The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neill envisioning Peter O’Toole winning a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Venus, which is a notion I toyed with on or about May 9th after hearing about test-screening responses to Venus.
Once again, if MPI Home Video, that deplorable, ass-dragging outfit that has been delaying a release of a restored DVD of Becket for two and a half years, would release it sometime before Xmas or at least by January, it would (a) be catching the movie-pulse zeitgeist at precisely the right moment and (b) Academy voters would be reminded what a travesty it was that O’Toole’s performance as Henry II didn’t win Best Actor Oscar in March ’65 — Rex Harrison took it for his acting in My Fair Lady. And the sense that 41 years later it’s finally O’Toole’s time to take an Oscar home would be that much more acute.