linings Playbook. He taps into a fuddy-duddy fussiness that works surprisingly well for the film but it's not deserving of an Oscar. Tommy Lee Jones has some terrific scenes that make fresh use of his...specialized range. One of the worst decisions in Lincoln is Spielberg's choice to let John Williams' overwhelm Tommy Lee Jones' courthouse lie as if it was a huge emotional moment and not a betrayal of everything the character believes. It's possible that Tommy Lee Jones might be the best actor of these nominees (considering that the Robert De Niro of the 70s and early 80s died a long time ago) and I wouldn't have minded a win. But I was also pleased to see Christoph Waltz up there instead.

I would rather seen Waltz up alongside his co-star Samuel L. Jackson who gives a shocking performance the film doesn't entirely know what to do with but is the fantastic actor's most lucid work in ages. I found Javier Bardem to be the best Bond villain in ages, if ultimately he doesn't get a good enough final scene...almost like my constant refrain of "the script doesn't know what to do with him." On the other hand, everyone in Lincoln knows exactly what to do with James Spader who is quietly the film's playing a corpulent, corrupt shit-bird. Almost unrecognizable in this role, and with a terrific wardrobe to boot: a Costume Design win would have been preferable to it's Production Design win for Spader's clothes alone.

Best Supporting Actor
1. Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
2. Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
3. James Spader, Lincoln
4. Pierce Gagnon, Looper (forget about him. holy shit, this kid!)
5. Javier Bardem, Skyfall

(Special mention to Simon Russell Beane and Tom Hiddleston for The Deep Blue Sea, Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master, Bruce Willis for Moonrise Kingdom, Ezra Miller for Perks of Being a Wallflower, John Ortiz for Silver Linings Playbook, Sam Rockwell for Seven Psychopaths, Jason Clarke for Zero Dark Thirty.)
Last edited by Sabin on Sat Aug 17, 2019 1:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Best Supporting Actor 2012

Post by Big Magilla »

I have nothing against any of this year's nominees, or their performances, but nominating five former winners when there were never nominated alternatives does smack of an old boys' club mentality.

Of the newer contenders I very much liked Eddie Redmayne in Les Misérables and Ezra Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Redmayne is an actor I've liked in just about everything I've seen him in, but who knew he could sing, and not only sing but sing better than just about anyone else in the film? Miller is an actor I thought had potential after seeing him in the title role of We Need to Talk About Kevin, a film I loathed. In Perks he delivers on that potential with a strong, endearing performance.

I would have loved to have seen those two nominated over either Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro and/or Christoph Waltz.

To be fair, I did not see Waltz's performance in Django Unchained until after he won his Oscar. I just couldn't work up an appetite for another violent Tarantino flick in the film's theatrical release and waited for the DVD which I could watch in small does. As it turned out, I actually watched the whole thing in one sitting. I thought Waltz was the best thing about it, but I didn't really care for it.

Did I mention in other posts that I didn't really care for Silver Linings Playbook either? Yes, I think I may have. De Niro may give one of his few non-phoned in performances of recent decades, but I found his character to be a great big bore.

Alan Arkin is marvelous as the comic relief in Argo, but does he do anything we haven't seen him do before? Probably not, but what the heck, actors have been nominated for less.

The two best performances in this category, though, come from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tommy Lee Jones.

Hoffman does some of his best acting as the charismatic Dodd in The Master, but Tommy Lee Jones in one of his greatest roles as Thaddeus Stevens is even better in Lincoln and get my vote.

It's funny, but Stevens, who was a primary force behind the 13th amendment is practically invisible in other films about the 16th President. In fact, the character's only previously significant appearance on screen was as the 17th President's foe in the 1942 impeachment drama, Tennessee Johnson in which he was the portrayed as a villain played by Lionel Barrymore opposite Van Heflin as Andrew Johnson.

Jones gets my vote.
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