Supporting Actor 1988

There's a whopper in this category with Guinness having a 6 hour film to watch. Ugh. The rest should be interesting to watch, some names I definitely want to check out. Let's see how this all plays out.

1988 Best Supporting Actor

Kevin Kline - A Fish Called Wanda

Though this isn't really a great comparison, this reminds me of Robert Downey Jr getting nominated for Tropic Thunder. By that I mean, two comedies that don't seem like they would ever really get some Academy love get a Supporting nomination (and win here) on the strength of their actors' charisma and charm and humor. Kevin Kline is great. He is seriously very funny and reminds me a great deal of Errol Flynn. He has that swashbuckler charm and look and seems like an All-American guy. And he's extremely likable even when he plays a jewel thief with a temper as he does in this film. There's very little to no subtlety in Kline's performance and that is part of what makes it so entertaining and great. He's very sarcastic and responds to things in a very broad, exaggerated way. He pushes people's buttons and for whatever reason Kline makes it work without it ever becoming grating or offensive - it's just hilarious stuff. His comedic timing is impeccable and it helps that he has some of the Monty Python guys to act opposite from. I'm happy to see a comedic performance rewarded, especially when it's a worthy one. He's got a lot of great scenes but I like when he gets real serious anytime someone calls him stupid and during the fish eating scene when he interrogates Michael Palin's character. It's a performance you can watch and be entertained by and just enjoy that it's not trying too hard or is gunning for an Oscar. The more I see of Kline, the more I really enjoy him as an actor. I'm very glad he won an Oscar for this role.

Alec Guinness - Little Dorrit

Holy shit this "film!" This is actually a 6 hour plus miniseries that was on the BBC that got released in the States as two separate films. It was extremely hard for me to find to watch that I had to actually rent it from Amazon. Not really something I wanted to spend money on. And let's be real, this is the Academy getting one last chance to nominate Guinness and doing so for a monster of a "film." He plays Little Dorrit's father and is in a debtor's prison and has been their for 20 plus years. A man takes a liking to his youngest daughter Amy, the Little in the title, and looks into his situation. Eventually it is discovered that he has inherited a large estate worth a bunch and is let out of prison. He dies soon after, or at least in the film soon after, I don't know how much time actually passed. This is not a performance that is amazing by any means. Guinness plays an old man and does fine with it but that's all the role really is. The conceit of the film is that the first part is from the guy, Arthur Clennem's point of view and then the second part is from Little Dorrit herself's point of view. We see some of the same scenes from different views, so we get the same stuff from Guinness twice. If you ever watch this Dickens adaptation, you'll wonder what was so worthy about the performance to nominate it just like I did. I wish these veteran/career noms at least were for great performances and not ones where the actor did his job as well as he should. I like Guinness but this was non entity as far as his career goes. Don't suffer through this like I did.

Martin Landau - Tucker: The Man and His Dream

This was Landau's first Oscar nomination but doesn't it feel like he's had a few before this? With this being the first, it also feels like this was the primer for Landau's future nominations. And it really does feel like he was gunning for an Oscar in retrospect. Nothing wrong with that. Landau is pretty fantastic here. He's the businessman that helps bankroll Jeff Bridges' dream of making a futuristic car outside of the big three manufacturers. It's a pretty fascinating look at how the government and America can discredit innovation. It's happening now with Tesla. The usual suspects are fighting hard to fuck over Tesla in every way possible because they aren't Ford or Chevy or GMC. And they HATE that you can buy direct from the company and not get totally fucked buying from a dealer with their thousands of dollars in fees. Anyway, Landau is like a sidekick and sticks by Bridges through thick and thin. He kinda steers him away from excess and keeps him focused and it's a really good supporting performance. It's nothing worth getting super excited about, it just gets the job done. Thing is the performance isn't much. He's just supporting and doesn't add much overall. Landau is good but not amazing and will eventually become worthy of an Oscar - just not yet.

River Phoenix - Running on Empty

The thing about this nomination is that it is straight up category fraud. Phoenix is the lead of this film and is in almost every scene. Hardly supporting. I assume it's because he's a young actor and the Academy would rather relegate the youth to Supporting rather than bump someone from Leading. But thing is again, not sure this is good enough to compete in Leading. You look at it in this category and it sorta fits because it isn't as strong but it's still Phoenix's film. He plays a teen who is constantly on the move because his parents blew up a lab in the 70s to fight the Vietnam War like a bunch of assholes. He is also a gifted musician, playing the piano. He just wants to be normal. Phoenix is charismatic. He's like a bonafide movie star. People have compared him to James Dean and I don't quite see it here, but I get the comparison. He's very moody and doesn't say much but that shouldn't translate into a great performance, you need to do a little more. He might be the lead but he never really drives the action. The ending is touching but doesn't exactly feel too sappy which is nice. It's a decent performance just in the wrong category and it's a shame that we didn't get to see him have a long career. Worth a watch if you're interested in seeing Joaquin's older brother and see what could have been.

Dean Stockwell - Married to the Mob

Not gonna lie, I love Dean Stockwell. Quantum Leap is one of my favorite shows and I loved his character on that show. Didn't realize until this project that he was also a once nominated Oscar actor and was eager to see how he was in this one. The same can be said for a lot of TV people that I never knew had big film careers before and were nominated at times for an Oscar. It's fun going back through the years and seeing all the young actors in films that you've seen on TV shows recently. Anyway, Stockwell plays Tony 'The Tiger' Russo, a mob boss in this comedy. It's actually a similar character to his Quantum Leap one, since he keeps a cigar handy and uses it in the same way. The film is pretty funny and Matthew Modine is hilarious at times as the FBI agent that is tracking Stockwell. Stockwell doesn't exactly do anything too amazing, he plays the mob boss hits on Michelle Pfeiffer after he kills her husband, Alec Baldwin. He essentially plays the character straight while everyone else around him adds comedic effect. I like the film and the performance, though I know it's not a winner or anything special. It's just a lot of fun to watch him do his thing, ya know? Stockwell is also in Tucker: The Man and His Dream so I feel like that certainly comes into play with this nomination. Martin Landau got nominated for that one so it makes sense Stockwell is nominated for this. You are going to watch this and say I don't see the big deal and that's fine but sometimes it's just about catching lightning in a bottle and being a likable bad guy. I'm glad Stockwell was nominated here.


An alright group. Kline was a surprise on Oscar night which is always fun. I agree with the Academy on him being the winner. His performance is just a lot of fun and very funny. It's good to see comedy rewarded every now and then. Landau is my second  because he's perfectly supporting and does more than Stockwell. It's nothing flashy and he does a good job which is about all you can say. Stockwell is third because I like him as an actor and he's decent enough with two others that come in behind him. Phoenix is fourth simply because he's a lead performance in supporting. He's very good but I can't vote for him in this category. Sucks he had to die so young because I would have loved to see how he evolved over the years. Guinness is last because his is a veteran nomination and not that great and it made me watch a 6 hour film. I'll hate it just because of that. Like I said, an alright group, nothing amazing and could have been better but at least an interesting performance won. Now let's move on.

Oscar Winner: Kevin Kline - A Fish Called Wanda
My Winner:  Kevin Kline - A Fish Called Wanda
Martin Landau
Dean Stockwell
River Phoenix
Alec Guinness