Thursday, January 26, 2012

OH, YOU ONLY FIGHT THE FIGHTS YOU CAN WIN? YOU FIGHT THE FIGHTS THAT NEED FIGHTING!  Following up on yesterday's discussion, which has links to various lists in the comments, let's try to figure out who is the best living actor or actress to have never been nominated for an Academy Award.

For all of our Alan Rickman sympathy, yesterday's discussion suggested four other names perhaps higher on that list: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mr. Steve Martin, Martin Sheen, and Jim Carrey -- and while I don't think of Carrey as being a great actor, between his performances in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Man on the Moon, and The Truman Show ... how has he not been nominated yet?

52 comments:

  1. Joseph Finn8:59 AM

    Naomi Watts immediately came to mind as worthy of discussion, but I see she was nominated in 2004 for something called 21 Grams.

    Now, I like Carey's performances, but I have to toss someone ahead of him in the queue: Sam Rockwell.  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Moon, Assassination of Jesses James and then the comedy stuff like Galexy Guest (Guy I find an oddly fascinating creation) and Hitchhikers Guide (not a great movie, but I can watch his Zaphod a lot).  He's starting to seriously hit the "why the hell hasn't he receieved a nomination yet?" status.

    (Incidentally, I loved finding out from Aisha Tyler's Girl on Guy podcast this week that she, Margaret Cho and Rockwell all went to high school together and he was doing sketch and stand up work back then.)

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  2. isaac_spaceman11:01 AM

    Of the six names I see above, only Jennifer Jason Leigh surprises me, and that only a bit.  Rickman, who I love, has done great work in cartoonish parts (cartoon bad guys; mean wizards) or parts too small to be showy.  Martin was a comedian (rarely nominated) until he began playing a bland man of a certain age in parts that easily could have been filled as capably by any of a number of other bland actors of a certain age.  Martin Sheen's movie career favors quantity over quality, and I can't even think of a nominatable performance by him after Apocalypse Now.  One could argue that he should have been nominated for that (certainly over Duvall for the same film, and certainly over the kid from Kramer vs. Kramer), and I would agree, but that's an entirely different discussion than "greatest actor never to have been nominated."  Rockwell I love, but he hasn't worked often enough in the combinations of right movie/right role to be able to claim surprise at the lack of nominations at this stage in his career.  Jim Carrey is a terrible actor. 

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  3. KCosmo11:28 AM

    I read "Martin Sheen" as "Martin Short" and could not for the love of God figure out why the hell Adam thought he should be above Alan Rickman on the deserving-of-an-Oscar list.

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  4. Naturally, my list of people who have been nominated but never won is much longer - but that's another topic.  A couple of names that come to mind here: Hugh Grant and John Cusack.  Hugh could/should have been nominated for 4 Weddings or About a Boy or Sense and Sensibility or Bridget Jones.  Cusack should have been nominated for Bullets Over Broadway, or possibly Being John Malkovich.  (I also loved him in High Fidelity, of course, but that's not really an Oscar-nomination kind of movie...)

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  5. Hmm. Maybe The Departed?

    For Martin, I'm thinking more about Roxanne and All of Me than anything thereafter.

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  6. Heh... I did the EXACT same thing, and could not figure out why anybody would think Ed Grimley was Oscar-worthy.

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  7. I agree, Grant should have had one for About A Boy.  That's a really great performance.

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  8. Jordan12:36 PM

    Badlands maybe?  Although that was a tough year.  Nicholson, Brando, Pacino and Redford all were nominated and LOST!

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  9. I knew it would never, never, ever happen but I SO wanted Rockwell up for "Moon."  He IS that movie - I mean, he's pretty much the only actor on screen for the ENTIRE film.  And if you don't believe his performance 100% there's NO WAY a movie like that works.  And it's SUCH a good movie because he gives SUCH a good performance.  It's smart and funny and heartbreaking and one of my all-time favorite films.

    HOWEVER, if I'm being entirely honest, this is the moment I fell in love forever and ever with Sam Rockwell.  (There's a DVD extra that's an extended version of this scene, using Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" that's even better.)

    Related: Sam Rockwell: Dancing Machine
    http://www.youtube.com/v/SB7Vb2_QpA0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140

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  10. bristlesage12:48 PM

    I was surprised at the time that Cusack didn't get any love for Grosse Point Blank

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  11. It took years, but I'm now firmly on the Colin Farrell bandwagon - and I was surprised to look on imdb and see he didn't get nominated for "In Bruges."

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  12. Rickman, like others on these lists, seems destined to be a recognized great actor who just hasn't found the right vehicle at the right time.  I thought he was wonderful in Sense and Sensibility and, like Hugh Grant, could have easily been nominated (and Winslet should have won).  But that and things like Truly Madly Deeply are ages ago; how I wish he'd do the kind of thing he does on TV back on the big screen.

    And as for Carrey, I can usually take-or-leave, but if his performance in The Truman Show had been done by a "serious" actor, it would have been instant award-bait.

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  13. bristlesage1:05 PM

    Oh, man, no joke.  He worked too much for awhile there, but now we've reached appropriate Farrell Saturation Levels, and that performance was lights out.  Hell, I love that whole movie.

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  14. I also did the exact same thing! I didn't even realize my mistake when reading Isaac's comment. I just thought, "I had NO IDEA Martin Short was in Apocalypse Now." It took reading Kim's comment for me to straighten things out. No idea what's come over our collective minds today.

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  15. Carrie1:27 PM

    For Steve Martin: Shopgirl, The Spanish Prisoner, L.A. Story

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  16. Carrie1:28 PM

    Rickman was sublime in Sense & Sensibility

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  17. Watts1:39 PM

    Of course, I also would have liked to have seen Brendan Gleeson nominated.  And maybe even Ralph Fiennes - cuz he was effin' terrifying.

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  18. Peter Saarsgard in pretty much everything. Especially Shattered Glass and Boys Don't Cry. 

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  19. Emily2:06 PM

    I was surprised that Guy Pearce hadn't received a nomination. He's done some awful movies, but he has done a considerable amount of excellent work playing both major and minor characters (Memento, LA Confidential, Factory GirlPriscilla, The King's Speech, The Hurt Locker).

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  20. Daniel Fienberg2:26 PM

    Look at Donald Sutherland's CV for the '70s and this discussion is pretty much over. "MASH." "Klute." "Don't Look Now." "Animal House." "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." And then on to "Ordinary People," "A Dry White Season," "Six Degrees of Separation" and "Pride & Prejudice."

    The sheer number of actors and actresses who have been nominated for and won Oscars for playing opposite Sutherland in films that are considered classics and he didn't get a single random nomination over all of those years?

    That's crazy.

    -Daniel

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  21. Jerry Lewis?

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  22. AndreaJ3:14 PM

    I'm really looking forward to Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe later this year in The Raven. Maybe that will be Oscarworthy next year?

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  23. isaac_spaceman3:33 PM

    That would have been, um, a different movie. Though in my head I can see Grimley's reaction to SPOILER ALERT FOR 1979 FILM Chef's head dropping in his lap. 

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  24. Missa3:39 PM

    Write it off to the power of suggestion.  When your brain read "Steve Martin and Martin ____", it did not expect Sheen.  It just filled in the most appropriate Martin.

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  25. isaac_spaceman3:50 PM

    I'm on board with Sutherland being the provisional leader in this category, but I don't think it's in any way due to the strength of his performances in Animal House or Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Don't get me wrong, I either love or loved those movies in their own time, but neither of them is really a "what an amazing performance by Donald Sutherland" movie. 

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  26. Has the Hersholt, but never nominated for a competitive award.  Good call.

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  27. I had thought Jennifer Jason Leigh was nominated for "Georgia."  Guess not - but she should have been.  It was a tough performance to watch, but excellent.

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  28. Watts4:30 PM

    Well, and given how the Academy loves people in a biopic, you might've thought she'd get a nod for her Dorothy Parker.

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  29. Watts4:44 PM

    Proving that even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, the Golden Globes has done better by Donald Sutherland than the Academy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000661/awards Nominated for M*A*S*H, Ordinary People, and Without Limits.  The BAFTAs did him the solid on Don't Look Now.

    Surely he's got to be edging into the Don Ameche Give Him a Supporting Actor Award Before He Dies territory? (Ameche's first and only nomination and win was when he was 77. Sutherland turns 77 this year - Let's see if Hunger Games does the trick for him.)

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  30. Watts4:49 PM

    I always wondered if the many, many excellent performances by men in L.A. Confidential didn't cancel each other out - I mean, Crowe, Spacey, Cromwell, Pearce... even Strathairn could all have had a legitimate shot at deserving the award. 

    And, yes, I'm still bitter about it losing to Titanic.

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  31. The Other Kate4:53 PM

    In Bruges did get a Best Screenplay nom, which is nice to remember. But yeah, Farrell, Gleeson, and Fiennes were ALL wonderful.

    Ahem: "You --king retract that bit about my c--t f--ing kids!"

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  32. At least in the first Hunger Games book, Sutherland's part is really small.  That said, he gets some stuff that could be very showy in the second book/film that could have been moved to the end of the first film.

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  33. Genevieve5:13 PM

    Mare Winningham was nominated for "Georgia," but not Leigh.  A rare instance of the Academy going for the less-showy part (which isn't to criticize Leigh, who played her part very well, just to say that her part was the kind that they tend to nominate).

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  34. Deserved it for The King of Comedy, for sure.

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  35. Watts5:24 PM

    When looking at his 2012 releases, Hunger Games seemed to be the only that would REMOTELY have any award possibility for him.  But maybe one of his two projects with Christian Slater this year will surprise.

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  36. isaac_spaceman6:44 PM

    That's my favorite movie, and I would put the order of male acting performances for the people you listed as Pearce, Crowe, Space, Cromwell, large gap, Strathairn.  Strathairn just wasn't in the movie all that much and didn't have to do much other than pretend to be David Niven.  [SPOILER ALERTS:] If they gave bit-part Oscars (the Dame Judi Dench Oscar), I might even rank Niven third in that movie, behind Salim Grant (kid who pees himself confessing to the Nite Owl murders, but you know how I overvalue TNBC alumni) and Simon Baker (actor/hustler), about tied with Ron Rifkin (DA), and ahead of Danny DeVito (lowlife). 

    But ITA about it not winning Best Picture.

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  37. StvMg7:01 PM

    I was surprised Scarlett Johansson didn't get nominated for either Lost in Translation or Match Point.

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  38. Slowlylu7:10 PM

    That sidesplitter article above made me think of Harold Ramis. Now there is someone who should've been nominated for an Oscar and wasn't.

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  39. Joseph Finn7:19 PM

    The...hell?  He's the one guy on this list I actually clicked over to his IMDB page and checked that to make sure you were right, as the idea that Sutherland has never been nominated seen insane to me.

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  40. J.O'Connor7:30 PM

    Surprised no one has yet mentioned Jeff Daniels who could/should have been nominated for Terms of Endearment, Purple Rose of Cairo, and The Squid and the Whale.  Sort of like Donald Sutherland, in that he's been very good in a lot of in well regarded and highly nominated movies, but because he acts without prostheses, accents, or death scenes, tends to get overlooked.<span>
    </span>

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  41. Screenwriting (and directing) for Groundhog Day, sure, but I think of that as a particularly glaring one-time snub rather than a career-spanning HUH?

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  42. Eric J.7:50 PM

    Now <span>there's</span> a reason to release The Day the Clown Cried.

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  43. Assuming Newsroom is good, he'd seem to be a contender for an Emmy nod next year or the year after (depending on when it airs) though that category is stacked this year with Cranston, Hamm, Hall, Olyphant, Buscemi all returning, plus it likely being Hugh Laurie's last season of House.

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  44. I think this is a great point, though looking at his IMDb, it's obvious he doesn't care about awards recognition. 

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  45. 2 Golden Globe nominations: Squid and the Whale and Something Wild. He's had a very solid career.

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  46. D'Arcy8:31 PM

    Yep. LOVED him in that movie!

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  47. Heather k8:58 PM

    Didn't he get a supporting nod for Tigerland like right out of the gates?

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  48. KCosmo11:04 PM

    That HAS to be how it happened.  Great explanation!

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  49. Watts3:41 PM

    There was buzz about Tigerland, but no Oscar nom.

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  50. Daniel Fienberg3:43 PM

    Isaac - "Animal House" is a classic of the genre and benefits greatly from Sutherland's performance. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a classic of the genre and benefits greatly from Sutherland's performance. I included them not so much because he should have been nominated for either movie/performance, but only as illustrations/reminders of the number of classics on Sutherland's resume and how said classics should have burnished his resume for eventual notice. 

    The "Ordinary People" snub will always be the strangest to me. Is it his best performance? No. But Oscar voters that year felt like it was they best movie of the year. They felt like three OTHER actors deserved Oscar nominations. But no Sutherland. Probably he got hosed because Hutton, unquestionably the lead actor in that movie, went "Supporting," leaving Sutherland, obviously supporting, gunning for lead. That was a great year for lead actors and obviously DeNiro for "Raging Bull" and John Hurt for "Elephant Man" are unimpeachable... Jack Lemmon in "Tribute" is pure pandering and Peter O'Toole should have been supporting for "The Stunt Man."

    But anywho... I pity poor Donald.

    -Daniel

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  51. Watts3:43 PM

    If the Oscars were like the Emmys, Strathairn would be at the "Guest Star" level, but his performance really stuck with me for some reason.

    Crowe had the showier role, but Pearce's required more subtlety, so even though I agree with your ranking, I can't help but think the Academy would've preferenced Crowe between the two.

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  52. Joseph Finn10:21 PM

    Aaaand, now I need to watch Pleasentville again.

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