I finally finished The Blind Side! Whether that's something to be happy or sad about I'm still trying to determine. There's no use in me lying to myself by saying "Oh but come Oscar night Carey Mulligan will win! You'll see! And so will Anna Kendrick!" It seems pretty set in stone that Sandra's taking the gold.
I have nothing wrong with her performance. Her being nominated doesn't irk me at all, especially since Abbie Cornish's performance in Bright Star fell flat with me (I have not seen Julia with Tilda Swinton yet). But to be a winner of an Academy Award for this? That's a little much. Consider the company this performance would be joining...
Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter
Frances McDormand in Fargo
Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking
Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind
Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets
All of the above are of course stellar performances, and not many can match them, but Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side doesn't even come close. The greatest of all of the Oscar nominated performances this year and the only one truly worthy to stand with these women is Carey Mulligan in An Education. But oh well. Oscar has a history of being unfair.
Don't get me started on the Best Picture nomination. If it could get a nomination for Best Picture, then I'm genuinely surprised that Jae Head and Kathy Bates didn't nab supporting nominations. Or Quinton Aaron himself for Best Actor. I mean, honestly, people must really love The Blind Side in order to give it a Best Picture nomination. They had to see past John Lee Hancock's in your face directing and overly sentimental moments (and, perhaps most difficult to overlook, Jae Head himself).
So overall, congratulations to Sandra on a deserved nomination, but can't I dream that she won't win?
What are your thoughts on The Blind Side?
Showing posts with label Best Actress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Best Actress. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Precious
Not a huge fan of Precious. I'm going to give you my grade right off the bat for the movie instead of having you wait until the end to yell at me in the comments section (or possibly agree?)!
GRADE FOR PRECIOUS: B-
What I liked....
SPOILER ALERT.
Stop reading if you don't want some plot twists, turns, and 180s to be ruined if you haven't seen the film!
Superb acting. Honestly, Precious is better acted in one scene than other movies are in their entire length. Obviously, it's been said that they will get Oscar nominations and of course that only makes sense given the material given to these two women and the way they handle every painful scene. However, I definitely don't want Sidibe to win for this, not with Carey Mulligan in the race at least. Mo'Nique, while great, ends on such a meh note for me character-ly, so even if it's great acting I was distracted by the movie's poorly written character.
Lee Daniels keeps it from being a bit melodramatic, even if Precious deals with one too many problems. Good job, Daniels!
Tangent- This could or could not be the film's fault. The few dramatic lines that got a laugh from the audience (at least the one I was with). Example (and I'm paraphrasing):
Mo'Nique: Precious, your father died today.
Precious: Is that it?
Why the hell did this get a laugh? Now I would normally fault the audience for this, I mean, this isn't supposed to be funny. Her relationship with her father was sad and terrible to think about, and in my opinion this line should not have garnered a laugh. However, is this the film's fault? I need help with this one. I personally still don't see the humor in it, but to get such a "Ha!" from an audience and a few attacks from other reviews of "unintentional" humor, maybe the film should have approached that differently. Well, it worked for me.
What I didn't like....
Spoiler alert continues...
Mo'Nique's ending monologue. "Oh, it moved me to tears!" What? That moved you to tears? Am I missing something? How do I sympathize with this monster who spent the majority of the movie attacking Precious, both verbally and physically?
That horrific ending. Had the last 10 minutes of this film never existed, I would have liked it more. Precious walks out, triumphant after the last "showdown" with her mother, and a musical montage of sorts starts as she walks down the street, nowhere to go, no money, nothing to eat, with her two children. What? You must think I'm crazy for not liking this when I loved An Education, which has a pretty ambiguous ending. Precious just never ended though. She has HIV, a child with down syndrome, and an infant in her hands, and the movie ends? I know not everything can be resolved, but c'mon. That wasn't "uplifting," like others have said. That was just an easy way to make everyone feel great: have Precious storm out of the meeting with her abusive mom and play music!
Mariah Carey performance praise, namely the Oscar buzz. This is less the film's fault than the buzz's fault, but really? All she did was de-glam and deliver some lines. It's better than Glitter, but if this is ever considered Oscar/Awards in general-worthy, then that is terribly sad and pathetic. What she did was acting. What Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe did was embody a character.
So, if this becomes a major awards winner, I'll be pretty upset. What about you?
GRADE FOR PRECIOUS: B-
What I liked....
SPOILER ALERT.
Stop reading if you don't want some plot twists, turns, and 180s to be ruined if you haven't seen the film!
Superb acting. Honestly, Precious is better acted in one scene than other movies are in their entire length. Obviously, it's been said that they will get Oscar nominations and of course that only makes sense given the material given to these two women and the way they handle every painful scene. However, I definitely don't want Sidibe to win for this, not with Carey Mulligan in the race at least. Mo'Nique, while great, ends on such a meh note for me character-ly, so even if it's great acting I was distracted by the movie's poorly written character.
Lee Daniels keeps it from being a bit melodramatic, even if Precious deals with one too many problems. Good job, Daniels!
Tangent- This could or could not be the film's fault. The few dramatic lines that got a laugh from the audience (at least the one I was with). Example (and I'm paraphrasing):
Mo'Nique: Precious, your father died today.
Precious: Is that it?
Why the hell did this get a laugh? Now I would normally fault the audience for this, I mean, this isn't supposed to be funny. Her relationship with her father was sad and terrible to think about, and in my opinion this line should not have garnered a laugh. However, is this the film's fault? I need help with this one. I personally still don't see the humor in it, but to get such a "Ha!" from an audience and a few attacks from other reviews of "unintentional" humor, maybe the film should have approached that differently. Well, it worked for me.
What I didn't like....
Spoiler alert continues...
Mo'Nique's ending monologue. "Oh, it moved me to tears!" What? That moved you to tears? Am I missing something? How do I sympathize with this monster who spent the majority of the movie attacking Precious, both verbally and physically?
That horrific ending. Had the last 10 minutes of this film never existed, I would have liked it more. Precious walks out, triumphant after the last "showdown" with her mother, and a musical montage of sorts starts as she walks down the street, nowhere to go, no money, nothing to eat, with her two children. What? You must think I'm crazy for not liking this when I loved An Education, which has a pretty ambiguous ending. Precious just never ended though. She has HIV, a child with down syndrome, and an infant in her hands, and the movie ends? I know not everything can be resolved, but c'mon. That wasn't "uplifting," like others have said. That was just an easy way to make everyone feel great: have Precious storm out of the meeting with her abusive mom and play music!
Mariah Carey performance praise, namely the Oscar buzz. This is less the film's fault than the buzz's fault, but really? All she did was de-glam and deliver some lines. It's better than Glitter, but if this is ever considered Oscar/Awards in general-worthy, then that is terribly sad and pathetic. What she did was acting. What Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe did was embody a character.
So, if this becomes a major awards winner, I'll be pretty upset. What about you?
Comment!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Gwyneth Paltrow Vs. Saving Private Ryan
I re-watched Shakespeare in Love yesterday with a friend of mine who had never seen it and, despite all of the hate it and Gwyneth get from the blogs, it still holds up today as fresh, funny, romantic, and one of my favorite films of all time. The ensemble is alive and manages to get the most out of a master piece of a script. I'll never understand those who hate Gwyneth Paltrow's performance in favor of the more predictable and less-interesting role that Cate Blanchett had in Elizabeth. I'm a big Blanchett fan but, compared to Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth does not hold up at all.
Saving Private Ryan was obviously the front-runner in 1998 so Shakespeare's win was a surprise to everyone. It's certainly a good movie, great even, but it is filled with those war cliches and the ensemble (Vin Diesel... really?) cannot match that of Shakespeare in Love. Also, being more inclined to the actresses, I have to say "Where are the ladies!?" when I watch Saving Private Ryan. If Spielberg had lost the directing Oscar to Madden that year I could understand that the statuette was completely bought by the Weinsteins, but Saving Private Ryan got its due as did Shakespeare in Love, the best motion picture of 1998.
So all of you out there that hate this performance and Gwyneth in general, just re-watch the film and you'll see the magic still on screen 11 years later.
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