OVP: Supporting Actress (2000)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Judi Dench, Chocolat

Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock

Kate Hudson, Almost Famous

Frances McDormand, Almost Famous

Julie Walters, Billy Elliot

My Thoughts: Surprises aren't really a thing in the Oscar acting races anymore, not like they once were.  Today, you might go in knowing you're going to win (Robert Downey Jr. this year), knowing you might win (Lily Gladstone this year), or knowing you won't win (Sterling K. Brown this year).  But there was a time where technically anyone could win, and what a thrill that was (the real ones will know what I just did).  In 2000, we had one of the bigger upsets in the acting races we've encountered in our My Ballots, when Marcia Gay Harden pulled off victory over far likelier contenders that year.

Let's start with Marcia.  For those who don't know, in 2000, you could've made a serious argument that Harden was in fifth place even among the nominees before she went on to win.  She got her victory through being just that good.  Her Lee Krasner is a fascinating composite onscreen.  We see the ways that Harden navigates being a wife, a female painter (in a time where they got ignored), and someone who understood the financial opportunity that came with marrying one of the great artistic minds of the 20th Century.  Adding in a fantastic bit of accent work, Harden becomes very hard to beat if you actually see her movie.

That said, her chief competition at the time was impressive too.  One of her biggest competitors was Kate Hudson, who roared into movie stardom (just like her mom) with Almost Famous, and like her mom, got an Oscar nomination to prove it.  I think people's attitudes toward Hudson in the years that followed (where she hit stardom, but not superstardom and never did something this good again) have clouded their tastes on this performance, which is really wonderful.  She embodies the beautiful hipster, trying to cling to those who are actually experiencing fame, knowing (but never showing) that this will only last while her youth continues.  It's a tragic, but very real performance, and the soul of the film.

The other competitor for the win was Judi Dench.  Just two years after her Oscar win, she was a serious threat for victory in 2000 for Chocolat (and easily the closest that Miramax came to getting that film a statue).  Her work here is pleasant.  It'd become the prototype for the "sweet old woman" roles that Dench would milk as a proper movie star in the next couple of decades, but it hadn't been established yet so it feels much fresher.  I do think that this isn't worthy of Oscar, even if it's good acting-it's a bit too paper thin, especially in her character's bigger moments.

Julie Walters is another renowned British character actress who made it into this field, and her work in Billy Elliot is also solid.  I will admit to a soft spot for both of these actresses (I'll watch anything they do), but I don't think that Walters is quite as good as, say, her costar Jamie Bell in this film.  She gives us a lot of what we'd expect from Walters (a surly disposition masking a kindly heart), but it doesn't give us quite enough more.  I wanted more hints at how she missed her own opportunities, how she also dreamed of getting out, to add more dimension to her character.  But, again, a fine piece of work that it's hard to get mad about Oscar citing.

Frances McDormand is arguably the best actress of these five women, but I do think she has the least to do in her nominated performance, and more importantly, the least impact on her film.  Her concerned mother has some humor which McDormand can ring, but it comes across as a bit one-note, or at the very least sharp as she imbues the "anxious mother who doesn't understand" character with little nuance.  It's possible that this nomination cost Hudson her win with vote-splitting, but I'd not entirely be convinced anyone looked at this and said "one of the year's five best" without it actually getting a nomination.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Hudson, and the same lineup as Oscar save Harden, who was pushed out for Catherine Zeta-Jones (Traffic).  SAG gave their statue to Dench, again against the Oscar lineup without Harden (here it was Kate Winslet in Quills who got the nomination).  BAFTA gave their statue to Julie Walters (see what I mean about Harden being a surprise) with McDormand, Dench, Lena Olin (Chocolat), & Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as the nominees.  In sixth place, I think you could make a few arguments here.  Zeta-Jones was obviously in the running, but at the time she was facing something of a "too-much-too-soon" backlash (she's always been an old school "give good quip" sort of movie star, and that has occasionally hurt her with a press that wanted a docile princess-type).  So it was likely either Winslet or Connie Nielsen (Gladiator) nearly making it, both the primary female character in an all-male, Oscar-cited cast.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I have no such prejudices against Catherine Zeta-Jones (I don't want relatable stars), and would've nominated her splendid work in Traffic, showing how deep her talent could get two years before Oscar could no longer deny her.

Oscar’s Choice: Like I said above, Marcia Gay Harden pulled off a big upset against Dench & Hudson, a win that has aged pretty well by my estimation.

My Choice: In a very close race (both of them will show up in our My Ballot article in the next week) I will select Marcia Gay Harden over Kate Hudson, as I think she has more notable character work in her choices, but either would've made a good winner.  Behind them are Walters, Dench, and then McDormand.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone agree with Marcia Gay Harden as the Oscar victor, or do people want someone else in retrospect?  When was the last time you feel we had a truly left field acting winner?  And was it Zeta-Jones, Winslet, or Nielsen in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2000: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

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

OVP: Lone Star (1996)

Film: Lone Star (1996)

Stars: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Miriam Colon, Frances McDormand

Director: John Sayles

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Kris Kristofferson: click here to learn more about Mr. Kristofferson (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned last week, Kris Kristofferson's acting career never really recovered after the failure of Heaven's Gate, and he spent much of the 1980's alternating between forgettable movies like Songwriter and Trouble in Mind (the latter being a well-reviewed neo-noir that made zilch at the box office and is definitely going on my Letterboxd Watchlist as that feels up my alley) while having more success in music, forming the supergroup Highwaymen with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, & Waylon Jennings.  By the end of the decade, he had moved to a point where he was playing second fiddle to Paul Reubens in Big Top Pee-wee (which didn't even have the good sense to be a hit like its predecessor).  But in the 1990's, Kristofferson starred in his last important film, and appropriately enough, it's a western to close our series.  Made by noted independent filmmaker John Sayles, Lone Star was a modest hit in 1996, and a critical gem that has only grown in stature in the years that followed.  Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, while Kristofferson has worked for decades since, it feels a good way to close his career, and our fifth season of Saturdays with the Stars.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie alternates between two different time frames, focusing on a father-and-son, both of whom are lawmen in the border community of Frontera, Texas.  The son is Sam Deeds (Cooper), who is investigating the appearance of a dead body in the desert, which we learn after a while is the skeleton of Charlie Wade (Kristofferson), a corrupt sheriff who decades earlier disappeared, and was succeeded by Buddy Deeds (McConaughey), who would become famous for his straight-laced and honest approach to his work, reshaping the town for the better.  Sam has a complicated relationship with his father, who was a womanizer & not a strong father figure, and we also learn more about Sam's romantic life, including meeting his troubled ex-wife Bunny (McDormand) and watch as he embarks on a relationship with Pilar (Pena), a girl he loved in his youth but both of their parents wanted to keep them apart.  It turns out they did so with good reason, with two secrets leaking in the waning moments of the film.  We find that not only did Buddy help with the coverup of Charlie's death (he had been killed in a form of self-defense when he was going to kill an innocent man & say it was for "resisting arrest"), but we also learn that Buddy is Pilar's father, having had an affair with her mother years earlier.  In an inversion of the plot of Chinatown, which the film bares a strong resemblance toward, Sam & Pilar decide that, since she can no longer have children, that they should continue to see each other even though they are half-siblings.

Lone Star is the sort of difficult, cerebral film that could only be a hit because it's good, and that's the case.  We see a lot of the tropes of the west that we saw throughout this year-the honorable lawman, the tough-as-nails woman who survives in a world that wants to tear her down, and the corruption of the system in the form of Kristofferson's Wade, holding the West back from modernity.  But it also looks beyond that, which makes it interesting.  Much of the modern scenes with Cooper's Sam talk about the ways that the racism that happened during Wade's reign-of-terror was substituted for a "they're replacing us" mentality.  We get a number of moments where we understand the politics of this community will continue to give more power to the growing Latino population, and even Sam is likely to lose his position as Sheriff soon because a Latino lawman will be elected to replace him.  It's a fascinating dichotomy here that was usually ignored in the Western, where we knew that white men would ultimately control all of the power over the Native American populations they're fighting with, the ones that originally held these lands.  Lone Star smartly talks about how, eventually, the West will always be made by those who come to it, and no one holds sway there forever.

And that ends both our month with Kris Kristofferson and our season of "When Cowboys Ruled Hollywood."  Kristofferson is still alive, and in the decades after Lone Star made films, though almost all of them supporting roles in lukewarm franchises like Blade and Dolphin Tale.  The western continues to survive, and every few years pops up with another classic like Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, Gran Torino, and The Power of the Dog, with Yellowstone the closest it's come to consistent mainstream success in television.  As I mentioned last week, we'll start our new series looking at the concept of America's Sweetheart through twelve actresses who embodied that title in the 20th Century, but tomorrow we'll have a proper sendoff to our season with one last cattle call of the best of our twelve western stars this year!

OVP: Picture (2022)

 OVP: Best Picture (2022)

The Nominees Were...

Malte Grunert, All Quiet on the Western Front

James Cameron & Jon Landau, Avatar: The Way of Water

Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, & Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin

Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick, & Schuyler Weiss, Elvis

Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, & Jonathan Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, & Tony Kushner, The Fabelmans

Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan, & Scott Lambert, Tar

Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison, & Jerry Bruckheimer, Top Gun: Maverick

Erik Hemmendorff & Philippe Bober, Triangle of Sadness

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, & Frances McDormand, Women Talking

My Thoughts: We are at the end of yet another season of the Oscar Viewing Project!  This is the quickest turnaround we've ever done from the initial ceremony to the OVP ballot (the Oscars were just a few months ago), so I'm excited we were able to do this within a calendar year.  I'm going to make you wait a little more than week for our next season; we'll kick it off in August, but as a hint we'll be doing one of the two remaining years left this century (for links to past contests, click the bottom of this page).  We'll also be doing one of my favorite series to write on the blog-whom I would've picked if I had picked all of the nominees tomorrow.  But for now, grab the popcorn & get ready for one last ride with Oscar's ten best pictures.  Hopefully the ride goes better than our first film...

Triangle of Sadness is another commentary from Ruben Ostlund about the ways that capitalism & power destroy our combined humanity, and how no one is really exempt from it.  Combining Lina Wertmuller's Swept Away with recent Best Picture winner Parasite, the movie is a fascinating look at a lot of ideas that definitely needs a better editor.  The second third of the movie lasts too long, with Ostlund less trying to aid his tale and more attempting to gross out his audience, but much of the rest of the movie is worth sticking around if you can stomach it, specifically grand performances from Dolly de Leon and Harris Dickinson.  The ending needed to chop the last thirty seconds off of it, though.

Top Gun: Maverick is the antithesis in pretty much every way of Triangle of Sadness, here finding ways to glorify the industrial complex & capitalism.  The movie itself works in key aspects.  Some of the supporting cast (Glen Powell & Jennifer Connelly, specifically) play well, and this is a last great lap of one of the quintessential action heroes, Tom Cruise.  Plus, in a world dominated by CGI, it's thrilling to see actual sets, actual stunts, and not just a wall of computer-generated banality.  But the movie's script lands like a lead balloon, is filled with cliche & the dialogue is cheesy as hell (plus, Jon Hamm continues his weird trend of not knowing how to act in movies after giving one of TV's most iconic characterizations).

Women Talking is that rare film where you say "a film feels like a play" but you mean it is a compliment.  Everything about this is about finding direction through conversation, with us learning more about the complicated world these women live in, but also about the freedom they feel outside of the gaze of men.  I loved the way that your initial assumptions of how these women will progress alters, in the way that new ideas change your mind, and I've never felt claustrophobia used as a framing device (rather than something to overcome) so well.  Sarah Polley's movie is fresh, alive, & full of uncomfortable truths.

All Quiet on the Western Front joins the very short list of movies where both the original and the remake got cited for Best Picture (I believe this is just All Quiet and West Side Story...not a great look for Hollywood originality that both are in the past two years).  The story in this movie is too hard to break entirely-it's one of the most damning anti-war tales ever told-but this one feels paint-by-numbers, and includes a needless addition of Daniel Bruhl reminding us of the ticking clock that we already understand is hanging over these soldiers' heads.  With a remake, I need more than just "it's more realistic" to justify its existence, and this movie never provides that.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is bizarre because my initial review of it on Letterboxd (follow me) is way shorter than I normally would've gone with a Best Picture nominee, which is kind of an indication of how I feel about it (and how out-of-nowhere it felt at the time for the Best Picture race).  I liked it, I didn't love it.  I think that the central performances are all good, but the final third is too convoluted, frequently borrowing from things we've already seen and rarely in a way that feels like it's adding more texture to the story.  It's a miracle that an original movie with no established IP or real-life figure managed to take over the pop culture/box office in such a way, so I give it credit for that...but it's not as original as it needs to be, nor as well as well-edited as it has to be, if we're going to throw around phrases like "masterpiece."

If you want to give out that title for a wholly original movie, you gotta look at a movie like Tar.  The movie is an epic, staggering character study of human nature, and the reasons why we keep things secret.  Cate Blanchett gives the performance of a lifetime (and it's Cate Blanchett we're talking about here, so the lifetime was already on a pedestal) as Lydia Tar, owning every scene of her movie and giving us a domineering, complicated, over-her-head woman that defies expectations.  One of those movies you only truly understand once you've seen every second of it.

I'm always a sucker for an "ode to cinema" and the past couple of years have given us high-profile takes from major directors.  2022's best was The Fabelmans, which gives Steven Spielberg the vulnerability to share not just where he came from, but where some of his best movies came from.  Within The Fabelmans, we get a sense of the prickliness that we see in so many of his movies (for all of the "happy ending" criticism that Spielberg gets, so often the children in his films are from "broken" or divorced homes, just like Sammy here).  Solid performances from Williams, LaBelle, & Dano help to underline the central dynamic of a father-and-mother's love being so crucial to a young man finding himself.

I have been so sick of musical biopics (by far the most tired & overdone genre in movies today) that I kind of forgot that they could have some thrills.  Leave it to Baz Luhrmann to get me there with Elvis.  This movie doesn't always work in its approach-the length (oddly enough) is fine, but it glosses over side characters too much (particularly Presley's wife Priscilla), to the point where it makes the editing feel choppy.  And I don't entirely get what Tom Hanks was doing here, even if there are times it kind of works (bad acting can have its place in a movie, though that is what this is).  But casting Austin Butler as this unknowable sex god is so appropriate and so inline with Elvis, you might believe at some points that that electric magnetism has been brought back from the dead.

An even more successful spin on a tried-and-true genre (the buddy comedy) is The Banshees of Inisherin.  The best parts of Martin McDonagh's films are when he gives us sharp edges on his characters, which we get as the film goes-the central four characters are all imperfect, and sometimes that imperfection has consequences they can't take back.  Buoyed by the best acting ensemble of 2022, the writing & acting are so heightened and extraordinary it's hard not to feel you're in the presence of some great, untold tale.  I loved it.

With Hollywood telling more and more stories that we've already heard, an increase in sequels in this category is inevitable.  If that's the case, please make them all as good as Avatar: The Way of Water.  I had honestly forgotten a blockbuster movie could look this good, with James Cameron genuinely caring about light & design in his film rather than piecing together action set pieces with no care in-between.  The story itself is strong, particularly the way that he folds it into a thrilling action sequence over the film's last 40 minutes (you will not look at your watch once in this very long movie), but it's the glorious visual effects that make this something truly special.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy so we have ten films to discuss, but in a different style than Oscar's ten.  Best Musical/Comedy went to The Banshees of Inisherin against Babylon, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Glass Onion, and Triangle of Sadness while The Fabelmans bested Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Tar, and Top Gun: Maverick in Best Drama.  The PGA Awards gave their statue to Everything Everywhere All at Once beating most of the Oscar lineup with Women Talking, All Quiet on the Western Front, & Triangle of Sadness replaced by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Glass Onion, & The Whale.  BAFTA only does five nominees, and picked All Quiet on the Western Front against Banshees, EEAAO, Elvis, & Tar.  In eleventh place...I think it was probably The Whale given it won two major awards and got the PGA nod.  I maintain that had Glass Onion (a populist hit if you've ever seen one) gotten a real run in theaters and not just a "quick, get it onto Netflix" it would've gotten a nomination here the second it hit $100 million at the box office.  Streaming, I cannot stress this enough, is ruining the entertainment industry.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!

Oscar’s Choice: An easy call for EEAAO-BAFTA & the HFPA were doing their own things (which I love) but by Oscar night, it was evident that EEAAO was taking this over All Quiet and The Fabelmans.

My Choice: Comparing films is insane, and that's very much proven by my top two films, Avatar: The Way of Water and The Banshees of Inisherin, two superb movies that have nothing in common.  I started this article ranking Banshees first because the acting & story is a bit better, and I'll stay there, but this is one of those decisions I'll waffle about forever.  Behind them (in order) I'd go: The Fabelmans, Tar, Women Talking, Triangle of Sadness, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick, and All Quiet on the Western Front.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Are you staying with Oscar's bandwagon love of EEAAO or do you want to hang with Jenny the Donkey & I over with Banshees?  Do you think The Whale, Glass Onion, or something else was just out of this contest?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2022?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2022: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature, Sound, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2022

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

OVP: Picture (2020)

OVP: Best Picture (2020)

The Nominees Were...

David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi, & Philippe Carcassonne, The Father

Shaka King, Charles D. King, & Ryan Coogler, Judas and the Black Messiah

Cean Chaffin, Eric Roth, & Douglas Urbanski, Mank

Christina Oh, Minari

Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, & Dan Janvey, Nomadland

Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell, & Josey McNamara, Promising Young Woman

Bert Hamelinck, & Sacha Ben Harroche, Sound of Metal

Marc Platt & Stuart Besser, The Trial of the Chicago 7

My Thoughts: We are at the close of our 2020 run, and while I didn't quite get this done fully in June, it was darn close.  We will be hitting this weekend (likely on Monday-if you're an international reader the US largely shuts down for Independence Day on Monday) the My Ballot, and then kicking off our 19th season next week.  I'm still deciding the cadence of how often we'll have these going forward, but it'll likely be 2-3 a week as I am getting very excited about the sharp momentum we've been able to maintain over the past year on getting this series further & further on.  But that's enough housekeeping, let's finish off with the eight Best Picture nominees of 2020.

We're going to start with the film that won Best Picture, Nomadland.  I think that more than any film this one suffered the most from not getting to have its moment on the big screen, as the film's immersive quality is probably best seen through the forced lens of sitting in a large, darkened room without any distractions.  But it's still beautiful, and impossible to deny.  I loved the way that McDormand plays against type, a lifetime of cynical characters suddenly washed away with a woman filled with a mournful hope.  The cinematography, the editing, the writing, they're all magical in Zhao's ode to an American Dream that greed has forced to look different for all.

Mank is the other film that I think suffered the most from not being in a theater (for the record, I would've preferred all of these films in theaters as I generally think that's the best way to see pretty much any movie, but if I had to corner it down to two it'd be these two).  The movie's downward spiral of one man meeting his destiny (likely for the worse, though historically for the better) combines well with the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and intense, magical set design.  The performances are uniformly good, with Amanda Seyfried & Charles Dance standing apart as Hollywood survivors in a way that the titular Mank never could be, and the way that Fincher drifts in-and-out of Citizen Kane, this monument to a long ago Hollywood still beholden to corporate destiny, is divine.

Claustrophobia is also a central component of The Father, which gains so much of its strength not just from a truly seismic pair of performances from Anthony Hopkins & Olivia Colman, but also from the shifting world of the apartment.  We get inside of the titular character as he begins to watch his world descend around him.  "Wasn't that pillow blue before?" and "why is that couch in a different spot?" become the background of the more obvious questions around what is and isn't real...this movie is perfectly-constructed as a horror movie with a real human element to it.  That use of genre & truly adapting to the visual medium of film from the stage play is something that few films are able to truly achieve.

Promising Young Woman also knows how to blend genre & make its film unexpectedly visually arresting to tell its story and upend viewer expectations.  The movie plays as a combination of romantic-comedy, thriller, and an increasingly dark tale of grief in ways that you wouldn't anticipate based on the poster, which makes it feel like a revenge flick.  Carey Mulligan is superb as the titular character, but honestly the casting department is knocking it out of the park at every level, particularly in the way that Emerald Fennell's film highlights guys in Hollywood like Adam Brody and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (generally typecast as "nice guys" in most films) as the unexpected date rapists, to underline how normal what's happening to Mulligan's Cassie is...she also smartly casts women that we trust implicitly in comedic roles like Connie Britton & Alison Brie as enablers of this culture to show exactly how complicit we all are.  The film is smart, and I can't wait to see what happens next from this filmmaker.

I'm also excited to see the next chapter from Lee Isaac Chung, whose Minari is so biographical I hope this is the start of a long conversation with audiences through film for the director.  I loved the softness of Minari, as if Chung is rifling through an old photo album and telling us stories of his life.  I do think there are occasionally moments where the film feels too detached, leaving some of the performances without the right amount of catharsis to feel like they've grown later in the film.  That's a small criticism (it's a good movie), but when you're playing with a lineup this good, you have to be prepared to nitpick a bit.

The same can be said for Sound of Metal, which is overall a good movie but doesn't quite now what to do with the direction of its main characters.  While the film is well-acted (particularly Paul Raci as a mentor to our main character), Riz Ahmed's character doesn't get enough grounding in the clear narrative that he isn't "losing" anything with his hearing going if he takes the opportunity to understand his world better.  As a musician, though, he is losing something as while he can always communicate, he has lost his ability to do the thing he loves most, and I don't think the film bridges that enough to the reality of his life.  Again, this is nitpicking about a good movie, but it's very apparent that the film isn't as successful as it could've been.

The one movie in this lineup that I genuinely didn't like was The Trial of the Chicago 7.  Aaron Sorkin has written some of our best film & television creations (The West Wing, The Social Network), but his work as a director is continually uninspiring, and here, outright bad.  The movie has a handsomeness to it that some might enjoy but I felt was too "movie of the week" and while the cast is too stacked to not have some good moments, largely it gets lost in Sorkin's dreadful script.  Every character in this movie sounds like everyone else (i.e. sounds like Sorkin), spouting off lines intended solely to advance the narrative and never to feel authentic to the characters.  Chicago 7 nearly triumphed here (I think it was second place for Best Picture), which would've been a crime in a lineup this good.

The final nominee is Judas and the Black Messiah, a film that would've been truly bizarre to win since it didn't come out in 2020, but early 2021 (the pandemic made the eligibility window truly odd).  The movie handles its politics well, making it a damning indictment of the criminal justice system in the United States, which while it has become more mainstream to talk about, has not changed enough since the murder of Fred Hampton in the late 1960's.  But while Daniel Kaluuya is excellent as our lead, his co-lead LaKeith Stanfield plays a part that is severely underwritten, and feels like a blank vessel, an unforgivable sin given that Stanfield is one of our best working actors.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy, so you have Nomadland beating Mank, Promising Young Woman, The Father, & Chicago 7 while Borat 2 bests Hamilton, Music, Palm Springs, & The Prom in Musical/Comedy.  The BAFTA's stick to the five-wide (the only people still doing it) pre-2009 lineups that Oscar used to do, and has Nomadland atop Promising Young Woman, The Father, The Mauritanian, & Chicago 7, while the PGA picked the entire Oscar lineup save for The Father and added in Borat 2, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and One Night in Miami (Nomadland won).  I will be honest that while everything points to the Borat sequel getting in (two major victories in the precursors, and acting/writing nods from the Oscars), I don't buy it-I think ninth place was Ma Rainey which is very much Oscar's speed and scored two lead acting nods.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out later this weekend!

Oscar’s Choice: In a weird twist, Nomadland managed to be a soft-spoken, elegant tale that won every precursor and easily took the Oscar.

My Choice: I am going to go with my gut, which at the time was Mank and despite Nomadland (silver) and The Father (bronze) aging very well in my mind (and Mank being critically-dismissed by film voices I respect), I'm sticking to my guns and giving the top prize to David Fincher's ode to Old Hollywood.  Behind these three is Promising Young Woman, Minari, Judas, Sound of Metal, and Chicago 7.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Is everyone on Team Nomadland or can I convince at least one friend to join me on Team Mank?  Do you think Borat Subsequent Moviefilm could've become one of the biggest surprise Best Picture nominees ever, or is the safe money in an expanded field on One Night in Miami & Ma Rainey?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2020?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2020: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2020

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

OVP: Actress (2020)

OVP: Best Actress (2020)

The Nominees Were...

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holliday

Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman

Frances McDormand, Nomadland

Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

My Thoughts: We are finishing off our acting races with the Best Actress contest.  2020 will remain, forever, a weird anomaly of a year for the Oscars, and one that changed the movie industry permanently(?).  While some of these films were advertised in theaters (I distinctly remember watching the Promising Young Woman trailer in a theater), none of them had much of a screen presence (the only one I remember seeing on a marquee was Nomadland and even that was after it'd won the Oscar).  I saw all five of these in my house, all while I was stuck inside largely quarantined off from virtually all of my friends.  I still wonder if some of these movies would've played differently had I been able to see them my preferred method of in a movie theater.

Promising Young Woman certainly would've gained from an audience.  Watching this ticking clock comedy-thriller come to its inevitable conclusion would've been a jaw-dropper in a crowded theater.  People overuse the phrase "her best work" to describe an actress's most recent excellent work so I won't say that this is the best thing I've seen Carey Mulligan do...but it's close.  While she sometimes struggles to ground Cassie (the script doesn't let us into her & an actor can only do so much), that doesn't mean that she can't find ways to hint at who Cassie used to be, particularly with the great chemistry she has with Bo Burnham.  Mulligan finds a way to make her Cassie both moral and frightening...she finds a way to make us examine our own culpability in a culture that values statis more than changing for the better (even if that's uncomfortable).

Nomadland is the other movie that I wished I'd seen on the big screen in particular (like I said, I would've preferred seeing all of these on a big-screen in a perfect world).  The expanses of America's heartlands would've looked magical shining on a silver screen.  Frances McDormand doesn't upstage these gorgeous views, but instead complements them.  McDormand has built her career playing brassy, scene-stealing characters, but none of that pretense is in her Fern.  Mildred Hayes & Marge Gunderson (her other two Oscar-winning roles) are totally alien to this part-we get a woman who has found a peace in the world that she can't explain, and perhaps doesn't want to, particularly to herself.  She sees herself as a winner even if the world can't comprehend that, and there's something magnificent in the way she centers Fern amongst the wide parking lots & green forests of this film.

Vanessa Kirby was so good on The Crown I was glad she could get a nomination at the Oscars right out the gate, hoping that could catapult her into a different echelon of opportunity as an actress.  But Pieces of a Woman is not a complete performance.  Once you get past the brutal opening scene (with no cutaways, it feels like you're watching a horror movie), there's nothing more added to Kirby's Martha.  We never understand what she wants in her career, what she wanted in motherhood, what she wants in her relationship with her construction worker husband (is the sex just that good, because it's literally the only thing they seem to have in common?).  Kirby needs to give us more to make some of the bigger climax scenes in the movie work out, and they don't.

The same can be said for Viola Davis.  I'm not going to side with the "category fraud" people on this one-she's the title character, she's in a significant chunk of the movie...she's a lead.  The reason she might not feel like a lead is that Chadwick Boseman is significantly better than her onscreen.  While Davis initially plays Ma as an enigma, something that might work if the script were different, as it becomes more crucial to understand Ma, we don't get enough from Davis to really feel like we're in her shoes.  The biggest issue I have here is that Davis doesn't sing the part-there's something lacking in her (obvious) lip-syncing, and we don't get a complete performance.  There's still moments of wonder (it's Viola Davis) but when it comes to Oscar, particularly from a woman of her talent, I expect more.

Andra Day is singing in Billie Holliday, but her problem isn't that she doesn't sound great (she does), but that's not the issue with this performance.  Saddled with a really bad film (something Davis doesn't have to deal with), Day can't find a way to rise above the muck.  Lee Daniels' film is an absolute mess of jumbled ideas & half-baked narrative hooks, and while I try to distinguish individual elements as much as possible with these OVP writeups, I can only do so much.  Day's work is intertwined in Daniels' messy narrative, and you can still see the "tick, tick, tick" of her trying to combine the Billie she's crafting with the one on the page that's lacking.  A more experienced actress might have found a way to just push past the mess & give us her own interpretation of the work, but Day is still a new onscreen performer and doesn't seem to have that skill yet, so anything worthwhile here gets lost in the crowd.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it was a carbon copy of the eventual Oscar lineup, except Andra Day won while Best Comedy/Musical went to Rosamund Pike (I Care a Lot) in a huge surprise against Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma), Kate Hudson (Music), Maria Bakalova (Borat 2), & Michelle Pfeiffer (French Exit).  SAG gave their statue to Davis, and kept the Oscar lineup save for Andra Day, instead choosing Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy).  BAFTA went with McDormand as their winner, here up against Kirby, Alfre Woodard (Clemency-she was eligible the previous year at the Oscars), Bukky Bakray (Rocks), Radha Blank (The Forty-Year-Old Version), & Wunmi Mosaku (His House).  At the time I guessed that Sophia Loren (The Life Ahead) was next up, and I think in a normal year where we would've seen Loren on every red carpet the star power would've been too much for Oscar to ignore (or had the legend gone supporting, which she could've gotten away with), but in 2020 where there were few in-person events her publicists couldn't play that card and so it was likely Amy Adams nearly getting her seventh nomination for Hillbilly Elegy.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: If they were going to cite it for International Feature Film, there's no reason that Oscar should've denied Jasna Duricic's riveting work in Quo Vadis, Aida, which towers over most of these nominees.

Oscar’s Choice: In what was a total coin toss (save for Kirby, every one of these women had momentum going into Oscar night), AMPAS decided to give a third statue to Frances McDormand, who clearly would've preferred anyone else getting the victory.

My Choice: I'm also going with McDormand.  Similar to Anthony Hopkins, this is a performance in a special category, and while (like Hopkins) it's hard to say "best of their career" given the career she's had, it probably earns that title.  Mulligan, Davis, Kirby, & Day follow her.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  With the dust settled, does everyone kind of agree that McDormand deserved this, or do other performances still have their champions?  I think we all kind of assume Davis will become the first Black woman to win two acting Oscars-when do you think she pulls it off?  And Adams, Loren, or someone else-who is your sixth place guess?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2020: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2020

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

OVP: Actress (2017)

OVP: Best Actress (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

My Thoughts: We are finishing off our acting trophies with the leading ladies of 2017.  Similar to Best Actor, four of the five women cited here were in Best Picture nominees, though unlike Best Actor, Margot Robbie's work in I, Tonya was definitely part of a Best Picture contender.  Though we had more than one real-life person in this lineup, only two biopics is actually pretty good for a category that increasingly cannot handle anyone that isn't part of a real-life story.  This is also, arguably, a category where the winner didn't age well less because of the content of the film, but more because she'd win just three years later.

We'll get the Frances McDormand of this category out-of-the-way, and I want to be forthright in saying-McDormand's the best part of Three Billboards, and I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment.  She's very good, end of statement.  The way that she plays a mother of a girl (a dead girl) whom she had a truly complicated relationship with in life, and finding that girl's killer is the only way that she'll ever find some sort of absolution with a relationship that she struggled to maintain in real life...it's good stuff.  McDormand is better in her other two winning roles, but this is stronger than Streep in The Iron Lady (which, to be fair, is also a very good performance even if its real-world connections make it harder to embrace), and it's certainly not Bergman in Orient Express.  In hindsight, knowing that Nomadland was around the corner, Oscar probably would've gone with someone else, but that's been my main lesson of the OVP-you should only consider the year at-hand.

Had McDormand lost, one assumes that it would've been a race between Sally Hawkins & Saoirse Ronan for the win, though Hawkins role in the Best Picture winner might've given her the advantage.  Playing a mute woman, she uses her expressive eyes and body language to communicate what her voice cannot.  This isn't Holly Hunter in The Piano, though.  Hawkins doesn't play Eliza consistently enough for my tastes.  The script, but also her own actions, feel like she is reacting always and it feels like both writer & actor are underestimating the strength of their character.  It's not bad, but it's not an Oscar-worthy turn.

Ronan, on the other hand, might be turning in her best work-to-date in Lady Bird, which totally upends the mannered loveliness we are used to from her in roles like Brooklyn.  Here she plays Lady Bird as a young woman, perhaps a great young woman, who cannot see beyond what's in front of her.  She's wise...for her age.  The way that Ronan rips through Lady Bird's emotions, eventually finding moments of tranquility that she'll remember into old age, but never modulating the rough teenage emotions here (there's never a knowing wink to the adults in the audience over how much Lady Bird will clearly treasure her mother by the time she turns thirty), is so smart & exact.  Ronan's accent work is flawless (there's no hint of Ireland in her vocal work), and her chemistry with every costar is perfect.

Like Ronan, Margot Robbie arguably hits her best performance-to-date with I, Tonya.  The tone of I, Tonya I found unfortunate (aren't we over the faux documentary aesthetic yet?) & I struggle with my real-world attitudes toward Harding (the film is too sympathetic to her, in my opinion), but neither of those things take away from Robbie's excellent work in the lead.  She finds depth in Harding that other actors might've ignored.  Look at the way that she can't understand why a poor girl in a trailer park's idea of glamour isn't glamorous enough against that exuded by Kristi Yamaguchi or Nancy Kerrigan.  I love that we see her frustration as the film continues, with her succeeding, but never enough, never in the way that her peers do.  It's thoughtful work from Robbie, and she makes the best parts of the film.

Meryl Streep's most recent acting nomination (if she's not cited in 2022, it'll be the longest Oscar drought of her career) for The Post is definitely a nice change-of-pace for the actress.  Ever since 2006, the woman who became famous for her precise realism in the 1980's has played increasingly cartoonish, exasperated characters onscreen, not always to the grand effect she achieved in movies like Silkwood or the Bridges of Madison County.  I don't quite think there's enough here for it to count alongside those pieces-of-work (there are times when Streep feels a bit lost in Katharine Graham's worldview), but she finds an aesthetic here of a hard-working, ambitious, talented, but also otherworldly wealthy (and occasionally unaware of it) newswoman that feels like it's the work of a character actress rather than a movie star, something late-stage Meryl has been reluctant to try.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  For Drama it was McDormand who took the prize against Hawkins, Streep, Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game), & Michelle Williams (All the Money in the World), while Comedy/Musical went to Ronan against Robbie, Judi Dench (Victoria & Abdul), Helen Mirren (The Leisure Seeker), & Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes).  SAG skipped Streep but kept the rest of Oscar's lineup, putting Dench in instead while BAFTA also skipped Streep in favor of Annette Bening (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool), with McDormand taking wins for both.  In terms of sixth place, I honestly have no idea.  It's clear Streep was vulnerable, but reading my notes at the time I favored Bening for the potential shock runner-up, given she was overdue at the time for a trophy (still is), a "build-the-momentum-for-a-win" nod might have made sense.  You could make an argument for Chastain, Dench, or Williams though and I wouldn't disagree.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: In a different universe, where Woody Allen's name on a movie wasn't considered a death knell for a film's awards chances, Kate Winslet would've returned to the Best Actress category for the first time in a decade.  Her work in Wonder Wheel is extraordinary, the best performance Allen has gotten out of an actor this century.

Oscar’s Choice: McDormand could not be denied all of 2017, and took the victory against Ronan & Hawkins.

My Choice: I'll do the reverse, giving Ronan's work the nod against silver medalist McDormand, though both are better than I think they get credit for in retrospect.  Third is Robbie, followed by Streep & then Hawkins.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with Oscar & Frances, or do you want to join Team Lady Bird in my corner?  What's it going to take for Meryl Streep to get another Oscar nomination?  And who the hell was in sixth place here?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2017: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017

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