Rethinking Best Supporting Actress

When you do "best of" rankings, everything depends on your mood. I think I may have made an error in my own Best Supporting Actress ranking by placing Marion Cotillard in 3rd, behind 2nd place winner Mo'Nique. What's done is done, but if I had to make those rankings again today, Marion would take silver (to first place winner Anna Kendrick!).

I think Marion's is the type of performance that grows over time. I think Mo'Nique's is the complete opposite. Everyone was so blown away by Mo'Nique's "powerhouse" performance the second they saw it. In five years time, I wonder if it will pack the same emotional punch that everybody thought it did.

This is where Marion's strengths lie. There's no way that her performance as Luisa Contini will decay as Mo'Nique's might. It may just be the dynamics of Nine vs. Precious, but I truly believe it's something more. Mo'Nique came out of nowhere with Precious. As soon as people saw the film in Sundance there was buzz. The more people saw it, the more intense the buzz grew. It was a comedienne/talk-show host who was giving one hell of a dramatic performance. Marion, on the other hand, was set to be in one of the baitiest Oscar movies of the season: Nine. When Nine failed to take off with audiences and critics, nearly everything connected to it (save Penelope) was left behind in the dust. It was seen as an all-around disappointment because expectations were soooooooooooooooo high.

See the difference? Precious became a surprise hit. Nine became a surprise critical and Oscar failure. Mo'Nique was on the upswing of Precious, and Marion was brought down with Nine. It was expectations that let Mo'Nique soar, and it was expectations that let Marion's chances of a second Oscar nomination plummet. But when we look back in five years and regard Nine as a "total mess," won't Marion's performance seem more impressive? And when we look back in five years and expect the second-coming of Christ from Mo'Nique, won't we all be disappointed? It's the momentum of the season that can help an actress get nominated. Not to defy Mo'Nique's speech, but there is more to winning an Academy Award than just the performance, like it or not. It wasn't about the "politics" so much as the momentum-The Precious momentum carried her, not the other way around.

In 2015, let's all revisit Precious and Nine, and pay close attention to Mo'Nique and Marion. I'd be surprised if people still hailed Mo'Nique as they do now. Marion's lack of an Oscar nomination will probably be on some of those "worst snubs" lists.

What are your thoughts? Which performance do you think will be better in five years' time?

Favorite Actresses

We all have favorites. People who we just love to love despiteof their credentials or filmography. Case and point: the recent love-fest for Sandra Bullock because everybody just seems to really love that girl in spite of never having turned in a performance that wowed everybody (sorry, The Blind Side.)

I've decided to list my favorite actresses. This is not a list of whom I think are the best actresses (with perhaps some overlappage), but rather a list of which actresses excite me on and off the screen. I've limited the number of actresses to fifteen, and they are actresses currently making movies. If you're reading this, please join in either in the comments or in your own blog and tell me about it so I can link to it!

Here they are...

(order is completely 100% random)

Marion Cotillard

Penelope Cruz

Anna Kendrick

Nicole Kidman

Michelle Pfeiffer

Parker Posey

Amy Adams

Susan Sarandon

Renee Zellweger

Julia Roberts

Reese Witherspoon

Keira Knightley

Jennifer Aniston

Sigourney Weaver

Evan Rachel Wood

Love Me If You Dare

See Love Me If You Dare. This has to be pretty brief, but a basic overview...

Girl is an outsider, Boy is a troublemaker. Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl start a "game" in which whoever holds their toy carousely thing gets to give the other one a dare? Game? Game.

Roger Ebert gave it two stars (ouch!). I give it four (yay!).

It stars my new love Marion Cotillard (who I used to hate based on ... I don't even know), and her current hubby-ish thing Guillaume Canet. Totally worth checking out! It's available on Netflix on demand. By the way, it's in French!

Lovely Marion

I don't want to come off as a bitter person (see: last two posts) so enjoy Marion Cotillard's smooth and sweet rendition of "My Husband Makes Movies."

Best Performances of the Decade

I just had to share this video of a few actors' favorite performances of the past ten years...





In case this doesn't work, here's the link. And special thanks to In Contention for showing me first!

It's funny to see which actors choose which performances.

Nepotism
Jake Gyllenhaal chose all of Peter Sarsgaard's performances of the last ten years. I agree that he was phenomenal, but he's not my brother-in-law. I can't argue the validity of his statement. Sarsgaard is incredibly underrated, but it does seem a little odd to choose from your family. Ah well, at least somebody's giving him the recognition he deserves.

Tobey Maguire, good ol' buddy to Shutter Island star Leonardo DiCaprio, chose Leo's performance in The Aviator as the best. Yet again, no arguing from me about the value of Leo's amazing performance in the film, but it is odd that Maguire and Gyllenhaal chose their buddies/family.

Foreign Language
Woody Harrelson opted for Ulrich Muhe in The Lives of Others. If you haven't seen that, then IMMEDIATELY place it on your queue. It's not to be missed. I never would have though of Harrelson as somebody who would sit through The Lives of Others, it's weird isn't it?

George Clooney chose Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose. He's somebody I could see loving foreign cinema, but I am surprised that he chose this performance as one of the best of the decade. I honestly thought he would have picked something much more unknown.

She does it herself!
Julianne Moore hailed Sean Penn's work in Mystic River as one of the best of the decade. She loved how he humanized the grief of his character. This is coming from the woman who practically wrote the book on breakdowns in movies. If anything, Penn looked at Moore's work in Boogie Nights in order to do his role in Mystic River.


What do you think of the actors' choices? I thought it was pretty cool seeing these actors praise each other (I mean, outside of the Academy Awards, SAG Awards, Emmys...).

What are your favorite performances of the decade? Any actor you wish could have done this interview? Shocked by any of the choices? Do share in the comments!

Best Supporting Actress - All That Film Style

Best of 2009 time! One by one, I'll be posting the nominees, followed by the winners. First up we have BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS.

But what good is a category if it doesn't have a name? In honor of one of the best supporting actress performances of all time, I will dub this category the...

Rita Moreno Supporting Actress Award! What a mouthful, eh?

And the nominees are...

Marion Cotillard, Nine

For showing Luisa's heartache with voice, expression, and dance.

Rosamund Pike, An Education

For every little micro-touch and nuance she gives Helen.

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

For humanizing Natalie to unimaginable extents.

Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds

For creating a heroine who could not be more vulnerable.

Mo'Nique, Precious

For creating a monster all too real.

Oscar Nomintations!

Of course, you aren't reading the news on this blog first, but who said being late was a bad thing? I'm still trying to get my best of 2009 ready! So many afterthought, so little time...

Barreling through the nominations I have these conclusions:

Ten Best Picture nominees was a positively horrid and awful awful awful idea. The Blind Side...?

Sandra Bullock...? No thanks. Carey Mulligan? Thank you very much!

Best Actor/Supporting Actor had zero surprises. Boring. Good job Christopher Plummer!

Penelope Cruz over Marion Cotillard? Damn Weinsteins and their stupid campaigning process that tried to get Marion for lead.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, thanks for being a surprise. Anna Kendrick, please try and win this category! It seems rather impossible to beat Mo'Nique though, but we can pray.

No (500) Days of Summer? This sucks.

NINE ON OPRAH!

The multi-Academy Award winning cast of Nine, the new musical by Rob Marshall, will be on Oprah on Wednesday!

Holy crap. This is so exciting- but before I go on, no mention of Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, or the man himself Rob Marshall was made in the commercial. Or Fergie.

No Sophia on Oprah !? Damn. That would've been pretty epic. However, Nicole Kidman is 50% of the allure of Nine. Unfortunately though in the preview there were some stupid tabloid "When did you meet A-Rod?" questions for Kate Hudz, but I'll stick through even that for Nine. Let's hope each star gets to show some of their singing talents like Penelope did on Leno.

By the way, Penelope's singing? I thought it was just okay, I mean she does not have the sexy/funny/enticing voice of Jane Krakowski, but who does? (30 Rock shout out! Problem Solvers!) Anyway, Penelope sounded a bit like Richard Gere in Chicago. I mean, not literally, but there's the question of "Why was she chosen over somebody with a better voice?" Also, will I listen to that again and again on my iPod (well, not I personally, of course I will! But what about other non-musical diehards?). Thoughts on this guy(s)?

Anyone else looking forward to this interview? Or just Nine itself? Or neither? Tell me in the comments!

Oscar- Five Best Picture Predictions

I'm well aware that there will be ten nominees for Best Picture this year, but I've decided to tackle one half tonight (the definites), and the other half later (the could-be-maybe-nots).



THE DEFINITES
Nine- There is no, I repeat, NO, way this film cannot score a Best Picture nomination. When you add up Daniel Day-Lewis, a slew of Oscar hotties, Rob Marshall, and a faint Fellini memory, then you have struck Academy gold my friend!


WHOA! 6 OSCAR WINNERS


Up- It's inferior to WALL-E, sure, but it's one helluva flick. The Academy would not dare pass up Up after the outraged that they sparked when they failed to nominate its Pixar predecessor. And Up is one of Pixar's highest grossing films, further cementing its status as an Oscar heavyweight.


What's that I see! Is it a nomination?


Invictus- Clint Eastwood felt the snub of the Academy last year with "prestige drama" Changeling and "good old vintage Clint" Gran Torino managing to evade any nominations for the four time Oscar winner. He's back this year with a sort-of bio-pic with Morgan Freeman (Oscar loves them some Freeman) and Matt Damon (who, if things go smoothly, can have quite the impressive resumé by the time 2009 wraps).


"Matt, you better not screw this up for me like Angie."


The Road- Cormac McCarthy's next novel-to-movie film is missing the Coen Brothers, but a strong cast (Charlize Theron, Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce) and the anticipation of the movie's release should lead it down the red carpet on Oscar night. The one con is that it may suffer the same fate as another post-apocalyptic drama, Children of Men.


Crazy hair worked with McCarthy's
No Country For Old Men, so why not here?


The Lovely Bones- It's the same (albeit slightly altered) formula that Nine is using: a director Oscar is fond of (Jackson), Academy Award winners and nominees creating an ensemble to die for (Susan Sarandon, Mark Wahlberg, Saoirse Ronan, Rachel Weisz) and it is an adaptation of something that was adored, a best-selling novel.


Sarandon's longing for Oscar after
nearly 15 years of nothing.