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

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!

Little Golden Guy...

Have you ever heard of Little Golden Guy, the website that allows you to vote for the Oscars and see how others voted? It was down for awhile, but it's back now! But the votes are really odd... I'll break it down by category, and into the "what the hell?" and "the right on the money" categories.

But before we go onto "what the hell?" let's talk a little about the site. The main purpose of it is to say "okay, here's who won, but this should have happened according to most." And a lot of the time they are right on the money.

Examples...

Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress for Elizabeth
Montgomery Clift winning Best Actor for From Here to Eternity
Billy Wilder winning Best Director for Double Indemnity

It does have a good track record, but...

What the hell?


Best Picture Avatar received the most votes, and that certainly makes sense. In second place with only six fewer votes? District 9. But this is ordinary people's favorites, so that might explain why The Blind Side is in sixth place. Yes, you heard me, sixth place. According to this website's voters, The Blind Side is more worthy of being named Best Picture than Up in the Air, Precious, A Serious Man, and An Education. Let's pray that The Blind Side is actually the tenth worthiest of the nominees when the members of the Academy get to their ballots.




Best Supporting Actress Surprise, surprise, Mo'Nique is in first here. But second place goes to...



Penelope Cruz, in Nine! Wow. I knew there was some love for Penelope (if not for the picture alone), but second place? Are these voters going by "most-deserving" or, like the Academy, what's hot right now. Hell, on the Youtube video of A Call from the Vatican, one of the comments says "I love her, another Oscar!!!"

Side-note: In this case, what's hot to the Academy actually is hot. Mmmmmmmmm.. Penelope.

Best Adapted Screenplay Maybe it's my hate of District 9 that makes this so shocking, but it got 79.8% of the vote for Best Adapated Screenplay on Little Golden Guy. This site seems to be more of the People's Choice Awards than I remember.

Right on the Money

Best Director Kathryn Bigelow inches out James Cameron by less than twenty votes, but she still does it.

Best Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz waltzes (so clever) away with more than 84% of the vote. Christopher Plummer is a sentimental favorite and comes in second with 7.7% of the vote. That's a bingo!

Best Actor Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth lead the pack, and boy are they close. Jeff has just two more votes than Colin, but in the race for the actual Oscar Jeff Bridges seems unstoppable. I haven't seen Crazy Heart yet, is it good?

Best Actress Unfortunately Sandra Bullock is in the lead here, but there's no used crying over spilled, rotten, unfortunate milk, is there?

And now for your viewing pleasure...

Pinch your cheeks til you say "ow!"



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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!

Best Supporting Actress

Having revisted the trailer for The Lovely Bones, I've been inspired to look at this year's Best Supporting Actress hopefuls...Here I will list who I want to be nominated.

Want to be Nominated (This is without having seen any of the films, but based on trailers, buzz, and the occassional favorite actress)

Julianne Moore for A Single Man - The trailer is genius and buzz has been strong. I know Mo'Nique seems to be the most-hyped actress this side of Nine, but Moore is consistently terrific and, from the trailer alone, I'm reminded of Moore's beautifully underappreciated (awards wise at least) work in Boogie Nights. Fingers crossed Moore, I'm sure more than just me want you to get nominated!

Penélope Cruz for Nine - Penélope should have two Oscars at this point, for Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Volver. The latter didn't come through, but at least she has one. Her work has become better with each new release and, taking the sexy, Tony award role from Jane Krakowski, I don't see how there can be any wrong. Also, Rob Marshall directs, and he knows his women.

Nicole Kidman for Nine - She'll probably be campaigned for lead actress, but with the ever-annoying Marion Cotillard hogging up the spotlight, I hope she'll be moved to supporting. Nicole's last musical was Moulin Rouge!, and if her work here is half as good, she'll deserve the nomination. I also love when big stars do go down to supporting performances. It's not always about being the lead ladies (See: Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, which definitely could have been a co-lead).

Susan Sarandon for The Lovely Bones - Based on the trailer, Susan Sarandon seems her most Sarandon-y in years, no offense Speed Racer. It's hard to come by good parts when you're an actress over 40 in Hollywood, so this could be the comeback Sarandon needs. Hopefully audience affection will lean to her character, and enough momentum will build to beat that late release date in December (and even later wider release in January) to get Sarandon back to the Kodak since her win for Dead Man Walking back in 1995. It's time for a Sarandonssaince. Let's hope The Lovely Bones isn't killed by the late release date like Revolutionary Road was.

Sigourney Weaver for Avatar - James Cameron's first film since Titanic looks... interesting. At first I was anticipating it like no other, as mentioned in some earlier post where I tried to predict the Best Picture nominees, but now the interest in the special-effects bonanza has been fading. It's looking a bit video-gameish. However, my interest in Sigourney's part has been growing. She's great in everything, but I have a feeling that Avatar is going to be almost completely ignored in every category that doesn't deal with tech. I've barely even seen clips of her, but from what I can remember, it's traditional Sigourney, not so showy (The Ice Storm) but oh so good.

So fantasies aside, here's who will probably be nominated...
Mo'Nique for Precious
Julianne Moore for A Single Man
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air (why can't I get excited over this?)
Penélope Cruz for Nine
Mélanie Laurent for Inglourious Basterds

So, what do you think? Who do you want to be nominated? Who do you think will be nominated?

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.