Supporting Actor 1986

Two nominees from one of my favorite films of all time and then three others I've never seen (yeah never saw Hoosiers, not really a basketball guy). Let's see if any of those three can even come close and if Caine is deserving or not.

1986 Best Supporting Actor

Michael Caine - Hannah and Her Sisters

Alright, so I've had beef with this performance before I ever saw it because it beat out the two guys from my favorite film for a long time. So I've irrationally hated this performance without ever seeing it, so I was pretty eager to finally watch it and see why the fuck it won. Well, I'm still waiting after finally seeing it. What exactly made this a winner? I can't for the life of me figure out why it won other than Berenger and Dafoe split the vote and a bunch of other dopes were duped into voting for this. I hate Michael Caine's other win for The Cider House Rules because it was a bullshit win, but this was an even more egregious win. Caine does nothing... nothing! to stand out. He is a poor surrogate for Woody Allen and portrays a man in love with his wife's sister. He's supposed to be this bumbling, charming guy but we are never given a reason to like him. I certainly didn't find him very interesting when his whole time is spent pathetically pining over Barbara Hershey, forcing her to like him, and then trying to amend things once he finally banged her. I just don't see what was worth a vote at all. I don't buy the charm, the bumbling persona. I really did think it was the worst part of the film, even worse than Woody Allen himself. I wanted to like it. I like Caine in almost all his other endeavors but his two Oscar wins are just brutal for me. I think they are wholly undeserved and I wish I could rectify them now. Mainly because I don't think Caine is very memorable in this film. Watch this film and tell me what you think stands out because I don't think it will be Caine. Maybe this was a make-up win from his previous nominations or because of the split, I don't know. I just know I didn't think Caine was anything special, yet he won. That's going to bug me forever. It's Caine playing Caine with a slight Woody Allen twist. If he doesn't win, I say it's a decent enough minor Caine nomination but he won. I will never let this go and will say this is the worst win in this category that I've encountered so far...and this is my favorite category!

Tom Berenger/Willem Dafoe - Platoon

These two are really that inseparable that I decided to combine their reviews in an Oscar Ballyhoo first. I wish I could give these guys both the win and I probably will in all honesty. They are the driving force of the film. You've got Good (Dafoe) and Evil (Berenger) battling it out in Vietnam for Charlie Sheen's soul. They are both really, really fucking good. I fell in love with this film at a young age and really enjoyed how Dafoe and Berenger were so different, yet so alike in many ways. I always slightly preferred Berenger simply because his role was the more complex of the two. Dafoe was more of the good version of a soldier and his part of the platoon liked to chill out and smoke dope and have a good time, waiting out their time before they could go home. Dafoe's SGT Elias is a guy who takes on one of the two different leadership styles. His is a more friendly, kinder, gentler role within the platoon, helping to guide the men without yelling and getting angry. He's kind and likeable and very sharp about the war and staying alive. Dafoe makes this realization that he's the good presence seem more subtle than it could have been. Berenger is obviously the evil/bad version of the soldier in Vietnam. SSG Barnes' leadership style is the tough love variety. At first he's the grizzled, scarred vet who has been there before and has seen a lot of shit and a lot of young privates come and go but then he devolves into a more personal hatred of Elias and the way everything is going. Barnes is the one who kills innocent civilians and clashes with Elias about this. Elias was obviously once very idealistic and hopeful about the war but we see that this idealism is growing weary and tired as he doesn't believe in what they are doing as much anymore but he still wants to protect his men and do the right thing on the battlefield - like not kill civilians. Berenger's performance shows what happens when the war and bureaucratic bullshit and multiple deployments and suicidal missions gets to a man. It becomes about his power over the war and the other men that really guides him at the end. He loses it in an almost Heart of Darkness type of way and becomes the villain even over the Vietcong. Meanwhile, Dafoe keeps his humanistic quality about him and even after he is killed goes out in a Christ-like fashion (he was phenomenal in The Last Temptation of Christ, by the way). That's where the slight edge goes to Berenger because he has to portray so many more emotions and that keep him as a human being but also as a murderous villain. Both of these actors' roles are complex and the film really is elevated because of their performances. Without these two guys, the film would suffer terribly. They are the film completely. There is just so much going on in both of their performances that I have no idea how a shitty Michael Caine performance could win besides vote splitting. I could watch both of these guys over and over in the film without ever getting tired and still find some new little nuance about their character that I hadn't seen before. They are both tremendous and deserved the Oscar.

Denholm Elliot - A Room with a View

Here's an interesting tidbit: Daniel Day-Lewis wasn't interested in campaigning for an Oscar nomination for this film and nixed ads being placed on his behalf. Elliot was more than willing to play the game and campaign and have ads for him. Sometimes it's that easy to figure out why someone was nominated. I'd honestly rather see DDL nominated because he's very good at the pretentious, stuffy upperclass guy he portrays. Elliot plays a middle to lower class older guy who doesn't exactly adhere to the common standards of the time. He is simply not the typical proper British person you'd expect in this story and era. He says what he wants and is more of a free spirited individual so he sticks out in the story for that. Elliot isn't really in the film all that much. We are introduced to him in the beginning when he speaks over a tour guide at an Italian vacation spot and just has a personality of someone that kinda does what he wants regardless of what society thinks. He is the father of the boy that Helena Bonham Carter falls in love with and is a supportive father and yeah, that's about all you can say. There is one scene towards the end of the film where he confronts Carter about denying her feelings for his son and trying to run from those feelings which clicks something inside her to make her realize her true feelings. Decent stuff, but minor stuff indeed. He just isn't given a whole lot to do within the story and that's why DDL would have been a much better nominee from the film. Now, Elliot was coming off three straight BAFTA wins and finally broke through with an Oscar nom, so this could be seen as a nod to his career at the moment and the work he had been doing recently. This isn't really any more than 4th or 5th for the category.

Dennis Hopper - Hoosiers

The first thing you have to talk about with this performance is that Hopper isn't really nominated for Hoosiers, no. He is nominated for Blue Velvet yet the Academy went with the more palatable film instead of the better performance. It's legit the only reason Hopper is nominated here. Hoosiers is a great sports film, probably the best basketball film I've ever seen and filmed by the guy who directed Rudy. Hopper is fine in this performance, though. He plays the town drunk who has an encyclopedic knowledge of basketball and it's history and catches the eye of Gene Hackman. He asks him to be an assistant coach and to help scout the other teams. There is friction because Hopper is an alcoholic and Hackman wants him to be sober around the team and Hopper has a hard time quitting. It's decent stuff. It's very sports movie trope stuff, absolutely. It's just made better by it being Hackman and Hopper. Once Hopper coaches, he doesn't do much else. He goes and gets drunk then bursts into a game and starts slurring and berating a ref and then goes to a recovery place. That's about it which is why you factor in the Blue Velvet aspect also. That performance is so memorable and messed up that you really get a sense of Hopper's range going from that to playing a drunk assistant coach in the beloved Hoosiers. It's crazy to think it is the same actor. You can't really vote for this because it's the wrong film but I'm fine with Hopper being nominated since it's his only acting nomination (he was nominated for Screenplay for Easy Rider).

Two of my favorite supporting actor nominees in one of my favorite films, it's a no-brainer who I want to win this year. I'd give a slight edge to Berenger if forced to pick a winner but I'd love for both of these guys to tie for the win. Caine is such a bad winner. Both of his wins are really bad wins. It makes me hate Caine even though he's a great actor. These wins are just really undeserved and it makes me angry. He basically is his usual self with a Woody Allen bent to it and it's nothing special. I'd rather take Hopper over Caine, even if he's nominated for the wrong film. He's good in Hoosiers but memorable and crazy in Blue Velvet. Elliot is an afterthought. The correct choice even if he didn't want to campaign is Daniel Day-Lewis. He leaves an impression unlike Elliot. Really wish this category turned out differently. Could have been one of the best winners, but instead we get Caine.

Oscar Winner: Michael Caine - Hannah and Her Sisters
My Winner:  Tom Berenger/Willem Dafoe - Platoon
Dennis Hopper
Michael Caine
Denholm Elliot