Supporting Actor Oscars, conspiracies, and cowboys. SPOILERS

There's bound to be a SPOILER or two in here, so proceed with caution.


More than any Academy Award, I've always felt that those given to supporting actors are imbued with a special power. For one thing, I find myself agreeing with the Academy's BSA selections more than those in the other categories, or at least grudgingly admitting that their winner has some merit.

Watching 1989's The Package last night for the first time in many years -- a nice little piece of genre escapism, the U.S.S.R. still (barely) intact and already being treated like one of the "good guys" (is that the same Gorbachev lookalike from The Naked Gun?) -- it struck me that it's part of a weird sort of nexus for BSA Oscars. (Apologies to the great ecarle, since this is obviously an attempt to create his style of insightful connect-the-dots post.)

Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for BSA in 1991 for his wonderfully aloof and debonair portrayal of real life JFK-murder-conspiracy defendant Clay Shaw (né Bertrand). In a move that can only be attributed to some strange Billy Crystal-led voting block, or intervention on the part of the Stonecutters, Jack Palance took that trophy for his "performance" as an aging cowboy in City Slickers. Let's call this an exception to the trend outlined in the first paragraph and move on.

But wait, two years later the Academy "rectified" this problem and gave Jones the BSA for The Fugitive, also helmed by Package-director Andrew Davis. Note also the prominent presence of Chicago, el-trains and James Newton Howard. And, well, the fact that Jones actually plays a fugitive in The Package.

And while we're on the subject, take a moment and relish the idea of Gene Hackman as Deputy Gerard. Because you just know Davis asked him. He had the good sense to include a chase scene beneath an elevated train, not-so-coincidentally calling to mind the actor's previous Oscar win for The French Connection. I suppose he might've gone directly to Jones for Gerard, and obviously he's a great choice, but Hackman certainly could've carried the part too.

Speaking of Hackman, between the Palance fiasco and the restoration of "TLJ award balance" in 1993, Hackman himself won BSA for his terrific (career best?) work as the pragmatic tyrant Sheriff Bill Daggett opposite Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. Two consecutive cowboy BSA victors, yet so very, very far apart in every other respect. I'm not even comfortable talking about the performances in the same paragraph, to be honest.

Now, another nominee opposite Jones in 1993 was uber-enunciator John Malkovich. What's a little strange about this is that (a) here's another guy starring alongside Eastwood, but more strikingly, (b) he's playing a would-be presidential assassin, who will needs be foiled by secret service agent Frank Horrigan (Eastwood), thus making amends for Horrigan's failure to protect JFK in 1963 and retroactively justifying his bedding sexier-than-sex Rene Russo.

Given the JFK-conspiracy overtones of The Package, plus the fact that TL Jones played the would-be assassin in that film, added to which he played a possible conspirator in JFK, then defeated another would-be assassin (In the Line of Fire) for the BSA Oscar two years later...I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe it's worth noting that his Fugitive-prey, Harrison Ford, was apparently a lock to play Jim Garrison in JFK, but backed out at the last minute?

If you want one more, Jones and Eastwood were both Space Cowboys (cowboys again) alongside Donald Sutherland, who not only starred in the paranoia-rific remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but also played Mr. X (also known as "that guy who talks longer than anybody else in movie history") in Oliver Stone's JFK. No screen time with Jones in that film, but his son Kiefer went on to do the conspiracy/assassin dance real good in 24 -- most overtly in the show's fifth and best season.