Do I Have to Pick a Fave Lisbeth Salander?

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I Have But One Oscar Wish.

Girls on Film.

Head over to PopMatters and read out list of the Best Female Performances of 2011. You'll be in for quite a treat!

Ah Meryl...

...and just when you thought you'd seen all she could do.

Also, this teaser is absolutely brilliant! Gotta love how they make us wait for Meryl to appear and then she just blows us away, the mouth gestures are superb!

The Other Best Actress Curse.

Natalie Portman's Best Actress Oscar win was inarguably the highlight of the Oscars; but, as I cheered about her triumph something else struck me. With the assurance that Black Swan would definitely not win the Best Picture award, Natalie was perpetuating a Best Actress curse no one talks about: the Best Actress Oscar is the only award their respective movies get.

Think about it, during the last decade (and we could even go all the way to 1999 when Hilary Swank first defeat Annette Bening) only two movies have won another Oscar besides Best Actress and only one of these movies won Best Picture (Million Dollar Baby).

Compared to the fact that movies that win Best Actor have 8/11 in the "more than one Oscar" statistic, we really might be onto something here, right?

Let's take a year by year look:

(I also noticed Best Actresses like this fabric and color...)

2000 - Best Actress - Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich (Wins 1 - Nominations 5)

Best Actor - Russell Crowe for Gladiator (Wins 5 - Nominations 12)

One Best Actress nominee (Ellen Burstyn) was the sole nominee for her film.

2001 - Best Actress - Halle Berry for Monster's Ball (Wins 1 - Nominations 2)

Best Actor - Denzel Washington for Training Day (Wins 1 - Nominations 2)

One Best Actress nominee (Renee Zellweger) was the sole nominee for her film.

2002 - Best Actress - Nicole Kidman for The Hours (Wins 1 - Nominations 9)

Best Actor - Adrien Brody for The Pianist (Wins 3 - Nominations 7)

One Best Actress nominee (Diane Lane) was the sole nomination for her film.

2003 - Best Actress - Charlize Theron for Monster (Wins 1 - Nominations 1)

Best Actor - Sean Penn for Mystic River (Wins 2 - Nominations 6)

Three Best Actress nominees (Keisha Castle Hughes, Diane Keaton and Charlize Theron)

were the sole nominations for their respective movies.

2004 - Best Actress - Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby (Wins 4 - Nominations 7)

Best Actor - Jamie Foxx for Ray (Wins 2 - Nominations 6)

Two Best Actress nominees (Annette Bening and Catalina Sandino Moreno) were the

sole nominations for their respective movies.

2005 - Best Actress - Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (Wins 1 - Nominations 5)

Best Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (Wins 1 - Nominations 5)

One Best Actress nominee (Felicity Huffman) was the sole nomination for her film.

This is also the only year when all the acting winners were their films' only wins.

2006 - Best Actress - Helen Mirren for The Queen (Wins 1 - Nominations 6)

Best Actor - Forrest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (Wins 1 - Nominations 1)

One Best Actress nominee (Penélope Cruz) was the sole nomination for her film.

Curiously this year four Best Actor nominees were their film's sole nomination.

2007 - Best Actress - Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose (Wins 2 - Nominations 3)

Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood (Wins 2 - Nominations 8)

This is the only year when all Best Actress nominees were accompanied by other nominations.

2008 - Best Actress - Kate Winslet for The Reader (Wins 1 - Nominations 5)

Best Actor - Sean Penn for Milk (Wins 2 - Nominations 8)

One Best Actress nominee (Anne Hathaway) was the sole nomination for her film.

2009 - Best Actress - Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side (Wins 1 - Nominations 2)

Best Actor - Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart (Wins 2 - Nominations 3)

One Best Actress nominee (Meryl Streep) was the sole nomination for her film.

Which brings us to Natalie Portman. Out of her film's five nominations she was the only one who even stood a chance of winning. After the Academy found ways to not love Black Swan as much as other organizations had (denying it Score, Screenplay and Costume nominations) it became clear that if Portman lost the movie would go empty handed.

This strange phenomenon would be less significant if it wasn't because it establishes something everyone keeps saying to no avail: Hollywood doesn't offer women interesting roles.

7/10 Best Actor winners during the past decade where in Best Picture nominees, with women it was just 5 and as obvious as it is that The Blind Side really didn't need another Oscar, what then about the editing in The Hours? Or Black Swan's breathtaking cinematography?

For that matter was Gladiator a better movie than Erin Brockovich?

The fact that Oscar voters just feel the need to reward one category out of this actresses' films might be saying that they think they were the only worthy thing in their films and that their award will be enough for the whole movie. But again, why wasn't Monster nominated for Best Makeup for example (when at least 70% of Charlize's performance is owed to that).

This would seem less conspicuous when measured against the number of Best Actor wins that often seem to provoke "en masse" vote for other categories.

Speaking of this, out of Meryl Streep's 13 Best Actress nominations, she's been the sole nomination for 5 out of these occasions. What is this really saying about Hollywood? Am I seeint too much into this blockade of opportunities for Actresses? When's the last time a Best Actress carried an entire Best Picture as opposed to having a film about men winning the top prize?

If we examined this we would run into even fewer cases where this happened which would include: Gone With the Wind, Mrs. Miniver, Annie Hall, Terms of Endearment, Driving Miss Daisy, The Silence of the Lambs, Shakespeare in Love and Million Dollar Baby.

Eight out of 83...hmm maybe I'm not being paranoid right?

If so what can this mean for filmmakers making movies about women? Let's be honest, in other years films like The Blind Side, Winter's Bone, The Kids Are All Right and to a lesser degree Black Swan would've never factored in the Best Picture race and movies about women competing for the main prize would be out of the question.

So young filmmakers of the world if you want to win a Best Picture Oscar make biopics about disabled men! Stay away from Amelia Earhart! Oh wait, that already happened...

What do you think about this? Do you think actresses will eventually be leading forces behind Oscar winning movies? If Meryl hasn't been able to do it, what are the chances of less beloved actresses ever achieving this?

Quick Oscar Predix.

I wasn't planning to sit and write mine down (not my fave Oscar year...) but my OCD won and here are my short takes on each category.

Best Picture
Will win: "The Hurt Locker"
Personal preference: "The Hurt Locker" (only because "Up" stands no chance in hell)

Best Director
Will win: Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker"
Personal preference: Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker"

Best Actor
Will win: Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart"
Personal preference: Jeremy Renner for "The Hurt Locker"

Best Actress
Will win: Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side"
Personal preference: Carey Mulligan for "An Education"

Hey, I figured if we all predict Sandra, maybe we'll jinx her?
Probably not happening though. Meryl winning would thrill me but it's Ms. Mulligan who should have this in the bag. Best nominated performance.

Best Supporting Actor
Will win: Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds"
Personal preference: Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds"

Best Supporting Actress
Will win: Mo'Nique for "Precious"
Personal preference: Penélope Cruz for "Nine"

I'm perhaps the only person out there who isn't head over heels about Mo'Nique's performance, she sure was the best thing in the very flawed pic but something about her performance fails to transcend into the human for me.
She's merely a prop for Lee Daniels' disturbed vision of violence and consequent redemption.

Best Original Screenplay
Will win: Mark Boal for "The Hurt Locker"
Personal preference: Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds"

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for "Up in the Air"
Personal preference: Nick Hornby for "An Education"

Best Cinematography
Will win: "Avatar"
Personal preference. "The White Ribbon"

Best Editing
Will win: "The Hurt Locker"
Personal preference: "The Hurt Locker"

Best Art Direction
Will win: "Avatar"
Personal preference: "Avatar"

Best Costume Design
Will win: "The Young Victoria"
Personal preference: "Bright Star"

(although who can complain with Sandy Powell having another Oscar?)

Best Original Score
Will win: "Up"
Personal preference: "Up"

Best Original Song
Will win: "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart"
Personal preference: "Take It All" from "Nine"

Apparently country=instant Oscar (unless your competition is a hip hop song about pimps) and it's a shame that AMPAS has completely forgotten about the power of showtunes.

Best Sound and Best Sound Editing
Will win: "Avatar"
Personal preference: "The Hurt Locker"

Best Documentary Feature
Will win: "The Cove"
Personal preference: "The Cove"


Best Foreign Language Film
Will win: "The Secret in Their Eyes"
Personal preference: "The White Ribbon"

Ah what a category!
Two new masterpieces of world cinema (including my favorite movie of the year), a superb genre flick, an avant garde take on Latin American history and even the usual "important" entry is better than you'd expect.
If there was any justice (read if this were the 1960s) Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" would have this one in the bag!
It's such a remarkable film that works as political essay, complex sociological study and even whodunit. Of course it's too heavy and intellectual for the way this category has gone in the last decades so expect Juan José Campanella's excellent "The Secret in Their Eyes" to win.
The movie isn't only fun and romantic it also includes mild political subtext that make it seem important without being harrowing. Also Campanella lost in this category and they might wanna make him justice.
I wouldn't be upset about this win, although I'd be ecstatic if "The White Ribbon" took it.

Best Documentary Short
Will win. "China's Unnatural Disaster"
Personal Preference: N/A

Best Animated Feature
Will win and Personal preference: "Up"

Best Animated Short
Will win: Logorama
Personal preference: N/A

Best Live Action Short
Will win: Kavi
Personal preference: N/A

Ladies Who Luncheon (2009)

AMPAS' experiment of live streaming the Oscar nominees luncheon proved to be an equation that sums up what the Academy Awards are all about: industry people giving each other handjobs while we are the voyeurs who wish to be among them someday.
Few events recall porn without the nudity and orgasms like Oscar does and as someone who should know better I fell for the whole thing once again and saw in disapproval as Sandra Bullock owned the room and Meryl Streep played the always a bridesmaid part yet again.
However I couldn't help but feel thrilled when I saw my two favorite nominees of the year: Carey Mulligan and Kathryn Bigelow.
If Oscar's going home with two ladies, this year it should definitely be them.
First up Carey dazzled in a new hair color which she immediately realized matched Oscar. I think she's too shy and introverted to be so manipulative but many style oriented voters out there probably loved the idea of the statuette matching the recipient and pushed Carey up in their ballots (obviously considering that they aren't voting for her masterful performance).
When asked about what it was to hang out with Meryl, Helen and Sandra she said "they could be a nightmare if they wanted to, because they're so good" but again told us just how nice the older gals were.
As a piece of advice to all the nominees she simply asked them to watch their drinks considering she was "hammered" for an awards show a few months ago and wasn't expecting to win.
The cutest thing of it all was when she said "Gabby and I exchanged numbers and have been texting each other about clothes" ah, they are after all so damn young!
Bullock is the closest to their age range and she's twenty years older than Gabourey!

Next up was the amazing Kathryn Bigelow. Before she came in I kept wondering what she would wear and crossed my fingers for it to be a dress.
Why is it that when female directors get nominated they always go for simple monochromatic dresses or eek pantsuits? That I'm offended by her gender always being brought up does not mean she has to completely disown it either! The most fun at these things is seeing what the nominees wear.
Bigelow has been the exception and has opted for mini dresses with little flairs like the gorgeous shoulders in this Balenciaga looking design.
Hmm I wonder how would she look in something by L'Wren Scott?

I Spoke Too Soon.

This makes my previous post completely obsolete.
What the what Meryl Streep?

How to Win a Best Actress Oscar:

Featuring Jane Wyman in "Johnny Belinda".


Play a character who has a disability.
Or better yet two.
Be kind to everyone and smile like a saint.

Have a baby out of wedlock.
Better yet if the baby was conceived from a violent, but secret rape from the town villain.

Go to trial for killing a man.
Even better if your disability makes it impossible for you to defend yourself and your life hangs by a thread throughout the film's last ten minutes.

It also helps if the actress has just undergone a personal tragedy of her own and needs to feel embraced by her peers (see Ronald Reagan divorce and death of infant daughter).

(Gotta love how Lars von Trier plays with this cliché concept in "Dancer in the Dark", the man's a genius...)

An Audrey Hepburn.

Currently receiving heaps of awards buzz for her performance in "An Education", British actress Carey Mulligan must have a really good PR team and stylist.
Wearing a discrete, flowered pattern, strapless dress for the Los Angeles premiere of her movie to go with her stunningly elegant short haircut she immediately recalls someone else...

...and see what short hair, flowers and shoulder got for Audrey!
Whoever told Carey to go naivete and ingenue by following the legendary fashion icon might just have struck gold!

While Watching "The Country Girl"...

...I tried for a minute to think like AMPAS.
Got to the following conclusion.
If in under two hours Grace Kelly goes from this,

...to this,

...to this,

...to this...

...it MUST be great acting!

L'absent.

She should be a lock for a Best Actress nomination tomorrow.
I don't know why did the buzz around her die so easily.
Too subtle? Enough with the French performances? Anyone?

Yes, It Really Happened.

I don't know which of the two is my fave.
I just LOVE when she thanks her makeup people for "The Reader" because nobody ever does, it's as if they put it on themselves and think of acknowledging makeup as something shameful to their thespian skills.
Well watch as one of our greatest actresses thanks them and accepts she wouldn't have done it without them.
Later the look Cameron gives her just kills me and Kate is just so sincere in her emotions. The Leo love thing is just adorable and I'm thinking Meryl Streep is perhaps the best loser of all time. She is just so gracious and always looks so honestly pleased about people who defeat her (take note Angelina).
Now bring Kate the BAFTA, SAG and Oscar!

The Meryl Wins BFCA.

"I'm so happy my gums are receding."
Anne Hathaway quotes her screenwriter Jenny Lumet accepting her Best Actress award.

...but it's co-winner Anne Hathaway for "Rachel Getting Married" who steals the show for once.
"I don't know how to win awards, I know how to not be nominated for them" she says as she sets the bar for the kind of Julia Roberts speech that will get a voter or two picking her just to see how gracious, funny and natural she'd be up the podium.
This got me thinking about her performance in the movie which might count to some as deglam, but is in fact more of a study in subtlety.
She does right thanking her director as you know it was him who chose the quiet scenes where Kym just takes a punch at your gut (dancing with her eyes closed during the party, it should be her Oscar clip!).
I wasn't taking her chances so seriously but she makes sense in the way Academy voters have been making their choices lately and with no huge biopic contestant this year, it looks like the path might be clear for her, unless they have the sudden urge to be nice to the vastly underrated (yes she is...) Kate Winslet.
Now, if they'd only start taking Rosemarie DeWitt into consideration as well...if your Best Actress winner calls someone "incandescent, intelligent, loving, exquisite celluloid sister" you should be listening!

The Kind of Quote Made for Campaigns.

"[Kristin Scott Thomas in "I've Loved You So Long"] is profoundly effective. I'm not sure I've seen a better performance in any film this decade.
- Richard Roeper on his "Performance of the Year".
To read Roeper's "Best of 2008" list go here.

Pain in the Actress.

She has exactly four scenes, roughly twenty minutes of screen time, in a film filled with far more interesting characters in every sequence, and still Eleanor Parker managed to get an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in "Detective Story".
The nomination itself is not the surprise (even if this means the Academy thought she was worthy of being in a lineup that included Katharine Hepburn for "The African Queen" and Vivien Leigh for "A Streetcar Named Desire"), the thing that bothers me is that the element that made her performance different from the rest is that her character has a secret, something that for the era was terrible, but nowadays is instantly obsolete (just take a look at how easily the Academy went and nominated "Juno" this year).
Of course all this has a lot to do with changes in society, but the one constant is that the Academy simply loves subjugated women; the more their character suffers, the better the performance.
Why do you think that pain (even when it's only referred to in the film) is associated with good acting?

The Love That Lifted a Man to Paradise...

...and Hurled Him Back to Earth Again

The man would be Philip Carey (Leslie Howard); a sensitive, club-footed artist who is forced to study medicine after his art work is deemed mediocre in Paris.

The film would be "Of Human Bondage".

In London Philip meets Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis) an illiterate tearoom waitress with whom he becomes infatuated and obsessed.

He sees her in his anatomy books and fails his medical midterm because he can't get her out of his head.

He invites her to the theater and courts her, to which she usually replies "I don't mind" with her heavy Cockney accent. Then one day she announces she will get married to Miller (Alan Hale), an older salesman, and asks Philip to get over her.

He obviously doesn't and throughout the story Mildred will exert a strange power over him that will lead him to forgive her every single time, giving her an apartment while she flirts with his best friend and leading to a tragic conclusion.

Based on W. Somerset Maugham's autobiographical novel and directed by John Cromwell, this is the most famous of the film versions, mostly because of what it wasn't.

In what to this day remains a known anecdote for film buffs and award insiders, the movie, which resulted in unanimous praise for Davis, was not nominated for a single Academy Award.

It was Davis' twenty third film, but considering this was in the studio system era when actors were forced into contract films and ended up starring in up to four films a year (Bette herself had four more pictures released in 1934) we can say that this was her breakthrough.

She'd been working since 1931 and was 25 when "Of Human Bondage" was released. The critics loved her work, mostly because it was a total revelation.

Legend has it that Leslie Howard wasn't so keen on working with the newbie and started the film acting carelessly; later, he would constantly try to up his game in order to catch up with his ferocious costar.

Now it seems unbelievable to think back of a time where Howard's name had top billing and Davis was an unknown. Makes you wonder what the actor would've accomplished if it hadn't been for his untimely death. He apparently was very influential, even giving Bogie his first major role, but that's a story for another occasion.

When Oscar announced its nominations in 1935 the film failed to be nominated in every single category, the biggest upset was of course Best Actress.

Davis would be quoted as saying her career was BM and AM (before Maugham and after Maugham respectively) which is a small example of how big the film was in her life.

After Davis' snub, Hollywood went beserk and for the one and only time in Academy history there was a write-in nominee.

Since the Academy didn't allow this in its rules, official records don't show the nomination, but it happened.

And so did this performance, a tour de force in which her sexiness and vulgarity played side to side, luckily it's pre-Code so the sexuality of the characters is on the surface.

Her Cockney accent is perfect, but the work she does with her mannierisms and eyes is the real wonder here. Somehow she makes Mildred someone so awful and revolting that you can't stand her, but at the same time you understand why Philip takes her back every single time.

In her last scene (a shocking transformation that doesn't happen outside as it does within her) you make up your mind about your feelings toward Mildred and whether they are good or bad, very few performances in history dig so deep under your skin.

It's as if we were bound to her in some way or another.

As every human being is to something or other.

If only the movie had been half as good...

Elizabeth: The Golden Age **

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Cast:
Cate Blanchett
Clive Owen
Geoffrey Rush Abbie Cornish Samantha Morton

It is the year 1585 and Queen Elizabeth I (Blanchett) faces some of the most difficult times in her reign.
The Vatican has begun a Holy War against all impure religions and Protestant England is the biggest enemy.
Spanish King Philip II (Jordi Mollá) has begun to conspire against Elizabeth with the help of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots (a subtly dignified Morton).
She also must deal with constant pressure from her advisors about remaining unmarried.
Things begin to look better for her when explorer Walter Raleigh (Owen making his best Errol Flynn impression) arrives in the court, stirring her sense of adventure, along with her hormones.
But dutiful to her self appointed Virgin Queen title she channels all sexual desire engaging in war to defeat the Spanish armada and trying to survive in order to lead her country to its eventual Renaissance.
A film completely in love with its own beauty, this "Elizabeth" has lost the brutal beauty of its 1998 predecessor and has dedicated all of its efforts into looking voluptuosly beautiful.
The biggest example might lie in its lead star, by the time depicted in the film, the Queen was in her 50s, yet the only thing that hints at her age might be her menopausic rage and fixation on invisible wrinkles.
Historical accuracy hasn't been perhaps the best feature in Kapur's films, but while in the original one his liberties served as necessary metaphors, here they all are in service of what would make the most extravagant shot or how much soap opera worthy drama the audience can handle.
When it could've drawn interesting parallels with the Holy War and our times, the plot instead worries about how Elizabeth will react when she learns Raleigh has a thing for one of her ladies in waiting (Cornish).
When it could've explored so much about the Queen's internal drama, it chooses to show us how her ladies take care of her wigs. It seems she has one in every style and size, including a long one, complete with tresses for when she must get in armor a la Joan of Arc and inspire her troops with a "Gladiator" speech (No wonder that the young Spanish Infanta has an action figure that looks like her).
The script does a great disservice to the brilliant lead actress; Blanchett must've realized how the grandiosity of the settings and costumes, along with the campy lines, drowned the drama and literally tried to give an even bigger performance.
In some scenes, like when she condemns Mary to death, Blanchett taps into the fear and insecurity that made Elizabeth a person above all things.
But when minutes later she is screaming "I keep my bitches on my collars" you wonder when did Blanchett stop playing Elizabeth and a deranged Norma Desmond arrived to play the Queen of Hearts from "Alice in Wonderland".
A film that promised so much and delivered pure camp, probably doesn't bode well for part three "Elizabeth: The Golden Girl".