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?

Surprise!

Just kidding! Come March 7th, I feel there will be no big surprises in the acting categories. Mo'Nique, Christoph Waltz, Sandra Bullock, and Jeff Bridges will all make their millionth way to the podium, look all teary-eyed and elated (you should be, it's an Oscar!) and then go backstage to the "Thank You" cam and the press.

But wouldn't it be nice if the Oscars were filled with more surprises? This is not a new thought, but it is true. Regardless of performance merit, wouldn't it be a much better show if the winners looked a little something like...

Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air (who should win, but that's beside the point)
Christopher Plummer for The Last Station
Gabourey Sidibe for Precious
Colin Firth for A Single Man

Wouldn't those be more exciting choices? None of them are going into the Kodak and thinking "Oh it might be my name!" And that's a shame, too. There are way too many precursor awards, and while I love the Oscar season, if I were a nominee I'd love to know I had a 20% shot of winning. I mean, what's the point of Maggie Gyllenhaal getting all dolled up to go to the Academy Awards, be critiqued by E!'s snippy fashion police, and then watch Mo'Nique win?

Wasn't Adrien Brody's win (and subsequent speech) more thrilling to watch than Javier Bardem's? Of course Javier would win! Snooze. Spread the wealth, people! And if you want to give the Oscar to Javier Bardem, then okay. But why not use one of those other awards (like SAG for instance) to honor somebody who isn't going to win the Oscar. I mean, the SAG Award isn't a very prestigious prize but it's still a nice honor. I'm sure Anna, Colin, Gabourey, or Christopher would have appreciated it after being dragged out to every single award's ceremony this side of the Atlantic (oh wait..BAFTAs are tonight! Never mind!)

At least this year's race is a teeeeeeeensy bit more unpredictable than last year. The Academy hates women, so heavy-favorite Kathryn Bigelow could lose out to the more traditional choice of James Cameron. And for Best Picture there is a bit of a race, so that should be more fun than last year's Slumdog insanity! Add that to the locks of Kate Winslet, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz, and Heath Ledger and it was pretty boring. People tried to make the race exciting by predicting the likes of Mickey Rourke and Viola Davis, but we all knew how it would end up. Hell, the biggest shock last year came when Departures won Best Foreign Language Film. Let's hope we have much bigger surprises in store for us this year!

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.

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?

Comment!