OVP: Actress (1999)

OVP: Best Actress (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, American Beauty

Janet McTeer, Tumbleweeds

Julianne Moore, The End of the Affair

Meryl Streep, Music of the Heart

Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

My Thoughts: In our final 1999 acting race, we move into Best Actress.  Going back this far, it's fun to see where the actresses' careers went.  Two performers were on their first nominations here, and would only get nominated one more time (to date)-one won both, the other lost both.  We have two actresses who were in their prime at the time, having never won, and again-one of them went on to win a "career achievement" style statue, while the other has not won yet.  And in the middle of it all is the actress who basically defines the Academy Awards, one who was getting maybe her least interesting nomination, or at least her worst-regarded.

That actress is Meryl Streep.  This is such a strange role on-paper to get an Oscar nomination.  Originally intended for Madonna, and directed by horror icon Wes Craven, it's hardly the type of pitch that ends with an Oscar nomination, and let's be honest-if it was anyone other than Streep it surely wouldn't have.  The movie is too saccharine, frequently too reliant on familiar story beats.  I think Streep is better than that, but I also am not impressed by physicality; much was made about her ability to learn the violin to play in the movie, but that's musical talent-not necessarily acting.  Her accent work is acting, and impressive, but she can't really make this movie any good, and if you're in the Best Actress field...shouldn't you be able to do more than "better than the movie" when the movie is a snooze?

The same can be said for Tumbleweeds, a better film but one that I think kind of misses the mark in terms of the lead performance.  McTeer is such an open performer-there's a charm and sex appeal in her Mary Jo that makes it impossible for characters (and the audience) not to open up to her.  But I needed more from this performance-technical skill isn't all there is, we also want motive, and I do think McTeer has a sense of where this character is (metaphorically) going.  It's hard to know how much of this is the screenwriter's fault in writing such a specific character with no direction (in a road trip movie, no less), but it's definitely an issue for McTeer's work compared to some of these performers.

Look at someone like Hilary Swank, after all, who does have a sense of her performer in a movie that (while good) is pretty bleak.  Swank fills Brandon Teena with such humanity in the role.  I like that even some of Brandon's mistakes feel real, which is hard to do in a movie, and that's because Swank is giving  such hope to her character, trying to fill them with a sense of life after denying who they were for such a long time.  Swank fills the movie with more feeling than (if we're being honest) the script is giving her, and so this is rising above the movie, but it's a better movie than McTeer or Streep are using as their platform.

It's worth remembering this is Best Actress, not Best Picture (we give to the best performance, not to the performance in the movie I liked the best), but if we were focusing on the movie I like the best, it'd undoubtedly be American Beauty, and Bening is one of its best parts.  The best stuff in Bening's work here is that she plays her character as so guarded.  Watching this as an adult, and with a more modern lens, you can see that she's added a cautious feminism to a character that easily could be a harpy (that's largely how she's written).  Look at how she's largely moved beyond her husband, moved beyond her family even...she's a realtor so to invest in that metaphor, they were a starter home, she's ready for her dream home.  She understands the film's comedy, but more so she understands its tragedy, giving the movie's best(?) performance.

We'll finish with Julianne Moore's turn in The End of the Affair, that time in her career where she was regularly playing cloistered women in period movies.  The movie is very much my speed (I love me a doomed romance), but it doesn't really know how to explore its topic, particularly its sexuality (for a movie that's quite carnal in its approach, all of the sex is limited to the first fifteen minutes).  Moore is unable to get beyond this (and neither is Fiennes, which makes you confident it's the writers doing this given they're two of our best actors), giving us a finite scope into Sarah, never really discovering her balance in the picture.  It's worth noting for Moore in 1999 that this was almost certainly a cumulative award (she was also doing noted work in four other movies-Cookie's Fortune, Magnolia, An Ideal Husband, & A Map of the World), but we have a strict OVP rule where we only judge the film in front of us, not the collective works that might've contributed to a nomination, and in this case, that just doesn't cut it.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes give us both Musical/Comedy and Drama, so we have ten names to start with.  Drama went with Swank, besting Bening, Moore, Streep, & Sigourney Weaver (A Map of the World), while McTeer took the comedy prize, topping Julianne Moore (An Ideal Husband), Julia Roberts (Notting Hill), Sharon Stone (The Muse...and yes is the Sharon Stone luxury watch scandal at the Globes), and Reese Witherspoon (Election).  The SAG Awards went with the exact same lineup as Oscar, with Bening winning, while BAFTA also picked Bening, though she beat Moore (End of the Affair), Emily Watson (Angela's Ashes), & Linda Bassett (East is East) for the nomination.  In sixth here, I think we're looking at either Weaver or Witherspoon.  Weaver is more in the Academy's wheelhouse (sturdy performance in a stiff issues picture from a former favorite), while Witherspoon got an actual nomination for her film (Election was up for writing).  I think Weaver makes more sense, especially given she hadn't been nominated in a decade at the time & Witherspoon's picture was a bit edgy for Oscar, but I could believe either.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Oscar is quite populist, but does have a snobby streak when it comes to genre pictures, and that includes romantic-comedies.  We have talked very little about Notting Hill, a film that has its faults, but I love so wholeheartedly I don't really care, and the thing I'm most confident in is Julia Roberts' pitch-perfect Hollywood actress.  She's playing a version of herself, but it's so filled with heart, hope, and prickliness from being bruised constantly that if it is herself...you just want to root for her harder. A year before she won the Oscar, I would've had this as a lead-up to Erin Brockovich.

Oscar’s Choice: In what was a coin flip race at the time (I think some people have rewritten this to not be as close as it was), Swank won over Bening, costing the latter her best shot at an Academy Award to date.

My Choice: Those are the two names to consider, and while I partially want to give it to Bening (she has yet to win an OVP and only has one guaranteed nomination left), OVP rules say I can't take outside factors into account, and Swank is slightly better.  Behind these two, I would go (in order): McTeer, Moore, and then Streep.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you sticking with Oscar & I for Hilary Swank, or do you prefer one of the other ladies of the category?  Do you feel it's okay to acknowledge that Moore almost certainly got this nomination for five films instead of one...and how many other performances like that have happened through the years and are now lost to lack of historical context?  And was it Witherspoon or Weaver that nearly missed this race?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 1999: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Actress Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Actress (2004)

OVP: Best Actress (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Annette Bening, Being Julia

Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace

Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake

Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby

Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

My Thoughts: When I write these articles, most often I'm writing them with an idea of how I'm going to rank the nominees, and usually I stick to that.  While I don't always know what I'm going to say about the contenders, I have an idea of roughly the order that they might turn up, and it's rare that I change my mind talking about them out loud.  The 2004 Best Actress contenders, though, are a race where I genuinely change my mind all the time.  The race features three actresses giving some of the best work of their careers, three terrific performances that I struggle to be able to discuss without tripping over myself, and honestly leave flummoxed as to who is the "best" of the bunch.  So...this one's going to be a mystery for both of us.

Before we get to those performances, though, let's discuss the also-rans (since the eventual winner is genuinely a mystery to me, I'm going to lay down the cards pretty quickly on the remaining nominees).  Catalina Sandino Moreno managed to land a nomination for Maria Full of Grace in spite of that film being disqualified for Foreign Language Film for being "insufficiently Colombian" (early on it was the frontrunner for that category).  Sandino Moreno gives a heavy-handed performance as Maria, playing her inwardly, oftentimes far-too-much, as the movie goes on.  It's a tough role, and one that's in a very serious movie, but Sandino Moreno does most of her acting through her eyes, which can work...it's just not enough to save a movie that relies more on subject matter to carry its story than its actual characters.  Still, I'm not going to knock this too hard just because it was such a hard-fought nomination (the only Colombia film in history to be nominated for an acting prize)...it's just kind of a middling performance.

The same is true for Hilary Swank.  Swank is not bad in Million Dollar Baby, but that this performance dominated the whole season is a real question in terms of Oscar's taste.  Swank spends much of the film letting a lack of expression be her domineering trait, allowing the audience do most of the heavy-lifting in our interpretations of her Maggie.  It's a blasé piece of work, five years after her first win (in a weird way Swank is quite similar to Luise Rainer in that she won two Oscars with virtually nothing else-to date-of note in films, though unlike Rainer Swank has kept working in the pursuing decades).  Eastwood & Freeman are much better in the movie, giving at least a story behind their performance, but Swank's work is mostly reliant upon physicality and reacting...we don't know who this woman is, and she's at her best when she's being interpreted by the other actors in the film.  That's maybe a decent directorial trick to have an actor pull off, but it's not a great performance.

Swank in 1999 beat Annette Bening for her trophy, and she famously did the same in 2004, taking the trophy from Bening for Being Julia.  Being Julia is the least-remembered of the three "big" performances in this category, and it is (while still a great movie), the least of the three actual films on its own merits.  But Bening owns the screen here, and makes Julia Lambert a totally unique creation.  Borrowing from the best divas, she plays Julia as a shrewd, brilliant, but impetuous figure, putting the cruelty of a world-leaving-her-behind (even though she's far from ready to give up the limelight, and as she shows through the film, the limelight should be staying on her) in every moment of the movie.  Her triumphant final act, when she "ad libs," totally owning those who thought they'd gotten one-over on her is magic, and Being Julia becomes the kind of movie that is truly elevated by one outstanding central piece-of-work.  This might be my favorite performance from Annette Bening, which is saying something.

It's also saying something, though, that Kate Winslet's Clementine Kruczynski is perhaps her greatest piece-of-work (I told you this would be hard).  Winslet plays Clementine as a free-spirit "manic pixie dream girl" who is truly complicated (or "fucked up," as she'd put it in the film).  It's a hard role to land-she has to make Clementine not likable in the way we traditionally associate with romantic comedies, but she's also the kind of character that will make you fall in love with her.  That's not easy, and what is at the crux of Eternal Sunshine being a genuinely beautiful movie: these people love each other in spite of themselves, and whether or not they can make it work, that love (tough, raw, sometimes ugly) is tangible throughout Winslet's work.  It's bravura stuff.

Staunton gets the most traditionally dramatic part, but also the least showy of the three women.  Staunton's Vera Drake, an ordinary housewife who helps young women in difficult situations by performing abortions on them, is a triumph of understated acting.  Staunton makes Vera not only be ordinary, but feel ordinary-the way she goes about her day, she is someone who you pass by on the street, and she's okay with that.  This makes her atypical behavior as a woman who performs abortions so extraordinary-this secret life isn't something she considers unusual or outside-her-realm, but instead something that you do in the same way you buy bread or help a neighbor who has tripped on the sidewalk.  Abortion is the sort of gut check issue where people come in with callous, almost malignant attitudes about the other side of the debate, but Staunton's Vera Drake is so brimming with soul that you almost feel like she could bridge the gap.  An astonishing piece-of-work.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  Swank won for Best Drama, over Staunton as well as Scarlett Johansson (A Love Song for Bobby Long...which I've never seen & feel a little bad about-anyone else see this movie or have any memory of it?), Nicole Kidman (Birth), and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Volume 2), while Bening bested Winslet, Ashley Judd (De-Lovely), Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), & Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera).  SAG went with the same lineup & winner as Oscar, while BAFTA totally swung for the fences, giving their trophy to Staunton while nominating Winslet for both Eternal Sunshine and Finding Neverland, and also nominating Zhang Ziyi (House of Flying Daggers) and Charlize Theron a year late for Monster.  In terms of sixth place, I honestly think that Oscar didn't really have a lot of competition other than these five, but at the time I recall the closest contender was Thurman, with Rossum a distant seventh, so that's probably what it was.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Obviously three of these contenders would make my personal Top 5, and so close to the end (we'll do "My Ballots" next week) I don't want to play my cards too much here since you already know 60% of my nominees.  That being said, I do wonder what would have happened if Uma Thurman had somehow been able to compete for the full Kill Bill franchise in one year...the second half isn't as good as the first, but combined this is also the role of her lifetime, and it's a pity that she didn't score a nod either in 2003 or 2004 for her work in this series.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar, despite not yet having given a trophy to either Bening or Winslet yet in 2004 (half of that they've since corrected) chose to give the award to Swank, likely by a bigger margin than her more celebrated first win.

My Choice: We'll go backwards here.  Swank is last, since she does the least with her performance of the bunch, and I think she gets a better film to work within than Sandino Moreno (so not getting more out of that script is a larger crime).  In bronze, I'm going with Staunton.  If she as in 2003 or 2005, she'd win, so this is a performance that deserves credit.  For the win, I'm going to go with...Winslet?  I think so.  It's a harder role to nail, and though Bening gets the best scene in the movie, Winslet's performance is just a bit more well-rounded.  Literally, though-in all of the years of the Oscars if I was only afforded one Best Actress tie this is probably where I'd use it-it's that close...picking one over the other feels a crime with work this strong.  I will continue to go back-and-forth in my head on this, but in terms of the official OVP, Kate Winslet gets this trophy.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with me (cautiously) in Team Kate or do you prefer the runaway winner of Swank?  How exactly is it that Swank beat three performances that are all clearly better than hers (was it a genuine vote split)?  And where does Uma Thurman stand in your personal 2003 & 2004 ballots?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2004: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

Past Best Actress Contests: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

Logan Lucky (2017)

Film: Logan Lucky (2017)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: Soderbergh had a really big 2000, but otherwise really was never Oscar's cup-of-tea...doubtful this changes things.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I always find it amusing, if a bit reassuring, that actors or directors who claim they are "retiring" almost always renege on their intentions to retire within a couple of years.  Yes, there are a couple of cases like Gene Hackman or Sean Connery where it seems to have stuck, but by-and-large, particularly when they're under seventy, famous figures in cinema almost always turn their back on that retirement within a few years, clearly meaning they wanted a break more so than anything else.  Steven Soderbergh is the most recent example of this, after claiming that he was retiring from the movies but then quickly returning.  Logan Lucky is his first feature-film in four years, and the director who is perhaps most well-known for loving ensemble casts at the expense of star vehicles, has lost little of his visual skill even if Logan Lucky is a bit of a trifle, albeit a tasty one.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around the Logan Brothers, Jimmy (Tatum) and Clyde (Driver), two men who are down-on-their-luck, a theory that Clyde connects to their genetics.  Clyde lost his arm in Iraq, and Jimmy is recently unemployed and worried that his daughter will be leaving him as his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Holmes) wants to move due to her successful husband getting a new job.  Jimmy decides that he wants to end his life of mediocrity and better provide for his daughter, and in the process get back at the company that fired him by robbing from the stadium he worked construction.  His plan goes array when what was initially intended to be a small-time gig turns into him being forced to rob the Coca-Cola 600, one of the biggest in the NASCAR series.  He recruits an explosives expert appropriately-named Joe Bang (Craig...and do all Soderbergh films have characters that sound like they've been plucked out of a Tarantino picture & I've just never noticed or is this unique to Logan Lucky?), and along with the Logans' sister Mellie (Keough), they orchestrate a robbery, with of course unintended consequences.

Heist movies are one of my favorite cinematic genres, as I love seeing the mechanics of how a con is put into action, and this is hardly Soderbergh's first time at the rodeo (his highest-grossing films being the Ocean's franchise), so this works well.  The film is surprisingly brisk for a picture that at first feels very slow, to the point where I thought my audience (who were not getting the deeply dry humor coming from Driver at all) might start walking out, but once the film gets into more consistent molds, it entered the territory of crowd-pleaser while maintaining an abstractness that makes the picture unique.  Soderbergh is so good at assembling strong ensembles, and while occasionally his choices don't work (Seth MacFarlane is a bit too cartoonish as a rude British businessman seems like the weakest link of the picture), the chemistry between the three siblings in particular is excellent.  Keough is an actress that I wasn't really familiar with, but I liked her breeziness with Mellie, and the way she's positioned as a "screw-up" to someone like her former sister-in-law and yet clearly the most responsible and level-headed of the Logan siblings.  She's had bit parts now in Magic Mike and Mad Max: Fury Road, as well as winning a handful of plaudits for American Honey, but I'm hoping she soon gets a star vehicle as she's clearly capable of carrying one.

The movie's ending might be a bit hard to get-your-head-around, and honestly it was a little hard for me to figure out what was happening even as it was being spelled out (the plotting feels like it missed one crucial scene toward the end, perhaps something a bit more expository for the audience), but by-and-large this is a genuinely funny and amusing movie, and well worth Soderbergh's return to the screen.  No, it doesn't rank amongst his very best pictures (which I'd wager is Magic Mike, but would buy Traffic if you argued hard-enough), but it's a lot of fun in a filmic summer that was lacking in that attribute.

Those are my thoughts on the picture-how about yours?  If you've seen it, share some of your theories, particularly over whether Sebastian Stan or Hilary Swank was your favorite cameo (my thought was it was the latter, who totally sold her by-the-book FBI agent), and if not-who do you hope Soderbergh reunites with next from his close-knit cavalcade of frequent actors?

The Homesman (2014)

Film: The Homesman (2014)
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, James Spader, Hailee Steinfeld
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Hilary Swank and I have not had what one would consider a harmonious relationship.  I have never seen Boys Don't Cry (as she won an Oscar for it, I'll clearly get there with the OVP someday, but no, this is a gaping miss in recent Oscar history for me) and was not a huge fan of Million Dollar Baby (I will probably enjoy it a bit more on re-watch, but I will never understand how she managed to defeat Winslet, Staunton, or Bening that year, let alone all three).  I also distinctly recall not being wild about the way that she ended her relationship with Chad Lowe, speaking out of turn against him, which I usually find a bit off-putting when she had already started a relationship before the divorce and when she's on the cover of Vanity Fair discussing the breakup.

However, Swank has grown on me through the years as a person, though as an actress her wilderness period following her second Oscar has been perplexing (she frequently gets compared to Sally Field in this regard, but Field just stopped being nominated for Oscars-she didn't stop making hits).  She's clearly someone who has a deep respect for her characters and contributing something to the film community (and she has an appreciation for film history and for the arts, which comes across during her interviews, which have been far more professional in the wake of the Vanity Fair story).  She's also someone who has a certain awareness of the role of her celebrity (that Ramzan Kadyrov scandal clearly had an affect), and has become a very strong advocate for women.  I've been itching, in fact, to bury the proverbial hatchet with Swank for a while now, and thankfully Tommy Lee Jones gave me that opportunity with The Homesman.  While the film has tonal problems and an uneven story focus, Swank is back in fine form here-the best she's been since Million Dollar Baby, and the best I've ever seen her.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout (yes, the same guy who wrote the novel Where the Boys Are), tells the story of Mary Bee Cuddy, a woman who lives "uncommonly alone" in the Nebraska prairie, isolated from most of the world and perpetually single and lonely.  The opening scene is her basically begging a neighbor to marry her, then cruelly being turned down when he called her too bossy and too plain to be his bride.  Cuddy is a woman who clearly has regrets about her move from a New York schoolhouse to the open prairie, but is too ingrained in her faith and the belief that "god will provide" to contradict him by moving back home (plus she's too invested in the community).

Through a series of men ducking out of their duties to their wives, she is entrusted to move three women, gone crazy with "prairie madness" across the wilderness, initially by herself but eventually with the help of a claim jumper named George Briggs (Jones).  As the film progresses, their initial friction, like it so often does in the movies, moves into admiration, and eventually respect.  Though it never seems to be that of a romantic love, a platonic love eventually emerges between the two.

The film is at its best when it is focused on learning about Swank's character.  Jones the director is, for the most part, smart enough to keep the focus on her, and if that had been the true point of the movie, we'd have added a couple of stars up-top.  Swank manages to make Mary Bee someone who is difficult to like but hard to explain why.  She's clearly had an incredibly rigid life, and has been hardened by the constant rejection of society and the men around her.  We see that in the way that the village ladies titter on about her.  I loved the way that she says, "uncommonly alone," a phrase we haven't heard earlier in the film but you can tell that Mary Bee has heard her entire adult life.  Her sympathy for the women is remarkable-it's hard for someone to come across so genuine and earnest and still believable in the movies-it's a difficult trick to not make the person appear fake or without any sort of qualms about their belief system, and that carries through to the end of her journey.

The movie also isn't shy about making Swank feel things that are deeply uncomfortable onscreen.  The reality is that while the audience knows initially the viciousness of the lives of the women who are being trucked across the country, they don't immediately recognize the mental anguish that depression and loneliness have done to Mary Bee.  We see that toward the end when she finally gives her virginity away, worried that that may be the only way that she can find a man, and then (I wasn't kidding about those spoiler alerts!) kills herself for shame and based on the reality that she will never be loved.  It's a harsh performance from Swank, who eschews vanity and downplays her loveliest features (those brown eyes) to play a "plain" woman, and isn't afraid to play into the loneliness, a difficult emotion to put onscreen, and make us feel horrible for judging her earlier.  In many ways it recalled Lesley Manville's excellent work in Another Year a few years back-both women are desperate to find a way to make love fit into their world, and both cannot seem to find it while it comes so easily to others.

There's a reason, of course, that I gave the film two stars, and that's Tommy Lee Jones, both as an actor and as a director.  While the self-involved, morally-bankrupt character that he plays is something that Jones, a longtime veteran of the screen, could do in his sleep, he seems to not know what direction to take the character.  Swank is able to make subtle shifts in her character, a woman so wanting for affection that she eventually sacrifices everything she believes in in its pursuit, but we don't ever really know Briggs-he's just a prop to reflect Mary Bee, and as a result, the moments after Mary Bee's death ring hollow.  I HATED the scene with James Spader, as it was clearly trying to aid a subplot we hadn't really explored properly to that point (that Jones is now a good man rejected by society), and Spader is such a hammy, over-baked actor (I honestly don't know if there's a name I groan louder over when I see it in the credits to a movie), and honestly the only person who can save the story is Meryl Streep, who has a remarkable cameo toward the end of the film, landing the "reject Briggs" story (notice how quickly she wants him on his way, despite clearly celebrating the man's actions), speaking toward the class and rank of her position as the preacher's wife, and only hinting at genuine awe toward what these women had to endure.  Streep's character is clearly well-researched and thought-out, never being without an idea of what to say, and being deeply practiced in what her character would do in this situation, only straying from it for mere moments.

The film also has a serious tonal problem that Jones should have nipped in the bud.  This is a deeply serious film, and didn't need comic bits in its course such as Jones dancing and drinking, and could have been far more successful being a straight drama and perhaps giving more background or growth to the three women, who become interchangeable (seriously-I had trouble keeping Miranda Otto's and Grace Gummer's stories apart in particular) throughout the movie.  By making the audience laugh when it doesn't want to-that made the ending seem more about Jones' Briggs than about Mary Bee, and that's a crime in a film where Swank towers over Jones in terms of performance.

Those were my thoughts on this film-what are yours?  Do you feel that this is Swank's best work in a decade?  Do you think she'll gain an Oscar nomination for it?  And do you wish that Jones would perhaps leave behind the director's chair going forward?  Share in the comments!

October Oscar Predictions: Best Actress

Wait, John, it's not October anymore!  Well, you're right, but between work, the election, and more work, I never had a chance to finish up our October Oscar predictions, so I'm going to quickly wrap up Best Actor, Actress, and Picture this week (we already did Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress), count them as October, and we'll do November predictions (in all categories!) at the end of the month.

The Best Actress race this year is, let's call it, looking pretty weak.  In a year where almost every male actor in Hollywood seems to be gunning for a nomination, the women appear to have taken a year off after the "Year of Five Movie Stars" in last year's contest.  This means that the race feels more settled than it probably actually is.  Still, though, it's hard not to believe that at least three names have been cemented into place this year.

Julianne Moore is at the top of that list.  While I'm not sold on Moore winning quite yet (no actress in her fifties has won Best Actress since Shirley Booth in 1952...and no other actress has done it, period), her chances at a nomination continue to improve daily.  She's got other performances this year that will buoy her chances with Still Alice but ultimately not compete with them (Maps to the Stars is a supporting turn with little actual chance at turning into something and Mockingjay is just a blockbuster everyone will see).  Considering she's still in the hunt for her first Oscar and pretty much everyone agrees she deserves an Oscar at some point, this is a sure thing.

Best Actress is constantly rewarding newcomers and ingenues, and while Rosamund Pike might be a little old to be an ingenue and has been working steadily for years, expect her to still be a "newcomer" for the Academy with Gone Girl (she's basically one to the American public).  Gone Girl has been one of the major hits of the year (it's still in the Top 3 for the weekend box office!) and Pike's performance as Amazing Amy is its centerpiece.  Considering she may well carry the film to a Best Picture nomination, it's absolutely certain that she'll be able to score a nomination for herself.

The final "surefire" nominee would be Reese Witherspoon in Wild.  This is the sort of performance the Academy goes gaga over-a major movie star goes prestige, works their star charisma opposite harsh terrain and anchors a movie almost entirely on their own-Oscar gold.  Witherspoon has seemingly been through the Hollywood wilderness in recent years, watching her America's Sweetheart sensibility tarnished pretty severely by her drunken disorderly arrest and string of flops.  Still, she's clearly back in the game and very aware of what that has cost her career.  Films like Mud prove she's more interested at the moment in pleasing the critics and the press, and Wild should cement that-she may well win a second Oscar for the role.

The rest of the field has some debits, but if I were a betting man I'd say that won't stop Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything.  Focus Features is smartly campaigning Jones along with her surefire nominated costar Eddie Redmayne, as if they are a pair that cannot be separated, and that will definitely help.  Jones may well be in for a win if the film truly takes off, particularly if the Academy decides that Redmayne simply could not do it alone.  I hesitate to call her a lock quite yet because it's so early and four locks seems a bit outlandish (and Jones is definitely second billing in her particular film), but there really aren't a lot of options on the horizon to throw Jones, who like Pike has been on the verge for years of finding a breakout role that could propel her into the conversation, out of contention.

The final nomination is where all the marbles seem to be at.  Personally I think that this race has become a three-horse race between a trio of actresses, but before we get there I want to list a few other names that keep getting mentioned.  I am still not 100% sold that Jessica Chastain won't be promoted back into lead for A Most Violent Year (she seems to be a threat regardless of the category).  Critics continue to trumpet names like Jenny Slate (Obvious Child), Gubu Mbatha-Raw (Belle), and Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night) though in the case of the first two I think this is just a "we know you exist" style year (like Brie Larson and Greta Gerwig last season) and with Cotillard she's continually a bridesmaid since her Best Actress victory.  Then there's the strange case of Emily Blunt, who is in a similar camp to Felicity Jones and Rosamund Pike with AMPAS (she's been edging toward a nomination for years), but is in fact quite well-known with the populace and would probably be an easier sell.  That being said, Into the Woods doesn't quite feel like a film that's going to score in the major AMPAS categories outside of Meryl, and I'm sticking by that unless it's a mammoth hit (Blunt will land the Globe nod necessary to remain in the conversation, though, so don't entirely forget about her).

No, in my mind there are three women fighting it out for the final nomination: Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars), Amy Adams (Big Eyes), and Hilary Swank (The Homesman).  With Woodley, it's easy to see why this has so much traction with Oscar obsessives and enthusiasts: it's a throwback to the days when Oscar used to nominate popular movies when an actor had a breakout year (think Julia Roberts in Pretty Women or Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean).  Woodley is clearly the year's big new star (even though she was already a pretty substantial star to begin with), and if they aren't feeling super compelled by other pieces of work, why not stamp "Oscar-nominated" on an actor they clearly want to welcome to the club?

Amy Adams, on the other hand, is an actor who has been in the club for years, and almost never misses with AMPAS (her only major slight with Oscar was Enchanted, and that was a Disney princess movie when you get down to it).  Big Eyes definitely has lost some momentum-Adams is no longer in contention to actually win the trophy, but Adams may push hard for the nomination anyway-at this point her race to an Oscar statue is a numbers game, and the more nominations she gets, regardless of whether she was in fifth place in that particular year, is going to only help her when it comes to actually winning the trophy (I've been saying for a long time that I think that Adams is about to do that semi-retirement thing that many actresses in their forties end up doing when they have started to move out of movie star mode, but she clearly wants an Oscar before she gets there).

Finally, there's Hilary Swank, one of the most fascinating actresses of the past two decades in terms of her career path.  You could look at someone like Sally Field for an example of an actor who turned their backs on conventional stardom and awards prospects after her two Oscar wins, but this actually forgets history: Field was a major motion picture star during the 1980's and had Oscar shots with films like Absence of Malice and Steel Magnolias.  Swank, on the other hand, has never been able to make herself a bankable movie actress despite critical accolades, and with the clear exception of her two Oscar-winning films (and her surprise SAG nomination in 2010 for Conviction), hasn't really charmed the critics as well.  Still, she feels like the sort of actor that could randomly show up once a decade, and she obviously wants back into the conversation with this year's The Homesman based on interviews.

My September Predictions: Adams, Pike, Witherspoon, Maggie Smith, and Woodley
My October Predictions: It's quite obvious that Pike, Witherspoon, Jones, and Moore are all in this race, and so I'll mark all four of them down.  For the final nomination, I am not quite sure.  On paper Adams makes the most sense, but this is a Tim Burton film and compared to Woodley's breakthrough and Swank's serious film, may not have the weight to anchor this nomination.  Swank is a pro when it comes to the campaign trail, and has been my dark horse contender all year (Landmark Theaters willing, I will have seen this performance by the time we check in next).  However, I'm going to go for now with Woodley.  This has been a rough year for the Box Office in Hollywood, and AMPAS is surely aware of this fact.  Woodley has starred in two big hits this year (combined, Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars made $600 million), and is clearly our newest bankable actress.  I think that Oscar will want to recognize that, and in a weak year can get away with giving her a nomination that in most years she wouldn't be able to muster.

2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Actress

Who dares to follow me?

I write a lot about the Oscars on this blog.  Frequently we discuss past Oscar races, my opinions on Oscar winners, and every single review I write references the Oscars right at the top.  And yet, you rarely find me discussing Oscar predictions, and there's a couple of reasons for that.  For starters, there are hundreds of Oscar prediction sites, many of them far more comprehensive and able to update on a dime (because they have more than that for their budget) than my little one-man operation here.  Secondly, Oscar predictions, even in September, are a fool's errand: we don't know quite yet what films will be eligible, what performances are any good, and even what movies have lead vs. supporting campaigns planned.  Finally, the articles don't age very well.  I write something today and then learn that someone gives the performance of a lifetime tomorrow, and suddenly I have to rethink the entire race (think of how Boyhood managed to change the conversation, and that was in Summer, when Oscar has barely even started).  So instead think of these articles (I'll write ones for all of the acting races, as well as Best Picture in the next ten days or so) as much as a list of what movies seem like they'll matter this fall as well as a series of predictions for us to either look on me in awe at or marvel at my abject silliness as we head through the autumn.  Because it's the race that currently has me most perplexed, we'll start with Best Actress.

It's always a risky thing to say this before most of the movies have been released, but let's be honest: the Best Actress race this year looks pretty...lacking.  Particularly after last year when names like Dench, Streep, Blanchett, Thompson, and Bullock, five former winners, were at the top of almost everyone's list (it's worth noting, not necessarily on the top of AMPAS's-thank you Amy Adams)-this year we have a lot more newcomers in the field, and don't have the clear passion for the performers and performances in the same way cinephiles seemed to last year.

That being said, there's always five nominees, and always worthy work to discuss, and probably toward the top of the intrigue list is Reese Witherspoon in Wild.  Based on the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Reese is clearly in the need of a bit of career guidance.  Despite occasionally interesting work like in Mud her career has been on the skids both creatively and commercially for years now (and that 2013 arrest has not helped matters...it says something that up until now that's the only time I've used the Reese Witherspoon tag on this blog despite her once being a Box Office powerhouse and is a former Oscar winner).  This means that she is clearly going to want Wild to succeed, and considering the biopic angle, the fact that she's in need of a comeback (and Hollywood adores her), and that this is a weaker than average year, I suspect she's going to get it.  It'll help, of course, if she's able to carry a film that will be almost exclusively on her in a way that 127 Hours was on James Franco (which worked out well for him with AMPAS).

There's almost always a couple of names from last year in the mix again this year (Oscar tends to like their actors in streaks, though occasionally for quite a bit longer), and both Amy Adams and Meryl Streep are in the conversation again this year.  Adams has the showier role as artist Margaret Keane, and there's a lot of buzz surrounding her perofrmance in Tim Burton's first film without Johnny Depp in eons (oddly and sadly for Johnny, it seems to be his best-looking live action film in eons, so maybe he should reconsider how he picks his scripts).  It's worth noting that Adams is about to hit Glenn Close territory if she gets nominated again and doesn't win (Close, Thelma Ritter, and Deborah Kerr are all tied for most nominations without a win at six, which Big Eyes would be for Adams), a list which the Academy may want to avoid adding to, so this could be a serious contender for the win if she gets nominated.

Meryl is always a part of the conversation, though is the Academy ever going to get fatigued with her like they do every other performer (even Jack missed for The Departed)?  August Osage seemed like the kind of role everyone gets nominated for, but playing the Witch in Into the Woods (which won Vanessa Williams her Tony nomination in the revival of the show) may be a similar sort of role.  Meryl almost always gets in in a year where AMPAS is searching for nominations (1994 is the lone exception here, and I'm positive she was in sixth place then), so if this year doesn't pick up expect to see her name.

Last year was an anomaly in terms of no newcomers being nominated in this category, so expect at least a few new names in the hunt, chief amongst them being Rosamund Pike.  Pike has been on the edges of superstardom for a few years now, appearing in critically-acclaimed films or box office smashes like Die Another Day, Pride and Prejudice, and An Education (my favorite of her work) but never quite reaching "everybody knows your name."  Considering the buzz surrounding the adaptation of the Gillian Flynn bestseller, my gut says we'll all know her name by the end of Oscar season.  At 35, for an actress with Oscar this is pretty-much now or never time to get a first nomination (it seems like women who hit superstardom usually do it between the 33-38 years range, and with Oscar it's usually 27-38 that you hit your peak), but I am certain she'll be in the conversation.

An actress considerably younger than those age ranges who has hit superstardom this year would be Shailene Woodley, who is in the hunt for her first Oscar nomination (it always seems like she was nominated for The Descendants, but she was the odd-woman out that year).  In a year where she led the Box Office hit Divergent and then followed it with the Box Office hit The Fault in Our Stars, she's certainly going to be asked to present at the Oscars in hopes of attracting younger viewers.  My gut says that she could well be in the conversation as a "welcome to the club" sort of invitation for Fault, though youth-oriented films are a hard sell with AMPAS and she's going to need the year to remain pretty skimpy in terms of potential nominees (lining up another prestige drama in the next few months would help her out, I think, in terms of a "we can't be the last to recognize her" sort of thought process).

The other thing to consider when it comes to weak years (again, I hope I'm wrong about this) is that they tend to rely on former winners and nominees in such circumstances to keep the prestige alive, even if the former winners are in less exciting or less tradtional performances.  Maggie Smith in the My Old Lady trailers seems to be able to do this her sleep, but she's an AMPAS favorite who just missed a couple of years ago for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, so who knows?  Hilary Swank could also be in the conversation again for The Homesman, which got underwhelming reviews at Cannes but could still stage a comeback.  Julianne Moore's weird campaign for Maps to the Stars (where they're hoping that campaigning for SAG and the Globes and skipping an AMPAS campaign doesn't cost them-a risky move) may pay off for her because of her fame and level of love with AMPAS, but this is a question mark of lead versus supporting (Felicity Jones, for example, I currently have in supporting but may see a better shot in lead and go for it there).  Even someone like Helen Mirren (The Hundred-Foot Journey) or Marion Cotillard (The Two Faces of January) may become part of the conversation if some of the above women don't pay-off.  And then there's Michelle Williams, whose Suite Francaise could put her back in the conversation for Best Actress (and a fourth nomination), but the Weinsteins haven't given her a release date and they may be reluctant to have too many competitors again after last year's debacle with The Butler (they've also got The Imitation Game and Big Eyes on their plates, and both seem more promising).

Finally there is Jessica Chastain, who is proving pretty greedy this year with three contenders for a nomination.  Each of those roles, however, have a major question mark.  A Most Violent Year could end up going supporting with Oscar Isaac as the assured lead.  The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby may seem too out-there or independent to click with AMPAS voters.  And Miss Julie doesn't have a stateside release date and isn't the sort of film that will fare well in a one-week qualifier (it needs an October release date to breathe a bit-see also Coriolanus).  Any of these three could get Chastain, a major star at this point with Oscar, a citation, but at this point I'm not sure which one.

My Predictions: It would seem foolish to discount Adams, Pike, and Witherspoon at this juncture, as all three are on the top of everyone's list, and that matters in a weaker year.  Meryl Streep nearly always gets nominated, but there is a serious question on whether Rob Marshall (who has not been strong since Chicago with his Oscar game) can actually make another well-received musical.  I'm going to skip her for now and say that Maggie Smith gets the "we love her" nomination for now, in my riskiest of the five predictions (she hasn't been nominated in twelve years and has enjoyed oddly the most successful stage of her career financially in the past decade so this would be a great topper to that).  For the final nod, with Chastain headed every which way and Swank (my dark horse contender) still under the Cannes-cloud with her film, I'm going to guess Woodley.  It may seem silly or brilliant in hindsight, but occasionally they give out "welcome to the club" nominations for more mainstream actresses (think of someone like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids), and this could be an example of that.
Is there a winner?: When you don't know who the actual nominees are, predicting a winner is a fool's errand, but there are a couple of narratives that look promising.  AMPAS loves a comeback, which could help Reese who clearly wants a second trophy to jump start a new phase in her career.  Amy Adams has enjoyed an intense amount of success with AMPAS and seems about ready to hit that period of semi-retirement that many actresses (whether by choice or by sexism) hit in their forties (look at her IMDB page for evidence)-they may want to cap that streak off with a win ala Susan Sarandon or Susan Hayward.  And if the film is a major hit, Rosamund Pike could win on her first try (which is a lot less en vogue than it used to be, but is still a possibility in Best Actress).  Right now there doesn't seem to be another actress that could make a run for the trophy, though I do still feel that Hilary Swank may be being underestimated by pundits.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Which of these women will factor into the Oscar race?  Does anyone feel like a winner this far out?  What names are missing?  And most importantly, which performance looks the best from this distance?  Share in the comments!