OVP: Actress (2003)

OVP: Best Actress (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider

Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give

Samantha Morton, In America

Charlize Theron, Monster

Naomi Watts, 21 Grams

My Thoughts: I sometimes feel like an old man (which depending on your birth certificate, I may well be) when I talk about old Oscar races, but it's hard to impress how wild of a ride 2003's Best Actress race was.  Even compared to recent fields (like this year's crazy, frontrunner-less year), 2003's nominations got bonkers with only two names showing up in most of the precursors (and not a single name landing in all of them), and the remainder feeling totally influx throughout the season (just wait until we get to the precursors below).  We'll start with the two names, though, that never felt in doubt with Oscar all year long.

Charlize Theron, it's hard to remember in 2003, was not considered a particularly compelling actress.  Beautiful, yes, but she had largely stuck to "girlfriend/wife" roles until that point, and when she saw her break playing totally against type in Monster, she took it.  Theron has been called one of the great performances to ever win this award, and to some degree I find that to be hyperbole.  I think she's excellent, inhabiting Aileen Wuornos & humanizing her in a way that probably works better in fiction than in a biopic (the sympathy for serial killers angle always feels like a tightrope considering the lives they ended up destroying even if they started out from sheer horror like Wuornos clearly did).  I don't think she lands the romantic arches with Christina Ricci (there's not enough chemistry there), and I also feel like some of her shock appeal is the makeup doing heavy-lifting because we know what she really looks like, but this is a worthy nomination, even if I don't think it's an all-timer.

Diane Keaton was having yet another comeback in 2003 (her last, to date, with Oscar), and like Theron, there are moments where it doesn't quite work.  I don't know that she had enough chemistry with Keanu Reeves late in the movie for my taste, never quite making it work the same way as with Jack (and there are moments it feels like she's playing Diane Keaton more than her character).  But this is minor quibbling about a terrific performance.  Playing a woman who has found immense success in every avenue of life except love, and then having that be a bumpy, fraught, vulnerable journey for her rather than a simple rom-com...Keaton sells a woman who had settled for her life, even if she always knew there could be more.  It's great stuff from one of the best of her generation.

I feel a little bad ragging on child performers, particularly since I know my brother reads this blog & will be guarding his beloved Whale Rider with mama bear arms, but Keisha Castle-Hughes doesn't work with me.  There's naturalism in a performance, and then there's just not emoting enough, and I think she's more in the second half.  It doesn't help that her script is hackneyed and filled with coming-of-age cliche that even the most skilled of performers wouldn't have been able to bring to life, but I wasn't into this the way that so many were...bonus points to the Academy, though, for putting her in the correct category as this is 1000% a lead performance.

Samantha Morton is better with naturalism in In America.  She plays her mother as a real, complicated figure, someone who can have horny sex with her husband (strong chemistry between Morton & Paddy Considine), while also having great anger toward him later in the movie & still make it feel believable.  Morton's work is informed by grief, her Sarah knows that she can never fill the void left by the death of her son, and just wants someone to blame because blaming no one is the worst punishment.  Morton was capping off a truly impressive run in the late-1990's & early-2000's with this her second (and final) nomination, and while it was a surprise, it was a pleasant one from Oscar.

Our final nomination cannot get the same compliment.  Naomi Watts has been nominated for a My Ballot Award before for King Kong and was in sixth place for The Painted Veil-I consider myself a fan.  But she is actively terrible in 21 Grams and I will never understand why Oscar chose this as the moment to honor her, one of the worst performances of her career.  She is constantly screaming, constantly angry, acting as if there's nothing underneath her hostility toward the world, nothing that existed prior to the confines of the movie.  This, like her nomination for The Impossible, feels like they're nominating the role more than the actress, and that these movies (and not something unique & film-fitting like Kong) are where she got her nominations will never not confuse me. 

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have eleven women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it's Theron besting Cate Blanchett (Veronica Guerin), Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain), Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Volume 1), & Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), while for Comedy/Musical it's Keaton over Jamie Lee Curtis (Freaky Friday), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Diane Lane (Under the Tuscan Sun), & Helen Mirren (Calendar Girls).  SAG gave us Theron as the winner over Keaton, Watts, Wood, & Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) while at the BAFTA Awards it was Johansson (Lost in Translation) winning over Watts, Johansson (for Girl), Thurman, & Anne Reid (The Mother) (due to release schedule issues, Theron wasn't eligible until the next year with BAFTA, which used to happen a lot more there than it does now, and she was nominated but lost that season).  All of this is to say-who the hell knows who was in sixth place...there are thirteen names just listed and only three of them made it with Oscar, and that's not counting that for much of the race Jennifer Connelly (House of Sand and Fog) was considered something of a favorite.  If I had to guess, thanks to Johansson's campaign being royally botched, it was probably Wood, but this was a bizarre race & one that I still can't figure out.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Similar to our comments for Return of the King, it's hard to know where to put Uma Thurman's work in Kill Bill exactly since it's one great performance split in half, but it's a darned shame that Oscar didn't make room for her in either 2003 or 2004.

Oscar’s Choice: There was no beating Theron-that trophy was undeniably hers...Keaton didn't stand a prayer, and she was obviously in second.

My Choice: I'm going to go with Keaton, who gives the stronger character arc without the need for prosthetics to enhance the performance, against Theron (I also, to be fair, like Keaton's movie way better as I didn't like Monster at all and in a close race, that matters).  Morton is third, with Castle-Hughes & Watts falling behind.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with Oscar & Theron, or do you dare to be different with Diane & I?  Why do you think that Oscar has the worst taste in Naomi Watts movies?  And who the hell was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2003: 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 Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best 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

OVP: Actress (2005)

OVP: Best Actress (2005)

The Nominees Were...

Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

My Thoughts: There are a lot of years you could claim is the "worst" lineup ever assembled for Best Actress.  1949 comes to mind, so does 1975 & 1994.  But this century, few have been so maligned as 2005, a year where admittedly the choices were slim (we'll get to precursors below).  None of the Best Picture nominees had what we'd consider a proper leading actress in them (the closest we get is Sandra Bullock in Crash, and she was definitely campaigned in supporting).  Sometimes these lineups have hidden gems, other times they truly deserve the stench surrounding them.  Today, we'll delve into this lineup and see if popular opinion is unjustified or well-earned.

We'll start with arguably the actress whose career has most changed since 2005, and that's Charlize Theron.  At the time, Theron was considered someone who had de-glammed to an Oscar, and was either an actress who had basically just tricked the Academy (a one-trick star) or had found an unconventional way to highlight her massive talent.  It turns out that Theron, through action & comedy, would have a great knack for stardom & do well in the next 15 years, but that wasn't evident by her paltry work in North Country.  I found her turn in North Country to be paint-by-numbers, the sort of "bait-y" role that Oscar regularly cites for Best Actress but doesn't have enough depth, and oftentimes feels like she's asked to elevate a film, but a film so devoted to her that it's kind of the lead performance's fault for the film sucking.  Theron's ability to play straight drama is stretched-to-the-limit here, and she doesn't succeed in convincing as an average woman in a unique situation.

Judi Dench, at the very least, could not be accused of playing against type (or her skills) in Mrs. Henderson Presents.  I'd say this was the peak of Dench's time with Hollywood, but she'd get two more nominations after this and even headline her own franchise, so she was just in the midst of her decade of fame.  This is the least of Dench's nominations, for my money, though it's hard to actively dislike the work and of the lesser performances nominated here, it's the most forgivable as it's a fun little movie.  There's just nothing there-this was basically a nomination simply for Dench-being-Dench, and while that's great for a moviegoer, that doesn't necessarily equate to fine acting, which Dench is more than capable of achieving.

If Dench got this nomination as a continued acknowledgement of her power and Theron as a "we were right!" then Keira Knightley's nomination, more than the other first-timers, has the aura of a down-payment on future successes.  Knightley is also a brilliant actress, and has done some truly splendid (and atypical) acting in the years since, but I don't love her Elizabeth Bennett.  This is a part that's hard to screw up (the "rooting for her" is baked into the script), and I don't feel like Knightley elevated her enough.  It's a bit unfair to task Knightley with this because hindsight shows we knew she could be this charming and watchable onscreen (at the time she was known to most simply for the Pirates movies), and that we know she can do better, but this is a "good but meh" piece of work, even if we just take it on its own merits.

Reese Witherspoon's win in a lot of ways felt like Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Oscar giving in to popular opinion about America's sweetheart (Sandra Bullock would bookend this trio four years later for The Blind Side).  That said, this is the one performance here that feels like it belongs in a list of their great work, even for Witherspoon (who between Wild and Big Little Lies has been doing her best work in recent years).  June Carter Cash is a fully-onscreen persona.  There's no need to keep her true to real-life (though Witherspoon does), and she crafts a real character that adapts to the realities of moviedom in a way that even Joaquin Phoenix doesn't in the movie.  This is not Witherspoon's most challenging part, but she rises to it, and gives it her all, and comes out the other end with a better movie because of what she's bringing.

The final nominee is Felicity Huffman.  Huffman's professional reputation has been trampled in the past year with her involvement in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal (this is her own doing-I don't have sympathy on this one even if I'm willing to forget), but at the time this was the peak of her career, not only winning the Globe but also starring in the biggest show on the planet, Desperate Housewives.  Huffman's a favorite of mine (Desperate Housewives is one of my all-time favorite shows, and one I'm ecstatic to be revisiting this fall), so it pains me to point out that I cannot stand her work in Transamerica.  Putting aside that the entire concept of her taking on this role has soured (a conversation I'm more forgiving on than others, even if I get the point, but that's a conversation for a different day), her Bree is just a series of ticks, low vocal cadences, and feels like she's relying upon "deglam" herself to win this nomination.  There's none of the sturdy demeanor or hard-earned tenderness that are hallmarks of Huffman's best work, and, honestly, the role needs these exact skills to flourish.  A big miss for AMPAS, and a crime considering what Huffman can be capable of that this will surely be her only Oscar nod.

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 gave the top trophy to Huffman, besting Maria Bello (A History of Violence), Gwyneth Paltrow (Proof), Theron, and Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha), while Comedy/Musical obviously crowned Witherspoon, here over Dench, Knightley, Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale), and Sarah Jessica Parker (The Family Stone).  As a testament to how dire the lead actress race was in 2005, both Bello & Linney would've been considered supporting in a normal year.  SAG went with Witherspoon over the Academy lineup save for Knightley (they picked Zhang instead) and BAFTA subbed Weisz & Zhang in for Knightley & Huffman (Transamerica I don't think had been released in the UK though Huffman wouldn't be nominated the following year) while also picking Reese.  All-in-all, it's kind of a pity even if her performance was middling that Ziyi Zhang didn't get in, as she was obviously in sixth place & would've made history as the first openly Asian actress nominated for Best Actress (something that to-this-day has never occurred).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: In 1975, the Oscars looked to foreign and independent films to fill out a thin field, and they would've been wise to consider that in 2005, which I'm sorry to say does live up to its "underwhelming" reputation.  Juliette Binoche (Cache) and Julia Jentsch (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days) both gave terrific performances, and would've been nice surprises here.  If they'd expanded into genre films, Naomi Watts' silent star glamour in King Kong would've been a better way to go for her than 21 Grams.  And then there's Joan Allen in The Upside of Anger, a movie that all of the precursors ignored for inexplicable reasons (at the time my favorite blog, The Film Experience, was championing her hard), despite it being an accessible comedy with a star they'd nominated three times (and came close a fourth), who was giving a home run of a performance.  This easily could've been a career-capper sort of trophy run for Allen if they'd bought into that argument, similar to Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking or Julianne Moore in Still Alice, but they didn't even give that a shot.

Oscar’s Choice: Witherspoon over Huffman, probably by a medium but not large amount considering Walk the Line missed in Best Picture & Phoenix never took off in Best Actor.

My Choice: Witherspoon by a country mile.  Allen, Binoche, or Watts might have made this race something I'd ponder, but when her chief competition is Knightley (silver) & Dench (bronze), you have to go with the only worthy performance in the lineup.  Theron and then Huffman round out the field.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Is everyone on Team Reese, or is someone backing another candidate (I'm genuinely curious who as this feels open-and-shut for me & I'd love to see a different take)?  Is 2005 the worst Best Actress lineup Oscar ever crafted, and if not, what is?  And why the hell didn't Joan Allen get in for The Upside of Anger?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2005: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2005

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

OVP: Bombshell (2019)

Film: Bombshell (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Mark Duplass, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Kate McKinnon
Director: Jay Roach
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Charlize Theron, Supporting Actress-Margot Robbie, Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We're nearing the end of the year, though anyone knows that the cinematic year ends not on December 31st, but sometime in mid-January when Oscar nominations are announced (and here, we'll be doing most of our genuflecting on the year and decade in late January/early February due to truncated release schedules).  As a result, we're getting through a lot more 2019 films in the comings weeks, and one of them today is Bombshell, currently in theaters.  The film tells the tale of the Fox News scandals of 2016/2017, ones that informed the presidential campaign (though unlike the fates of people like Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes, Donald Trump was not punished for his perpetual harassment and assault of women...hopefully in 316 days that will change).  Here we focus on figures like Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, whose role in the MeToo movement is undeniable, even if they remain polarizing figures on both sides of the aisle.

(Real Life Doesn't Need Spoiler Alerts) The film is mostly focused on Megyn Kelly (Theron) during the peak of her fame at Fox News, where she went from being the star of a primetime opinion show to being a mainstream superstar thanks to her professional arguments with Donald Trump (played here by the president himself through archival footage).  While Kelly is trying to find ways to balance her conservative boss's (Lithgow as Roger Ailes) beliefs with her increasing disgust at Trump himself, we see two other women who are trying to find their footing at Fox News.  We have Gretchen Carlson (Kidman), a former beauty queen who has been demoted to an afternoon talk show slot, and whose more liberal (for Fox News) political beliefs also feel alien to Ailes, whom she accuses of punishing her for not giving in to his advances.  Finally we have Kayla (Robbie), an aspiring (fictional) Fox personality (who unlike Megyn & Gretchen genuinely believes in the conservative movement, and not just playing a part) who works first for Gretchen and then Bill O'Reilly, but in a rare opportunity finds a way to meet Roger, and in the process he starts sexually harassing her and forcing her to perform oral sex on him in order to get ahead in her career.  All of these women's worlds collide when Gretchen publicly states that she was harassed by Ailes, upending the power dynamic at one of the most powerful organizations on earth.

The film is told in many ways similar to the recent political Adam McKay movies The Big Short and Vice, where the leading women will talk directly to the camera (Megyn most frequently, but definitely Gretchen at one point).  This can be off-putting, and is more miss than hit when films try it, but I kind of liked it for Bombshell.  The film's most impressive feat is the recreation of actresses as distinctive as Theron into exact replicas of their Fox News personas (the men are also impressive, though Lachlan Murdoch owes Jay Roach a muffin basket for having a bearded Ben Lawson hunkify him for the big screen).  Having these personalities, whom the world is used to talking "directly to them" do so on a big screen makes sense-it instantly establishes them as Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson, rather than just actors on a screen in convincing makeup.

The movie is hard to watch, particularly the scenes with Kayla.  Perhaps because Kelly & Carlson's endings are so well-known (Carlson would win the lawsuit but has yet to land a high-profile news gig, Kelly would leave Fox but never escape its stench, failing spectacularly at NBC), Kayla is the audience surrogate, and the one with the cruelest fate, so the fact that we don't know how her story makes it all-the-more-heartbreaking when it ends with her essentially being assaulted (repeatedly) by Ailes.

All three actresses are good.  This isn't a film that would require great acting, and it occasionally slips into caricature.  It's so fun to watch some of the recreations of these people, and getting to judge from the seats people that liberals hate (make no mistake-while the issue of sexual harassment should be nonpartisan and is treated as such here, Jay Roach knows that it's going to be people who hate Fox News who will be seeing this movie and has acted accordingly with the script...my packed audience occasionally booed certain people from their seats), that you would be forgiven for seeing some of these people, especially side characters like Jeanine Pirro, as nothing more than cartoons.  But these are world-class actors, and they find their moments.  I keep thinking of the cautiousness of Kidman as Gretchen, someone smarter than the men in the room but who knows she has to play the part of a former beauty queen to stay in the game, slowly breaking out of her shell.  There's also the great scene where Megyn talks to Kayla, and then refuses to take any of the blame for shielding Roger because she can't face the fact that while Roger is the one who is to blame here, her silence made Ailes rich, Kayla vulnerable, and continued a network that would eventually elect Donald Trump.

This is perhaps the only time in the movie that the film really hints at what is the biggest problem for this picture-that we're left with Megyn Kelly & Gretchen Carlson as our heroes.  I talked about this at the time, but Carlson & Kelly as heroes didn't sit well with people on the left who had seen them as enemies for years.  It's easier to separate the real-life good they did with taking down Ailes with the horrible damage they did when they were at Fox News, but watching them in a movie is different, and the balance isn't right.  We don't see enough of the moments where Carlson dumbs down television by being someone educated at Oxford who claims there's a "War on Christmas" and not enough time is spent on Kelly essentially putting her career ahead of women's rights & helping in a large part to hurt women everywhere by forgiving Donald Trump.  These pop up occasionally, but it feels more like a "cover your butt" move from Roach than trying to incorporate these very complicated, nasty bits of these women's legacies into a film that wants them to just be feminist trailblazers.  This is a pity, as Bombshell is very watchable, and they have the likes of Theron, Kidman, and Robbie ready to not just be movie stars, but find the souls of these women, even if they are complicated.

Long Shot (2019)

Film: Long Shot (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Andy Serkis, June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgard
Director: Jonathan Levine
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the great conundrums of my life is that I love discussing politics (less so in the past two years, but the passion is still there) and I adore movies (more so in the past two years, for reasons unrelated to the political embargo), so it makes sense to assume that I would like movies based on politics, but you’d be mistaken. Movies based on politics almost always tick me off, whether they be played for comedy or for drama, and the reason for that is the realism.  I like my plot to be grounded in some sort of fact, and so if I’m going to see a movie, even one that is meant to be quite silly like Long Shot, I need it to be anchored in some sort of reality, which even in the Trump Era this film simply isn’t.  If that weren’t enough, it’s not particularly compelling or funny even with two actors who are more than capable of being both.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is essentially a romantic comedy with thinly-disguised versions of our current political figures.  We have Charlotte Field (Theron), who is essentially Nikki Haley or Condi Rice, competent to a fault and more qualified for her job than her boss, which the movie is going to have a great time pointing out over-and-over in a weirdly anti-feminist fashion, being romanced by Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a Michael Moore/Jim Acosta-style figure who stands on his virtues as a reason to never get anything done, claiming if you don’t have compromise, you don’t have anything. Field is about to run for president because her boss President Chambers (Odenkirk, doing his best Trump impression), wants to become a movie star, and she is being hounded by Parker Wembley (Serkis) who is some combination of Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch.  Throw in Alexander Skarsgard as a creepy Justin Trudeau-style figure, and you have yourself an SNL parody sketch hoping to be a movie.

Unfortunately, it never rises above that sketch premise.  The problem lies in the way the film is written, especially when it comes to Charlotte.  It’s unfortunately plausible at this point to believe a buffoon could be elected president and that a candidate should only focus on the superficial, so Charlotte taking the job in the administration of a man lesser than her is an easily conceivable reality (again, see Condi Rice & Nikki Haley), but where this falls apart is that it never really feels possible that Charlotte would fall not only for Rogen’s character romantically, but that she’d fall for his “no compromise, give up all of your ideals and then everything will be sunny” attitude.  The sexism that they just lightly brush by (the fact that people are only interested in Charlotte’s likeability, beauty, and dating life…the fact that she’s smart-as-a-whip working for a moron), feeds into the notion that she still needs a man to show her how to do her job properly, despite Rogen’s character being a “play my way or I’m going home” sort of strict idealist who also can’t exist in Charlotte’s world. We spend so much of the film critiquing Charlotte, but almost none of it taking an introspective look at Fred. Even Fred’s redemption ark is almost entirely spent on him being told by his best friend (played by Jackson) that she’s gorgeous & famous…you aren’t going to do any better; there’s no self-reflection on his side.  One could claim there’s some feminism at work here if you say that Theron is taking the Richard Gere role while Rogen is playing Julia Roberts, which might be true, but that doesn’t really negate the fact that Rogen fixes all of Charlotte’s “problems” while he never fixes any of his own.

This would be easier to swallow if the movie itself were funnier, but it’s not.  There are some humorous bits (a particularly nasty one about Jennifer Aniston feels a bit sour after seeing the film as it also reads anti-feminist at the time, but it’s a ballsy enough joke that you’ll laugh at regardless), and Theron/Rogen are naturally-gifted comedians, but most of the film relies too heavily on tropes to have a really great, consistent source of humor.  These two are a good match in terms of chemistry, even if it’s eye-rolling that we have to settle for another goddess-meets-shlub idea from Hollywood, but this never finds anything interesting to say, and doesn’t work as a straight-up romantic comedy.

Tully (2018)

Film: Tully (2018)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Mark Duplass, Ron Livingston
Director: Jason Reitman
Oscar History: Theron landed a Globe nod, but that was as far as it went.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Frequently when it comes to movies, there are films that you think about quite often even if initially you weren't in-love (more in-like) with them.  For me, this pretty well describes the collaborations between Jason Reitman & Diablo Cody.  I have maybe seen Juno twice in my life credits-to-credits, but I still feel like I can quote most of it, and the same can be said for Young Adult.  Reitman is great at framing these stories, but it's really Cody whose words and insights into the journey of women as they progressively get older who makes it sing.  Tully is a film not bereft of controversy (though, really, isn't everything "controversial" in this knee-jerk reaction world?), but it's also an insightful look into one woman's life as she progressively ages and encounters depression and her own midlife crisis.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers on Marlo (Theron), a woman of about 40 who is pregnant with her third child.  Her home life is largely absent of any real excitement.  She loves her kids, even her son Jonah who has some sort of mental disorder that his teachers & psychologists haven't been able to pinpoint, and she has a husband Drew (Livingston) who loves her, but in a comfortable way where the romance is largely gone from their lives.  When she gives birth, her brother Craig (Duplass) is worried that she might suffer from depression like she did when she gave birth to Jonah, and insists that she hire a night nurse to help her with the first few months.  This results in her eventually hiring Tully (Davis), a beautiful young woman, bohemian & insightful, whom she quickly befriends and starts to reexamine her life through her.  There's a lot of interesting commentary on youth and aging and what "our dreams" should actually end up looking like as the years go by, with special care given by both Theron and Davis to their characters.

The film's best parts are their conversations, with Cody's insight into the aging process & the secret pains of women being particularly interesting.  There's a great scene late in the movie where Tully essentially tells Marlo, who is opining the loss of her youth, (paraphrasing) "but isn't this the life that everyone dreams of-comfortable with a loving family?"  That seems to be at the center of a movie that is directly talking about postpartum depression/psychosis, but also giving a larger commentary on the inevitability of growing older, of feeling like you're done with chapters of your life and aren't ready yet to move on to another phase.  It's interesting to see Theron, (still breathtaking at 42), feel pangs of jealousy over the younger Davis and make it seem believable.  This look at aging was so bizarrely frank, and Cody does a superb job of saying things that you learn between, say, 26 and 40, but not so much where it feels out-of-place or affirmed with the knowledge of Theron at 60 or 80.  These dialogues (along with Theron's performance) are the reason to see this movie.

It's a pity, then, that they had to go for the obvious gimmick toward the final third of the movie, which took me out of the picture.  Toward the end of the movie, it is revealed that Tully is in-fact a figment of Marlo's imagination, a living incarnation of her younger, freer self, and she's been having some sort of manic episode these many months.  This twist is largely where the controversy comes (in the same way that Remember Me threw a tragedy into its third act as a jaw drop), and while I don't agree that it feels controversial (art is not supposed to coddle us, but challenge us and occasionally make us feel uncomfortable things), I do feel like it was cheap.  Having Tully not exist, but instead just be an extension of Marlo's world invites a whole host of questions about what we saw earlier, and how much was real or not, and as a result you don't know whom you're looking at in the final, happy moments of the picture.  It doesn't ruin the movie, but it definitely notches it down a star, in my opinion, as it feels like the sort of quick-fix ending that Cody is better than (look at the brilliant way she completed Young Adult, for example).  Still, though, this is another sign that Cody's one of the better screenwriters working in Hollywood, and I hope we don't have to wait another four years before she works with Jason Reitman again.

No Globe, No SAG...No Problem?

Last year it was Bradley Cooper-who can get in
without the love in 2015?

This article has become a bit of an annual tradition here at The Many Rantings of John, and since I'm still relatively new compared to some other decade-old blogs on the internet, I feel like I have to carry out the few traditions that I have going.  Every year in the past ten, seemingly without fail with the strange exception of 2006 (which was largely due to the bizarrely robust nature of the Supporting Actor race that year where nine different actors were cited by the Globes and SAG Awards), at least one actor has managed to be nominated for an Academy Award without having previously been cited by the Globes or the SAG Awards for the same performance.  Take a look below:

2014: Bradley Cooper, Marion Cotillard, and Laura Dern

2013: Jonah Hill

2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emannuelle Riva, and Jacki Weaver

2011: Gary Oldman and Max von Sydow

2010: Javier Bardem

2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal

2008: Michael Shannon

2007: Laura Linney and Tommy Lee Jones

2006: Zero (let's pay attention people-we've already been over this)

2005: William Hurt

As is evidenced here, when you've missed at both awards it helps a ton to be in a film that people are actually watching.  Of these fifteen actors, six of them were in films that would also be nominated for Best Picture, and all but Jones and Cotillard had their films nominated in other categories.  It also helps to be a major player at the Academy Awards-only Wallis and Riva had never been nominated before, and they were nominated for leading a Best Picture, so it's quite unlikely at this point in the race for a nominee to pop up out-of-nowhere for a film people aren't discussing elsewhere.  With that being said, I've gone through and looked at the ten actors who haven't received any of the major precursor love yet, and ranked them by who is the most likely to be nominated for an Oscar anyway.  This year was particularly hard because of the erratic nature of the race, especially when you consider so many unexpected names like Bryan Cranston and Sarah Silverman ended up showing up at the awards prior to nominations, leaving a few contenders that were widely expected in the dust to new theoretical nominees.  Share your thoughts on this list and who was left out (and especially who you think will be left in) below in the comments!

Honorable Mention: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the likes of Tom Hanks, Blythe Danner, Ian McKellen, Kristen Stewart, and Benicio del Toro would have normally made the cutoff, but I decided to go with ten per tradition-usually I'm scrounging for contenders, but this year it was a plethora of near-misses so hopefully we get some genuine surprises come Oscar morning.

10. Elizabeth Banks (Love and Mercy)

For Her: It's hard to deny Banks made a huge splash this year onscreen.  After all, her directorial debut in Pitch Perfect 2 went off extremely well, making a mountain of cash (even if the film itself was never quite as beloved as the fans of the first were hoping), while also getting rave reviews for her work in Love and Mercy.  With Paul Dano scooping up a number of awards, it's not like the screener isn't available to Academy members, and though she's never been nominated before you can sort of get the sense that she's about ready for some sort of industry acknowledgement.

Against Her: If they're seeing the movie and voting for Dano, why isn't she scoring at the Globes in particular?  Dano made it, and she's a big enough celebrity for HFPA, so where's the love for her?  Is it simply that they're responding to Dano rather than Banks, in which case she's a have-not in this situation?  The film is really only gunning for Supporting Actor based on precursors, and that's somewhat tenuous as can be evidenced by a film like Rush (where the Academy skips out if you aren't a player elsewhere).

9. Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)

For Her: She's a former nominee who spent most of the year at the top of Oscar prediction charts.  Suffragette is a movie that is clearly relevant and I suspect it's one the Academy would like to put a "me too!" on agreeing with at this point.  Period dramas are catnip for the Best Actress category, and she has to do a lot of deglam.  Plus, doesn't it feel like Carey Mulligan should have a second Oscar nomination by now?

Against Her: No one is talking about this film anymore, and it's mostly out of "really, she's not gaining traction?!?" that I kept this on here as it makes so much sense on paper, even though in reality Mulligan's opportunity seems to have all-but-disappeared.  That being said, I thought the same thing about Tommy Lee Jones in 2007 and he still won a nod so it's not totally out-of-the-question.

8. Michael Caine (Youth)

For Him: He's Michael Caine, beloved actor and Academy Award favorite.  Were he to be nominated, he would become the first actor ever to be nominated in six different decades, and he's a major movie star that has long been hungry for a lead Oscar and is willing to schmooze for it.  Caine's also in a movie that, if they see it, seems like the older Academy members would love as it's about, well, older artists and entertainers.  I suspect that those completely downgrading Caine in their predictions are missing what could be a great surprise opportunity.

Against Him: Since the Globes clearly saw the film (they voted for Fonda in the same movie), why not Caine?  They even went with him for The Quiet American, so you know they're fans.  Youth itself has gained almost no traction this season and may be too out-there for the voting community's tastes.  I think this could happen, but I have no evidence of it so one wonders if Caine will continue to have to find a shot at that sixth decade.

7. Michael B. Jordan (Creed)

For Him: He's a young up-and-coming actor, arguably the best American male actor under thirty in my opinion, and Creed continues to be a great word-of-mouth hit that could score with the Academy as it feels in their wheelhouse.  Let's not forget Bradley Cooper in American Sniper in all of this, as Clint Eastwood's picture went from being a non-entity in most of the precursor awards to being a huge deal at the Oscars, which could well be what's about to happen to Creed (though Stallone did score at the Globes).

Against Him: Jordan's not Bradley Cooper (who had two previous Oscar citations to rely upon), and this film isn't directed by Clint Eastwood-it's a boxing sequel.  Perhaps the Academy can't quite get over that hump (or they just don't love it) and are content to go with Stallone as their way of giving the film recognition.

6. Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

For Her: This is my annual, one-time-only mention of the BFCA Awards, as one might question why I don't include them on this list since they are a televised precursor and of course Theron got nominated there.  I don't mention them for two reasons: one, they have six nominees and that's cheating, and two (and much more importantly) they are far more intent on predicting the Oscars than actually rewarding what they like (compare Rotten Tomatoes scores with who actually gets nominated for a reference point), and that's not an awards show, it's just a Vegas betting board so I shall not mention them again for a year until I write this article again.  That being said, the nomination for Theron has to indicate something, and she's an Oscar-winning lead in a film that increasingly looks likely to be a Best Picture nominee-that's usually a recipe for a surprise nomination.

Against Her: It'd be a nearly unprecedented nomination (with the very glaring exception of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), and can Theron actually do this without being a huge presence on the campaign trail?  It seems a bit telling that the Globes didn't go for this at all as it seems more in their recent wheelhouse (think Uma Thurman in Kill Bill) but there's clearly at least one very open slot in Best Actress so I wouldn't totally eye-roll here.

4 & 5. Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton (Spotlight)

For Them: I combined these two for two reasons, one of which is that they are both obvious contenders on-paper.  Both men are recent (like, last year recent) nominees who didn't win, which the Academy sometimes feels the urge to correct if you make enough good movies back-to-back, and they are headlining a major Best Picture contender, the only film to score nominations for Best Cast AND Best Drama Picture at the Globes.  That has to matter, and you can imagine these two being on a lot of ballots.

Against Them: The second reason I put them together, though is that they're clearly costing the other one their nomination.  With Keaton going supporting instead of lead (not the worst decision, but potentially costly for Ruffalo who has the more "big moment" role) that means that two men whom the Academy feel are "due" are competing for the same turf.  No film has been nominated for two supporting actors since 1991's Bugsy for a reason-it's because Academy members don't like voting for the same film twice for two male actors.  That's clearly causing some issues for these two as they are competing in a race that is starting to coalesce around other individuals.

3. Tom Hardy (The Revenant)

For Him: He's had an amazing year.  With dual roles in Legend, a title role in Mad Max, and now a significant role opposite the film that's probably going to win Leo his Oscar in The Revenant, Hardy has to be considered for this performance, which also is clear Oscar bait from the trailers (he plays the chief antagonist, a classic Supporting Actor part).  Hardy's been a rising star for years now, and if a year like this doesn't bring him into the fold, I don't know what will.

Against Him: "Why didn't he score at the Globes" is a recurring phrase this year (mostly because I have no idea WHAT was happening at the SAG Awards), but Hardy is hot and could have been an easy arm-candy presenter to Jennifer Lopez at the ceremony so one wonders what the hold-up was there.  Is it a case where he's just not compelling in "the Leo Show?"  He might also be too pretty for Oscar (they like to make the sexy guys wait until the wrinkles come).

2. Joan Allen (Room)

For Her: On-paper, almost everything.  If I was looking at the recipe above, I'd need someone headlining a likely Best Picture nominee (check), someone in a supporting role when everyone is gushing about a lead performance (check and check), and someone whom the Academy has shown a fondness for before but hasn't really been nominated in a little while (and three times-nominated check).  Allen is the sort of performer like Tommy Lee Jones or William Hurt whom the Academy might just want to say "we remember you!" to and her role in Room, while not particularly meaty, isn't without its big moments, and seems more Oscar-friendly than Globes or SAG Awards.

Against Her: It's not a particularly meaty role.  That hasn't stopped people in the past (hello, Jacki Weaver), but with so many lead performers making a play for this category it's difficult to tell whether or not there will be a room for a performance the size of Allen's against the likes of Mara and Vikander.

1. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

For Her: She's an acting god who did score a few critical citations so far, and it's worth noting scored a BFCA nomination when Theron was clearly the sixth place finisher in that list.  45 Years has gotten rave reviews, and screeners are a pretty good answer to people saying she won't make it because the film is small (which becomes less of an argument as years go by and the Academy doesn't reflect the Box Office like it used to do).  Rampling feels like she should get a nomination at least once in her career-this could be the moment.

Against Her: She's the exact opposite of Allen in predictive ways, though, and a nomination would be kind of unprecedented in recent memory as she's not in a film that will be nominated somewhere else, she's not a former nominee or winner, and no one thinks of this as a Best Picture contender.  Even Marion Cotillard, who seems most indicative for Rampling, was an Oscar winner when she came out of the blue for Two Days, One Night last year.  Still, records break every year, and I think Rampling is probably the one to do it in 2015.