In Contention

Tag: Melissa Leo

  • Memo: Uh, the Best Actress race is VERY heated

    Kate Beckinsale in Nothing But the TruthAs a few commenters have been discussing elsewhere, it seems that some supposedly attentive Oscar bloggers figure 2008 to be a weak year for the lead actress race.  We’ve been calling it the most competitive derby in years around these parts for quite a while now, so the notion that anyone would find it to be thin is perplexing to say the least.

    Well, I’m happy today to see that Pete Hammond is on our bandwagon, writing the following at his Notes on a Season blog:

    This year, however, it is already clear that the race, for all intents and purposes, is backloaded with the most imposing and competitive list of genuine best actress possibilities in many years.

    A tsunami is coming, and [Melissa] Leo and [Penélope] Cruz are getting out of the way by taking their best shot now, hoping it’s enough to stay alive when the big storm of contenders hits shore.

    He then launches into a laundry list of contenders, all of them thoroughly covered before.

    We’re currently banking on Kristin Scott Thomas, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep around these parts.  Those are four slots that seem secure.  After that, it’s a toss-up between Anne Hathaway, Melissa Leo, Penélope Cruz, Michelle Williams and Sally Hawkins in the indie sector.  If it’s not an indie performance the AMPAS wants to recognize, they’ll have high-budget fare to choose from in Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman.

    I’m sticking with Kidman for now.  Makes as much sense as any other contender.

    Have your say. Who are you predicting for Best Actress right now?

  • ‘Frozen River’ first out of the gate with Oscar screeners

    Sony Pictures Classics' Frozen RiverSony Pictures Classics is the first studio to send out Academy screeners this season.  “Frozen River,” which garnered considerable praise for lead actress Melissa Leo when it was released in August, landed on doorsteps over the weekend, giving the studio a head start on the race.

    With plenty of indie film performances in the mix for Best Actress in 2008, this move could go a long way to ensuring that voters consider Leo’s work.  Additionally, Leo won the Best Actress award this weekend at the San Sebastian Film Festival.  Co-stars Tsilla Chelton and Oscar Martinez also took acting honors.

    Last year Fox Searchlight was the first studio to unleash screeners, albeit during the first week of September.  The studio sent out copies of “The Namesake,” “Once” and “Waitress,” though only “Once” found its way to an Oscar nod (for Best Original Song).  Sony Classics is taking this opportunity to distinguish Leo in the minds of voters, with Kristin Scott Thomas’s work in “I’ve Loved You So Long” still to come from the studio.

    Read up on the latest “Frozen River” news here.

  • Let’s hear it for the ladies!

    Meryl Streep in DoubtWow, what a damn fine year for lead actress performances.  When was the last time you heard anyone say that?

    I caught some flack recently when I took Meryl Streep off my predicted five nominees in the category.  “How can the Goddess miss?”  Well, she can, and she has, but regardless, the point is that there is some really stiff competition this year for the leading ladies, and man, that’s exciting (and unique)!

    Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky”), Charlize Theron (“The Burning Plain”), Kristin Scott-Thomas (“I’ve Loved You So Long”), Angelina Jolie (“Changeling”), Penélope Cruz (“Elegy”), Melissa Leo (“Frozen River”) and Michelle Williams (“Wendy and Lucy”) represent the seen and raved performances.  Anne Hathaway’s work has also been viewed, but we’ll get to that at the end of the week.  Rest assured, she’ll have her fans as well.

    On the horizon we’ll have Nicole Kidman (“Australia”) and the aforementioned Streep (“Doubt) in big Oscar hopefuls, not to mention Kate Winslet’s double dip in “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” (which ought to make home life interesting for the five-time nominee around campaign time).

    There are still fringe possibilities for Keira Knightley in “The Duchess” or Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria,” while Laura Linney could add an Oscar nod to her Emmy success if “The Other Man” finds a distributor in Toronto.

    There’s always Julianne Moore lurking with her work in “Blindness” should the mixed reaction from Cannes prove to be a different story in Toronto, and Kate Beckinsale, by the way, is fantastic in Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth,” so who knows?

    So let’s not get our panties in a twist over shifting and sliding in this category over the next few months.  I don’t need consistent emails asking “Why did you take so and so out of your Best Actress chart,” because the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of horses in this particular race.

    Which is what we want, right?

  • Melissa Leo: could she be a frontrunner?

    So far, 2008 hasn’t presented a surfeit of cast-iron Best Actress contenders. (Consider that by this time last year, we all knew Marion Cotillard and Julie Christie were locks.)

    Angelina Jolie seems to have been installed as the de facto frontrunner since Cannes, but I’m not really buying it – her performance has some high-profile detractors, and I’m not sure many people feel she’s earned entry into the double-champ club. Sally Hawkins would be in if I had my way, but as Kris has pointed out, the performance can be divisive. For the rest, we only have unseen prospects to contemplate.

    Into this blurry picture comes 47 year-old character actress Melissa Leo, playing a broke single mother who gets involved in illegal immigrant trafficking in zero-budget Sundance champ “Frozen River.” She is currently riding a wave of unanimous critical adulation that is swiftly translating into Oscar buzz. Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone has been supporting her enthusiastically, bluntly stating:

    The great Melissa Leo … is going to be among those left standing by the year’s end if anyone with half a brain is paying attention. Her performance WILL stand out among the performances of this year, male or female.

    This is no blogosphere conjecture either: Leo is getting significant press coverage, most notably a major profile in the New York Times, which notes the “thrill” of watching Leo get “enough room to explore one of the complicated, surprising women she’s so good at sketching in smaller roles.”

    (more…)

  • Gold Derby backs ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’

    All us awards-watchers know that Tom O’Neil’s Oscar prognostications can be a little wacky (let’s just forget that he predicted “Sweeney Todd” would sweep the top four awards last year, shall we?). Still, he knows the game better than most, and his mid-year list of frontrunners (with assistance from Pete Hammond) in the top three categories makes for interesting reading.

    All the usual suspects (“Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” etc) are present, though there are some surprising choices – he still has “Blindness” and “Synecdoche, New York” (still without a distributor) in his Best Picture shortlist, and “W” crops up there too.

    O’Neil clearly isn’t buying into “The Road,” though Viggo Mortensen makes an appearance in his Best Actor list. Meanwhile, two unexpected choices stood out for me in his acting lists: Eric Bana in the bestseller adaptation “The Time Traveller’s Wife” (a fairly unknown quantity that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere), and the terrific Melissa Leo in Sundance champ “Frozen River.”

    What interested me the most, however, is that O’Neil singles out “Happy-Go-Lucky” for discussion, calling it:

    (The) film you may be most underestimating … Mike Leigh’s little flix are often big players (“Vera Drake,” “Secrets and Lies”) and this perky one could be the next “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Juno.” Sally Hawkins already won the Best Actress trophy at the Berlin Film Festival.

    I’ve been predicting big things for Leigh’s delightful film (which, incidentally, gets better the more I contemplate it) for a while now, so I’m pleased to see O’Neil shares my faith in it – though I’m not sure I quite agree with his comparison. It’s certainly a warm and very funny film, but there’s more melancholy and bite to it than either “Juno” or “Little Miss Sunshine.”

    Back in June, Kris wondered where “Happy-Go-Lucky” would land in Miramax’s awards priorities. Since then, the picture has cleared a little bit. With “Doubt” now seemingly the only other prestige contender on Miramax’s slate, Leigh’s film looks well-positioned to get an awards push from the studio – particularly in the event of “Doubt” disappointing. (I still don’t buy the latter as a Best Picture contender.) And with its profile further raised by its inclusion in the Toronto Film Festival lineup, the prospects for “Happy-Go-Lucky” are starting to look as sunny as its title.