I've finished updating the acting charts. Just in time for Toronto so they might need fresh updates any second now as more reviews and hoopla hits.
I've opted to completely overhaul BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS which is a total cloudy mess. Beyond arguably Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom), Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone), Sissy Spacek (Get Low) and the Nowhere Boy women (Kristin Scott Thomas and Anne Marie Duff who have been kicking around festivals and international release for a year with this film), no one has yet proven their viability. It's all just assumptions about the films, their roles and the overall traction potential. Given that none of those women have yet laid claim to a super excited committed fanbase except Jacki Weaver, I've pushed her into predictions. In a wide open field this late in the game, a committed fanbase who have been beating your drum for seven months already will surely help. "Sweetie," I don't want to overstate the point and sound like I've built a "Jacki Weaver for the gold!" shrine in my living room, but it's the type of film-seizing performance that gets nominated -- period -- with a threat to win, if voters see the film. A mighty big "if" I'm fully aware.
Questions. I'd love to hear your answers
Do you think The Kids Are All Right can hog 40% of the BEST ACTRESS category?
Do you buy the category placements of Halle Steinfeld and Lesley Manville?
Which of these performances are you most excited about sight unseen?
Do you have any suspicions about who might actually win? (I don't!)
Do you think they'll just give up on supporting actress and nominate this field based on the Best Picture candidates?
Do you think the acting in Black Swan can win favor, even if they don't love the film?
So many release dates are up in the air. Who won't we see until next fall/winter?
Stale Popcorn Glenn surveys the 19 eligible films for the Australian Oscars. I Need My Fix Jane Lynch gets a wax figure. Glee has now officially taken over the world. Watch it take over the Emmys next. Hot Blog in depth Sissy Spacek interview. Goes all the way back to the early years.
I didn't work until I was 20. I just looked like I was 13.
HKMDB Daily Stills from the Chinese remake of What Women Want with superstars Gong Li & Andy Lau Towleroad Jennifer Aniston as Barbra Streisand? People...
Scanners looks at how the reviews of Salt deal with Angelina Jolie's super-sized star persona Box Office Mojo some release date shifts for Disney and two cancellations. Is the Beauty & The Beast 3D death another sign that 3D is over? If so, YAY! B&tB is perfect as is thankyouverymuch. His Eyes Were Watching MoviesVolver collects another fan. I honestly think that movie will continue to do so until it's regarded as one of Almodóvar's very best. Because it so is. That Obscure Object old paparazzi photos sometimes freak me out. This is the Thelma & Louise stars: Susan, Geena and Brad. Ah, sweet bird of 1991 youth. Empire when I read the capsule header or this article about Dolphin Tale starring Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr and Morgan Freeman -- that cast! -- I actually thought I had clicked on the wrong link and gone back to an article from the 1990s. True story, I did. Low Resolution Have you read Joe's entertaining & thought provoking personal Emmy ballots? You should.
must read contemporary post of the day Op-Ed Maureen Dowd and Sam Wasson, the author of that Breakfast at Tiffany's book discuss the sorry wrist-slitting state of the romantic comedy. They name names. Wonderful discussion. I just may read it again and buy Wasson's book.
must read retrospective post of the day Nick's Flick Picks reviews James Cameron's The Abyss (1989). As per usual his insights are totally invigorating. He always makes me want to see movies again. You can miss so much. I love this bit on Ed Harris
Harris, whose charisma, gaze, and body were like a periodic table of virile emotion during this period in his career, is tremendously moving throughout this key sequence, and really throughout the movie.
"A periodic table of virile emotion"...god, what a gorgeous distillation of Ed Harris. When is his honorary Oscar coming (since the real thing seems ever out of reach)?
Let's talk Sissy Spacek. My friend Matt has been highlighting her something fierce over at Pop Matters, but why should he have the Sissy all to himself?
The great actress, everyone's favorite telekinetic murderess, is finally in a buzzy film again (Get Low opens today). And though I don't much care for the new movie, it's always nice when a frequently absent major actress wins Oscar buzz and praise again.
She's a big name but what does that name mean to today's moviegoers? For people born in the late 80s or 1990s, maybe her stint on TV's Big Love comes immediately to mind (Emmy nominated this year). But I'm guessing if it's not the cross-generational popular Carrie, it's mainly In the Bedroom that takes over the imagination: Sissy breaking plates, Sissy slapping Marisa Tomei, Sissy taking weird drags on her cigarette that manage to be both furious and catatonic simultaneously. How can they be both at once? She's a mysterious but vivid actress in her best work.
For those who lived through the 70s or 80s, the name will probably conjure multiple associations. Her filmography has a smattering of daring side dish classics but the main course is an oversize portion of middlebrow Oscar bait. To extend the food metaphor, that stuff can often taste healthy but afterwards... where is the nutritional value? In the long run aren't so many "prestige films" filled with empty calories? Her filmography also has intermittent weird gaps. And, unless I've got my dates wrong those gaps don't really even coincide with the births of her daughters (which is when many actresses take their long breaks). What happens in these gaps? It's almost as if Sissy gets an enigmatic closeup and then bolts from the cinema as enigmatically as teenage "Holly" abandons home in Badlands.
Oscar nominations are in bold.
Prime Cut (72) | Badlands (73) | Ginger in the Morning (74)
Note: Sissy worked with the brilliant art director / production designer Jack Fisk on Badlands and they married the following year when they were both still in their 20s. She's one of those rare actresses, like Meryl Streep, who has been married for almost the entirety of her fame to the same man. Another association. The two actresses are but six months apart in age and both became essential screen icons in the 1970s and won their first Oscars just one year apart.
Carrie (76) | Welcome to LA (76) | Three Women (77)
The underseen Three Women is one of Robert Altman's very best films. It's completely mandatory viewing for fans of Ingmar Bergman's Persona (an influential before) and Mulholland Dr (an influenced after). It's the middle link in that brilliant women-fused-together dream chain. Sissy disappears for a few years right after. And then...
Note: Such a star in the 80s she gets top billing over... Mel Gibson.
Violets Are Blue (86) | 'night Mother (86) | Crimes of the Heart (86)
The pinkish tone of the last two posters. They're screaming "GIRL MOVIES!" Not that we don't love girl movies, mind you.
It's too depressing to continue from there. Sissy's last two characters in 1986 were suicidal. Maybe the actress saw the 90s coming? After Crimes of the Heart, for which she was Oscar nominated, she disappears for four years until a series of movies crop up in the early 90s like The Long Walk Home (1990) that are well intentioned but don't go anywhere or did go places (JFK, '91) but didn't need her to get there. By the late 90s she'd been shoved into the supporting classes, from which she never really returns as headliner, but for her last classic, In the Bedroom. She collected a few trophies that year until the late surging Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) trumped her on Oscar night.
Here's three must-sees from the last twenty years of her filmography (though not always for her presence).
JFK (91) | The Straight Story (99) | In the Bedroom (01)
That's the first 15 films of her career (excluding extra work in a Warhol picture) and 3 more still. How many of those 18 have you seen?
And what would you like to see Sissy do next? Some of you have suggested in comment threads that she'd make a great Violent in August: Osage County whenever that becomes a film. She wouldn't be a bad choice for it at all, though one assumes Hollywood will want Meryl Streep to do it since they want her to do everything. As should be painfully obvious The Film Experience loves Meryl Streep, but some of her contemporaries sure could use her the big break of Streep passing on a choice role.
Exit music: Remember when we mentioned Streep's son being a fine musician? That's another thing the two actresses have in common. Here's Sissy & Jack's singer songwriter daughter Schuyler Fisk doing "From Where I'm Standing". Pretty voice, right? You can totally see Sissy in her. It's that lank sunkissed hair and those awesome cheekbones.
I know that a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has to be (literally) bought. But I still find the whole thing weird, exciting and confusing. People get one when they're barely established, others when they're legends, some never. Oprah Winfrey is getting her star for television next year. Yes, the Oprah. She's been ruling the small screen for so long that she's as synonymous with it as Philo T Farnsworth. And it's only happening now?
Nevertheless, I love those photos of stars holding their stars. It's so meta. Plus, it's fun to see who comes out in support of them.
Anyway, the 2011 crop was announced. Two music acts that I'd love to see biopics on despite my aversion to the genre made the list: The Go-Gos (I've discussed that one already) and Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge.
Here's the complete "movie" list for 2011: Penélope Cruz (good time in her career for this. Nice) Bruce Dern & Laura Dern & Diane Ladd (listed separatedly but ♪ ♫ its a family affair... it's a family affair ♪), Ed Harris (maybe he'll be an Oscar winner for The Long Walk Home by the time that ceremony is held?), The Muppets (who already have a star for television), Reese Witherspoon, Kenny Ortega (wait, who?), Gwyneth Paltrow and three major players you'd have thought would have had them since the 70s or early 80s: director Ridley Scott, Carrie herself Sissy Spacek and the enduring Donald Sutherland.
red carpet lineup. random celebs who've been out and about this week...
With Tribeca handing out their awards last tonight and me coming back to life (things have been crazy) I thought we'd talk about some people attending New York's glitzy festival. I'm asking a comment question in red for each of them because I'm "reader discussion guide" annoying like that. Maybe I should have been a T.A.? Tribeca doesn't have the same prestige or art-driven mentality as the far older New York Film Festival (always in the fall) but it does pack theaters all over town, offer up a diverse 'something for everyone' slate and bring out the celebrities in droves. To hawk their films. Though I did see Ben Stiller and Denis Leary as audience members at the religious satire The Infidel.
from left to right
Ellen Barkin plays a sullen drug addict in The Chameleon and she'll start her Shit Yearat Cannes next month in the Directors' Fortnight lineup. Is her career revving back up or is this another Oceans 13 false alarm. Do you care?
Mark Ruffalo seems to be letting himself go. Maybe it's just a 'between projects' kind of thing. Though, when is he between projects? Always working. I'm already stealing myself for disappointment if he doesn't get the credit he deserves for sly great work in The Kids Are All Right. Will he ever be Oscar nominated?
Kirsten Dunst is on the comeback trail despite being only 28. Today is her birthday! She was at Tribeca because she directed the short film Bastard. Are you rooting for her comeback?
Melissa Leo can't say no. That's my theory because she's made 15+ movies since Frozen River (2008) -- no joke -- and she's in two miniseries this year too (including Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce). Should she be saying yes to everything? Riding that Frozen River momentum til it stops paying dividends.
from left to right
Andy Serkis came to town with his BAFTA nominated star turn in the rock bio sex & drugs & rock & roll. I wondered a few times if he could get any Oscar traction for it. Pro: there's the disability factor AND the biopic factor. Con: It's probably an unfamiliar rock story to most AMPAS voters and they like familiar. I admit I didn't know the story either. Do you know Ian Dury and The Blockheads?
she who must not be named was in NYC for My Own Love Song. You know how I felt about the trailer but believe me I don't want to be this frightened to go near her work. In all honesty I was really hoping to get back on board but then came that trailer. I even tried to give her a new nickname Zeéeeee which is vowel-accurate and friendly-like. Are you rooting for her comeback?
Christy Turlington is my favorite model of all time. But I realized sitting in the audience of her new documentary that it's weird to have a favorite model of all time. Because what can you do other than look at them? With favorite actors there's all sorts of imagination connection, storytelling, catharsis, etcetera. There I sat thinking "she's pretty" and my thoughts pretty much ended there. Unlike many of her supermodel peers from the 90s, she didn't try acting. But after marrying Ed Burns she is trying filmmaking. For a good cause though! Visit the website every mother counts. Have you a favorite model of all time ever?
Patricia Clarkson starred in a travel drama called Cairo Time in which she misplaces her husband in Egypt. Somehow I missed it even though I love my Patty and also enjoy her co-star Alexander Siddig. Bad planning me. Why do people go to the desert on vacations?
from left to right
Amanda Seyfried was starting her Letters To Juliet tour. Dominic Cooper walked her down the aisle -- I mean the red carpet -- for the premiere. Do you like them as a couple or do they give you painful flashbacks to Mamma Mia?
Guy Pearce should maybe be hired for Christian Bale's health scare roles. I'm just sayin'. He was in town for a special screening and discussion of Memento. Do you love Memento?
Sissy Spacek was promoting Get Low. I didn't like the movie -- which I saw before the festival and which most people do like for Oscar noms -- but it sure was nice to see her again in a substantial role. Still waiting for another In the Bedroom, though. What's your favorite Sissy? Other than Carrie I mean.
<---Brian Geraghty was the unofficial poster boy of the 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival. He was a home invader in the erotic thriller Open House, a muscley redneck brother-in-law in The Chameleon and he also appeared in Kiki's short Bastard. It's like Melissa Leo's Frozen River longtail... only with The Hurt Locker. Thoughts?
