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

Emmy Predictions: The Miniseries

We'll finish off the Emmy predictions with a look at the Miniseries/TV Movie categories, the categories that always get a bit of a brush through at the ceremony, but feature the people whom you actually expect to see at an awards show (the movie stars), so it's hardly something you can relegate to the Creative Arts Emmys.  If you missed earlier this week, don't forget to check out the Drama and Comedy predictions:

Best Limited Series

1. Olive Kitteridge
2. American Crime
3. American Horror Story: Freak Show
4. The Honorable Woman
5. Wolf Hall

The Lowdown: This is always the place to over-bet on HBO, not only because they campaign the hardest, but usually because they have the legit best contenders.  As a result, we've got Olive Kitteridge, the likely victor, on the top, though the network's only other major contender (The Casual Vacancy) has no buzz and I'm taking out for now.  Instead, I've got the rare nominee from a major network (American Crime), the perennial nominee American Horror Story (only at the Emmys could a perennial nominee be in the Limited Series category), the prestige-y Wolf Hall (PBS usually slices a nod here too), and the Sundance hit The Honorable Woman.  I suspect that there will be love for Texas Rising in other Emmy categories, especially in the tech slots, but both it and The Missing seem too small to take out this quintet.

Best TV Movie

1. Bessie
2. Derek: The Final Chapter
3. Nightingale
4. Killing Jesus
5. Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case

The Lowdown: Eww, this category looks awful.  No wonder Bessie seems so out-in-front here, there's nothing really to choose from (someone seriously dropped the ball here as every decent contender seems to be in the miniseries category).  Derek made it before and if The Big C and 24 are any indication should have no trouble scoring a couple of nods in an easier slate of nominees, and Nightingale may be largely forgotten but with an up-and-coming star and a weak bench to compete against is a certainty (David Oyelowo should succeed here where he couldn't at the Oscars).  The final two slots I'm going with Killing Jesus because apparently it's a frontrunner (ugh though-Bill O'Reilly with an Emmy?  Blech!) and Agatha Christie's Poirot, a swan song for a famed series.

Best Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. David Oyelowo (Nightingale)
2. Richard Jenkins (Olive Kitteridge)
3. Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall)
4. Bill Paxton (Texas Rising)
5. David Suchet (Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case)

The Lowdown: I am near certain that Oyelowo wins this one, so it's really just four guys going for an "honor just to be nominated."  That means that Richard Jenkins, who is the well-noted lead of Olive Kitteridge will make it, as will Bill Paxton who is enjoying a nice resurgence in TV movies at the moment (at this rate he might well win an Emmy soon), and Mark Rylance, who has owned Broadway for the past decade and seems likely to be both an Emmy and an Oscar nominee by year's end.  The final slot I'm going to do my true random prediction of the bunch (I haven't really gone out on a limb quite yet in any of these predictions) and go with David Suchet, who has been a TV icon as Poirot for years now without ever being cited, and it's not like Ricky Gervais or Timothy Hutton really need points for largely forgotten work this year.  Either of them make more sense (or perhaps even Oscar-winner Adrien Brody in Houdini), but Suchet seems like a nice way to honor a longtime TV trouper.

Best Actress in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge)
2. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Honorable Woman)
3. Queen Latifah (Bessie)
4. Jessica Lange (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
5. Felicity Huffman (American Crime)

The Lowdown: In this category, "always go with the Oscar nominees" is a solid maxim, and it's completely true this year.  While some of these women are more known for television than film (namely Felicity Huffman, though lately Jessica Lange as well), all five have at least one Oscar nomination and in two cases a number of them.  Each of them have dominated the conversation so much that the only other person who could remotely compete appears to be Frances O'Connor in The Missing, but I don't think she'll have enough fame to get past this list (maybe if it had been Frances Conroy).  The best question here is whether Frances McDormand will actually show up to pickup her Triple Crown, or will she bow out on the off-chance she's going to lose to Gyllenhaal or Latifah?

Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Bill Murray (Olive Kitteridge)
2. Stephen Rea (The Honorable Woman)
3. Joanthan Pryce (Wolf Hall)
4. Damian Lewis (Wolf Hall)
5. Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story: Freak Show)

The Lowdown: If there's one rule in doing any sort of awards' predictions, it's to ignore your own personal opinions and always just go with the buzz.  Most of the time this is easy, as frequently the buzz and my own opinions are easy to separate.  For example, I can see that Damian Lewis and Jonathan Pryce both have that aura of former nominee and prestige, or that Stephen Rea's an Oscar nominee which should help him for The Honorable Woman, or that Bill Murray is a movie star icon in a major production, likely meaning not only a nomination but a win.  However, I just cannot buy the buzz behind Michael Chiklis, who was in every channel imaginable worse than Finn Wittrock in Freak Show.  It makes sense that the Emmy-winning Chiklis beats the ingenue and part of me is expecting it, but it will break my heart not to predict Wittrock for the performance of a lifetime, and so I am going with him, wrongness be damned.

Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries/TV Movie

1. Mo'Nique (Bessie)
2. Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
3. Kathy Bates (American Horror Story: Freak Show)
4. Janet McTeer (The Honorable Woman)
5. Susan Sarandon (Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe)

The Lowdown: I got a little bit off-the-track in the past category, but won't be in this one.  I know what side Emmy's bread is buttered on, and big names mean nominations (just ask Ellen Burstyn).  Susan Sarandon may be in a tiny film that got minimal plaudits, but she's also Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, who has never won an Emmy in four nominations and she's competing in supporting not the more competitive lead, so that should be enough to make it short of Alfre Woodard being in a show I haven't heard of yet.  The rest of the nominees seem set-Cynthia Nixon, Angela Bassett, and Zoe Kazan all have potential, but Sarandon makes the most sense on-paper, and that's where I'm headed.

Those are my final nominations (I don't really do the reality categories).  What are your thoughts?  Who do you agree with and who are you thinking has no shot?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Tumbleweeds (1999)

Film: Tumbleweeds (1999)
Stars: Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown, Jay O. Sanders, Gavin O'Connor
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Janet McTeer)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Occasionally films feel very much "of their time," and then there are movies that sort of feel a bit alien to me, which is pretty much what happened when I saw the 1999 movie Tumbleweeds.  The movie made a tiny splash that year when Janet McTeer became one of those random actresses (like Sally Kirkland, Pauline Collins, and Fernanda Montenegro) who, with little domestic star power, manages to power through an awards season and come out the other end an Oscar nominee.  However, I hadn't seen this film at the time (tiny independent movies did not make it to my tiny little community, ironically enough), and so I recently caught this.  For those who want a blast from the past, let's dive in, shall we?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about a mother, Mary Jo (McTeer) and her daughter Ava (Brown) who are out on the road, packing up their lives and headed west.  The film is in the grand tradition of looking for your next dream that has been popular in American cinemas since the Silent Era.  There's something people truly love about throwing yourself into the next chapter of your life.  However, there's an added twist here that probably made me and a good chunk of the audience uncomfortable, and that's the fact that it feels irresponsible of Mary Jo to do this to her daughter.  Ava has picked up on some of her mother's flighty tendencies, and is clearly becoming a bad influence.  It's actually kind of endearing to have Ava be less responsible, because so often when these situations happen on television, the child is supernaturally mature and actually becomes the parent for the mother at times (Lorelai and Rory on Gilmore Girls or Susan and Julie on Desperate Housewives, for example).

The film follows a plotline so formulaic you don't need it spelled out for you (they find a new place, Ava actually likes it, Mary Jo is shown for being a commitment phobe, they meet a nice guy though not the initial guy they end up living with, and then in the end, after a nice long fight, they mend fences).  Seriously-if you didn't see that coming within the first few minutes of the film, I am totally lost to you.  The film is clearly, occasionally uncomfortably, on a budget, as the cinematography frequently feels like you're watching an original trailer from the late 1980's on YouTube rather than something a bit more pristine like we're used to today, even in independent film.  This works in the sun-dappled sequences, I suppose, but makes the film feel considerably older than it actually is and it cinematically doesn't jive with some of the other movies happening in the Best Actress category that year like American Beauty and The End of the Affair.

We should probably spend some time on Best Actress, obviously, since that's the reason we both showed up to this movie, and I will say that McTeer delivers there, even if it's not what I'd call a revelation by any stretch of the imagination.  Her Mary Jo passes the test (sometimes very hard to do in this style of movie) of being a highly-believable character.  She's so charming and funny and sexy that we believe that people are enamored with her (I wasn't taken at all with Brown, who suffers from that childhood actor problem of toeing the line between precocious and stylized), and that they'd let her get away with the things that she does.  That being said, I do feel like we don't quite get a sense of her motives, because someone that is so specific in their life's journey has to have dreams that are considerably bigger, though this is that fine line between blaming the actor and blaming the screenwriter.  Either way, it was an inspired and unconventional choice for Best Actress, even if I'm not entirely sold that I would have done the same thing.

Those are my thoughts on this now 15-years-old film (my how time flies)-how about you?  Do you remember Tumbleweeds as a personal favorite or something to quickly pass by the old memory?  What do you think of the very television-oriented nature of McTeer's career after her breakout?  And compared to Meryl, Annette, Hilary, and Julianne, where does Janet rank in your personal Best Actress ballot of 1999?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Maleficent (2014)

Film: Maleficent (2014)
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Janet McTeer (yep, she's the voice you were trying to place as the narrator)
Director: Robert Stromberg
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

You can feel it in the water.  What once was popular is now lost, and only those that lived four years ago can remember it.  At least this is what I was thinking as I was leaving Maleficent, the latest in the many, many reimaginings of classic fairy tale/fantasy stories.  After the inexplicable (that box office was psychotic) success of Alice in Wonderland in 2010, the studios would have been fools to not have cashed in on this previously untapped market (see also comic books and…the studios are not good at focusing on multiple things at a time).  Yet after Snow White and the Huntsman, Oz the Great and Powerful, and now Maleficent it appears the trend may soon be fading.  Pray for next year’s Cinderella remake.

(Spoilers Ahead) The reason for this is partially because no one seems to like any of these movies.  Honestly-with the comic book movies you have The Avengers and Iron Man and The Dark Knight propping up the mediocre entries like The Green Lantern and most of the X-Men franchise.  There has yet to be a fairy tale story to really stick the landing, and that’s partially because the franchises try to stay surface level.

In theory fantasy films should work marvelously, and from a bankroll perspective they do (this, like the others before it, is a gigantic hit).  Yet it’s the fact that it’s all surface-level that causes it harm.  I’m not one for the continued “let’s-make-a-sequel” aspect of the movies, but what sets Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings apart is that they’re building a mythology based on these great book series.  There’s plenty of source material in these films, and there’s a lot of great emotional drama, but for some reason they skirt behind it.

Take for example the scene where Maleficent (Jolie) loses her wings in this film.  It’s one of the most devastating scenes I’ve witnessed in a youth-oriented film in years (it rivals that wildly creepy scene with a dying Alan Rickman in Harry Potter).  The anguish in Jolie’s voice as she lies, betrayed by the man she loved-it’s heartbreaking, and you get a sense for the remainder of the film that there’s an unspoken evil lurking here that you want avenged.

And yet, the film doesn’t give us much in the way of a human character for Sharlto Copley, who is a black-hearted king with no redeeming qualities to make him seem remotely well-rounded.  His daughter Aurora (Fanning) is the exact opposite-all goodness and sweetness, but nothing minutely human about her.  They might as well be cartoons (in fact, they once were in a different Disney kingdom far, far away), and there’s nothing to latch on to of substance here.

Jolie’s performance is the only thing worth noting in this silly, paint-by-numbers film.  Jolie has always worked best as a movie star in theory than in practice-her films, especially her later films, have all suffered from her being the most famous person on earth.  It’s hard to imagine such an exquisite creature existing in real life (I remember reading somewhere that Jolie was far too beautiful to be anything other than a movie star, and it’s true), and even in a fairy world she stands out.  This is ideal casting (who else to play a goddess?), but in the scenes where Jolie is shifting her opinion of Aurora, I cannot help but feel I’m being sold something not worth buying; Jolie’s Maleficent is far too cunning and world-weary to be undone by such a princess.

The film has the sort of pedigree (look at that crew list) and box office position to be a threat at this year’s Oscars in at least a handful of tech categories.  I will slightly withhold judgement in this regard, but can we all agree the fake cheekbones were redundant on Jolie and that the small-headed Imelda Staunton looked stupid?  If you disagree, there’s the comments section.  In fact, share any thoughts you had about this movie (judging by the box office I’m guessing you have seen it)!

OVP: Supporting Actress (2011)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees Were...

Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Octavia Spencer, The Help

My Thoughts: While Best Supporting Actor is oftentimes filled with venerable and previously celebrated men over 50, Best Supporting Actress is a little more diverse.  In this particular year, we have five actresses who all have their moments of comic relief, but add solid depth to their films.  We have hard-working character actresses who are getting their first chance at an Oscar, women highlighting Best Picture nominees, women stealing their respective films from their more famous costars, and in one case, a woman returning to the Oscars for the first time in twelve years after a seemingly "one-and-done" Best Actress nomination (just goes to show you-you never really can tell which first-time nominees will return and which ones will be getting their one dalliance with the little golden man).

Let's start with that former nominee-Janet McTeer, who received a nomination for Best Actress in 1999 for Tumbleweeds (so she's the only person in this race we're guaranteed to be discussing in a future, or rather past Oscar conversation, though I suspect one of these ladies gets another nomination in the next five years).  McTeer's performance is the life energy of the film-while Close's performance is dignified and handsome, it's not in the same caliber of what we normally expect from her, and it pales in comparison to what McTeer is doing onscreen.  Quite frankly, the makeup effects help a bit-McTeer, not nearly as well known as Glenn Close, is not instantly identifiable within the confines of her disguise, and that adds to her mystery.  The way that she has found herself in a loving relationship, the way she is able to fend off advances from Pauline Collins, and find a sense of comfort and even normalcy in a at-the-time greatly unordinary relationship, is excellent.  Think of how adrift the film becomes without McTeer to anchor it-in an otherwise ordinary film, she shows that you can always rise above your material by fully understanding your character.

Fully understanding a character is exactly what Melissa McCarthy is doing in Bridesmaids.  In what was one of the "huh, really...that's awesome" sort of nominations that come along every now-and-again in a genre Oscar doesn't usually honor for acting (Weaver in Aliens, Depp in Pirates, etc), McCarthy carries her Megan from the confines of a slapstick/gross-out comedy to the Kodak Theatre.  I mean, as I mentioned in Original Screenplay, it helps that McCarthy is not in-fact in a traditional gross-out comedy, but one with a deeper message.  But you have to hand it to this veteran television actress (whom I have loved so much in the role of Sookie St. James on Gilmore Girls, and has also won more fans over in roles on Samantha Who? and Mike & Molly, for which she won the Emmy)-she can most definitely act.  Think of the tightrope she's walking with the character-keeping a character with few social cues and brimming confidence utterly believable.  Most actors would have simply created an absurd, only-in-the-movies person onscreen, but McCarthy knows better.  Think of our introduction to her-the way that she throws herself so easily into a conversation without knowing Wiig's Annie for longer than 20 seconds.  She goes on-and-on about her life and troubles, with the certainty that Annie wants to hear this, despite Annie staying silent.  We've all been on a plane or sitting on the subway with this person-the, no boundaries, complete sharer.  Later on in the film, we see her open up a little bit to Annie, but never without losing her sense of self.  And the physical comedy bits in the bridal shop and on the plane are of an actress who is more concerned about delivering for her character than ensuring she maintains a sense of glamour onscreen.  All-in-all, even from a performer I have long admired on the sides, I wasn't expecting an excellence like this from McCarthy-a truly Oscar-worthy performance.  I'm so hoping that directors take note and give her more chances to shine (and maybe even another shot at the gold guy please?).

On the list of actors that I also wish casting directors would consider for bigger roles, Octavia Spencer is certainly toward the top.  Like McCarthy, Spencer was a big name in one of the largest original hits of 2011, so it would behoove directors to find better roles than one-off characters on forgettable sitcoms.  After all, her Minnie is the terminator in The Help-a combination of confidence and fearlessness coupled with a genuine concern for the real dangers she has to face everyday.  While she's not getting the heavy-lifting that Viola Davis is, she still manages to take advantage of her big moment in the sun ("Eat my shit!") and keep her character from becoming caricature.  While all of the comedy moments are absolute fun, I also remember the sternness and graveness in her voice when she tells her daughter "no sass-mouthing."  Spencer manages to brilliantly find that tone between a mother who is trying to sound stern and a woman genuinely concerned about her daughter's safety without trying to scare her.  It's one of the many quieter moments that takes Spencer's comedy relief and creates a flesh-and-blood woman onscreen.

I am bound-and-determined not to end every article with The Artist, so we're going to put a pin in Spencer's costar and turn over to Peppy Miller.  Heading into the Oscar nominations morning, I felt certain that McTeer, Chastain, and Spencer were going to be nominated, and that it would be Bejo, McCarthy, and Shailene Woodley in The Descendants that would be sparring for the final two slots.  While I wasn't a big fan of what Woodley was doing onscreen (too easy, too many cliches that she chose to use to patch together her character), there was a nice chemistry between she and Clooney, and I guess that's my way of saying that I was hoping Bejo would be the one that got cut (actually, I would have picked someone completely different to fill the final slot if there was no holds barred-see below for that).  Bejo also has strong chemistry with her costar Jean DuJardin, and she has an expressive and excellent face that works well in her role.  That's about it, though.  While Jean DuJardin finds the heart of George Valentin, I feel like I never really know what Peppy Miller's deal is.  Why did she suddenly fall-in-love with George Valentin (aside from the obvious-hello handsome)?  And if it is that shallow, why does she keep coming back to him?  Her character is obviously ambitious and willing to go the extra mile-how is it that she falls so easily for Valentine the person in addition to Valentin the movie star?  Bejo can obviously dance, and she understands the mechanics of silent film very well (the scene with the coat is easily her best), but I left the film wanting desperately more from her-great supporting actresses build on their character and give them depth and more direction.  Bejo hits her marks, looks the part, and that's about it.

Finally, we will come to Jessica Chastain (in the time it took me to write this article, she probably already made another movie).  Chastain made seven films in 2011, and received bushels of collective critics awards, so one suspects that this nomination was just as much for The Tree of Life, The Debt, Take Shelter, and Coriolanus as it was for The Help, but since we only judge based on the merits of the films, we'll stick to just Celia Foote.  Chastain is almost unrecognizable in the first few scenes of the film with her bleach blond hair and "ahh, sugar" accent (I'll admit that I spent a few minutes figuring out which character she was before the eyes gave it away).  She's also fifth on the cast sheet in a cast (blessedly) filled with women (I say blessedly because I could use some more predominantly female casts in my life-I get enough predominantly male casts), so she needs to strive to make an entrance.  This is particularly difficult in a cast that features two other Oscar-nominated performances, not to mention two (now three) Oscar winners, three (now five) more Oscar nominees, and even more women who have made major impacts at the Emmy and Tony Awards.

Chastain does this by making everything connected.  She's obviously playing a dumb blonde, but she's clearly not dumb about everything.  The way that she hides her personal shame over the miscarriages, the way that she tries desperately to fit in, and yet isn't willing to compromise herself goes a long way to explaining this loveable, yet ostracized trophy wife.  It's a tribute to Chastain that we leave having a strong understanding of her character, since her character is perhaps the most ancillary of the major players in the movie.  You can't imagine how the story would work without Minnie, Skeeter, Hilly, or Abilene, but Celia could easily be just window dressing.  With Chastain at the wheel, though, you get a performance that's worthy of the film, and even more so, worthy of Oscar.

Other Precursor Contenders: The BAFTA Awards were far more "hometown hero," skipping Berenice Bejo, and oddly, fellow countrywoman Janet McTeer in favor of Judi Dench's fairly routine work in My Week with Marilyn (never underestimate Dame Judi at the BAFTA's) and Carey Mulligan for her work in Drive (again, oddly not for her far more compelling work in Shame).  The Screen Actors Guild Awards went with a carbon copy of the Oscars, while the Golden Globes skipped up-and-coming Melissa McCarthy in favor of up-and-coming Shailene Woodley as George Clooney's daughter in The Descendants.  Octavia Spencer would successfully win all three precursor awards.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I have to admit-though they wouldn't exactly be the lineup I would have put forward, McTeer, Spencer, Chastain, and McCarthy are all worthy of the category and I'm fine keeping them where they are, so unfortunately this discussion in directed toward the slot held by Berenice Bejo.  If double nominations were allowed, I'd be all onboard with Chastain's even better performance in The Tree of Life as Mrs. O'Brien (the way of Grace).  However, since they aren't, I'll advocate for a one-time Oscar favorite, Ms. Anjelica Huston.  Huston's work as an overbearing mother dealing with her son's chances at survival in 50/50 is a tour de force of an actress given limited screentime.  She makes every moment matter, and doesn't stop her nitpicking even when she's wrestling with every parent's worst nightmare underneath.  It's a rare opportunity for the wildly underused Huston, and she doesn't let it slide.

Oscar's Choice: Like every precursor, Oscar loves a scene-stealer, and so Octavia Spencer won this rather decisively over presumed second place Melissa McCarthy.

My Choice: McCarthy.  While Chastain would have been a real threat for The Tree of Life or if you could combine her filmography, she didn't get in for the right performance, and so I'm going with the actress that took a stock role and made it Oscar-worthy.  Few people can do something like that when there's so little Academy-bait in the script, and so I want to take full advantage of Oscar nominating not only an atypical role, but a triumph of comic timing and acting, and the best supporting actress performance of the lineup.  I'd follow that with Spencer, McTeer, Chastain, and Bejo.

I know that I said that I'd be done this weekend, but I had people in town, so we shall dive into the Big 4 tomorrow.  But now, let's discuss these women-which of these five ladies deserved to win Best Supporting Actress?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Supporting Actress of 2011?

Also in 2011: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap