She's After Me!

"After Beth, do you need another controversy?"

- Nina (Natalie Portman) to Thomas (Vincent Cassel) in Black Swan.

Remember Sarah Lane? The lady who keeps messing with Natalie Portman's "dancing" in Black Swan?

Well, she's back! Not satisfied with Darren Aronofsky's recount of the dance shots Portman did (he said 111/128) Lane had the film's editor, Andy Weisblum, do another count of long shot scenes in which you see Nina's full body, not just Portman's gorgeous face.

Weisblum confirms that in fact out of those full body shots, almost 70% are Sarah, but wait, why is she doing this again?

According her she doesn't want "the fame, the recognition or anything" yet she keeps on making a big deal and blabbing on and on about her important part in the role to whoever lends an ear. the truth is that anyone in their right mind knows that Portman didn't become a ballerina in less than two years, it's just impossible! Even if out there, there might be a potential movie from the makers of The Blind Side that might try to prove me wrong.

Lane was interviewed by ABC News where she went on and on and on and on and on... (read full interview here)

The one thing that remains clear to me about this whole thing is that,

I also have been thinking what would happen if ALL people who inspire characters, went on to seek recognition for their influence and the ungratefulness of the actors?

Oh Meryl Streep, you'd be in deep shit...

Holocaust Survivors would demand she endured Auschwitz before making Sophie's Choice.

Catholic school survivors would send her to a convent before she even dared take on her role in Proof.

She'd have to be Anna Wintour's intern before taking on The Devil Wears Prada.

She'd have to be exposed to radioactivity for Silkwood, have an affair with a photographer for Bridges of Madison County and well, die for Death Becomes Her.

Isn't it ridiculous that some people have forgotten that actors, act? I'm buying Portman as a psycho ballerina and if not even the documentary in the Blu-ray lessened the impact of her performance, this lady keeps losing her time...

Got any more examples of actors that would have to redo their filmography to please Ms. Lane?

Perfect way to end my bday.

Disclaimer.

Natalie Portman only does 10% of this website.

Now proceed with your day.

(My) Best of 2010: Picture.

10. Somewhere

Like Lost in Translation before it, Somewhere is a non-story that evokes beautiful nostalgia. Once again set in the world of Hollywood (stick to what you know, right?) Sofia Coppola delivers a delicate portrait of a movie star (Stephen Dorff) and his down to earth relationship with his young daughter (Elle Fanning).

Dialogs are limited, "actions" are sparse and yet, coming out of it, you can't help but feel that the world has been shown to you for the first time. Coppola's ability to find beauty in the quotidian has made her a true master.

9. Undertow

The year's best love story (sorry Never Let Me Go), had fishermen, photographers and ghosts. As delivered by Javier Fuentes León though, the film is able to avoid extreme quirkiness and/or melodrama, instead becoming a remarkable exercise of how to transport Latin American magical realism, into seamless visual narrative.
Manolo Cardona and Cristian Mercado will break your heart as the star crossed lovers, who must cope with denial, secrecy and death.

Kudos for being a love story between men that doesn't scream "gay movie". Love after all should transcend sexual orientation.

8. The Ghost Writer

Done with gleeful mischief by Roman Polanski, this was the year's most entertaining political thriller. Its layers and secrets more fun, not because of their real life parallels (Tony Blair mostly) but because they transport us to a time and place where movies could be entertaining and smart.

Ewan McGregor and a remarkable Pierce Brosnan take their game to splendid levels but it's Olivia Williams' role, straight out of The Manchurian Candidate, that gives this film its final laugh.

7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Icy, distant and furiously feminist, this adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel was a stunning throwback to suspense thrillers at their best. Noomi Rapace gives an iconic performance as goth hacker Lisbeth Salander but the movie's best asset is its straightforward approach to its genre.

It's not reinventing the wheel but it never pretends to, instead it throws us sepia flashbacks, newspapers clippings and gasp worthy moments, with full understanding that it's main purpose is to entertain and seduce its audience. Action flicks are rarely this sincere.

6. I Am Love

If Luchino Visconti and Sergei Eisenstein had a baby, it would be I Am Love. Luca Guadagnino's epic work is a breathtakingly beautiful portrait of a collapsing world.

Tilda Swinton plays a Russian immigrant married to an Italian heir. The way in which love falls with violent aplomb onto their lives makes for a subtle political statement that leads us to ask questions cinema hasn't made us since the 1960s.

Is capitalism a force that opposes love? Can personal history be adapted in lieu of social class upgrades? Is there anything Tilda Swinton can't do?

5. Carlos

Olivier Assayas and Edgar Ramírez deliver one of the few biopics that can be called complete. This encompassing study of Carlos "The Jackal" forgoes ridiculous mentions of childhood traumas, facile Freudian diagnosis or unnecessary romanticism to tell the story of the world's most notorious terrorist. Assayas himself begins the film with a disclaimer saying that parts of the film are complete fiction, yet his assured direction and Ramírez's star making performance make us disbelief this. If this isn't the real Jackal, they could've fooled us.

4. Toy Story 3

People who attribute the success of this installment to nostalgia for the first two chapters, might run into a dead end when they bump into my Toy Story experience.

I'm most definitely not a fan of the first two and never held any high regards for Woody, Buzz or company. However nothing prepared me for the emotional punch of this film.

Who would've thought that Ingmar Bergman's explorations of mortality would live, not through Eastern European art cinema, but through computer animated toys?

3. Dogtooth

One of the year's funniest comedies and also one of the best horror films, Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth is a remarkable work of originality that thrives in spite of its tendency to push the level with every minute of its running time.

A morality play, a modern interpretation of Plato, a sexual comedy and much more, this film roots its perverse power in the best and worst of human nature; in our need to protect the ones we love and the fear of never living up to satisfy the universe that created us.

2. The Social Network

The Facebook movie proved to be much more than what anyone expected and delivered the thrills in more than one way.

As a comedy, it recalls some of the bitterest satires put on the stage. As a drama, it's a heartbreaking story of how money and power are never enough when it comes to eradicating loneliness. As a court movie, it's an exemplary work of how to push genres into fresh directions, as auteur work it's an unmistakable masterpiece made only better by David Fincher's ability to turn a great screenplay into an intimate, personal work.

Jesse Eisenberg delivered the best male performance of the year as Mark Zuckerberg and the film's stunt casting made a case for how its characters' values are the sad faces of an entire generation. Those who have compared it to Citizen Kane, are not using hyperbole.

1. Black Swan

In Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky explores the nature of creation while exploiting his very own creative sense. He creates an imperfect world within our own, where high camp, terror, psychological drama and insanity coexist with such balance that they make us wonder about the elements that conform our existence.

Natalie Portman gives the year's greatest performance as ballerina Nina Sayers: a fragile beauty trying to find perfection within chaos. Like the actual black swans, which remained a myth until they were discovered by explorers a few centuries ago, she undergoes a Kafka-esque process in which she discovers that she's becoming that which she once feared and thought impossible.

Her quest for perfection mirrors the film's own search for artistic sublimity, yet as an organism, the film seems to "learn" just in time that in order to achieve perfection, it must compromise with itself.

As Nina surrenders to insanity worthy of the most tragic Catholic saint, the movie takes an alternate path and observes Nina's quest, while it develops its own route. There's a moment in the film, where it stops being Nina (after following her path through most of the running time) and decides that perfection is perhaps too much to aim for.

That the film ends up being perfect in its own sense, makes for an interesting dichotomy between artistic expectations and actual aesthetic realities.

Black Swan was a reminder of why people go to the movies: to be transported to different worlds, to know people they could never meet in real life, to see the world from a different perspective, to bask in the face of the incomprehensible and metaphysical, and sometimes to be shaken to our core so all we are left to say is just "what the fuck?".

(My) Best of 2010: Director.

5. Olivier Assayas for Carlos

The scope of his film! Carlos was perhaps the closest we came in 2010 to having an "epic" film.

A multi-country, multi-cultured, multi-decade drama that focused on the life of a single person. Combining classic Hollywood filmmaking with 70's political cinema and filtering it all through his truly unique personal vision, Assayas made of Carlos "The Jackal", someone we could comprehend for a moment.

The fact that the movie originally was supposed to focus on one specific episode and was extended after Assayas realized he wanted to say more, is an impressive commitment on its own.

4. Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer

As his world became more controversial and many expected him to slip into quiet retirement, the incredible Roman Polanski delivered one of the greatest films of his entire career.

The Ghost Writer had the balls to address current issues while recurring to political allegories that recalled The Manchurian Candidate and thrills worthy of Hitchcock's best work.

You can feel his hand the second the film begins and as it evolves you see how this seemingly simple film, ties up many of the themes he's explored in over four decades.

Best of all? The utter joy that exudes from the darkly mischievous film. Watching it you can feel Polanski's smile while he shot it. He truly loves the movies!

3. Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan

It's taken Darren Aronofsky a while but he finally delivered the movie worthy of his talents. After exploring the machinations of the human mind through addiction (whether it be to drugs, love or perfection) and trying out more intimate dramas, he grabbed all of his obsessions, techniques and styles and threw them together to create Black Swan.

This psycho-sexual-character study not only proved he's a master at directing actors (Natalie Portman will have trouble topping off her role here...) but that he's at his best when he loses some control himself.

Black Swan sometimes feels confused and misleading, but for the first time Aronofsky (who's known for his meticulousness) delivered something messy that might've lacked the firmness of his previous works but felt like a breathing, living organism.

2. Yorgos Lanthimos for Dogtooth

Making weird films is certainly easy. Making the weirdness feel coherent and achieve verisimilitude is on another different level though and that's precisely what Lanthimos does in his wickedly brilliant Dogtooth.

He creates a unique universe located within a house, but makes it work in relation to the world around the characters. Watching the precision with which all his means achieve diabolically funny ends, you can't help but think that he either lived something as insane as what goes on in the film, or he began writing it at age six.

Such is the level of encompassing power provided by Lanthimos that it makes sense that in some circles (and languages) a film director is also known as a "creator".

1. David Fincher for The Social Network

Even if he's accused of being cold, insensitive and too technical, David Fincher is truly one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers. His style is perhaps too European for Hollywood and this is why his attempts at creating fascinating essays are botched by middlebrow studio sensibilities (Benjamin Button anyone?).

It was a true delight then, to see him work at what seems to be complete freedom; in The Social Network he displays a mastery of the cinematic form that baffles in its effortless brilliance.

First, he created a movie that deals with lawsuits over a website, yet managed to make it more layered and intricate than anyone would've expected.

Second, his lead character is a complete asshole, yet like Welles in Citizen Kane he managed to make us look past the surface and created the most effective portrait of loneliness in ages.

Third, even if he says he didn't do it on purpose, he did capture the zeitgeist! The Social Network is a movie that encompasses an entire generation with such effortlessness that some out there still wonder what's the big deal about it. Others just surrendered to its perfection.

Fourth, his mastery of the cinematic form is such that it takes one several screenings to realize what a tight film this is. There's a million things going on at the same time, several times narrated and yet every single thing about The Social Network is united and flawlessly put together.

His work here is worthy of all the likes, shares and pokes anyone might think of, but perhaps his greatest achievement is that he gave us a movie to discuss over decades to come. Fincher seems fully aware that the greatest cinema doesn't stop living after the credits end, it moves with the audience who take it with them for the rest of their lives.

(My) Best of 2010: Actress.

5. Hilda Péter in Katalin Varga

Some of 2010's greatest female performances had actresses playing heroines of archetypal myths, fairy tales and urban legends (off the top of my head, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, Paprika Steen in Applaus and my number one choice come to mind...)

Few played them with the authority and command of Hilda Péter; playing the title role she's the embodiment of motherhood at its most primal.

In the film, Katalin is vanished from her village, after her husband discovers their child was fathered by another man. Instead of begging for forgiveness, Katalin decides to leave with a mission: to kill the man who raped her years before.

The directorial debut of Peter Strickland bursts with natural beauty (Terrence Malick must've influenced him) and an Eastern European, ominous dread worthy of Lars von Trier. Péter shines in all of her scenes, giving a performance so committed and steady that you never catch her trying. Katalin acts as if commanded by the gods but we know Péter is the driving force behind.

4. Noomi Rapace in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Modern legend has it, that when Stieg Larsson was writing The Millennium Trilogy, he had originally centered it on journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The character of goth hacker Lisbeth Salander was just a peripheral creation.

Then he realized that Lisbeth was getting out of his hands and overtaking his original intentions. When the books were adapted into films, Lisbeth continued her bewitching effect over popular culture as the beautiful Noomi Rapace took on the role.

Making Lisbeth's introverted nature and her violent demeanor, all her own, Rapace delivered an action heroine that had us rooting for her unconventional methods, even when we could detect a morbid sense of evil delight in her deceiving, crooked smile. Because we don't know whether to love or fear her, Lisbeth Salander gets under your skin.

Rapace's "best" performance might not be in the first movie but without her iconic work in the first installment we wouldn't be curious about the rest of the series.

Perhaps in the very same way that Larsson found himself typing her name compulsively page after page.

3. Tilda Swinton in I Am Love

Like some of the greatest screen icons, Tilda Swinton has the ability to take violent hold of the screen and command our eyes towards her, just as she can blend herself in the background with distressing effortlessness.

In Luca Guadagnino's operatic I Am Love, she does the latter, turning in a beautifully quiet performance as Emma Recchi.

We learn that she's a Russian immigrant who married an Italian heir, but other than that her character flowers in front of our eyes with each passing scene. As usual Swinton impresses; her Russian accent over her mastery of Italian is unique to say the least, but the beauty of Emma is how she allows us to watch her being seduced (by food, by the senses, by idealism, by a younger man...) without the self-consciousness that comes whenever "sinful" or forbidden behavior is portrayed onscreen.

If you thought you'd seen Tilda do it all, think again. She makes eating a meal seem like a master course in acting.

2. Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole

Becca is a truly damaged soul who lost all the will to live after the death of her only child. However she doesn't opt for an easy path of destruction, instead she lives her life as penance for not having been there, for not having seen...

Yet seen through the eyes of Nicole Kidman, her tragic character reaches an unexpected amount of humanity and soul.

Watching the actress take control of this controlling character, is watching something that resembles supernatural possession. Kidman breathes each of Becca's breath. She lives her pain and delivers a uniquely crushing portrayal of self pity and eventual enlightenment.

When Becca achieves catharsis, she does it in the most unexpected of places and under the strangest circumstances, with Kidman acting as her very own exorcist.

1. Natalie Portman in Black Swan

The first time I watched Black Swan I hated it. Its crescendo of ballet, histrionics and horror seemed like a parody in the making. One thing blew my mind off though, and that was Natalie Portman.

Her performance is unlike anything she's ever done before and not because she plays an insane person but because it's the first time where she completely surrenders to the power of her creation.

In the past, whenever she attempted to play "dark", you could see her acting, she's an actress who has trouble hiding discomfort and it usually gets the bes of her. But playing ballerina Nina Sayers in Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece, she tapped on a level of artistry that's both disturbing and inviting.

As Nina goes from mommy's girl to Kafkaesque tragedy, we see that Portman has vanished. How could she not you might say when she's playing a ballerina, who's playing two different characters. Yet the truth is that her performance is effective because it goes beyond technique and mannerisms (bonus points for acting so seamlessly along with the visual effects, something she never achieved in those little space fantasy movies...).

There's one particular scene that lingers long after the credits have rolled and it's the one where Nina realizes what she's done, minutes before her big performance.

Then and there she makes a choice and it's so powerful that even we feel it, for a second Nina stares right into the camera, right into our eyes and she's telling us "I will give you the show of a lifetime, even if it kills me".

As her harsh director in the movie asks her to try harder, the truth is that Natalie has done it all along. The moment the movie begins Rothbart has already put his spell on her, she's been the black swan all along.

(My) Best of 2010: Supporting Actress.

5. Elle Fanning in Somewhere

Playing Cleo, the young daughter of a movie star (Stephen Dorff), Elle Fanning gives Somewhere its heart. Sure, you might say, children always give movies their heart.

Yet what Fanning does isn't about "aww"s. Her combination of here-too-soon ennui and keen observance (she's like a movie camera!) are what give the movie its center in a much more transcendental way. Cleo rarely says something without meaning it and the movie delights itself watching her go through seemingly trivial moments (the eggs Benedict moment is one of pure intimate joy, see the way she smiles throughout the entire sequence).

What results heartbreaking about her is how much she needs to be loved by the people she loves. Paired with Dorff she has a natural chemistry that never allows you to disbelieve they are related, what's more, you feel a connection.

Cleo's angelical face lights up when she sees her father and we understand that she has learned to compromise with what she desires and what life can actually give her.

4. Lesley Manville in Another Year

Few performances in 2010 were as painful to watch as Lesley Manville's in Another Year. Playing the needy Mary, friend to an older married couple (Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent) she creates a portrait of someone whose loneliness has become who they are.

Manville takes us through Mary's deconstruction; from insecure yet hopeful temptress to utter desolate woman in such a delicate way that you feel for her.

Her insecurity makes it impossible for us to stop looking at her. Notice how in one of the scenes Mary arrives at a barbecue and talks nonstop about why she's late. She makes her way saying hello to everyone around the table and eventually realizes one of her friends had been holding a baby all along. Because we were so fixed on Mary, we also had been unaware that the baby was there...

Mike Leigh often fixes the camera on Manville and we see how Mary is, in a way, trying to escape the confinement that shapes her universe.

When she's unable to do this, her eventual surrender is a thing of heartbreaking beauty.

3. Barbara Hershey in Black Swan

How does one make Grand Guignol achieve emotional truth? Countless actresses have attempted to this to no avail (think Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and to an extent Joan Crawford as Joan Crawford) and their performances are usually more admired for their theatricality than their humanity.

Erica in Black Swan would be an exception. Inarguably obsessive and freakishly psychotic to a point, she makes her daughter Nina's (Natalie Portman) life both paradise and a living hell.

Looking after her child in the only way she knows, Erica is nosy, cruel and overbearing. During the first part of the film we see how she behaves with her daughter, often praising her for getting

a starring role while simultaneously bringing her down and reassuring her that everything she lacks is more important than what she can do.

Yet as the film moves forward we realize that Erica in fact despises Nina. This isn't about "living vicariously" anymore, it's a straight forward competition between a bitter human being and her seemingly schizophrenic daughter.

Hershey gives in to Erica's pain with such ease that we never see her twitching or "acting". She doesn't try to make her character likable or understandable. She surrenders to Erica's lack of love for her daughter and explodes through the possessive actions she replaces it with. The last time we see her, she's crying as her daughter dances the Swan Queen.

We understand that these tears are as much about resentful pride as they are about envy.

2. Marion Cotillard in Inception

During Inception's opening scene, director Christopher Nolan indulges himself with the self aware gimmicks of his editing, his cameras and his "groundbreaking" screenplay.

He introduces us to his characters, sets the basic ideas that he will fail to expand for the rest of the film and wreaks havoc like a lunatic orchestra director who has decided nothing but tubas will do.

In the middle of this chaos we spot Mal (Cotillard) for the first time, as perhaps the only feminine presence in the film (don't even mention Ellen Page...) Nolan tries to confine her by the rules of what defines a femme fatale. She delivers her lines with dramatic aplomb, looks like a true movie star and eventually is revealed to be insane.

Of course Marion Cotillard takes this to another level. During that first sequence she possesses this unsettling calm that nobody else in the movie ever achieves. As you see Mal strut her way out of the scene as a, literal, dream begins to collapse, you can not take your eyes away from her.

In subsequent scenes, the more Nolan tries to make her worse (even her name is meant to diminish her) the better Cotillard gets. She finds the soul of this woman who ironically isn't an actual person. It's her performance alone that delivers the message Nolan tried to express using his technical prowess like an army. Cotillard understands that exercising extreme control would've made her mechanical and dull, it's through delicately violent restraint that she becomes the only thing about Inception that truly haunts your dreams.

1. Amy Adams in The Fighter

The thing about Amy Adams' Charlene in The Fighter is that you never see her coming. Like the best pugilists she seems to come out of nowhere to deliver unexpectedly powerful blows.

The first time we see her she's working at a bar. The actress, who has used us to her naivete and cute eagerness, here blends seamlessly into the seedy bar background.

She gives Charlene an entire history with subtle movements, facial expressions and a lot of attitude. As we learn more about her character she becomes more and more enigmatic. We understand why Micky (Mark Wahlberg) is fascinated by her.

On their first date they go to a movie. Micky chooses to impress her with Belle Epoque, Charlene's confused reaction and straightforward "I had to read the whole fuckin' movie" are priceless.

The best thing about Charlene is that she's so un-selfconscious that you chuckle when you think that she would probably hate a movie like The Fighter.

She's judged by Micky's family as a girl who thinks she's better than the rest (an MTV girl...whatever the fuck that is) and as such she's trapped in a limbo of sorts. In a way she's better than the rest of the characters (even from a human point of view) yet at the same time she's deeply frustrated because she hasn't done all she wanted to do in life.

Adams infuses Charlene with a deep melancholy only overshadowed by her relentless love for Micky. She supports Wahlberg's character in a non-scene-stealing way by merely being herself. She's sassy without becoming a cliché, sweet without becoming a victim, sexual without becoming vulgar and overall she's the one character in the film whose too real humanity punches you right in the gut.

(My) Best of 2010: Supporting Actor.

5. Andrew Garfield in Never Let Me Go

We're never really sure why Kathy (Carey Mulligan) falls in love with Tommy (Garfield).

We're never really sure why Ruth (Keira Knightley) steals him from her either.

The thing about Tommy is that he's barely there and as such serves as a perfect canvas for others to imprint their feelings and idealism on him.

Garfield plays the part with a heartbreaking lack of self awareness. Tommy is one of the first characters we meet in the film and as often as we forget he's there, his bittersweet smile stabs our heart when we least expect it to.

4. Armie Hammer in The Social Network

"I'm 6'5, 220 and there's two of me" says an angry Tyler Winklevoss (Hammer) to his friend Divya (Max Minghella) and his brother Cameron (Hammer again).

They're talking about ways they can find to gut the friggin' nerd (Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg) who stole their website from them and Hammer does it with such grace that we think we're watching a hybrid of Clint Eastwood and Sir Laurence Olivier.

The Winklevi's commitment to Harvard law and their need to fulfill a social role is only overpowered by a rash masculinity they let us see flashes of now and then.

Hammer is remarkable in both roles and thanks to the editing and visual effects he creates two characters that are completely different and unique.

His inclusion here might be owed to the fact that nobody in the movie delivers Aaron Sorkin's lines with the elegance he does. When you multiply that plus two, you're prepared to have your mind blown away.

3. Sullivan Stapleton in Animal Kingdom

The Cody family knows good violence and isn't afraid to ask. Yet when recently orphaned teenager Joshua (James Frecheville) arrives to live with his uncles and grandmother things take an unexpected turn.

As the consequences of their acts begin to catch up with them, no other family member is as hypnotic to watch as Craig (Stapleton). Watching his descent into a self made hell is a thing that's both morally expected and completely devastating.

Stapleton plays Craig like someone who's half regretful, half surprised about the events that begin to unravel and this is what makes his performance so effective (His final scene is astonishing!)

He has an almost childlike innocence about him that make us believe that as much as he was a criminal, he was a victim.

2. Vincent Cassel in Black Swan

If someone was ever casting the role of the snake that tempted Eve to taste the apple in the Garden of Eden, Vincent Cassel should instantly win the part.

He embodies sliminess and seductive cruelty as Thomas Leroy in Black Swan. He's the creative director for the ballet company that psycho ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) attends and as such he gets the opportunity to tease, seduce and even destroy the fragile women at his command.

Cassel gets stuck with some of the most preposterous lines in the screenplay ("The real work would be your metamorphosis into her evil twin", "you could be brilliant, but you're a coward", "to beauty!","my little princess") but the actor is so aware of the theatricality and darkness in his character that he's always ready to give us more of that bite.

1. John Hawkes in Winter's Bone

Teadrop is an enigma. Everything he does seems to be coming from an impulse deep within that not even he knew existed. His quiet presence when we first meet him is perhaps more unnerving than the eventual outburst of violence he shows.

Yet there is something almost primal hiding under the surface; the way he acts with Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) lets us know that he may not be a man of sweetness but he's certainly a man of conviction.

We often are terrified whenever he comes onscreen, then we are soothed by the fatherly way in which he defends his niece but when the movie ends we are left waiting for a revelation that never comes. Ree might be Winter's Bone heart but Teardrop gives it its haunting soul.

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?

Oscar Fashion: Best Dressed

This column is dedicated to my friend Luke, who knows how much I hated the Oscars this year but still wanted to hear my opinion on fashion. Hope you enjoy sir.

10. Jennifer Lawrence in Calvin Klein

At first glance I was so disappointed with Lawrence's look. She had been so flawless and risky all season long, wearing bold colors in even bolder designs (girl's got the legs) so when she showed up in this simple red column with practically no accessories and free flowing hair I was like "what?".

As the night went by however, she looked just radiant! The silhouette is perfection and unlike other actresses, she never looked constricted or restrained by what she was wearing. Can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

9. Sandra Bullock in Vera Wang

This is how it's done Anne Hathaway's Valentino (I felt terrible typing that by the way...Annie knows I worship her)

8. Natalie Portman in Rodarte

The Best Actress winner was the image of pure joy and her simple fashion choice proved to be flawless. I'm not sure what everyone was expecting of her given that she's pregnant and all which must make dress choices much more difficult.

However the color was stunning (anyone else had flashbacks of Keira Knightley in 2006?), the hair was lovely and she accessorized like a pro.

7. Jennifer Hudson in Versace

Va-va-voom Miss Hudson! The Oscar winner looks absolutely hawt in this orange Versace.

See how her dress is a bit of Sandra Bullock's and Gwyneth's all rolled into one bomb of sexiness.

The accessories are perfect, the hair is incredible and you just gotta love the boobs. Beyoncé's "style" must be rolling in its grave of tackiness.

6. Anne Hathaway in Givenchy Couture.

Anne changed dresses a LOT and while some weren't fully successful (that weird Tom Ford from the end) this vanilla construction was a delight.

The bodice recalls the Versace January Jones wore to the Emmys once but while Jones is all about the cutting edge, Annie fits more of a princess mold.

This dress was shown on the runway as a wedding dress and Hathaway makes it look positively regal.

5. Gwyneth Paltrow in Calvin Klein

The Oscar winner/country singer was stunning in this metallic CK column. She let her hair down and in all honesty looked like what Oscar would look like if he was a gorgeous woman.

The Louis Vuitton brooch was a bit off putting though, it was one of those situations when you like and then hate something. Good that you almost can't see it!

4. Anne Hathaway in Atelier Versace.

See what I meant about the Givenchy looking like Versace?

This is the kind of dress the house of Donatella is magnificent at: simple, sexy and delicately elaborate gowns that look as comfortable as shorts with the grace of couture mortals can't afford.

3. Anne Hathaway in Oscar de la Renta.

Disco was back for a few seconds as Anne rocked the stage in this beaded Oscar de la Renta which could do flashy nice things and made her look more beautiful than she did all night long (although it must be said she was all sorts of stunning in her masculine tux as well...)

2. Mila Kunis in Ellie Saab

As you know, I've had a love/hate relationship with Kunis' red carpet choices. Sometimes she looks stunning but more often than not she looks like she's trying too hard.

This lavender Ellie Saab was wonderful. Notice the gorgeous lace details on her cleavage and the way in which the dress flowed making her look radiant and quite sexy.

She was classic Hollywood with a slight edge and all throughout the night I kept telling myself "this is the classy version of this".

1. Cate Blanchett in Givenchy Couture

My prediction was right. This woman is a goddess among stylish women. The truth is her dress couldn't be more simple if it tried but it's such a well designed gown that like Cate's work, you find yourself uncovering layers and layers of what makes it so wonderful.

For starters the color! This delicate mix of lavender, violet and white makes for a warm look that's also aggressively imposing.

Next, that flowered frame is a thing of real beauty. It's sexy withou being vulgar (like ScarJo's back window) and reminds us that we are indeed watching a lady.

The yellow details on the shoulders accentuate her tasteful earrings and the simple bracelet completes the look. Also, Cate's hair has grown into something absolutely stunning. If this was a better world it would be her and not Jennifer Aniston who'd inspire fashion choices the world over.

Some have complained that the dress is a bit too weird and pastoral, when it's actually evoking and utterly magical.

So Luke, agree or disagree? Who would you add or remove? And the rest of you guys, get out your inner fashionista and let's discuss this! After all we know the clothes are usually better than the Oscars themselves right?

Wishful Oscar Thinking.

Since The King's Sweep is practically inevitable, I won't bother with predictions this year and just stick to who I would be ecstatic to see win...

Best Picture

I prefer Black Swan as a film but The Social Network just screams Best Picture of the year and would make things like Crash and Driving Miss Daisy seem like tiny missteps when compared to such a masterpiece.

Best Director

David Fincher. Because this might be his masterpiece and those never are recognized by AMPAS. He'll probably lose to Tom Hooper and then win for something like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2.

Best Actor

Jesse Eisenberg for making assholeness and loneliness two heartbreaking sides of the same coin.

Best Actress

Natalie Portman simply because of that final breakdown scene in her dressing room. She did things with her face I thought only Nicole Kidman and Greta Garbo could do.

Best Supporting Actor

John Hawkes, simply because no one else in that category could do what he did with such dexterity and cruel simplicity.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams because she supports. She doesn't try to steal the spotlight and yet she does in the end. That tacky MTV girl is the one character that leaves the theater with you after The Fighter ends...to think Charlene would've hated such a movie just makes her more perfect.

Animated Feature Film

Toy Story 3 just happens to be the best movie of the year in almost every category...

Art Direction

As much as I love porn The King's Speech's got nothing on the marvelous sets Inception has. Yes, there I said it...

Cinematography

Roger Deakins should win for something where he shows why he's a master, True Grit could've been done in his sleep. My vote goes to Black Swan's beautifully strange camera work. those closeups! The way the camera menaces Nina...

Costume Design

I Am Love was the year's fashion orgasm.

Editing

The Social Network's editing work is so subtle that it took me three viewings to realize the film is indeed a courtroom flick with flashbacks. Its layers are so rich and embedded with such mastery that I still can not get enough of it.

Foreign Language Film

Dogtooth. Although I've only seen two and hate being so partial...

Makeup

No preference here.

Original Score

I still am humming the opening theme for The Social Network...besides electronica needs to be embraced by AMPAS!

Original Song

All of them make me yawn but Coming Home is kinda sweet...

Sound Editing

Toy Story 3 because EVERYTHING is sound effects! People seem to forget this about animated features.

Sound Mixing

That club scene in The Social Network should seal the deal without thinking it twice.

Visual Effects

Inception.

Adapted Screenplay

The Social Network has perhaps the best screenplay of the decade and I don't say things like that just to say them.

Original Screenplay

My favorite is The Fighter but I don't really love any of the nominees.

How about you? What are you hoping will take the naked golden guy home?

SAG Looks.

God bless Tina Fey. By ditching her beloved black for once, she achieved her best look ever on the red carpet. This red Oscar de la Renta makes her look sexier than she's ever looked and gives her a newfound sense of freshness. Let's hope she carries this to the Oscars (I'm assuming she'll present an award there...)

If something makes me happy about Nicole Kidman being back on the awards race is how much we missed her fashion presence. This Nina Ricci may not be perfect, it's far from it actually and reminds me a bit too much of Babette the feather duster from Beauty and the Beast but something about it has a certain something that Kidman makes work. Also kudos for not overdoing the Botox this time around, her face hadn't looked this beautiful in years.

Just lovely, lovely, lovely. This belly hugging Azzaro makes Natalie Portman look like a princess.

I don't know where the hell Jennifer Lawrence fell from but she delight me so much with each new red carpet appearance.

This fuchsia Oscar de la Renta is all sorts of wonderful; the leg, the shoes, the black! This is the woman to watch at the Oscars!

It's a thrill to see Amy Adams not dressing like she's 50! This white Herve L. Leroux might not be the best dress ever but it's an improvement from the boring hair and gowns she's been wearing all season long.

Oh January Jones, how do we all look at you for fashion forward-ness. I don't care that you decided to cheat on Versace this time because this Carolina Herrera is nothing if not majestic!

The print is incredible (surely shows Beyoncé how to do black and gold...) and the hair is classic yet off putting.

As usual she might be the best dressed woman.

What do you think of these lovely ladies? Thoughts on the awards themselves?