In Contention

Tag: Best Actress

  • Strong notices for Tautou in ‘Chanel’

    Audrey Tautou in Coco Avant Chanel2008’s slate of eventual Best Actress nominees may not have been the strongest of recent years, but it was certainly the most predetermined. Months before anyone had seen even a frame of their films,  it was accepted wisdom that Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet (for something, at least) would be invited to the ball.

    This unusual star-focused stranglehold (in an unusually crowded field) made it that much harder (and ultimately impossible) for critics’ darlings like Sally Hawkins or Kristin Scott Thomas to gain a slot.

    This year, however, sees a return to the usual terrain of questionmarks in the field, with the usual regrettable paucity of female star vehicles on the horizon. (Only “Amelia” smells like Oscar catnip, and it smells a little funny to me.) Can Michelle Pfeiffer and Meryl Streep score veteran nods for comedy vehicles? Could either Gabourey Sidibe or Saoirse Ronan become only the second teenaged nominee in the category’s history? Which film, if any, will turn out to be Helen Mirren’s awards pony?

    With the most early buzz centred on an ingenue few have yet heard of (that would be Carey Mulligan), it’s looking like a year of few sure things from a distance, which is the way I like it. (Of course, I could be completely wrong — I bow to certain other folks’ expertise in this field.)

    So with the race so delicately poised at this early point, it’s interesting to see one of the few supposedly baity contenders passing the initial critical test. On paper, Audrey Tautou’s performance in “Coco Before Chanel” has a lot going for it. Nobody needs to be reminded of the Academy’s fondness for biopics (but just for the record, 7 of the last 10 Best Actress winners played real-life figures), and they aren’t exactly averse to pretty period pieces either.

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  • Good luck to Mickey and his lengthy locks

    Hair in the acting categories

    (Source: The Guardian)

  • POLL: Who deserves it? — BEST ACTRESS

    Moving into the top tier categories, have your say in the sidebar poll.  This one should be interesting.

  • Does ‘Frozen River’ have one more trick up its sleeve?

    (from left) Misty Upham and Melissa Leo in Frozen RiverOn Monday’s edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Nate DiMeo spotlights the “Cinderella story” of Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River,” which turned up a rather surprising original screenplay nomination two-and-a-half weeks ago.

    Originating out of Sundance in early 2008, the film is one of a handful that can be “very high quality, but not very obvious to sell or to market,” says Sony Pictures Classics honcho Michael Barker in the piece.  But, as DiMeo points out, “Frozen River” is “the type of film that Barker and his team have honed awards season after awards season.”

    Interestingly enough, I’ve begun to hear a lot of chatter in favor of Hunt’s film turning up one more surprise: on Oscar night.  While most of us are debating whether Best Picture nominee “Milk” or animated critics favorite “WALL-E” will win in the original screenplay category, there are those who think Hunt could eek out a victory, a show of support for independent filmmaking to be sure.  There is also talk of Kate Winslet’s “assured” victory in the lead actress category not being all that assured at all, and that Melissa Leo has become a difficult choice to argue against.

    Barker “had a plan and an instinct on this,” Hunt says in the DiMeo piece.  “I thought once I got into Sundance and sold the movie, I was a big shot.  Well, it turns out I wasn’t as much of a big shot as I thought I was.”

    Barker notes that “for the longest time, we were the only film that the Academy members had in their hands to watch.”  Screeners of the film went out at the beginning of September, DiMeo reminds, “before it could be buried under a pile of ‘Benjamin Button’ and ‘Dark Knight’ screeners.  Sony Pictures Classics had scheduled the DVD release for right around now to take advantage of a potential nomination.  And now orders are up.”

    The studio’s goal is “for the film to have the longest life possible,” Barker says, “and ‘Frozen River’ is probably a textbook example.”

    Might it also be a textbook example of catching the Oscar frontrunners off guard?  It’s quite possible.

    Also check out Sasha Stone’s interview with Hunt from earlier in the week if you missed it, as well as Liane Hansen’s chat with Leo from November, right around the time of the film’s release.

  • 2/11 Oscarweb Round-up

    Hugh Jackman• The first Oscar promo pic of Hugh Jackman. [Just Jared]

    • David Steinberg writes up Johnny Carson’s Oscar hosting legacy. [Los Angeles Times Magazine]

    • David Carr ponders the lead actress race. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Tom O’Neil conveys a case for Amy Adams in “Doubt.” [Gold Derby]

    • Dave Karger needs Oscar campaigns to get out of the way in order to enjoy “The Reader.” [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Mark Olsen chats with “Doubt” star Philip Seymour Hoffman. [The Envelope]

    • Michael Ordoña, meanwhile, gets some face time with Marisa Tomei. [The Envelope]

    • Christopher Campbell goes all in for “Milk”‘s original screenplay. [Spout Blog]

    • Maria Puente reports on the interior design of Oscar’s green room. [USA Today]

    • Anne Thompson spotlights the magazine rack’s Oscar issues. [Thompson on Hollywood]

  • 2/10 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Watchmen• At least Ron Rosenbaum kind of gets it.  Though he apparently thinks he’s the only one a bit miffed at the redemption angle.  Do some more Googling, Ron. [Slate]

    • Joining the “Reader” bash, Noah Forrest pleads with the Academy not to hand the Oscar to Kate Winslet. [Movie City News]

    • Jeff Wells gets word that Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” could be in theaters by the end of the year. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Poland scatters “Watchmen” gossip while apparently indicating that Warner Bros. owes him and others a look at the film a month in advance. [The Hot Blog]

    • Patrick Goldstein is big on foreign film contender “The Class.” [The Big Picture]

    • Brits pick the most memorable movie quotes ever. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Sasha Stone talks to Oscar-nominated “Frozen River” scribe Courtney Hunt. [Awards Daily]

    • Thank God Michael Bay didn’t have his way with this year’s Oscar telecast. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Pete Hammond jumps on the “Mickey might win” bandwagon, becomes, like, the 10th person to draw a parallel to last year’s Best Actress race.  He also points to a potential Viola Davis upset in the supporting actress category. [Notes on a Season]

    • David Carr, meanwhile, comments on Rourke’s “whale of a speech” at the BAFTAs.  But he rather insultingly thinks voters would be “picking the speech over the performance.”  Hardly. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Xan Brooks prays for a little spice and surprising variety at this year’s Oscar ceremony. [The Guardian]

  • Pretty brave

    Most people seem to be going along with the assumption Kate Winslet has this year’s lead actress Oscar in the bag for “The Reader.” But if anyone is nipping at her heels, it has to be Meryl Streep, whose performance in “Doubt” (however off the rails it went) has been right there, waiting to upset the whole year.

    In my daily Variety visit this afternoon, I came across the following Spartan advertisement for Streep’s performance. No words, no pomp, no circumstance. Just the face. Pretty brave in the face of what so many are chalking up as a sure thing. Maybe this kind of modesty is the right idea, the right level of, “Hey, that’s unique.” Or maybe not.

    Meryl Streep in Doubt

  • What about Melissa Leo?

    Yesterday, Kris pondered whether Kate Winslet’s Best Actress Oscar is quite the sure thing it appears to be on paper, or whether Meryl Streep can surf in on a tide of veteran goodwill and spoil the Brit’s party yet again.

    I’ve been saying since nomination day that I can’t imagine Winslet losing yet again, least of all for a performance in a Best Picture nominee (the first time she’s had that luxury since her non-starter nomination for “Titanic” in 1997). If she wins the BAFTA on Sunday, as almost everyone suspects she will, her campaign stays comfortably on course; if, however, Streep manages to pull off an upset, I may well change my mind.

    But allow me to play devil’s advocate for a minute. Why has the competition been reduced to two performances that are by no means necessarily the strongest in the lineup? Let’s perform a process of elimination. Streep’s performance has been polarising from the get-go, with the reverberations of Variety’s notably harsh review still being felt in the critical community. (As “Doubt” opens today in the UK, a number of critics find themselves bewildered, with the Guardian describing her work as “beyond absurdity.”)

    Of the competition, Angelina Jolie has drawn even less critical consensus than Streep, so it’s safe to say she’s out of the running. Anne Hathaway looked to be a frontrunner at one point, and barely anyone has a bad word to say about her performance, but judging from the tepid Academy reaction to her divisive film, I can’t help feeling that her ship has sailed. Kate Winslet’s performance has also been widely praised, and it’s clear that a large faction of the Academy appreciates “The Reader” — but it’s still a film with some notable detractors, and not everyone likes the way Harvey Weinstein muscled it into the race.

    And so we arrive at Melissa Leo. In many ways the odd woman out in this year’s star-heavy Best Actress race, she is arguably the one nominee whose performance — and film — have attracted the least criticism from any quarter. Critics have showered superlatives upon Leo’s raw, career-defining performance, with the venerable Roger Ebert singling her out as his favourite of the nominees.

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  • Winslet’s win a done deal or is there more to consider?

    Kate Winslet in The ReaderWhen Kate Winslet surprisingly popped up in the lead actress category for her performance in “The Reader,” most of us immediately jumped to the conclusion that she’ll win the Oscar walking away.  That is still probably the safest bet, but some folks are disturbing the waters, starting with Winslet herself in a recent AP story:

    Kate Winslet says she is prepared to leave this year’s Oscar ceremony as she has five times in the past — without a golden statue.

    “I’m so used to it, having gone through it before and having lost so many times,” Winslet says. “Being in that losing state is something I’m much more comfortable in, in a funny kind of a way.”

    David Carr, meanwhile, points out that Ray Richmond considers Winslet’s category switcheroo to be a “snag”:

    Winslet’s previous wins for “Reader” came in the supporting category. For reasons known only to its acting branch, the Academy decided to give her more votes in the lead category. Winslet is untested here. While the odds still favor her, don’t rule out the chance of a loss.

    What do you think?  Is the Oscar already in her hand or is Meryl Streep most likely to swoop in and grab statue #3?  (Personally I don’t think Anne Hathaway is going to figure in here.)

  • Did Harvey Weinstein cost Kate the Oscar?

    Harvey WeinsteinFor all his marketing and campaigning genius, Harvey Weinstein’s tactics have become — well, have been — a bit thuggish. In Peter Biskind’s extraordinary book “Down and Dirty Pictures,” a stunning look at the independent film world in the late 1980s and all through the 1990s, we are made privy to many of Harvey’s tantrums, eyewitness accounts of his bullying behavior, and crazy belief that because he is rich, he can do whatever he wants.  He can always buy his way out.

    Is there anyone left out there who truly believes that “Shakespeare in Love,” a lovely film, was actually better than “Saving Private Ryan?” Somehow Weinstein convinced the Academy it was, so the best directed, best edited, best shot and best sounding film, lost to a beautifully written work that will be forgotten in time, if it has not been forgotten already.

    Weinstein is a genius at getting his films Academy Award nominations, and some have said he will promise the artists as much when he buys the film or agrees to finance the work. He took Billy Bob Thornton from relative obscurity to an Oscar win for writing “Sling Blade.”  Who did Thornton defeat that year?  No less than the great Arthur Miller for “The Crucible!”

    I had hoped that when Disney dismissed Weinstein and brother Bob from Miramax (a company they founded) that perhaps he had learned something. It seems The Weinstein Company will continue the legacy of Miramax during the Oscar season, however.

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  • All eyes on left field

    Josh Brolin in WThe nominations announcement is, oh, 18 hours away (yeah, we count minutes at this stage).  Even though I’m well on the record as being a prognosticative pussy this year, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re in for our share of surprises.  I doubt I’m alone.

    You can go back over Oscar history and write a whole book on the nominations that blind-sided everyone.  Sometimes the contender in question might have popped up briefly during the season, though they were forgotten in due time.  Other times, they simply manifested from thin air and smacked Oscar watchers in the face.  But they’re always there, lingering, waiting to plant that seed of doubt in the viewer the next year.  And the year after that.

    It’s enough to pull your hair out.

    Earlier today, John posted an interesting thought about Benicio Del Toro’s chances in the lead actor category, which followed a recent musing on Woody Allen’s chances as a lone director nominee.  This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about.

    So with that in mind, I’ve collected a brief list of four contenders that I legitimately think could pop up tomorrow and join that lineage.  Some of them are certainly more plausible than others, but none of them, I feel, are terribly out of bounds.  I don’t have the cojones to predict them, of course.  But this is what I’m thinking.

    (By the way, if I DO happen to change any of my predictions at the last minute tonight, I’ll be sure to offer a post indicating as much.)

    My thoughts on the left field…

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  • Say it right

    Last week, I wondered whether Mickey Rourke’s eccentric, yet moving, acceptance speech at the Golden Globes could bolster his chances with the Academy. It may sound like a trivial concern, but the fact remains that Rourke’s speech was a talking point, a bona fide ‘moment’ that made for great TV — and if Roberto Benigni has taught us anything, it’s that onstage personality goes a long way with the Academy. In a tight race, the promise of a memorable acceptance can be just enough to push a contender past the finish line.

    Now, Dave Karger is addressing the flipside of the question, and asking whether the relatively sloppy acceptance speeches of Anne Hathaway and Kate Winslet, at the BFCA Awards and Golden Globes respectively, could actually damage their Oscar campaigns:

    Upon sharing the Critics Choice prize with her idol, Meryl Streep, Hathaway — who certainly meant to say this a bit more artfully — said it was “fitting” that she tied for the prize with Streep since she thought the Doubt star was the best actress around. But it came off condescending to all the other actresses in the room, particularly her category-mates like Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo. The usually composed Winslet, meanwhile, nearly had a heart attack when she won her two Golden Globe prizes. To many people, the reactions seemed over-the-top. Or worse, fake.

    It must have been overwhelming for both of them to hear their names called. But on the other hand, let’s remember that both of these awards are handed out by groups of journalists, for God’s sake — people that big stars like Hathaway and Winslet usually don’t give a hoot about. Why should they then fall to pieces over what those journalists think about them?

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  • Best Actress: a tough call

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedRarely does the lead actress category provide more suspense than leading gentlemen and rarely is it as packed with fine performances as it is this year.  I can remember years when it was a struggle to come up with five nominees for best actress, 1975 and 1992 springing to mind.  It might have less to do with quality female performances than it does the amount of quality female roles Hollywood provides.

    But the Academy won’t have any trouble this year.  There are going to be excellent performances left off the list of nominees this year due to uncharacteristically heated competition, that is a sad fact, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it except continue to love and support the performances snubbed. In fact it is not even that they will be snubbed, it’s just that there is only room for five ladies, and this year, selecting those final five must be proving an enormously difficult task for the Academy.

    With her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet seems to be a shoo-in for her superb performance in “Revolutionary Road,” a truly heartbreaking piece of acting that is sadly underseen at the moment.  Meryl Streep, meanwhile, will be nominated for the 15th time for her tyrannical nun in “Doubt” and Anne Hathaway will get a welcome to the big show for “Rachel Getting Married,” in which her caustic turn as Kym has altered the course of her career and announces her as a serious actress in the industry.

    And then it becomes tricky — those final two spots.

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  • So…

    …are the actress categories leaving anyone else for a loss?  Six to seven contenders with clear shots at a nod in each field.  Flip a coin.

  • Performance of the decade?

    More good news for Kristin Scott Thomas after rebounding yesterday with a Golden Globe nomination — in his 2008 wrap-up, Richard Roeper names her stunning turn in “I’ve Loved You So Long” the performance of the year. (The film, meanwhile, cracks his Top 5.) In fact, he goes even further than that:

    The acting turn that resonated most memorably with me in 2008 was Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance in “I’ve Loved You So Long.” That the British native is starring in a French film is no trick; Ms. Scott Thomas is fluent and is utterly comfortable with the language. As the beautiful, 45-ish Juliette, recently released from prison after serving 15 years for a horrific crime, Scott Thomas creates a fascinating portrayal of a woman who is neither martyr nor monster. She did what she did, and we’re not sure why until the very end of the film — and then we understand, and we ache for everyone involved in this tragedy. Whether she’s eyeing a man in a bar — after all, it’s been 15 years — bonding with her sister’s children, gingerly exploring the possibility of a romance or exploding with sorrow and anger as she finally reveals the circumstances of her crime, Scott Thomas is profoundly effective. I’m not sure I’ve seen a better performance in any film this decade.

    Wow… strong words. I’m not sure how deeply Roeper thought through that last statement, but I’m thrilled to see the thesp getting such rich praise. This is a film and performance with a very passionate band of select supporters, and I suspect that might be the case in the Academy’s actors’ branch too. Hard-working “actors’ actors” like Scott Thomas (or Richard Jenkins, or Melissa Leo) frequently stand a stronger chance in peer-voted awards.

  • INTERVIEW: Sally Hawkins

    Sally Hawkins“We didn’t necessarily set out to create someone as perpetually sunny as Poppy,” says Sally Hawkins of her radiant performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is currently making waves in the awards race. “But Mike was very dismissive of doing anything maudlin or moody with this project. So the optimism came early on for her. It’s like trying on different skins. And this skin just fit.”

    Spoken in a breezy, unassuming tone, it strikes me as a statement — equal parts pragmatic and eccentric — that could as easily have some from the mouth of Poppy herself, the cheery North London schoolteacher who forms the delightful center of Leigh’s latest perceptive study of British social mores.

    Indeed, when I first encounter Hawkins in the top-floor café of a West End bookshop, dressed in a somewhat Poppy-esque ensemble of emerald-green cardigan and flowing tie-dye skirt, it’s difficult not to be reminded at least a little of her character. Hawkins is certainly calmer and a little softer in person, but her easy-flowing conversation, accompanied by increasingly wild hand gestures, reveals something akin to Poppy’s humor and generosity of spirit.

    “I’m nothing like as extroverted as she is,” she says, smiling broadly.  “But how many people are?  If anyone says they see even a little of me in Poppy, or vice versa, I take that as the hugest compliment, because she just has life worked out. It’s not as if she’s negating that it’s hard. She just finds a way to deal with it, and finds a way to flow with people. She’s an extraordinary person. I think I learned a lot from her.”

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  • INTERVIEW: Kristin Scott Thomas

    Kristin Scott ThomasWhen interviewing Kristin Scott Thomas, the woman who for many audiences represents the living portrait of English upper-crust serenity, Led Zeppelin isn’t exactly the first name you expect to crop up in the conversation. And yet, halfway through our Transatlantic chat, that is exactly what happens.

    “Seeing the guys, well into their sixties, just getting up on stage and doing their thing … it’s just so inspiring,” she says, referring to the British rock gods’ reunion concert that took place in London a year ago. “And spanning generations too — my son is into them. It’s a reminder that you don’t stop being interesting or relevant at a certain age. I’d love to do that.”

    As entertaining as the idea of Thomas belting out “Whole Lotta Love” to a screaming arena of thousands is, it’s a weirdly apt comparison. Where many actresses her age recede (albeit not usually by choice) into mumsy bit parts and dreary disease-of-the-week movies, Scott Thomas, now (incredibly) 48, has recently been taking on the most challenging, intriguing work of her career to date.

    As if to prove the point, she is speaking from New York, where she is tackling one of the theater’s greatest female roles in her first ever Broadway gig. Her witty, ferocious interpretation of Arkadina in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” earned her an Olivier Award for the play’s original London incarnation and is now garnering breathless raves Stateside.

    It’s her recent film work, however, that has made 2008 a banner year for the thesp. Two highly entertaining, highly contrasting supporting roles — as a worldly lesbian in the smash French thriller “Tell No One” and an icy matriarch in period comedy “Easy Virtue” — are mere appetizers to her staggering, career-peak performance as an introverted, grief-ridden ex-con, reconnecting with family and society alike, in Philippe Claudel’s superb debut feature “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

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  • The Streep question

    Meryl Streep in DoubtWill she be nominated for a performance Todd McCarthy and even our own Kris Tapley found underwhelming? Of course she will, because all due respect to both, they are wrong.

    I finally saw “Doubt” this week, and as other critics are making clear, Streep does some of her best work in the film. Whether or not she will win is another question, and the chances of that are becoming less each day as we hear more and more about Kate Winslet, who will become the Streep-esque actress of her generation, if she already is not.

    Watching Streep at work in “Doubt” I was amazed at her choices and how correct they always were. She chooses to portray this nun as an Old Testament type, no spoil the rod for her, hell, whack the kid in the head when he slouches, punish them when necessary, and always believe you are acting in their best interests. She is never wrong in the film, at least her character never believes she is wrong, and that sense of righteousness is what makes her character so terrifying. Stalking the halls looking for trouble, wanting to find it, she brings to the part a ferocity that is alarming in its intensity, wholly right for the role. And of course it’s a different take than Cherry Jones gave us on stage.

    Has any actor portrayed Hamlet the same? Or Romeo? Or Richard III? Or let’s go modern and ask about Brando’s Kowalski compared to Treat Williams on TV or Alec Baldwin on stage?  Streep chose a different interpretation, a quieter one that works for the cinema because unlike the stage, the camera misses nothing…NOTHING!

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