OVP: Actress (2001)

OVP: Best Actress (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Halle Berry, Monster's Ball

Judi Dench, Iris

Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge!

Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom

Renee Zellweger, Bridget Jones's Diary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OVP: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Film: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Stars: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters
Director: Bryan Singer
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I have never been a big fan of the X-Men movie franchise.  There, I said it, and I stand by it.  I’m not sure why this is, particularly since I’m not averse to comic book movies (I particularly liked the Nolan Batman franchise and The Avengers films), but the X-Men movies may hit too close to home.  My brother, mom, and I would read Marvel comics all the time when we were kids.  We would go to the local Pamida (I swear, I’m not that old…I just grew up in a very small, old-fashioned town) and my brother and I would twirl the two comic book stands, pouring over every issue, wondering which one we’d spend our allowance on (again, I was born in the 1980’s-not that old).  Almost without fail one of us would buy one of the X-Men series and check-in on Cyclops, Jean Grey, and the gang.

The problem for me with the X-Men franchise has been both that it plays fast and loose with the chronology of the comic books (this is the ultimate nerd gripe, and one with little merit, and one that I truly hate, but one that I’m man enough to admit sways my opinion), but also because everything onscreen feels so lifeless.  For every inspired piece of casting (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Michael Fassbender as Magneto), there’s an equally lazy piece of casting (Halle Berry as Storm, James Marsden as Cyclops, and (not to earn enemies here) Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique).  The films also seem to obsess too frequently on one central character (in the original films this would be Jackman’s Wolverine, in the latter franchise it appears to be Lawrence’s Mystique and the Professor X/Magneto relationship) while teasing us with dozens of great characters from the series that appear as nothing more than props (Bishop, anyone?).

(Spoilers Ahead) That being said, I did go into this particular installment with a thrill, as Days of Future Past is easily my favorite of all of the X-Men stories.  I loved the way that it put the focus on a few characters that never get any sort of limelight (particularly Kitty Pryde, one of the best characters in the X-Men, who becomes the hero of the story even though she’s one of the most junior members of the X-Men at the time), and keeps the amount of characters to a relative minimum, with a ticking clock toward doom.  It’s a great dystopian plotline, and I remember wearing this comic book novel OUT as a child.

Of course, I knew I was in trouble when the directors didn’t have enough confidence in the story to put Ellen Page, Oscar-nominee and total badass, at the center of the film but instead shifted that over to the stalwart Hugh Jackman.  I truly hate when people complain about the source material being amended or upended for the screen, but I feel like this greatly limited the story and once again put Wolverine, whose story has been played out over these many, many films, at the center of the movie.  As a result, we see most of the next few scenes through his eyes instead of Shadowcat’s, and we get a similar perspective of him and his constant narcissistic attitude, rather than someone who could perhaps give us a smarter and more forward-thinking reaction to this “new” old world.

However, comic book nerds can’t have everything they want, and in some cases, they get something they didn’t know they want, and it’s completely fair to say that the film peaks in the first half hour or so of the film with the introduction of Quicksilver (Evan Peters of American Horror Story fame).  Quicksilver in the comic books is a very serious, driven and morally conflicted character who is the son of Magneto, whereas here he is a stoner loser kid who spends his day pulling pranks and eating junk food (there is a joke about his lineage, though unless you’re a complete comic book nerd it sailed right over your head).  I loved every second of Peters’ ridiculousness, as it was great comic foil for a film that desperately needed it, and because it allowed Professor X, the Beast, and Wolverine to have an eye-rolling common frenemy.  Plus, Peters is so damn delightful as Quicksilver (Aaron Johnson has a tall order for when he appears as the same character coming up), it’s hard not to smile and wish the entire film was really about him.

Alas, it is not, and the film continues toward familiar treads (Mystique is moral, then she’s not…Magneto is moral, then he’s not…Wolverine is quick-tempered, then he’s not…Professor X is short-sighted, then he’s not…and this is really all the characters we have time for despite casting nearly a dozen other big-name actors in these parts).  The films never realize their full potential because they’re too focused on spoon-feeding us more of what we already know.  I get that Lawrence and Jackman are the biggest names in the films, but what made the X-Men so fun and original is that you saw combinations of different mutants each week fighting together, and that the focus, like a television show, would shift from one main character to the next.  Here that’s simply not the case, and as a result you see some of the character and actor flaws on-display (Jackman’s Wolverine, for example, becomes boring to watch all the time since he essentially is immortal).  This wouldn’t be a problem if this were just one film, but it’s not-it’s a multi-film, major motion picture franchise, and it’s one that keeps rehashing and retelling without a true story arc to connect it.  Even The Avengers gets this, giving us different flirtations with Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk in one-off films instead of just spending all of their time with Iron Man.  Until the creators of X-Men understand this, they’re going to just be telling middling versions of truly great comic books.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree that Peters is best-in-show?  If you do agree with me, which character would you like to be central to the next film?  And what X-Men are you holding out hopes to be in the next movie (Gambit and Jubilee spring to mind for myself)?  Share in the comments!

Top 10 Greatest Oscar Dresses

For me, the Oscars are all about the movies and the performances and the celebration of the cinema.  That being said, I'm more than aware that for some people it's a giant fashion show that somehow gets bogged down by clip shows and shiny gold men.  For those people, this is for you.  I am not a fashionista, but from my remembrance (and from photos), I have given below my Top 10 favorite Oscar dresses (year listed is the year of the ceremony).

10. Halle Berry in Elie Saab (2002)

When you know there's a good chance you're about to get a very historic Oscar and you happen to have the body and face of Helen of Troy, going outside the box is a great idea.  Only Berry could pull off a sheer floral top with the burgundy skirt, but that's who wore it so it makes the list.

9. Grace Kelly in Edith Head (1955)

The black-and-white photos have never done this elegant, subtly mint green dress justice-just the faintest hint of color pops when offset by Kelly's alabaster skin and elbow-length white gloves.

8. Uma Thurman in Prada (1995)

Thuman has only ever received one Oscar nomination, and she sure made the most of it with a spectacularly gorgeous lavender Prada dress.  Her makeup and statuesque beauty highlight it, but the thing that pulls this together is the supremely luxurious shawl.  This is a woman who knows classic movie star glamour.

7. Elizabeth Taylor in Dior (1961)

Liz had just had one helluva a year with the death of her husband Mike Todd, then she ran off with Debbie Reynolds' husband Eddie Fisher and nearly died (you can see her tracheotomy scar in this photo).  The Oscar was certain to be hers, and she owned the red carpet in her Dior (in fact, Melina Mercouri, Deborah Kerr, and Shirley MacLaine all skipped the ceremony Taylor was such a frontrunner).

6. Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy (1954)

Hepburn basically invented great Oscar fashion (and made herself a fashion icon for all-time) when she won her trophy for Roman Holiday and sported classic white Givenchy (don't you love that she totally pulls off the belt?).

5. Nicole Kidman in Dior (1997)

Joan Rivers famously hated it ("here comes Nicole Kidman in the ugliest shade of green I've ever seen"), but I cannot get enough-hyper elegant, slightly exotic, and a color no one ever rocked before (or really has rocked so well since).  The top bead work reminds me of Berry's dress in the sense that only Kidman could pull it off, and she would remain a fashion icon for the upcoming sixteen years.

4. Cate Blanchett in Armani Prive (2007)

I honestly could put ten Cate Blanchett dresses on this list and just be fine with it.  Between she, Kidman, and the woman at number two on this list, that's pretty much my entire fashion lexicon.  If in doubt, I'll always list one of them as the best-dressed of the night.  Though she didn't win for Notes on a Scandal, Blanchett clearly demanded the red carpet and looked like a goddess in this chic metallic gown.

3. Susan Sarandon in Dolce & Gabbana (1996)

I'm aware that some of you may hate this dress, but I don't care.  I have always been obsessed with the confidence of this gown (along with the sunglasses).  Copper is a color that only some people can pull off, but Sarandon surely is one of them.  An actress at the height of her fame and power.

2. Kate Winslet in Ben de Lisi (2002)

Winslet always hits a home run, in my opinion.  I even loved her dress at the 1998 Oscars.  I have to admit, though, that I'm with the consensus-this gorgeous red Ben de Lisi dress is the clear winner.  Winslet, like many before her on this list, didn't win her Oscar that night but this was a clear victor.

1. Julia Roberts in Valentino (2001)

 I honestly wasn't sure where I'd go with the number one dress, but how could it not be this?  Perfectly blending modern Hollywood with its classical roots, Roberts found elegant, simple lines with this black and white gown that brilliantly highlighted not only her beauty, but the ultimate accessory: Oscar himself.

Those are my choices-how about you?  What is your favorite Oscar dress?

Ranting On...Cinematic Release Dates

Kate Winslet in Labor Day

If you haven’t been able to tell through these posts (and I’m aware that I talk about it literally every chance I can get), I used to live in New York City.  It is my favorite place on earth-I love everything about it, from the theater to the food to the people.  Even the things I hate about it (like how the Bronx smells like garbage after a warm rain) I secretly love.  If heaven exists, I desperately want mine to look like New York.

However, not all of us have the great fortune of living in New York, and when it comes to the Oscars and awards seasons, this matters in regard to what films are available to see.  While I don’t live in New York, Minneapolis/St. Paul is still a very large media and cultural market.  It is the fifteenth largest metropolitan area in the country, and has a plethora of art house and mainstream cinemas.  And yet, every year, because of the release schedules of studios and distributors, I am left a bit forlorn come Oscar season.

Looking at Thursday's Golden Globe nominations, I was struck by two films that showed up on the list: The Wind Rises and Labor Day.  Both films scored important award nominations for the calendar year of 2013 (Best Foreign Film for the former and Best Actress in a Drama for the latter), and yet these films won’t be seen during the calendar year for the vast majority of the United States (I also feel the great pain of people around the world with these releases, but that's a plight for a different post).  Labor Day is scheduled for an art house release on January 31^st and The Wind Rises will be released to the rest of the country on February 21^st.  This, obviously, is ridiculous.  By these dates we will not only have seen whether Kate Winslet and Hayao Miyazaki emerge victorious from the Beverly Hilton, but we’ll also know if they were able to translate their nominations to success at the Oscars.

Put plainly, it is unfair to your average moviegoer, and quite frankly, terrible business, to release these movies after their moments in the sun.  Labor Day, for example, likely won’t do any better this awards season than Winslet’s Globe nomination, so it is idiotic that they don’t have the film ready in theaters to capitalize on her success.  It’s not like this is a tiny film-it’s from an Oscar-nominated director who has had major box office success in the past and stars an Oscar-winning actress (who happened to star in the second most successful film of all-time) and an Oscar-nominated actor who has also shown continued box office success.  Jason Reitman, Kate Winslet, and Josh Brolin are all three selling points to a movie, and most if not all art houses across the country would find room for them.  The same holds true for the critically-beloved Hayao Miyazaki, whose fans are ardent and numerous, and would come out to see his film even in the heat of the Oscar season.

One could make the argument that the studios want to bet on their top contenders during this crucial release time (everyone goes to the movies during the Christmas season), and that’s why you’re seeing American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, and Saving Mr. Banks in every theater across the country but not these two films.  However, there’s something inherently wrong about not having films that are competing for a 2013 trophy available to the vast majority of the country in 2013.  I’m not saying that you have to release your films in every market in the country (if that were true, we’d have a Best Picture race that excluded Nebraska and Philomena in favor of Bad Grandpa), but the Twin Cities, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas-you should at least be available here, not just in LA and NYC.

On a personal level, this also bugs the crap out of me because I cannot, as a blogger and an awards fanatic, complete my year-end lists at the same time as the rest of you.  While I will probably still release my personal awards (have been making them since I was eleven, and yes I am a nerd) on Oscar nomination eve like usual, I will be bummed that Labor Day and The Wind Rises won’t be amongst those that I consider, and because I’m a true nerd, I won’t amend them later if I’m wowed by Kate Winslet or Miyazaki’s swan song.

Every year this happens though: Coriolanus, We Need to Talk About Kevin, On the Road-these are all films that competed and got some precursor love but couldn’t be seen by the general public.  It’s worth noting that despite positive reviews for members of their casts, none of these films actually translated to Oscar, and I am going to state flatly that I think their fractured release schedule hurt them in this regard.  If people across the country were talking about how terrific Vanessa Redgrave or Tilda Swinton or Garrett Hedlund were, they might have snuck in when Oscar started his countdown (and no one better blame the Academy for not getting through a screener here when no one else in the country is talking about a film-it’s not the Oscars fault if you have major, bankable stars and you cannot get any heat because for some reason you aren’t going wide).

Halle Berry in Frankie and Alice

My favorite example of this phenomenon is Frankie and Alice from a few years back.  The film starred Oscar-winner Halle Berry (a solid box office draw for the past fifteen years or so) and scored a surprise Golden Globe nomination.  While an Oscar nomination for Berry seemed an uphill climb (it was a very strong lineup), the Golden Globe nomination certainly spurred some interest and she’s an important enough actress that art houses likely would have taken the film in most major markets.  However, the film has never been properly released.  According to imdb, it ran in two film festivals and a one-week qualifier in Los Angeles, but exists now in only bootlegged screeners on the internet.  It never made it to even New York, and has never been released on DVD despite the Globe nod and Berry’s stature.  It has FINALLY found a distributor and will go to theaters this April, three years after Berry competed for Best Actress.  This is darn-near unprecedented in terms of awards shows, but it illustrates my point-Berry has no business being nominated for Best Actress in 2010 for a film that 99% of America only had access to for the first time in 2014.  Even if she’s giving a career best performance (and how would we know, since none of us got to see it), she should be competing as Best Actress in 2014, not 2010.

The real sad thing about Labor Day and The Wind Rises being such humbugs is that this has been a notably good year for studios not trying these shenanigans, and the best way to prove that is the strong push to get foreign language film contenders in theaters across the country prior to the Oscar nominations.  The Great Beauty, The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Past, and Wadjda have all been in the Twin Cities market in recent weeks or will be before the Oscar nominations are announced, and though I didn’t catch them all, I’m secretly hoping that they all get nominated or shortlisted for Oscar, because I want to reward their concerted effort to be seen and heard, rather than just hang on a shelf until they maybe get an Oscar nomination.

I’m reluctant to issue an ultimatum about films having to be in multiple markets to be eligible for Oscar, though, because of the potential implications if a very small film couldn’t land in a major market.  A film like Upstream Color, for example, has picked up some nominations at the Gotham and Spirit Awards, but probably didn’t play in a large number of markets due to subject matter and its lack of major stars.  I don’t want to close the Oscars off to small cinema such as this, particularly if it’s worthy (thankfully this is out on DVD and I’ll see it before I finalize my lists).

However, the other films I’ve highlighted have major stars: Kate Winslet, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, and Halle Berry can all open a movie just fine, and deserve no sort of sympathy.  If offered, Landmark theaters would line up at the opportunity to exhibit their films, and they did/will, but all after their awards heat had flourished.

These are my thoughts, but I’d love yours.  Should the Oscars change their eligibility rules to require films to reach a slightly wider audience?  Should the studios be smart enough to know that people will want to see a nominated film during the awards season and not after it (yes, absolutely)?  And what post-Oscar nomination morning film are you most wishing you could see in the run-up to the ceremony?  Share in the comments!