This may be a bit gossipy, but God help me I love cantankerous old actors. So, Gary Oldman, who was out promoting Criminal this week, was nominated for his only Oscar for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy back in 2011, one of many that he’s surely deserved over the years. He was nominated for Best Actor, and he seems genuinely proud of the film, which he compares to past Oscar winners Gone With The Wind and Lawrence Of Arabia – while contrasting it with this year’s Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay winner, Spotlight. Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
“There’s a sort of pedigree that [Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy] had, I’d like to think, worthy of such an honor. Where so many you see, you kind of go ‘really, they won an Oscar for that?’” Oldman said. “If you think of some of the movies that have been nominated over the years for Best Picture — Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia — and then you look at Spotlight, and you kind of go, ‘Best Picture?’ I enjoyed it but, you know, sometimes it gets a little … I just scratch my head in wonder.”
“Listen, in a world where they are making Batman and Deadpool — and there seems to be one every week — it was nice to be involved in a real grown-up adult movie,” Oldman said of Tinker.
And that wasn’t all, he also made this face:
If that isn’t a dismissive wank in facial expression form I don’t know what is. (Wanker Tailor Soldier Spy?)
“Listen, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? That had a real pedigree. It was a show movie. It was housebroken. It wasn’t some disheveled stray coming in and peeing on your rug like that Mark Ruffalo.”
Which isn’t to say I entirely disagree with him about Spotlight. That was an interesting story well told, but it wasn’t exactly inspiring, groundbreaking cinema either. Though it was more entertaining than Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which falls into that Good Night And Good Luck/Good Shepherd category of films that I will agree were finely crafted acting tours de force as long as I never have to try to stay awake through them again. Smoking. Gravitas. Gravelly voices.
There’s been no word from the Spotlight crew since Oldman’s comments, but this wouldn’t be the first time Gary Oldman has gotten himself into a media kerfuffle over being a little too candid. A few years back he had to apologize to the ADL for saying Hollywood was “run by Jews.” Of course, him not giving a sh*t is a big part of his charm. Though I’m not sure what’s going on with his outfit. Bro, are you going to wear the sweater or not? Does Yahoo not have clothes hangers? Oh wait, I get it, you’re going for that “half-assed shawl” look. Nice. I call this look “casual Bricktop.”
Criminal is currently tracking 14% on RottenTomatoes.
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