OVP: Actress (2001)

OVP: Best Actress (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Halle Berry, Monster's Ball

Judi Dench, Iris

Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge!

Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom

Renee Zellweger, Bridget Jones's Diary

My Thoughts: And we are coming to a close of six consecutive days of OVP Ballots (we'll do the remaining three next week), with our final acting race, Best Actress.  Like Best Actor, I think it's worth knowing some context here.  In 2001, the Oscar race for Best Actress was very, very close.  Nicole Kidman, Sissy Spacek, & Halle Berry were all neck-and-neck as you'll see with the precursors below, and this was the rare race that truly no one knew whose name Russell Crowe was going to call out.

Well, Renee Zellweger probably knew she was staying in her seat, though it's not because she wasn't good in Bridget Jones.  Zellweger, in the wake of Jerry Maguire, had spent a few years floundering in different projects, appearing in daughter/girlfriend roles opposite Meryl Streep & Jim Carrey, and then eventually beating Juliette Binoche for a surprise Golden Globe in 2000 (when she was literally in the bathroom).  Her Bridget Jones made her a proper movie star, and she nails the English accent here in a way few American actresses have achieved beforehand.  She also is genuinely funny & charming, getting the pathos of a single girl in her thirties down to a tee.  The main complaint-it's too slight.  The film is too light, it doesn't quite have enough direction outside of her, and isn't good enough.  But in a year where Oscar felt the need to get a little creative, this was a solid decision.

The only other American in this field was of course Halle Berry.  This is Berry's only nomination, and an historic win in the category...that I wish I could say I enjoy.  I agree with pretty much every criticism levied at this part through the years-that she's miscast, that she feels like she doesn't have enough chemistry with Thornton.  It feels like the further into the role she gets, the more she loses of the character, and that's not what the script is doing.  There's nothing there, other than just a beautiful woman who (while still beautiful) hasn't sat in a makeup chair for three hours prior.  When people criticize deglam performances, this is what they're referring to-all physical change, but not enough substance to the work beneath.

Nicole Kidman's work is the opposite.  Heightened glamour (though obviously a "cheaper" type given the character), she also finds depths beneath the mountain of makeup and silk dresses.  Kidman's work here is remarkable, giving us Satine in all of her facets: as a con artist, as a dreamer, as a survivor.  We understand that her life changes with Christian, but unlike McGregor's lovesick writer, who is totally reborn when he meets her, she brings some of the weight of her previous life with her, informing the performance even as she dares to find a change.  It's terrific work, atop singing that feels like it's giving us more of the character (not easy, especially for a non-professional singer). 

Sissy Spacek also gives us layered work in In the Bedroom.  This performance is showy (that plate-smashing scene became iconic for a reason), but only in parts.  Much of the buildup to that is Spacek putting in the groundwork.  I love the way she always seems a little nervous around the son that she has a distant, prickly relationship with, knowing that she has to guide him to do the things she wants since saying it out loud will just have him go in the opposite direction.  This, of course, is a hallmark of being the mother of a defiant young man, one who is desperate to please one parent but not the other, and Spacek (a mother of two) clearly carries that into her work as Ruth.

Finishing off the list we have our only real-life figure (a rarity for this category) with Judi Dench's performance as Iris Murdoch.  This was during that period where Judi Dench could get nominated for playing virtually any part, so you'd be fine wondering if this is just a "default" nomination, but it's not.  Dench is very good as Iris Murdoch, and has one of the trickier acts in the film, playing a woman who has to both be connected to her younger self (played by Kate Winslet) while also showing flashes of growth and fading away.  She does a decent job of giving us a genius on the brink of losing everything, a woman of prose who can no longer find the words.  The film is depressing, and that starts to hurt Dench's performance because it goes for easy sentiment toward the end, but it's still strong work during Dench's heyday.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama, Spacek won, beating Berry, Dench, Nicole Kidman (The Others), & Tilda Swinton (The Deep End), while Comedy/Musical went to Kidman in Moulin Rouge! against Zellweger, Thora Birch (Ghost World), Cate Blanchett (Bandits), & Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde).  SAG went with Halle Berry, besting Dench, Spacek, Zellweger, & Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), while BAFTA picked Dench against Kidman (The Others), Zellweger, Spacek, & Audrey Tautou (Amelie); Berry wasn't eligible due to when the movie was released in the UK, but she was nominated for Best Actress the following year.  In terms of sixth place, it's tricky.  It's possible that Kidman, because she could only be cited for one film, was not only in sixth but maybe even in fourth for The Others, as both were serious threats for a nomination that year, but if you don't count that, it was surely Swinton, doing the legwork for her eventual win in 2007.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: The Oscars have had a complicated history with Kidman's best friend Naomi Watts, who has been cited for two Oscars for underwhelming films, while her best work they ignored.  That happened in 2001, when she gave the performance of her career in Mulholland Drive and they sadly skipped over it.

Oscar’s Choice: Headed into the night, a three-way tie between Berry, Spacek, & Kidman looked as likely as anything, but Berry was able to ride her SAG win to victory, and one of the Oscar's best speeches (it still gets me crying every time).

My Choice: I'm going to go with Kidman over Spacek, because I think her role is trickier given the heightened world Baz has created, and because the singing is so well-done; both will be showing up next week in my My Ballot wrap-up for this category, though.  Behind them I'll pick Zellweger, Dench, and then Berry.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Do you stick with the Academy making history with Berry's choice or do you want to join the Kidman train early with me?  Which of Kidman's 2001 performances should Oscar have chosen if you only get one?  And why do you think it took Tilda Swinton so long to get into the Academy's good graces?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2001: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

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

OVP: Actress (2002)

OVP: Best Actress (2002)

The Nominees Were...

Salma Hayek, Frida

Nicole Kidman, The Hours

Diane Lane, Unfaithful

Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven

Renee Zellweger, Chicago

My Thoughts: I've said repeatedly in the 2002 lineups that these are some of the best acting quintets that Oscar has assembled this century, and that holds true for Best Actress.  It wasn't just that 2002 was a good year for movies...Oscar had strong taste this year, and it came out in a variety of ways.  That being said, as you're going to notice in the precursors, Best Actress was kind of playing with the answer key for the nominations.  These five women totally dominated the awards season, and it was not a surprise at all when they were announced as the official ambassadors to the Kodak in early 2003.

At this point, Julianne Moore's acting in Far from Heaven is talked about in the way that cinephiles discuss Brando in On the Waterfront or Jane Fonda in Klute...it's so celebrated that it's hard to grasp that there was once a time that it was new.  The real genius in Moore's work (cause she is, true to reputation, wonderful) is that she's so fully-commited to this style of acting.  There are a lot of easy moments in Far from Heaven where she could break, where she could bust the ode to Douglas Sirk that Todd Haynes is crafting, and instead give herself a gigantic Oscar moment, but she doesn't.  That's what makes it so special, and keeps the film glued together even as others around her are faltering from her idealization.

Nicole Kidman's Oscar win has not aged well for reasons that are alien to me, because this might be my favorite performance of hers, confirmed by a recent rewatch of the movie.  In a movie as strong as The Hours, it's hard to single out a favorite and yet it's always Kidman's Virginia Woolf for this watcher.  I think it's the way that she's both (literally & figuratively) in charge of the story, bringing each new character in like a gleeful, sadistic narrator.  There's also the way that she embodies someone who is fed up with what's easy.  She knows that her old life is dangerous, and this new time in the country is where her health might recover, where she can last forever...but all she wants is to live.  "Richmond is death" is spit out like a bullet, her speaking aloud the truth that she knows every day but no one around her seems to understand.  I love her work here.

Renee Zellweger, not Moore, was Kidman's biggest rival for the Oscar, and this is a good performance from Zellweger in the brief time where she was one of the most exciting actresses in Hollywood (Tinseltown, not entirely sure what to do with a woman who was so good at a type of screwball comedy that had basically died by 2002, put her in dramas with diminishing results).  I think there's a fine line between "Roxie isn't a good singer" and Zellweger playing her (as Zellweger is not as good of a singer as, say, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Queen Latifah is), and it doesn't quite work for me with Gere, but that's really quibbling over the lobster...this is an excellent movie experience, and she's so good at pulling off Roxie's naked ambition (fame above all).

Unlike the first three women, Diane Lane does not get the benefit of being in a good movie...she's in, in fact, the worst movie of the five (also, it should be noted, opposite Richard Gere).  But Lane is sensational within this terrible picture.  She plays Connie as a complete woman, one that is difficult to pigeonhole even though it's our gut instinct to do so when given the cliche of a beautiful woman in a loveless marriage having an affair (an onscreen cliche if there ever was one).  She clearly feels alive in her affair, but understands that while her old life isn't something that she values, she knows that the handsome, easy life she's leaving for this man is of value, and can't part with it.  This is complicated, smart acting, and I'm so glad that Lane, who has yet to be nominated again in the years since, got her sole citation for such a terrific part.

All of this leads to Salma Hayek, an actress of talent & a celebrity who seems genuinely interesting (I love her in interviews), but who cannot make Frida work.  This was clearly a passion project for the likable Hayek, so I feel bad ragging on her too harshly, but this performance cannot compare to the four women with whom she's sharing this field.  She seems to simplify the complicated Frida too much, relying on Julie Taymor's visual hints about the artist rather than placing her own mark on Kahlo, and it shows nothing of the iconic Frida that the world would fall in love with in death.  There's not enough there.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama we nearly went verbatim what Oscar said, only subbing out Zellweger for Meryl Streep (The Hours) with Kidman winning, while Zellweger won Comedy/Musical against Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary), Goldie Hawn (The Banger Sisters), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago).  SAG went with Oscar's lineup exactly, but gave the statue to Zellweger and BAFTA gave theirs to Kidman, skipping both Lane & Moore in favor of Streep and Halle Berry (Monster's Ball, which she'd won for the year before-that used to happen with BAFTA back in the day before awards season became so lock-step).  In terms of sixth, it's Streep, and I'm not hearing any arguments here-one of the few times it was clear that Meryl just missed an Oscar nomination.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Meryl deserved an inclusion here.  It's hard to be angry about it.  Streep was nominated for Adaptation in Best Supporting Actress, Hayek would never be nominated again & is an affable star...who cares, right?...even Meryl probably was fine with it turning out this way.  But if we're basing this solely on what everyone put forward, there's no debate-Streep deserved that nomination.

Oscar’s Choice: A tight race between Zellweger & Kidman led to the latter getting it (they had both been nominated the year before & both had lost).  Zellweger would help eliminate Nicole as competition the following year by starring with her, and getting the Oscar in the process.

My Choice: This is going to maybe shock some of my friends, but I'm going with Kidman, just barely over Moore.  This is one of those cases where an unreal connection with a performance makes it impossible for me to deny.  Lane, Zellweger, and then Hayek follow.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  I know that we aren't all in agreement here even if Oscar & I are happy, so who do you want to give your love toward?  Is there another performance that Diane Lane or Salma Hayek should've been considered for other than these movies (Lonesome Dove wasn't eligible, and therefore doesn't count)?  And is this the only time that Meryl has ever been in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2002: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original 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 2002

Past Best Actress Contests: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

OVP: Supporting Actress (2003)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog

Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April

Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River

Holly Hunter, Thirteen

Renee Zellweger, Cold Mountain

My Thoughts: We're moving into a better Best Supporting Actress field today after a disappointing Best Supporting Actor field yesterday.  This was a statement I said in 2018, and honestly it could be a matter-of-fact in virtually every year.  Oscar, for reasons unknowable to me, has distinctly better taste with supporting women than men.  But I'll also admit right here that while there are some treasures in this lineup (and lord knows we've got some talented actresses), you're going to see in a week with My 2003 Ballot that I went a completely different direction with 2003's field, and am a bit confused why this was the lineup that Oscar became so enamored with.

Patricia Clarkson, for starters, was better in other actual films in 2003, much less in her long career, which to date has only somehow elicited this one nomination.  It isn't entirely Clarkson's fault-she is instructed to dislike a young woman who spends all of the movie making Thanksgiving, and in the hands of an actress like Katie Holmes (a blank slate of a performer, and not in a good way), that's all she is, which makes Clarkson's animosity feel badly-tuned.  But Clarkson can't find a way to find a prickly chemistry with Holmes, so crucial to the movie, and as a result this feels like (at best) an attempt at a great performance.  It also feels like a situation where Oscar was tired of a beloved character actor not being in their good graces, and gave her a nomination as compensation even if she hadn't earned it (for that specific film).

This might also be how Renee Zellweger won.  It's easier to understand Zellweger's performance and its appeal.  The actress, at the peak of her fame, is given the role of a scene-stealing cowgirl with a soft side, and she lays into it hardcore.  There are moments to like here; Cold Mountain is a very good movie but occasionally a dry one, with Nicole Kidman not always landing her "white tower maiden" role, and Zellweger provides needed comic relief.  The only problem is that she's far too broad, and spends too much time scenery-chewing.  Zellweger at this point in her career clearly was desperate for an Oscar (two back-to-back losses will do that to a person), and you get the sense that her winning here was less on its merits and more the Academy crying "uncle" for a performance which, while not good, was at least memorable.

At the time it felt like Zellweger's biggest competition was probably Shohreh Aghdashloo, who had the critics on her side & was a newcomer in a year that was pretty much all movie stars in contention (which rarely happens).  Her work is okay in House of Sand and Fog, but never all that interesting.  I think part of what got her this nomination at the time was that Aghdashloo has wonderful screen presence, something I'm more aware of now than the Academy would've been in 2003, and I'm used to it so I can see she's given a badly underwritten part and doesn't do enough beyond the page with it (knowing she's had better in the years since).  Within the confines of the OVP, where we only consider performances and not someone's larger career in considering a nomination (them's the rules), this isn't much more than serviceable.

Marcia Gay Harden is the actress who I think best finds what's not on the page & fills in what could've been another "wallpaper role" in this category.  Harden's performance is such a great contrast to everything else in the film-we get an idea of what kind of woman might've fallen for broken Dave, who might not have (despite growing up in a tough universe) realized how cruel the world can be until it's too late.  Harden is excellent as someone slowly understanding how difficult life can be, and how the "hardest parts" of her life (or so she thought) that took place before this movie were in fact the high point.  It's a bitter performance, but Harden, hardly a subtle actor by nature, finds ways to keep her character's realizations inward as she projects a shaky confidence.

Holly Hunter, similar to Harden, has been a reliable screen presence for decades now (for both, this is their most recent Oscar nomination which feels like such a strange place to end their AMPAS careers if that's what happens).  She plays her Melanie as a woman who has not given up on the youth aspect of her life-she's still young in her mind, and frequently treats her daughter & her friends as peers rather than children.  But I don't think she can find the balance as the film progresses of wanting to be the "cool mom" while also clearly developing a concern for the behavior of her young daughter.  She's still Holly Hunter, and she's better than the movie, but it's not what you'd think of as a truly great performance, certainly not one of Hunter's best.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Zellweger as their winner, with Clarkson, Hunter, Hope Davis (American Splendor), & Maria Bello (The Cooler) her competition, while SAG picked Zellweger as well, here over Bello, Clarkson, Hunter, & Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider, whom Oscar would promote to Best Actress in his lineup).  BAFTA gave its trophy to Zellweger (the stampede was inevitable), over Hunter, Laura Linney (Mystic River), Judy Parfitt (Girl with a Pearl Earring), & Emma Thompson (Love Actually).  In terms of sixth place, I assume it was Bello, an actress the Oscars really never gravitated toward despite several opportunities in the early-Aughts to invite to the ceremony.  I think she's "ehh" in The Cooler but you may recall that I would've totally been onboard with a nomination for her in 2005 and considering her career has now gone the way of CBS serials (she's a regular on NCIS for those under-60), it's a pity they didn't take the opportunity when they had the chance.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I would almost completely rehaul this category, and it's the lineup I'm most proud of (and also, the lineup where I have six names & honestly can't settle on who should be the one out), so I'm going to resist sharing until I know for sure who I'm cutting (because I'm truly honest in the fact that all six are vulnerable-it's that close where the line between winning-and-being-cut is razor thin).

Oscar’s Choice: One wonders if Oscar knew he was going to eventually get to Zellweger with an out-of-nowhere win in 2019 if he might've been more adventurous here, honoring Aghdashloo or Hunter...but in 2003, there was no stopping Renee.

My Choice: For me, it's Harden.  She brings the most from beyond the page, and gives one of her best onscreen performances.  Behind her is Hunter, Zellweger, Aghdashloo, & Clarkson.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you joining me over with Marcia or are you with the collective 2003 awards bodies in thinking this is Renee's for the taking?  When do you think that Patricia Clarkson should've gotten her "career nomination" if she only gets one?  And why do you think Oscar couldn't get behind Maria Bello during her heyday?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2003: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Actress (2019)

OVP: Best Actress (2019)

The Nominees Were...

Cynthia Erivo, Harriet

Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan, Little Women

Charlize Theron, Bombshell

Renee Zellweger, Judy

My Thoughts: We will finish off our 2019 acting races with a trip to Best Actress, generally one of my favorite categories at the Oscars.  There has become something of a debate on social media about using the word "weak" to describe a field or year for acting, particularly actresses, and in some ways I get it.  No year, if you aren't creative, should you struggle to find five decent performances (though I'll be real-2020 Supporting Actor I had to get creative), and it does feel pejorative to refer to a complete year as "weak."  But if we're being honest, if there are going to be "strong" years for acting, you also need to have weak years, and in 2019, the lineup of performances that Oscar assembled was, well, weak.

You see that in the work of Renee Zellweger, mounting a comeback.  Zellweger is capable of a good performance (all of these women are-these are not "weak" actresses by any stretch), but her work in Judy never rises above looking like the starlet.  Zellweger uses her own voice (a risky move playing such an icon), and while I don't really care (mimicry is overrated in movies), she doesn't give us a proper sense of the starlet.  There's nothing in Zellweger's work that gives you the impression that the woman she's playing was once one of the most famous women in the world-no sense of entitlement, no sense of stature...her Judy Garland feels like an empty vessel, and Judy Garland was hardly an empty vessel.  The movie falters as a result.

Saoirse Ronan reunited here with her Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig, a smart choice since Ronan has never felt so at-home with material as she does with Lady Bird, but this is a deceptive bit of casting, and for my money, a mistake.  Jo March is a feminist icon, and certainly the easiest of Alcott's sisters to modernize, but Ronan's performance gets stuck in that modernization, never properly grounding the part.  This is in contrast to Florence Pugh, who gives so much depth to Amy that for the first time in anything I've ever seen from Ronan, I can honestly say she was upstaged, and found lacking.  Ronan delivers her fiery speeches with flare, but for a character that everyone insists is special, Ronan doesn't make her so by giving us enough depth.

About the only character who could get away without depth is someone who has spent most of her life trying to hide it, which is why Charlize Theron fares better than Ronan or Zellweger in Bombshell.  Playing Megyn Kelly, a character that most of the audience is going to dislike (for a variety of reasons) isn't easy...we want our characters to be like Jo March, not like Megyn Kelly, and the script (and Theron) play into that by making her difficult to root for.  This is a neat trick, and while Theron's work isn't always as strong as her costar Robbie, it's a trick that's nearly as impressive as the makeup job that Theron has been bedecked in.  Theron gives us an antihero worthy not of our praise, but at least of our consideration.

Scarlett Johansson gets an even harder task in Marriage Story.  Here she's playing a character that must remain free of judgment, and someone we're meant to understand before we know if we should root for her or not.  Johansson doesn't bring easy answers to Marriage Story-her Nicole is a woman who doesn't always know what she wants, but is aware of what she doesn't, and that's the key to her performance-Johansson isn't intimidated into making Nicole easy-to-define, and as a result we end up somewhat like Charlie-trying to pin down a woman who doesn't want to be pinned down.  It takes a disciplined performer who knows their script inside-and-out to do that without it becoming frustrating, and Johansson, sixteen years after finding the heart of a similarly wandering woman in Lost in Translation, finally finds an equal to that movie.

Cynthia Erivo's entrance into cinema in Bad Times at the El Royale was so dynamic & distinctive that you'd be forgiven into thinking that Harriet was a deserved nomination...Erivo is going to deserve "Oscar nominee" pretty quickly in her career, why not get it over with?  But her work here isn't outstanding.  Saddled with a paint-by-numbers biopic where she's expected to do all of the heavy lifting, she doesn't give us enough insight into Tubman the woman before trying to instill in us Tubman the legend.  It's not a bad performance by any means, and it's the one saving grace in a middling movie, but it's not what we normally associate with Oscar-worthy, and the Academy should've held out for something more challenging from the actress.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  Best Actress in a Drama featured the entire Oscar lineup (as I've mentioned throughout the 2019 retrospective, not a creative year for AMPAS), with Zellweger winning, which means Musical/Comedy brought us five new names: Ana de Armas (Knives Out), Cate Blanchett (Where'd You Go Bernadette?), Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart), Emma Thompson (Late Night), and the victorious Awkafina (The Farewell).  SAG gave their trophy to Zellweger, though they skipped Ronan in favor of Lupita Nyong'o (Us), while BAFTA bumped Erivo for Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose), again going with Zellweger.  At the time it was Nyong'o who many (including me) thought might be the fifth place slot that eventually went to Theron, and I suspect she was in sixth place.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I'd keep my winner & otherwise start from scratch.  This would've been a different jolt of electricity if Oscar had nominated Nyong'o, who is working in a genre film but also has great vocal & body physicality that she brings to her work (which is usually Academy catnip).  Mary Kay Place's specific cadences in Diane are just as worthy as any character actor standing out for Oscar in recent years (and would've been a brilliant inclusion), and Alfre Woodard proves she's one of the best actresses in Hollywood with her haunted, intrinsic work in Clemency as a woman at the crossroads both professionally & personally.  Finally, as I mentioned in Supporting Actress, I considered Jennifer Lopez to be giving a lead performance in Hustlers, and I would've nominated her.  A+ movie star turns like this are hard to do, rare, and the kind of thing you can only do once.  It's a damn shame that Oscar didn't include her somewhere for what will probably be a career-best performance. 

Oscar’s Choice: There's a case to be made for either Johansson or Erivo getting this trophy, but for some reason no one questioned the idea that Renee Zellweger had earned a second Oscar sixteen years after she won her first, despite making almost no movies between the two.

My Choice: Johansson, without question-the only performer trying for an all-timer list.  I'd follow her with Theron, Ronan, Zellweger, & Erivo.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you siding with ScarJo over in my corner, or were you part of the collective thought process that honored Renee's Judy?  Why was it that Theron was able to topple Lupita given both are reliant on physical transformation?  And why do some character actors (like Jonathan Pryce) get their day-in-the-sun but others (like Mary Kay Place) are barely noticed?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2019: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2019

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

Leatherheads (2008)

Film: Leatherheads (2008)
Stars: George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root
Director: George Clooney
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

On occasion I'll get a text from my brother over the truly random reviews I'll put on this blog (particularly the Sunday ones that aren't part of any themes), and today is one of them (or it would be if I hadn't just pointed that out), as does anyone actually remember the film Leatherheads?  I would've put this on my Netflix queue at least 12 years ago, which is telling in that I don't get through my queue as fast as I should, but it's also telling how quickly films become disposable, as this is definitely a movie I was interested in in 2008 (probably due to a hormonal interest in John Krasinski, then at his peak "Jim Halpert" fame) but barely registers now.  I don't take films off of my queue even though I do rearrange it, and so today we're going to walk down memory lane with a movie that just 12 years later is almost completely forgotten, and see if it's worth revisiting.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a fictional take about the very early years of professional football.  It features Dodge Connelly (Clooney) who is an aging member of a pro football team, which then doesn't mean anything (college football is the only sport the country follows with widespread fervor).  He recruits Carter Rutherford (Krasinski), a star college athlete who was also a well-known WWI veteran, to join his team in hopes of gaining more press.  It works, but not just in the ways that Dodge hoped, as Lexie Littleton (Zellweger), a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, begins to investigate Rutherford based on reports that Carter's feats in the war were exaggerated, and he isn't the hero they assume.  This rumor turns out to be right (Carter was in the right place & right time, but isn't a proper hero), but because of the damage he'd do to the sport, he is traded to a different team & this news doesn't become public.  In the end, Dodge & Lexie end up together (there was a love triangle with Carter for a while, but Clooney's the star so you knew where this was headed), Dodge retires from football after pulling a (winning) stunt in his final matchup against Carter, and Carter comes clean to the press, now a better man & the new face of pro football.

The film is cute-the leads are fun, particularly Zellweger as a Roz Russell-style figure (Zellweger is so much better at comedy than drama, despite winning both her Oscars for the latter, and lifts the film as the movie's MVP).  For those watching this for gratuitous shots of Krasinski, prepare to be disappointed (I don't even think he's shirtless), but it is fun to see him go toe-to-toe with screen icons in this way.  He's not up to the same snuff (Krasinski's nice guy appeal has always been his best asset, but he's never really found a role as perfectly-suited for him as Jim, and at this point probably never will even if he's never bad onscreen), but you can almost see as he learns things about moviemaking throughout the film.

But the movie isn't tight, and it's not as good as it could've been.  Looking back on a trailer of the movie at the time, I get why I was interested in this (it wasn't just hormones), but it's not as funny as that is, and falls into the tropes of every sports movie where an underdog has to prove themselves.  I would've liked more of Lexie and less of us trying to wink to modern football audiences of where the game was headed.  Overall, though, this is the sort of movie if you catch it on cable or see it pop up on a streaming service you could have a nice cozy afternoon with.

OVP: One True Thing (1998)

Film: One True Thing (1998)
Stars: Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, William Hurt, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham
Director: Carl Franklin
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Meryl Streep)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I've been really loving the theme weeks for reviews-we've done it twice now, and so I'm gonna make that official, at least as long as we're quarantining and I'm able to keep up the current pace I have of watching so many movies, particularly focusing on Oscar nominees.  Each weekday afternoon we'll have a movie that's based on a theme for the week, all five movies having nothing (intentional) in common other than a year or Oscar category or something else connecting them.  We'll still do regular articles in the mornings & on weekends (and possibly throw in the occasional review for a film that I can't find a theme for), but I like the idea of trying to link together some of my recent viewings during the week to keep you guessing on what might come next (and to keep me focused as I'm overcoming a mountain of movies while on quarantine).  This week, we're going to return to the theme of Best Actress, and have all five of our reviews come from that particular category, and what better way to kick off such a category than with the queen of Best Actress, Meryl Streep, in one of her less-remembered nominated performances, One True Thing.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is set in the late 1980's, and Ellen (Zellweger), is home for her beloved father George's (Hurt) birthday.  Ellen is trying to be just like her father-he's a well-known novelist and literature professor at Princeton, and she's now an ambitious journalist at New York magazine.  Her mother Kate (Streep) is the antithesis of Ellen, and Ellen doesn't do much to hide her disdain for her mother, a homemaker who gets great joy from her group of "Minnies" (they decorate and plan town events for holidays & charities).  We soon discover that Kate has cancer, and that George wants Ellen to move home to take care of her mother, as he cannot with his job as a professor (and while he's writing his long-dormant second novel).  While home, Ellen learns more about her mother, and has an appreciation for what she has done through the years for her family, and has a growing animosity for her father, whom she learns eschews responsibility, has a drinking problem, and frequently has cheated on her mother.  We watch this change-of-heart as Kate becomes sicker & sicker, eventually succumbing to her illness but during an autopsy report we learn that she died not of cancer, but of a morphine overdose, which the closing scene of the film let's us know was self-inflicted (Kate no longer wanting to suffer).

The film is fascinating to me in a narcissistic way as it takes a look at the relationship that you develop with your parents if you're lucky enough to live to know them in your thirties.  At that point in your life you realize that you're both adults, and while there is always a sense of "parents wanting to take care of you" the discipline/disappointment aspect has likely disappeared in some of your life choices, and you get to know each other not only as friends, but as people.  You get to learn that your parents are human beings with not only faults & foibles, but also ones who have different tastes & interests that aren't, well, you.  This is an under-explored topic in movies, and I liked that it felt fleshed out in the film.

The movie's central calling card, though, is Meryl Streep.  I love Meryl always, but I will admit that I prefer straight-up dramatic Meryl, a version of the actress that basically disappeared the second she became a box office icon with The Devil Wears Prada.  Meryl is always good, but I think since 2006 her performances have either needed some sort of wink or gimmick in order for Streep to sign on, and it's fascinating to watch her explore a character like Kate, seemingly simple without many layers, and not abandon that character as we learn that, like all people, there's something under-the-surface.  The great monologue late in the film, where she admits that she knows about her husband's infidelities and her daughter's antipathy toward her is dynamite, but it wouldn't work if she hadn't set us up with intrigue, about questions about a bright, open character.  It's a reminder of why Streep became a legend in the first place-she was really, truly that good.

The rest of the movie pales in comparison.  Zellweger & Hurt are both good actors, but neither of them bring the homework that Streep does to their portrayals, and with Zellweger that's a problem since she's really the "screen-time" lead (even though it's a two female lead film-today Streep might well have gone supporting in an era of category fraud).  There's not enough in-depth look at this character-for a character with a lot of intellectual curiosity, it seems odd that she waited this long to learn more about her mother, and the final sequences between she & her father don't have enough punch (the film flits away after Streep dies) because we aren't vested in these characters.  But this is still a terrific, earned nomination for Streep, one that is forgotten but really shouldn't be in her long pantheon with Oscar.

OVP: Judy (2019)

Film: Judy (2019)
Stars: Renee Zellweger, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon
Director: Rupert Goold
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Renee Zellweger*, Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I actually saw End of the Rainbow with Tracie Bennett, not on Broadway or even the West End, but when it made its American stage debut at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis (for those who don't know, this blog is situated in Minnesota, which may explain why I occasionally struggle to be on the cutting edge of seeing some of the awards contenders).  I remember being absolutely astounded by the show, but mostly Bennett's raw look at the world of Judy Garland (a Minnesota treasure in her own right).  Garland's life has been told so many times, and been told definitively with Judy Davis & Me and My Shadows, but she brought a raw urgency to Garland's final years, where she was mostly just a shell of the vibrant force that was once a major movie star and a voice of a generation, and had long since lost her battle with pills and booze.  This is the Judy we're given in Rupert Goold's onscreen rendition of End of the Rainbow (renamed Judy cause heaven forbid we get a distinctive film title), which at once gives us a more intimate look into Garland's last stand, and also saddles it with an impossibly sad ending that it can't really recover from.

(Real Life Doesn't Have Spoiler Alerts) Judy Garland (Zellweger) is the mother of three children, the younger of two are living at home with her and the older of them enjoying her own start of fame (and like her mother, the demons that would come with it).  Judy is broke, and in order to make money since she can't get enough cash from American nightclubs (and is uninsurable on a film set thanks to her unprofessional behavior), she goes to London, where a packed out audience is waiting for her.  Judy is having an offscreen romance with her soon-to-be final husband Mickey (Wittrock), but that's as ill-advised as her consistent limit-pushing, using the same pills that once allowed her to work 18-hour days on the MGM lot to simply stay awake.  The movie alternates between her time on the set of The Wizard of Oz, with a creepy LB Mayer obsessed with controlling the "girl next door" and present-day Judy, whose demons are still there from that time in the spotlight.  The film ends on a high note, with Judy getting to have one great closing number of "Over the Rainbow" before the curtain closes (and we know that this comeback will be her last).

The movie is disappointing.  It can't really grab the electricity of the live play, where Bennett was able to give us a different kind of heightened Judy, manic but still bursts of genius coming out from a voice that won't come back.  Here the film is more preoccupied with trying to cover the bases of Judy lore, and almost every time it does so it fails.  At this point Garland's personal life is so famous we don't really need the flashbacks to her hellish time on the MGM lot, in many ways feeling like watching Bruce Wayne's parents die just to establish her current anguish-we know why Judy Garland is sad, we don't need it underlined.  Additionally, her relationship with Mickey Deans is confusing and underwritten-the writers clearly have an opinion on him (and it's not complimentary), but they don't have the guts to go after it, and instead just kind of depict him as a handsome leech.  About the only angle that felt genuinely interesting was an early scene where Garland is chatting with her daughter Liza Minnelli, who in 1969 was about to graduate from "Judy Garland's talented daughter" to a legitimate superstar.  Seeing the jealousy in Garland's eyes as she sees the world being laid bare for her daughter (while she, who has given her life to the entertainment industry, can't even get a job), is a challenging thing I've never seen a Garland biopic, and I kind of wish they'd explored this angle just a little bit further.

But biopics, especially ones based on musical superstars, are rarely about getting out-of-the-box, and instead are simply about a famous actor playing another famous person and singing the jukebox hits.  Zellweger uses her actual voice, a risky move while playing someone who was a considerably stronger singer than she is in real life, but let's face it-Garland in 1969 wasn't really "Judy Garland" anymore so having a less-talented singer take on the vocals isn't a fatal flaw.  Zellweger also resists the urge to imitate Garland's distinctive speaking voice, but in doing so she alienates herself too much from Judy.  I'm the last person to complain about a lack of mimicry in a biopic role (I think it's an overrated virtue), but I left Judy thinking that Zellweger hadn't successfully played a singer who was once the greatest in the world.  There's nothing there in her Judy that makes me bask in even a faded superstar, just an empty, funny celebrity who was brought down by pills.  The glamour, the movie star realness of Judy Garland isn't there even in a dilapidated capacity, and I felt the film & performance was hollow as a result.  You can tell she's trying, and every once-in-a-while she hints at what might be possible, but whether out of an urge to stray away from an impression or because Zellweger (who hasn't had a movie of this demand & pop culture importance in a decade) is out-of-practice, I felt her central work was flat.  Judy is a movie that could have been great, but unlike the real life Garland, it's not brought down by erratic swings-it's just too safe, unable to exhibit even a basic shred of originality.

OVP: Shark Tale (2004)

Film: Shark Tale (2004)
Stars: Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert de Niro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese, Peter Falk, Katie Couric
Director: Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, & Rob Letterman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

You've likely noticed in the past two weeks a bit more conversation around the films of 2004-06, which isn't an accident.  I've been moving at a decent clip through a number of Oscar Viewing Project viewings, and these movies are next up in my queue as I've polished off pretty much every Oscar-nominated film since.  As a result, we're going to be heading today back to when the Best Animated Feature race was still in its infancy, when there were only three nominees and one could question whether or not even that number was too much, considering that they were giving "Oscar-nominated" status to a movie as generic (though insanely profitable) as Shark Tale.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around Oscar (Smith) a blue fish who spends his days working at a Whale Wash (a carwash for whales-no muscles were stretched here), but day-dreaming about living the life of someone rich-and-famous.  He is adored by his friend Angie (Zellweger), who is secretly in love with Oscar, and who offers up an inherited pink pearl as collateral when Oscar's boss Sykes (Scorsese) calls in all of the money that Oscar owes him, as Oscar is inclined to waste his paychecks on get-rich-quick schemes.  Oscar loses the money in a bet, but before he's found out by Angie & essentially killed by Sykes, the shark that was going to kill him dies because it's hit in the head by an anchor, and Oscar claims he was the one who killed it.  He is proclaimed the "Sharkslayer," a myth that is further perpetrated when Lenny (Black), a vegetarian shark, helps Oscar out by pretending to die like his brother (who was hit with the anchor).  The film ends with Oscar being found out by Lenny's father Don Lino (de Niro, mining every last inch of that Godfather legacy for coin), but ultimately coming clean, with the sharks letting his reef go free and him getting back together with Angie, now as a legitimate partner in the Whale Wash.

It's kind of hard to describe how big of a deal this might have been circa 2004.  Though the actors involved are obviously still famous, Jolie, Smith, & Zellweger were at the peak of their movie star power when this film came out, and so the movie's gargantuan ($350+ million gross) makes sense.  I mean, they found a way to get Marty Scorsese to play a pufferfish-you've gotta have some pull to be able to get a legend like Scorsese to do his only voiceover role.

If only the film was worth it.  I don't know how they could pull this many magnetic film personas into one room and come up with something so generic, but they did.  The film's plot is easy to see coming, and no one is doing anything interesting here, not even Jack Black who could make the phonebook funny if given the opportunity.  Scorsese is arguably the best of the bunch simply from a curiosity standpoint, but Smith is playing his persona as a fish, as is Jolie, as is de Niro, and there's none of the inventive voicework that was making Pixar (Dreamworks' biggest animated competitor during this era as Disney was also phoning it in at the time) a critical darling at the time.  Even the color palette seems a bit uninspired compared to Finding Nemo a year earlier.  The movie, much like Shrek, ages poorly, with pop cultural references that die just a few years after it was made, and the only saving grace for the picture might be that it found enough stars that simply will always be famous that trading on their personas will still work years later.  Unfortunately, the actual movie itself never takes advantage of the call sheet and gives a hackneyed, disposable tale.