In Contention

Tag: Kate Winslet

  • Great performers at their best

    Tom Cruise in MagnoliaAfter spending some time this summer watching some excellent films on DVD, I was inspired to write this piece about the great actors’ (living, with one exception) greatest performances.

    Narrowing it down to one each (brutal, believe me), I think have come up with a list of actors, young and old, that represents some of the finest talent working in film over the last 40 years, and selected the performance I believe each will be remembered for. This is obviously a subjective endeavor, so if you feel different, tell us why.

    Let’s dive in…

    Jack Nicholson
    Jack is not often given the credit for being the brilliant actor he is because we far too often expect him to be “just Jack.” But when he puts his actor’s hat on there simply may not be a greater actor in film history. For me he was never better than he was as Randall Patrick McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which is a breathtaking piece of work. Watch him when he’s not speaking and see the emotion he packs into this astonishing piece of acting.

    Meryl Streep
    There is no question here for me. As concentration camp survivor Sophie in “Sophie’s Choice,” Streep gave not only her best performance, but the single finest performance ever given by a woman, in my view. That terrifying silent scream paralyzes the viewer with heartache and dare I say, shame. Sophie may have survived the camp, but she walks through her life more dead than alive because her soul was left behind and somehow Streep conveys that to the audience.

    Robert Duvall
    This is a tough call because Duvall was so good in “Apocalypse Now,” but I think his best work was in “The Apostle” as a preacher challenged by his own flaws and forced to atone for his sins. A volcanic performance in which Duvall never seems to stop moving or speaking.

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  • Sam Mendes on Kate, Chekhov and cricket

    Sam Mendes and Kate WinsletPerhaps it’s telling that this recent Times interview with Sam Mendes mentions his latest film “Away We Go” in a single sentence, while focusing rather more attention on his upcoming theatrical double-bill, directing Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” for Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic in London. I have yet to see the thus-far coolly received new film (I’ll catch up with it in Edinburgh next week), but I’ve booked my theater tickets — and I know which evening I’m more excited about.

    Be that as it may, it goes to demonstrate just what a busy guy he is at the moment: not many people can claim to have unveiled two major feature films and a weighty stage project in a six-month period. Not content with that, he also finds time to play cricket for a county team — there’s something I didn’t know.

    As the interview makes clear, Mendes’ sudden spurt of creativity is a sort of compensation for four rather quiet years which he devoted to raising his young family. I hope he maintains the newfound energy level, given the variable nature of his filmography thus far — for a gifted filmmaker, inconsistency is best accompanied by prolificacy. (Ask Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood.)

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  • New to DVD, ‘Revolutionary Road’ may yet be discovered for the masterpiece it is

    (from left) Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary RoadWhen “The Wizard of Oz” was released in 1939, neither audiences or critics were particularly fond of the film and it died a rather quick death at the box office. When “Citizen Kane” was first released in theatres in 1941, audiences did not warm to it, and despite winning the New York Film Critics Circle award for best film, and nine Academy Award nominations, it too died a fast death.

    In 1956, John Ford’s magnificent western “The Searchers” was not nominated for a single Academy Award, and though well liked at the time, no one seemed to think it was the work of art it is considered to be today. Even Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” did not find an audience when first released, and though the film had many strong reviews, no one thought iof it on the level they do today.

    It happens all the time.  Great films get ignored by both audiences and film critics. And though it would be an obvious stretch to consider Sam Mendes’s “Revolutionary Road” in the above company, it is nevertheless a perfect recent example.

    True enough, some critics (myself included) admired “Revolutionary Road” when it was released, but there were simply not enough of us to get the word out. Not even the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winlet could help the film pull in audiences. Incredibly, the Hollywood Foriegn Press Association (their choices sometimes dubious at best) nominated the film for several awards and Kate Winslet rightfully won Best Actress in a Drama for her performance in the film. A couple of weeks later, collective jaws hit the floor when she was nominated for a leading actress Oscar, but for “The Reader,” a lesser performance and film.

    Earlier this week I received my DVD of the film, which hits shelves on June 2, and so I sat down at once to watch it again.  I made my way through the features, wanting to learn more and more about this astonishing film.  And it is my sincere hope that “Revolutionary Road” will some day come to be recognized for the sublime work of art it truly is.

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  • I don’t want my MTV

    Anne Hathaway in Bride WarsWhat do Paramore, The Rock and Kate Winslet have in common? Why, they’re all nominees for the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, of course. Like, duh.

    I have no idea what the MTV Movie Awards are for. Nobody knows or cares who wins them. (Who took Best Actor laurels last year? I doubt Will Smith could tell you — and he won, for Chrissake.)

    Subject to public vote, they serve largely as a popularity contest along the lines of People’s Choice honours — but then they taint the purity of such a credo by throwing in a mention for something incongruously credible like “Milk.” (In the prestigious Best Kiss category, to boot — how honoured Gus Van Sant must feel.)

    Anyway, this year’s nominees are a typically ill-thought and ill-fitting bunch. “Twilight” leads the race, closely followed by “Slumdog Millionaire,” which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the awards. They claim that the nominations were also determined by the public, though I have a hard time believing that the same people who decreed Vin Diesel a Best Actor contender for “Fast & Furious” also voted Kate Winslet in for “The Reader.”

    Speaking of which, there’s a delicious hint of Bizarro World in the Best Actress category, which finds Anne Hathaway repeating her nomination success at the Academy Awards — except, wait, it’s for “Bride Wars,” not “Rachel Getting Married.” Riiight. Angelina Jolie, meanwhile, finds herself in the race for “Wanted” rather than “Changeling” — though that’s a preference I heartily endorse.

    One thing is worth noting, however: even the bloody MTV Awards could be bothered to nominate Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” theme. The Academy will never live that one down. (Check out the MTV nods here, if you dare.)

  • Winslet, Cruz, Herzog crack 2009 TIME 100

    Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet at the 81st Annual Academy AwardsGiven the debate currently active on these pages over what does and does not merit the term “influential” in the film world, there couldn’t be a better time to link to Time magazine’s list of (supposedly) the world’s 100 most influential people.

    Time slightly sidesteps the inherent comparative silliness of such a list by breaking it down into spheres of influence — though you have to admit there’s something slightly confounding about a survey that places Michelle Obama and Rafael Nadal in the same category. (Apples or oranges? Discuss.)

    But even  by just taking a mini-survey of the film-related figures in their Artists & Entertainers division, one has to conclude that they are as uncertain about what “influential” actually means as so many others are. In many cases, the list could be more plainly described as “famous people who have had a very good year.”

    Take Kate Winslet, for example — an undeniably great actress, a constant media presence in the last few months, and duly rewarded for her pains. But “influential?” As accomplished a performer as Winslet is, I’m not convinced that she has significantly altered the craft in which she works, or given rise to any discernible popular or artistic trends. Going strictly by the book, I’m afraid I’d have to declare Zac Efron a worthier inclusion than Winslet.

    The same caveat goes for Penélope Cruz, also on the list — a very talented and likable figure who some feel scored a personal best in the past year, but success does not equal influence. (On the other end of the scale, while his industry power remains a constant, what has Tom Hanks done in the past 12 months to merit his inclusion? And what did any of these folks do so right that, say, Christopher Nolan did not?)

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  • 2/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Winslet at the 81st annual Academy AwardsThe day after. This will be the final installment of the Oscarweb Round-up this year.  I always enjoy scouring the net to find these little gems here and there and I hope you have enjoyed the daily cheat sheet.  Special thanks to all the hard-working journalists and pundits who keep cranking out copy to fill this space…even if I get testy with your words from time to time.

    • Jeff Wells salutes that hilarious James Franco/Seth Rogen/Janusz Kaminski sketch. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Carr’s on-the-spot Oscar coverage from last night, well worth a scroll. [The Carpetbagger]

    • The “Slumdog” kids’ neighbors watch the show from India. [The Huffington Post]

    • Anne Thompson wraps up the night and the season with coverage from the red carpet (including the Anne Cam!). [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Mourning the acceptance speech Mickey Rourke would have given. [Vulture]

    • On the hateful protesters that lined the streets outside the Kodak: Sean Penn says ignore the ignorant. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Roger Ebert reports on teh festivities with all of his usual insights. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Patrick Goldstein was underwhelmed by the show (I don’t get it). [The Big Picture]

    • Karina Longworth reports that Bennett Miller’s opening short film was cut because it basically sucked. [Spout Blog]

    • Britain’s Press Association already digs into Kate Winslet’s speech. (I literally had a Brit at my Oscar party scream “Fuck off” when she won.) [The Independent]

  • A private function

    When all is said and done, it wasn’t an awards season that deserved a fireworks finish, so perhaps last night’s muted, largely tasteful, faintly insular ceremony was an appropriate summation. It ran smoothly enough, with a handful of novel distractions and a uniformly generous, empathetic spirit running through the night’s speeches –- but I’d be hard pressed to remember many notable ‘moments’ from last night’s proceedings a week from now, let alone years hence.

    Part of that stems from the fact that, as has been discussed ad nauseum on these and other pages, we had a less-than-stellar field of contenders to work with. But I’m afraid I must slide into the apparently tiny glass-half-empty minority on the show itself –- as efficiently and enthusiastically as the show unfolded, I simply didn’t find all that much to love about it. As Danny Boyle suggested in the midst of yet another boundless, winning acceptance speech (can we find something for him to win every year, please?), it looked like a blast for those present, but I’m not sure the clubby, “we’re all in this together” vibe really translated to the distance of a TV screen.

    After the cloak-and-dagger secrecy shrouding Bill Condon and Laurence Mark’s revised take on the Oscars, I must say I was expecting a slicker, more dramatic reworking of the format –- and on that front, I must say I was a little disappointed. Hugh Jackman was certainly a game, likeable emcee, but I wasn’t certain who the target audience for his big set pieces was. Equal parts Crystal-esque shtick and endearingly naff “let’s put on a show” razzle-dazzle, both elements seemed to me too dated to court the broader, younger, hipper viewership the Academy wanted. The Baz Luhrmann-staged musical number at the centre was fun in itself, but existed in a similar cultural vacuum, despite the presence of current pop phenomena like Beyonce or Zac Efron. For all the hype, this was familiar content.

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  • He’s with them in spirit

    (from left) Kate Winslet, Sean Penn and Penelope Cruz at the 81st annual Academy Awards

  • Bill Maher: “For the love of God can we please give Kate Winslet her Oscar?”

    Around the :30 mark of Friday’s “New Rules” segment:

  • 2/22 Oscarweb Round-up (OSCAR DAY EDITION)

    Graham King at the 79th annual Academy Awards• David Carr tugs the heart strings with a nice write-up on “Smile Pinki” subject Pinki Kumari Sonkar. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Tom O’Neil warns of the kiss of death that the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor has become. [Gold Derby]

    • Another tired Oscar bitch-slap piece from traditional media. [New York Times]

    • Gideon Levy tears “Waltz with Bashir” a new one. [Haaretz]

    • Kate Winslet and the “Fakebooking” craze. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Elizabeth Snead catches up with Aaron Eckhart at the Indie Spirits to get his thoughts on a potential Oscar win for “Dark Knight” co-star Heath Ledger. [The Dish Rag]

    • Speaking of the Spirits, Roger Ebert responds to the swift show, goes out of his way to praise Rourke’s “show-stopping” speech. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Producer Graham King re-visits his Oscar win for “The Departed” two years ago. [The Independent]

    • Anne Hathaway shows a little humility.  Probably a good thing after that cringe-worthy BFCA acceptance speech. [USA Today]

  • You were right, I was wrong: Guy’s final predictions

    (Expanded thoughts and reasonings on yesterday’s list of predictions.)

    It’s years like 2008 when I throw my hands up and admit (albeit with great reluctance) that my family and friends have been right for the last two decades. Carla, Tom, Kim, Auntie Mavis: I give up. I am insane to care as much as I do about the Oscars. They are stupid. They don’t matter, and I really should find something more important and rewarding to care about, like, oh, needlepoint classes or professional darts championships.

    But who am I kidding? I will always care about the Oscars, even in years like this when the race is so dry, and its significance so questionable, that I take great care in not caring. In a year when so few of my personal favourites have cracked the contenders list, it has at least been interesting to sit back and watch the furore unfold over the Academy voters’ spectacularly self-sabotaging antics this year.

    I’ve been wrong about a lot of things this year (Kris scoffed at my naive suggestion back in July that “Happy-Go-Lucky” could be a Best Picture nominee, and he was right to), and right about … well … “Milk’s” nomination for Best Costume Design. (Hey, let me salvage some glory from this year’s meagre spoils.) I don’t expect to be a hell of a lot more successful with the following predictions, but you never know. It’s still been a lot of fun riding out the season with you this year – here’s to a better slate of contenders (and a lot less grousing from me) in 12 months’ time.

    BEST PICTURE
    Apart from the fact that it is the most imaginative and entertaining of this year’s feeble clutch of nominees, the reason “Slumdog Millionaire” has a stranglehold on this category is because it’s the only one of the five that has any discernible relationship to contemporary cinema. The other four all feel to varying degrees like the finely-tooled Best Picture winners of decades past, but the younger, more curious Academy members have been moving away from such self-consciously packaged ‘prestige product’ in the past few years – even if they need a lot of pointing towards what to reward in its stead.

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  • Holocaust victims 4, Nazis 0

    This interactive Oscar trivia chart at the Guardian is great fun, even if I can’t vouch for its accuracy across the board. (At a glance, I can tell that there are numerous names missing from their “most nominated without wins” page, while there have been more than three R-rated Best Picture nominees this year, let alone this decade.)

    Quibbles aside, however, it’s a handy confirmation of several well-known Academy trends (yes, the most surefire route to an Oscar is playing someone with mental health problems, with 23 winners to prove the fact), as well as some less familiar ones. Who knew that Jon Voight remains the only man to win Best Actor for playing a long-haired character? If we count the early stages of “Milk,” does that mean that this much-neglected demographic will get a certain boost on Sunday night?

    My favourite, however, was this particular nugget: four thesps have won for playing Holocaust victims. But Nazis? None. You’ve been warned, Ms. Winslet.

  • Contributors’ picks

    OscarsWell, this is it.  The big show is Sunday night and we’re pretty much out of things to discuss at this stage, no?  But I’ve gone ahead and wrangled up all of our contributors’ predictions in each category.  Trust who you must, but really, pray for a surprise.  Right?

    In the realm of “ballsy” calls, I guess you can look no further than Guy’s prediction that “The Class” will upset “Waltz with Bashir” in the foreign language film category, which I discussed at length earlier this morning.  He’s also stuck his neck out for a “Slumdog Millionaire” sweep, much like Nathaniel Rogers did a week ago. I really wanted to go there. I really, really did, but the sound categories.  The friggin’ sound categories.

    As we’ve mentioned, people tend to forget that the Academy at large doesn’t exactly know from good sound mixing and sound editing, so “WALL-E” is perhaps a bit vulnerable in those fields, while “The Dark Knight” might be too safe a choice. I’ve talked to a number of people who seem to think “Slumdog” will be checked off down the line, though, so perhaps Guy and Nat are onto something there.

    Me, I don’t have too many surprise predictions, as I’m sure you’ve already read.  I’m sticking with “Man on Wire” in the doc feature category, despite my spit-balling otherwise.  And even though I have a strong sense that “Departures” is waiting to surprise “Waltz,” I don’t feel like sticking my neck out.  (UPDATE: Spoke too soon.)

    I am, however, going with my gut on Mickey Rourke in the much-anticipated lead actor race, and it looks like I’m joined by Guy, Brian and Blake on that here.

    John seems to be expecting a big night for “The Dark Knight,” predicting wins in both sound categories as well as Best Film Editing, which would be the same hat trick “The Bourne Ultimatum” pulled off last year.  But he’s also banking on a win in the cinematography category, which would certainly make this writer a happy camper.

    Blake is banking on the Bat’s victory in the art direction and makeup fields, where the rest of us expect “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” to prevail, while Brian is predicting a clean sweep for “WALL-E,” including the original screenplay category, which looks to be another one of the night’s most exciting races.  He’s joined by Guy on that, while John, Blake, Gerard and I are taking the safe route and placing our chips on Dustin Lance Black’s work on “Milk.”

    Despite those minority calls, we all seem to be in agreement on Best Picture (“Slumdog”), Best Director (Danny Boyle), Best Actress (Kate Winslet), Best Supporting Actor (Heath Ledger), Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz), Best Adapted Screenplay (“Slumdog”), Best Visual Effects (“Button”) and Best Animated Feature Film (“WALL-E”).  Everything else represents something of a menagerie.

    Take a look at our individual picks after the jump.

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  • Who deserves it? Poll results!

    The readership of In Contention has spoken.  Here’s who you all think deserves to win across the 24 Oscar categories we polled you on.  A couple of these races were very close but we didn’t have time to revisit the couple of categories that were decided by less than 10 votes.  Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if there are any parallels Sunday night, but here’s what you had to say:

    Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
    Best Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Original Screenplay: “WALL-E”
    Best Animated Feature Film: “WALL-E”
    Best Art Direction: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Cinematography: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Costume Design: “The Duchess”
    Best Film Editing: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Makeup: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Music (Original Score): “WALL-E”
    Best Music (Original Song): “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”
    Best Sound Editing: “WALL-E”
    Best Sound Mixing: “WALL-E”
    Best Visual Effects: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

    Thanks to everyone for voting.  Enjoy the show!

  • Last minute jitters

    Waltz with BashirI’ll have a post up later today running a comb through my final predictions.  Tomorrow we’ll showcase all contributor picks (as well as the “Who deserves it?” poll results), but for now, I thought I’d share my pain with the readership.

    By pain, I mean last minute jitters, those creepy, crawling, gut-twisting thoughts that leave you in a haze over what to pick in this category or that, even if a frontrunner is staring you in the face.  There are a number of categories doing this to me this year.

    First and foremost, I’ve been on the precipice of picking a “Slumdog” sweep for nearly two weeks now.  Nathaniel Rogers has been bold enough to go there, but I haven’t allowed myself (yet) to think the Academy will vote for the film in the Best Sound Editing field.  However, as a multi-nominated sound mixer friend told me, members generally just vote for their favorite film throughout the crafts categories (much to his own chagrin many times over).

    I also found out last night that the only films that reached the Cinema Audio Society in screener form were “Quantum of Solace” and…”Slumdog Millionaire,” which makes their vote a bit difficult to chalk up as comprehensive.  Maybe “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” are still very much in the mixing race and the Best Picture frontrunner will lose both statues.  But this is just one example of the insanity that flows through my mind this time of year.

    Another thought is all the bad “Reader” press lately and how that may or may not affect Kate Winslet’s chances of a win in the lead actress category.  Many have chalked Meryl Streep up as the competition, but there have been murmurs for some time that Melissa Leo is a prized commodity in this field.  Sasha Stone is spit-balling the possibility today as well.  She’s got people like Dustin Hoffman out there singing her praises.  And her film is a welcome point of variety in a slate of expected nominees (both here and in the original screenplay category).

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  • 2/19 Oscarweb Round-up

    Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler• I’m just now stumbling onto this site, but if you weren’t keen to the controversy surrounding Jerry Lewis receiving the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, here’s a hub with everything laid out for you. [TheTroubleWithJerry.net]

    • With Kate Winslet and Marisa Tomei in mind, Rachel Abramowitz wonders if nudity = Oscar glory. [The Envelope]

    • Patrick Goldstein on the bleak Oscar advertising picture. [The Big Picture]

    • Rex Reed blasts the stage designs of the 81st Annual Oscar telecast. [New York Observer]

    • David Poland captures a few frames of Loki Rourke’s recent existence. [The Hot Blog]

    • Steve Pond reports that Matilda Ledger will receive daddy Heath’s Oscar…if he wins, that is. [Associated Press]

    • LOL. [Oscars Leaked]

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 pet peeves of the 2008-2009 Oscar season

    Rachel Getting Married

    The season is winding down this week.  The slow President’s Day holiday yesterday seemed to be more of a harbinger than a lull in the excitement.  This time next week, we’ll probably be over the fallout of the circuit and on to debating the contenders we’re likely to see a year from now.

    It’s a vicious, beautiful, sad, interesting circle.

    But before the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast puts a bow on the festivities Sunday night, it seems a decent enough time to reflect.  And not to be too negative, but this became one of the most irritating seasons I’ve ever covered, both in the lack of excitement to the dichotomy that circumstance presented for me (given that my favorite film of the year has lead the field throughout).

    With that in mind, I fully expect this piece to grate the nerves of more than a few readers.  Then again, I’m sure plenty of these views are shared by a handful as well, but whatever the case, a list of pet peeves began to stack up early on in the season.  I thought it reasonable to collect them here, so feast your eyes (or roll them), this is what got under my skin this year.

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  • It’s all about the actors

    Over at USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna has come to the conclusion that, in a fairly weak year for film with a less-than-competitive Best Picture slate to show for it, the performance categories are where it’s at this year:

    The real action this year is in the acting. Sets were chewed with delicious relish and scenes were snatched with delectable finesse, even if the films themselves have underwhelmed.

    “I look at my ballot and see all these amazing actors,” says an overwhelmed Donna Gigliotti, a producer on The Reader and a trophy winner for 1998’s Shakespeare in Love. “It’s just staggering. That role was a game changer for Anne Hathaway, nothing that anyone expected from her. And Melissa Leo in Frozen River? What is she, 48? Her nomination just made me want to stand up and cheer. Richard Jenkins is such a fabulous actor. And Taraji P. Henson is the soul of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.“

    I’m inclined to agree. Though I still think the Academy dropped the ball in some areas (Best Actress, in particular, could have been a far richer and more diverse race had the likes of Sally Hawkins and Kristin Scott Thomas been invited), it’s true that, while 2008 hasn’t been as rewarding for auteur works as some previous years, we’ve seen a lot of films either wholly constructed around their performances (“The Wrestler” being a prime example) or saved by them (for my money, Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt are the most focused elements of “Rachel Getting Married”).

    The result is, I think, that people seem a lot more invested in this year’s acting races than the ones for Picture or Director — and it’s not just because the latter two are foregone conclusions. (Let’s face it, there’s not much more suspense in some of the acting categories, and I think you know what I’m referring to.) It seems to me that the performances of 2008 have been more complete, complex and adventurous than the films — in some cases, the very films in which they appear.

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