Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2004: Results

10. Daniel Wu in New Police Story - Wu makes for a pretty whiny and obnoxious villain. Not in a way that works either. 

Best Scene: Last "duel".

9. Cameron Bright in Birth - Bright delivers on the specific hollow note asked of him but never makes an impact beyond that. 

Best Scene: Being challenged.

8. Tim Meadows in Mean Girls - Meadows finds the right tone for the material hitting his comedic marks while still being believable. 

Best Scene: Riot control.

7. William Hurt in The Village - Hurt manages to deliver what dramatic heft he can from the tricky material even if it only allows him to go so far with it. 

Best Scene: Explaining his decision. 

6. Bud Cort in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - Cort gets the most out of his unusual role being both funny but also finding his own little arc as the surprisingly supportive "bond company stooge". 

Best Scene: Human being. 

5. Billy Bob Thornton in The Alamo - Thornton is the most interesting part of his film finding honesty in his deconstruction of man who knows he doesn't live up to his "living legend" status. 

Best Scene: Talking to Bowie. 

4. Nick Nolte in Clean - Nolte gives a very quiet and moving portrayal of man managing his own grief while also trying to honestly negotiate between family members dealing with the same loss. 

 

Best Scene: Important talk with his grandson.

3. Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2 - Molina manages to thrive within the idea of the comic book villain while still providing essential grounding to provide balance. 

Best Scene: Finale. 

2. Peter O'Toole in Troy - O'Toole provides honest gravitas to tricky material and even more importantly emotional truth. 

Best Scene: Priam speaks to Achilles. 

1. Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice - Good predictions Omar, Tony, Bryan, Shaggy, Tybalt, Tahmeed, Ytrewq, Luke, Robert, Harris, Maciej, Tim, RatedRStar, My top three of the year all are dealing with tricky material. O'Toole finding life in material that so many become stiff and awkward from. Hoffman finding genuine comedy even when so much of the attempted comedy around him is falling flat. Then Pacino who is in a slightly different situation in that he's dealing with Shakespeare however trying to accentuate a certain context many would argue was not intended in the original material. Pacino though excelling in this alternative approach and finding humanity within his "villain". Although I still settle on Hoffman. Because honestly being good in the bad comedy is a particularly rare occurrence and it's notable while I still found his film largely unfunny, I still laughed thanks to Hoffman. And really put say Dan Fogler, or even Jack Black into that role, I don't think they would've escaped the mediocrity let alone make the mediocrity into something that actually worked.  

Best Scene: "Do we not Bleed" 

Updated Overall

Next: 1953 Lead

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2004: Tim Meadows in Mean Girls

Tim Meadows did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Mr. Ron Duvall in Mean Girls. 

Mean Girls follows girls being mean.

Tim Meadows plays the principal of the school where the various teenage cliques clash. SNL alum Tim Meadows very much set out not to be any sort of strict principal of maybe past High School films and instead a largely comedic presence. Although I will say Meadows’s performance is fairly artful in the tone he manages here, which I wouldn’t say is strictly realistic but is convincing as the principal even often used in a comedic sense. Meadows in the more comedic moments playing well the essentially put on smile where his eyes seem just slightly dying inside during the basic school functions and notably at the end of the film where he attempts in vain to cut short the dramatic speech of our protagonist, where every one of his deliveries of “you really don’t need to make a speech” is pretty great in his effortless combination of cordiality with the strong undercurrent of someone saying “shut up and get off the stage”. Meadows’s performance has a bit more to it than that however in playing that convincing part of the high school principal a bit more genuinely. 

As we see his certain exasperation at the nonsense of his student population which is funny, but there is enough of a dignified manner to still be convincing beyond that. Particularly a moment where Rachel McAdams’s villainous queen bee Regina George shares her one burn book, though altered to make it look like it’s not hers, with his Mr. Duvall. Meadows plays the comedy in his eyes of deciphering what she’s up to, but with enough of a genuine pause when asking about the books noting that the high school coach was making out with students. Something that comes later where not too much is made out of the moment, but Meadows is good in bringing a low key gravitas when firmly instructing the coach to stay away from the underage girls. On a similar though slightly lighter note his annoyed delivery about leaving southside only to deal with the girl riot from the burn book, is amusing but does have a bit of weight to it, followed by his commanding requirement that all the girls go to the assembly. Followed by his fairly hilarious yet still pointed way of setting up the “peace talks” essentially, where he brings a certain grace, but with also comedy in his casual threat switch from “well keep you all night” to “well keep you to four” however with the same conviction. A conviction that perhaps is a bit lost when trying to talk to the girls immediately runs into discussion of the menstrual cycle, and Meadows’s overwhelmed reaction to passing the buck again is pretty good. The only note I’m pretty ambivalent to in this performance is the relationship between Mr. Duvall and math teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey). Where we get Mr. Duvall slightly awkwardly asks her if she needs to talk about things, then we see them silently slow dancing together. I don’t think it’s bad, I don’t think Meadows performs poorly either, it’s just kind of there for me. Otherwise though this is a good well attuned performance, that delivers on the right tone, as he’s funny but also still believable. 

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2004

 And the Nominees Were Not:

Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice

Peter O'Toole in Troy

William Hurt in The Village

Nick Nolte in Clean

Billy Bob Thornton in The Alamo

Predict These Five, Those Five Or Both.

Tim Meadows in Mean Girls

Daniel Wu in New Police Story

Cameron Bright in Birth

Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2

Bud Cort in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou