Grouching the Oscars: Best Supporting Actress

We’re taking a look at Oscar categories in advance of tonight’s show. Now we’re on Supporting Actress. The nominees:

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
• Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter
• Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
• Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Jared

I don't see the big deal, this FYC ad seems kinda classy...

The supporting categories are always tough for me because it is hard to figure out how, exactly, to weight screen time.  Should I favor being fantastic in five minutes over a solid performance in forty-five minutes?  Perhaps appropriately, I just flipped on the radio and The Zombies’s “She’s Not There” started playing.  I’m a big Amy Adams fan and loved that she got to play a little against type in The Fighter.  But she didn’t have enough to work with to make an impression on me.  She had a few memorable scenes, sure.  But I’m still not entirely certain how she nabbed a nomination over, say, Mila Kunis.

When the actress receiving a nomination is genuinely confused about it, you know Hollywood silly groupthink has reared its head again.  Like a movie?  Then vote for every single aspect of it!  Helena Bonham Carter does a perfectly fine job, but one of the five best performances of the year?  It is really odd how Hollywood can’t distinguish between different aspects of a movie they loved.

So, I fell asleep during Animal Kingdom.  Apparently I was out cold.  But don’t worry, after waking up I went back and caught what I missed.  The whole time (at least when I was awake) I was wondering how on earth Weaver managed a nomination here.  For me, it isn’t even the role being confused for the performance, but the idea of the role.  The thing is, I can totally see a film where she’d be worthy of a nomination.  One that wasn’t the most boring crime film of all time.  And one where her role gets fleshed out a little more. I really hope, though, some casting director has taken notice and casts her as the villain in some better production, because I really do think she can pull it off admirably.

I’m a little lower on Hailee Steinfeld than others.  Maybe part of it is because there’s absolutely no way to defend calling her performance supporting.  None at all.  Whoever first pitched the idea of doing so has balls the size of golden globes.  John has mentioned how much he liked Dakota Fanning in The Runaways.  Obviously the roles aren’t really comparable, but I’d tend to agree that I’m not entirely comfortable seeing Steinfeld recognized but not Fanning.  I think Steinfeld has a very bright future and hope that she soon gets new roles to be her calling card.

I don’t think this category is as strong as other this year, which perhaps is one of the reasons prognosticators are finding it a little difficult to predict.  Hilariously, Melissa Leo, probably the front-runner, shot herself in the foot by running For Your Consideration ads on her own dime.  Doesn’t she know how to play the game?  You aren’t allowed to actually say you want to win!  In any case, she’s my pick here, overcoming an awful script to create a memorable presence.  And really doing everything you’d want from a supporting actress, I think.  She always looms large, but never takes over the movie.

John

This is a tough category to pick. Whereas so many of the other categories are embarrassments of riches, I find this one to be slim pickings.

Let’s start with the women from The Fighter. Adams simply failed to make an impression on me. So many others were impressed with her work that I concede I may need another viewing. To me, she’s being swept up in an acting nomination wave for the film. I enjoyed Leo much more, but she also has a more colorful role and I can’t deny that she does seem to be Acting Very Hard.

Everyone loved Steinfeld but she actually drove me a little nuts. I don’t think it’s her fault. For one, the lack of contractions in the dialogue sounded bizarre to me from all characters. And the inflectionless way she often delivers her lines was probably directed out of her. So I think these are stylistic choices that happened to not work for me and therefore reflect poorly on Steinfeld.

Carter is a totally blah nomination. She’s good in The King’s Speech, of course, but she doesn’t get to display much of her considerable skills. It’s just such a straight-forward role. And that leaves Weaver, who you might think therefore wins by default. She plays a ruthless matriarch of a crime family in Animal Kingdom. What makes her so successfully chilling is how sweet she is while doing awful things. I think the tendency would be for the actress to really sell the fact that the sweetness is a charade, but Weaver plays it pretty straight. So she’s just acting sweet. It’s a great choice for the film, but does that make a great performance? The same performance with different words and she’s just a normal doting mother. Or am I missing some nuance?

Oh, honey.

Therefore I have concerns over them all. I’m going to choose Melissa Leo with Jacki Weaver not too far behind. I also just want Leo to win, partly because I like her and partly because I’d feel bad for her if she won all these precursors and lost. People would be blaming it on that photo spread and it would be awful.

Snubs: I’d nominate and give the Oscar to Lesley Manville for Another Year. My off-the-wall choice is Marisa Tomei in Cyrus. (Note: I may be in the bag for Marisa Tomei.)

Oscar Nomination Roundup: Supporting Actress

Oscar nominees are announced on the 25th.  Yay!  So let’s summarize what we (the royal we, at least) know.  Keeping in mind, of course, that when it comes to the Academy, no one knows anything.  Especially me.  This time: Best Supporting Actress.

VIRTUAL LOCKS

• Nobody

There are at least ten women you could legitimately claim to have, based on precursor awards, a shot at a nomination.  Coupled with the fact that the Oscars have a tendency to go crazy in the supporting categories (as commenter Sarah astutely pointed out) and you are looking at a category impossible to call with any certainty.

LIKELY IN

• Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter
• Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Everything I’ve read about True Grit suggests two things about Steinfeld: that’s she absolutely deserving of a nomination; that nomination should be for a leading role as she’s in every single scene.  I haven’t seen the movie yet so I can’t weigh in there.  Best Actress is a crazy tough category to break into this year, so I understand why she’s been campaigned as supporting, but Oscar voters are free to place her as they see fit.  I’m enjoying the Melissa Leo buzz because it means Adam gets to rant about Frozen River some more.  She plays a mother quite easy to hate, desperately close to going over the top as a scheming, manipulating manager/mom, but never quite doing so.  Impressive considering how much of a hack job that script was.  I loved The King’s Speech and I’m always a fan of nominations for muted performances, but I don’t know, I think Helena Bonham Carter is riding the coattails of the movie and her co-stars.  Not her fault, her character is really only given two or three instances to shine.

LAST TWO IN

Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

I reserve the right to change my predictions, but here’s where I’m at right this instant.  Black Swan has been getting widespread support in the precursors, suggesting to me there’s an opportunity for it to pick up a nomination in this category.  I’ll get to the other contender shortly, but, if you’ll forgive my crassness,  given that I’m predicting a forty-something, fifty-something, sixty-something, and a fourteen year old, I think the Academy will find a place for the incredibly sexy Mila Kunis.  Which, please understand, isn’t meant to take away anything from her performance as the sometimes real, sometimes friend, sometimes rival, sometimes missing half to Natalie Portman’s character.  Animal Kingdom will be arriving very shortly, so I can’t speak to it, but from everything I hear, the only way Weaver doesn’t get the nomination is if not enough voters saw the movie.

FIRST THREE OUT

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
• Barbara Hershey, Black Swan
• Lesley Manville, Another Year

Amy Adams has garnered a number of precursor nominations, is ridiculously cute, and is a damn fine actress, but her character lacks depth.  Given the crowded race, I think if voters have to choose only one supportive partner, they go with Bonham Carter or one actress from The Fighter, they go with Leo.  But if/when I’m wrong, it most likely will be her.  Way  back before people had really seen the film, Hershey was touted as strong favorite here.  Her star has dimmed a little since then, perhaps because there are so many other actresses playing mothers with severe issues handling their offspring.  I’m stunned I can’t find a place for Manville, given director Mike Leigh’s consistent ability to create strong, Oscar-friendly female characters.  I’m told she’s wonderful, it again may just come down who did due diligence and watched her film.

DARK HORSES

• Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole
• Olivia Williams, The Ghost Writer
• Dale Dickey, Winter’s Bone
• Pretty much anyone from For Colored Girls

Everyone was talking about Dianne Wiest and then no one was, I don’t quite get it.  Dollhouse proved to me that Olivia Williams deserves more recognition, and she’s actually quite good in The Ghost Writer, the film just can’t get any traction in the U.S. (and rightly so).   If I had done this two months ago, I would have put Dickey in the top five, given the buzz for Winter’s Bone, and she’s absolutely deserving of a spot.  I hope whoever did the awards promotion for For Colored Girls learned some lessons from the near total failure to get the film out there.  Granted, I hear the subject matter is difficult and it is can be hard to narrow down an ensemble, but we’re looking at a year with twenty white nominees.

SHOULDA BEEN A CONTENDER

Marion Cotillard, Inception
Rosamund Pike, Made in Dagenham
Ellen Wong, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Rebecca Hall, Please Give
Ellen Burstyn, Lovely, Still
Julianna Margulies, City Island
Patricia Clarkson, Easy A
Annette Bening, Mother and Child

I think I’m leaving out at least a half-dozen interesting performances.  A pretty strong year for supporting actress roles, if you ask me.

Who We Want To Win: Best Actress

It is easy to criticize the Academy for its choices.  Like any organization, they are going to make unpopular decisions.  And as with any vote, the most deserving person or film isn’t guaranteed victory in the least.  But part of the genesis of this project is the idea that it isn’t fair to ridicule a winner without seeing all of the other nominees.  So, we watched all the nominees.  Quixotic?  Maybe.  Fun?  Almost always.  Here’s what we thought of the Best Actress category:

(Ice) Fishing for Answers

Someday it’ll get its own post, but invariably I’m happier with and more interested in the screenwriting nominations than the Best Picture ones.  Granted, that’s partially because there are ten screenwriting slots.  But they always seem to contain at least one movie I think was one of the top five Oscar movies of the year, but didn’t make the best picture cut.  This year is WALL-E, of course, but in the past few years have included Lars and the Real Girl, The Squid and the Whale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, American Splendor, and (because I’m not afraid to go there) About a Boy.

So I was intrigued when I saw Frozen River pop up with a screenwriting nomination.  By the time I popped the DVD out of the player, I was still intrigued.  Not by the movie, which wasn’t terribly interesting, but by how the movie ended up with a screenwriting nomination.  The script hadn’t won many awards, wasn’t nominated by the WGA, and it was Courtney Hunt’s first screenplay.  Ascribing it to savvy Oscar marketing seems unlikely given the film’s shoestring budget.  And, oh yeah, the For Your Consideration ad doesn’t mention the script or Hunt.

Certain elements of the movie do smack of Oscar bait.  Melissa Leo plays a woman whose gambling addict husband recently left, only days before Christmas.  And who decides to run illegal immigrants across the border to help make ends meet as her part-time job at the dollar store isn’t putting food (other than popcorn) on the table for her two sons.  And Leo’s accomplice is a Native American living a trailer who desperately wants to get her one year old child back.

But the reason for my surprise (and the reason the film may be described as a “small” movie) is the very narrow, linear path of the movie.  Melissa Leo doesn’t have money, wants some, and sees making runs as opportunity to get some.  Anything broader than that is more or less disregarded and setbacks of any real sort are nonexistent.  There’s no discussion (in the dialogue or thematically) of the ethics of illegal immigration.  Not much of a comment of the relationship of the reservation to the rest of the area, or even much of a glance at the rest of the area at all.  There’s no evil character keeping Leo down, no particular obstacle she has to overcome.

(spoilers after the jump)

The Academy Throws Some Curveballs in its Nominations

Well the nominations have been announced and those looking for surprises are happy this morning. The Grouches did get at least one nasty surprise.

Dark Knight Debacle

I was expecting the Academy to screw up and skip over Dark Knight for Best Picture. I thought Christopher Nolan had a better shot at Director. But the huge surprise was no Adapted Screenplay nomination. Four of the five Best Picture nominees were nominated in that category with the fifth slot going to Doubt. That’s a pretty shoddy film to be passed over for.

On the other hand, it got nominated in every technical category it was eligible for besides Score and Costume for a total of 8 nominations (including Supporting Actor Heath Ledger).

The Winslet Conundrum

Kate Winslet was aiming for Lead Actress in Revolutionary Road and Supporting in The Reader despite both roles probably being lead. She won these categories at the Globes. But the Academy puts her in the Lead role for The Reader and nothing for Road.

So we can play the what if game. Rules in the acting categories state an actor cannot: a) be nominated more than once in the same category, nor b) be nominated twice for the same role. If those rules were removed I would not be surprised if Winslet qualified for Lead for both roles AND Supporting for The Reader. When something like this happens the Academy goes with the role that got the most support and that apparently was Lead for The Reader.

Hooray for Little Movies!

My happiest moment came with the announcement of Richard Jenkins for Actor in The Visitor. Melissa Leo also managed an Actress nod for Frozen River when it seemed like her chances were fading. The biggest out of nowhere surprise may be that film’s Original Screenplay nomination.

Leo’s inclusion may have meant Sally Hawkins’s exclusion for Happy-Go-Lucky but that film still managed an Original Screenplay nod. And that interesting category ALSO includes the wonderful In Bruges. Plus WALL-E, which no one would call a little movie. Those interesting nominations pushed out films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Burn After Reading, however.

Long shots Darren Aronofsky and the film itself for Best Picture didn’t pan out, but at least Marisa Tomei was able to join co-star Mickey Rourke as an acting nominee for The Wrestler. That’s great, though the film really should have gotten a screenplay nod. And Bruce Springsteen’s exclusion for Song is downright confounding.

Other Surprises

I’m not complaining, but it was widely expected Dev Patel to get a Supporting Actor nomination for Slumdog Millionaire and he did not. Instead Michael Shannon from Revolutionary Road snuck in from way back in the pack to give the film its only major nomination.

Another puzzling exclusion was Waltz with Bashir in the Animated Feature category. The animated, foreign-language documentary was nominated for Foreign Language Film and ineligible for Documentary Feature. Kung Fu Panda and Bolt join WALL-E as Animated Feature nominees. After the near unanimous love for the film its absence is quite surprising.

So Jared got his wish for some surprises but managed to be nearly completely wrong in his predictions.

Some other prediction notes after the jump.

Grouching the Oscars: Put Up or Shut Up

Oscar nominations will be announced on January 22. We’re counting down to the big day by tackling some tough questions and spouting some mad opinions. Today we’re making predictions. Going out on a limb a little, what will and will not happen in the nominations?

Brian: Torino for the Upset

Gran Torino will squeeze in as a Best Picture nominee, kicking out Frost/Nixon. I think Oscar voters will be blinded by the strong box office performances of Eastwood’s take on the Incredible Hulk, and the old fogeys will be regretful if they don’t throw some dap to what could possibly be Eastwood’s last film. Considering the movie’s pure audacity, I can’t even protest the pick that much, even though it was not very good. I like its chances, and like the Arizona Cardinals making a playoff run, I think that a surprise nomination could give it upset special potential over Slumdog in the end game.

John: TDK Loses, HSM3 Wins

I’ll believe Dark Knight getting a Best Picture nod when I see it. It deserves it but the Academy is so good at disappointing me. Despite love from nearly every guild (producers, directors, writers, art directors, editors, sound mixers, cinematographers, costume designers) SAG skipped it for its Ensemble award and the acting branch is by far the largest in the Academy. I know the correlation between SAG Ensemble and Best Picture isn’t perfect, but I’m pessimistic. The Reader seems so much more up the Academy’s alley that I can definitely see it ignoring the comic book film. This is a prediction I’d love to be wrong, but I expect lots of fanboy bitching tomorrow.

After last year’s debacle in the category I expect High School Musical 3: Senior Year to score at least one Original Song nomination. Fortunately rule changes prevent it from nabbing more than two so it can’t match Enchanted‘s three. None of the groups that names Best Song has given the bland musical tunes any love, but if anyone can it’s the Academy.

Jared: Good News Coming for Happy, Winslet, Leo (DiCaprio); Bad for Jolie, Blanchett, Leo (Melissa)

It is hard to make exciting predictions this year, with so many categories seeing so much uniformity across guild awards and the other precursors.  I won’t make up something crazy just for the sake of being bold, but I can see a few slightly unexpected things to happen.  Happy-Go-Lucky will garner three nominations (Actress, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay). I wouldn’t necessarily agree with all of them, but I think the film’s unbridled optimism will resonate with voters in this political and economic climate, and since Eddie Marsan is the one counter to that in the whole movie, he stands out too much not to be noticed.  Kate Winslet grabs two noms, and Leonardo DiCaprio comes along for the ride. The former is more likely than the latter, but I think Winslet peaked at the right time, is a name people know and want to vote for, and I think people want to get her an Oscar win.  There are scenarios where Revolutionary Road or The Reader pull down more nominations, but I see them having difficulty cracking the big categories, so support could funnel to DiCaprio.  Leo, Jolie, Blanchett out for Best Actress. This category is an eight woman (well, no, nine, Michelle Williams has a non-zero shot) free-for-all, and really, nothing is absolutely guaranteed.  I think Jolie misses because Changeling didn’t resonate in general any more than A Mighty Heart.  I’m even now second-guessing myself about Blanchett, since the Academy loves her so, but I think she has more of a chance if Benjamin Button broke out a little more at the box office.  And Leo will suffer from being in a movie released too early and being too little of a name.

Adam: Those Expecting Surprises Will be Disappointed

Not sure how much of a long shot it is, but I think Leonardo DiCaprio edges out Pitt and Jenkins for a Best Actor nod.  I also second Jared’s prediction of Happy-Go-Lucky getting more nods than it deserves (which I have no problem ridiculing in the days to come).  I think Dev Patel rides the seemingly-universal love for Slumdog Millionaire into a supporting actor spot.  Honestly though, I really don’t see that many “long shots” in even remote contention.