OVP: 21 Grams (2003)

Film: 21 Grams (2003)
Stars: Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston, Melissa Leo
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Naomi Watts, Supporting Actor-Benicio del Toro)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We're continuing on with a throwback to 2003 again (as you might have seen this morning, 2003 is where a lot of my viewing focus is right now in terms of the movies that are coming from Netflix DVD), with 21 Grams, the other Sean Penn movie from 2003.  That year, Penn got all of his movement for Mystic River, and from that movie he finally won an Oscar.  I kind of wondered, though, if it was just the "time" for Penn to win, and if he'd have just as easily been the victor for 21 Grams, which obviously didn't slouch in the acting nominations, scoring for Naomi Watts (in Best Actress), and to fit our theme, Benicio del Toro (in Best Supporting Actor).  Before we discuss the three performances, though, let's go into the movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is, much like AGI's later film Babel, a tale of intersecting stories that eventually start to merge.  Unlike Babel, though, the film is told completely out-of-sequence, so as an audience you come to realize that you're seeing pictures of three central characters lives that will eventually merge together in a distinct order.  You have Paul (Penn), who is dying of a heart condition and is trying to create a child with his wife Mary (Gainsbourg) before he dies, Cristina (Watts), a former drug addict who now lives a suburban life with her husband (Huston) & two children, and Jack (del Toro) a former convict who becomes a born-again Christian and lives with his wife Marianne (Leo).  All of this falls apart when Jack accidentally kills Cristina's husband-and-children in a car accident, a car accident that eventually leads to her husband giving his heart to Paul. All three figures lives fall out-of-control, with Paul having an affair with Cristina, and Jack wanting to turn himself in despite Marianne's protestations.

Things get worse for all three before ultimately two of them (Jack & Cristina) find some redemption while Paul ends up dying (which is what he wants at that point in the film, to be honest), but you get the idea of what we're dealing with here.  AGI is arguably the most "important" modern filmmaker whose work I do not get.  I have liked exactly one of his movies (Birdman), but otherwise it always feels like he's making us watch people be tortured with little narrative payoff.  21 Grams might hit a new low on that front, to be honest.  The movie borders on torture porn the way that it grimly portrays all characters involved, and because of the (nonsensical-I don't understand this creative decision at all) scenes being out-of-sequence, we never get any sense of what these people's lives were like when they were happy.  The only character that gives any sense of normalcy in the film (and is my favorite part of the cast) is Melissa Leo's Marianne, who feels like a real person and not just a vessel for these people's woes to flow through.

Del Toro is the best of the central three figures.  This isn't in the same league as his strong work in Traffic, but it's at least an interesting characterization.  There's something there, even if the script is drowning out the character, and you always feel like given more room to breathe he'd find his way...though it's hard to give too much credit for a performance that is theory rather than practice.  Watts, though, is...bad.  I know that's mean (and I love her in other things like The Painted Veil or King Kong), but I don't get this at all.  This feels like the sort of nomination that happens when an actor has been a big deal for too long and the Academy is starting to look foolish for not nominating them at least once, but there's so little range in her emotions as Cristina.  Watts' portrays her as constantly screaming, constantly angry, as if there's no "formerly at peace" person underneath, despite that being a part of the script.  The movie does her no service, it's true, but I feel both she and Penn are giving in to the anguish of the script without adding any sort of texture to their work.

Novitiate (2017)

Film: Novitiate (2017)
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Dianna Agron, Julianne Nicholson
Director: Margaret Betts
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Films about religion are hard to make in the modern era.  During the height of the biblical epic, you didn't need to really allow for nuance.  Ben-Hur, which is an excellent movie in this reviewer's opinion, is perhaps the best example of this: while it occasionally has you looking below-the-surface into conversations about fame, faith, and sexuality, it's the sort of movie that wouldn't fly today.  We'd need a crisis-of-conscious to be a movie that gets into the Oscar conversation, or that would get enough thought pieces to have people clamoring to see the picture.  Novitiate, dissimilar in nearly all ways to Ben-Hur except the religious angle, is at once the sort of movie that would launch those thought pieces, but it's decidedly even-handed in its treatment of a young woman's path to god, and the conservative beliefs of many of its characters.  In doing so, it occasionally feels like it lacks a point-of-view but perhaps is one of the more spiritual films I've seen in a long while, hoping that the audience connects with the journey of the young women highlighted in the picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Cathleen (Qualley), a young woman who after a chance decision by her largely agnostic mother Nora (Nicholson) to go to church, falls in love with Catholicism.  Largely against her mother's wishes, she decides to become a nun, and enters a very strict convent as a postulant, where she is befriended by her mentor Sister Mary Grace (Agron) and is under the strict hand of the Reverend Mother (Leo).  The film unfolds as we learn more about the women that are seeking God, sometimes from standpoints that feel genuine (Cathleen, for example), while others see it as romantic or a familial obligation (one girl does it because she wants to be like Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story, which feels both totally believable as a reason a teenager would devote her life to such work and of course completely impractical).  The struggles within the convent over modernity are magnified as Vatican II is occurring in the background of these young women struggling with the strict, occasionally deeply painful practices employed by the Reverend Mother, and the budding sexuality of Cathleen, who is trying to figure out how to have a romantic relationship with God.

The movie's claustrophobia works in its favor as we see these women realize things about themselves through prayer and near-constant reflection.  Without outside distractions (they have none of the typical romantic or occupational obstacles we normally see in a movie about a young woman), the film is able to show how spending days and weeks on-end forced in silence and observation could result in you questioning everything about yourself.  This results in the film's politics being quite loose-you don't get the typical religious zeal you normally receive from modern Christian movies (there's no uplifting story or a coded Republican message underneath this film's veneer); in such a film, we'd see Julianne Nicholson's mother as the villain, but instead she's seen as more a weary and confused bystander.  Nor is the film particularly liberal in its ideology.  We don't get the sense that filmmaker Margaret Betts is against the church, and certainly isn't against these women's belief in something higher, but wants to more show the complicated nature of devoting yourself to an unprovable cause.  The film's best scene, arguably, is late in the picture in a moment that would normally play as conservative propaganda, where the nuns of the picture weep over the changes that have occurred from Vatican II (particularly that nuns were no longer to be considered "closer to God" than the average parishioner), but instead comes across as a moment of mourning.  These women have devoted their entire life to a belief that has been shattered (it's not a mistake that sexism is underlined here, as priests do not get the same sort of demotion in the church), and it's heartbreaking to watch even if you believe that the reforms of the Second Vatican were ultimately essential to the church's survival.

This scene, and many like it, is anchored by very good performances in the film.  Melissa Leo has a flare for the overacting, and indeed playing a complicated and occasionally cruel Reverend Mother allows for moments where you wonder if you're witnessing a truly great theater performance or perhaps something the director should have reigned in a bit.  However, it's impossible to deny how watchable she is, and let's not forget she's an Oscar winner for a reason-some of the quieter moments in the picture, such as the Vatican II reading or her conversations with the sisters or the archbishop, are splendid.  Leo finds this woman's voice, and humanizes a character that many lesser actors would have turned into a gorgon.  She's aided by bravura work from Qualley and Agron, who play not entirely dissimilar characters, but find unique paths for both.  Qualley, most well-known to audiences for her work on The Leftovers, shows a very strong range in her work (Cathleen bears little resemblance to her work as Jill Garvey), and lands the ending, which is a tricky scene to play (we end having to truly believe we don't know whether Cathleen will take her vows as a Novitiate).  We are left with a lot of unanswered questions that sometimes feel like a cop-out to an audience that aspires for resolution, but perhaps that is Betts' theme for the picture-that faith has to be found.

Women and the Best Picture Race

There have been a number of conversations about diversity at the Oscars this year, and while I was going to write an article on the subject, Nathaniel Rogers over at the Film Experience beat me to it, and did it so well that I feel that linking is the best way to add to the conversation (though please read through it if you want to have a conversation to improve diversity in Hollywood and not just want to complain about the Oscars).  As a result of this, but still wanting to contribute to the conversation, I decided to comment on something that actually got better this year than last year, though it's not where we want it to be yet (optimism is out-of-vogue on the internet, but I figured I'd give it a shot) and that is the amount of women that are in the Best Picture field.

As you may recall from last year, only one of the eight nominees for Best Picture featured a woman in a leading role (The Theory of Evrything's Felicity Jones), and only half of the films managed to pass the Bechdel Test.  This year we actually have a rosier picture, even if movies like Carol didn't manage to make it into the conversation, as nearly half of the films feature a female lead in their picture.  The rest of the field may have had some room for improvement, but let's take a rundown of the eight Best Pictures and the roles that women played in each of them (Spoilers Ahead for all eight films so if you haven't seen one, skip, only read the rest, and bookmark for a later date)

Film: The Big Short
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 1? (I hate the IMDB method of only going with first person onscreen-list by order in the cast credits!).  As a result, I don't know if it was Finn Wittrock or in fact Marisa Tomei or Melissa Leo in the fifth position.  Let's go benefit of the doubt and assume it's Marisa Tomei even though screen-time wise it's not remotely her.
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character? Wife
What Role Does She Have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: Absolutely nothing-she becomes a bit of a sounding board for Steve Carell, but really there's little she has to do with the film's resolution.
Does She Have a Her Own Life Outside the Main Character?: No, she doesn't-we never see Tomei outside of her life that involves her husband.
Does it Pass the Bechdel Test?: No, it does not.

Film: Bridge of Spies
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 1 (Amy Ryan)
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: Wife
What Role Does She Have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: She's in the final scene of the movie if I recall correctly (or at least near it), but she's mostly just there to remind James Donovan of what normalcy is in his world.  Her life has little bearing on the outcome of the picture.
Does She Have Her Own Life Outside the Main Character?: No, she does not.  Amy's Mary is little more than window dressing in this film, someone who is there to support, occasionally cajole, but ultimately I don't know that she even has any scenes that don't feature her husband (she definitely doesn't have any scenes that don't center upon him).
Does it Pass the Bechdel Test?: No, it does not.

Film: Brooklyn
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 2 (Saoirse Ronan and Julie Walters)
What Is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: With Ronan, she's actually the main character as this is one of the steps in the right direction in this category.  For Walters, she plays Ronan's landlord.
What Role Does She Have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: Ronan is an integral part of the ending of the film, and actually shapes her own narrative even if it is ultimately about deciding on a man (still, it's on deciding specifically which man she wants to be with which is very empowering).  For Walters, she really only features into the first half of the film, so she has no bearing on the ending.
Does She Have Her Own Life Outside the Main Character?: Again, Ronan is the main character and most definitely has an evolution of her own, even outside of the main character.  For Walters, she does as well-she's been a landlord for years, has scenes interacting with her other female tenants, and while she rarely (if ever?) appears in a scene without Ronan's Eilis, it's clear she has other relationships in the film.
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: Constantly-the film's first half in particular is all about the relationships women have with each other and the common struggle of female immigrants in particular.

Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 2 (Charlize Theron and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley)
What Is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: While Tom Hardy's Mad Max may get top-billing and the film uses his character for the title, this is all about the Imperator Furiosa, so this is another case where one of the women is in fact the main character.  In the case of Huntington-Whiteley's Splendid Angharad, she is one of the women that Furiosa is trying to save.
What Role Does She Have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: In the end Furiosa ends up the savior of the Citadel, riding in as their new leader and essentially taking over.  Huntington-Whiteley has little bearing on the ending, but she too manages to at least live until the end and is welcomed back into the Citadel.
Does She Have Her Own Life Outside the Main Character?: This is true of both women.  Furiosa has been pining to get to her home of the Green Place and Max is incidental to this goal, while The Splendid Angharad has had a pretty crappy life up until this point, but it's clearly established and gets a personality distinct from the other wives.
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: Yes-it's a little hard to follow on this front because names aren't often given out and when they are they don't sound like names, but I'm fairly confident that the wives and the Vuvalini all get names at some point, and they have multiple discussions about their journey and the Green Place, so I'm going with a pass.

Film: The Martian
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 2 (Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara)
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: In the case of Chastain's Commander Melissa Lewis, she's his boss and in the case of Kate Mara's Beth, she's a fellow crew mate on his ship.
What Role Does She have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: While both women are involved in Mark's rescue, in the case of Chastain in particular she plays a pretty integral role as she has to suspend and risk her life in order to save Mark from Mars.
Does She Have Her Own Life Outside the Main Character?: Again, with Chastain this isn't really well-established.  We see her having interactions with other characters, and her job is clearly important to her, but Mark Watney is her focus for almost the entire film and she doesn't really get a side story.  Mara, on the other hand, gets a romantic interest (and it's Sebastian Stan, no less), and so I'd say yes for her getting a life outside of Mark since she has relationships established outside of his world.
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: Yes-I had to look this one up as I couldn't remember an instance of this happening, but it does appear that Chastain and Mara discuss decompressing the ship, so this is pass.

Film: The Revenant
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: None-this is the only film (The Big Short is a question mark) where we can unequivocally state that there are no women in the top billed stars.  Grace Dove is the top billed actress for the movie as far as I can tell even though she doesn't have a line, though Melaw Nakehk'o gets a character with a line and a name, it's worth noting.  For the purposes of this exercise we'll stick with the higher-billed Dove as that's who the film spends more time upon.
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: Dead wife
What Role Does She have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: While she is in some ways a driving force in the film, that role more accurately falls upon her son, in which case absolutely none.
Does She Have a Role Outside the Main Character?: Literally none-she's dead the entire movie, and as a result only exists in his own flashbacks and premonitions, so this isn't really an option for her.
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: Not even close.  Nakehk'o has the only named female character, and she gets one line that is used toward a man.

Film: Room
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 2 (Brie Larson and Joan Allen)
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: For the third time this year, we have a film where a female character (in this case Larson's Joy) is the main character.  Joan Allen plays her mother.
What Role Does She have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: Joy's a central part of the conclusion, and the final moments of the film actually return to her narrative, even if we always see the film through Jack's eyes (except in the last moment where Joy has to contemplate what Room was to her).  Allen's role is largely ancillary to the final conclusion of the film.
Does She Have a Role Outside the Main Character?: This is a complicated question, especially since by limits of geography Joy doesn't have a role outside the main character but she frequently has to deal with troubles that don't involve Jack, and has to sort through her own mental issues after her breakdown during the interview.  Joan Allen's character also has a boyfriend and has dealt with relationships apart from Joy and Jack, so I'd also count her as a yes here.
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: Yes, the film has multiple scenes between Joy and Joan Allen's Nancy, including discussions of their relationship and the trauma of the kidnapping.

Film: Spotlight
Number of Females in the Top-5 Billed Stars: 1 (Rachel McAdams)
What is Her Relationship to the Main Character?: I'm going to assume here that Keaton is considered the main character, even though he's not top-billed, in which case her relationship is employee of him.  This is more of an ensemble piece, though, so it's hard to say.
What Role Does She Have to the Eventual Conclusion of the Film?: She's definitely a part of the finale, waiting and answering calls and playing a crucial role in the writing of the Catholic priest/pedophile story.
Does She Have a Role Outside the Main Character?: A lot has been made about McAdams' Oscar nomination and how the role she's playing feels pretty lackadaisical or that she's merely playing "the girl," but it's worth noting that she does have a life outside of the main characters, as her home life and relationship with her family/faith is also discussed in the picture, so I'd say this is a definitive "yes."
Does It Pass the Bechdel Test?: It's questionable.  McAdams' Sacha does have a conversation with her grandmother about her story, but her grandmother is never given a name other than "Nana" so I don't know that that counts under the rules of the Bechdel Test.  You can decide in the comments below.

And speaking of, there are the eight Best Pictures.  All-in-all, probably not where we'd need to go (it's still be nice to hit 50/50 and to have all passes for the Bechdel Test) but a decided improvement over last year.  Share your thoughts on the Best Picture race and favorite female character moments in them below!

OVP: The Big Short (2015)

Film: The Big Short (2015)
Stars: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Finn Wittrock, Marisa Tomei
Director: Adam McKay
Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay*, Supporting Actor-Christian Bale, Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I reacted to The Big Short in the same way I did The Martian a few months ago when I first heard about it: "really, another one?"  Coming so soon after The Wolf of Wall Street (in the same way The Martian felt like a retread of Interstellar) I wasn't sure I wanted to once again get into the bro-tastic world of Wall Street and the financial crisis, even if Adam McKay had hired Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, and Finn Wittrock, the first two being two of my favorite actors working and the latter fast becoming one.  Then the shock of the Globes/SAG Awards happened, and suddenly The Big Short had gone from being a retread to a serious contender for the Academy Awards, and viewing it stopped being optional.  Thankfully for at least most of the movie I wasn't punished for my Oscar devotion, as The Big Short is largely quite watchable, and we get some game moments from almost every person on the cast sheet.  However, a third act that feels a little bit too self-righteous steals a lot of the fun and thunder of the first two-thirds, almost vanquishing the movie in the process.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about the housing crisis, and unlike The Wolf of Wall Street it gets technical, frequently throwing around terms that would normally have audiences reaching for the cell phones to look them up on Google, but thankfully Adam McKay found a way around it.  I don't know if other critics have found this gimmicky or not (I don't read other reviews before I see a film, at least once I've decided to see the film) but I loved the fourth wall breaking when it was done by celebrities.  Nothing quite topped Margot Robbie randomly appearing as herself in a bathtub, but later appearances by Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez were also hilariously on-point, and weirdly informational.  Note to politicians and professors-get celebrities to record your lectures and you'll get people to pay more attention.

This gimmick and the occasional fourth wall break sets the film apart in some ways (though if I recall correctly Leo did the same thing in Wolf of Wall Street-correct me in the comments if I'm wrong!), and honestly the film is highly watchable up until the actual collapse.  All of the male actors, even those who are overplaying their parts (namely Carell and Bale, both pretty lousy at reeling back their characters overblown tics) have at least one great moment in the film, and frequently seeing the ways that Wall Street/the financial industry (and the government is included in that) were rigged against even those who should have been profiting off of their stupidity is fascinating and frightening at the same time.  The film plays in some ways as a horror comedy, as we watch the foolishness of some people and the greed of others threaten to take down the entire financial system and the world economy.  It's staggering in hindsight, but even more staggering to see how infallible everyone seemed to the effects of the system, and one wonders if this was even underplayed to make the movie appear more believable.

The final third of the film, though, where everyone who has been trying to make an enormous profit off of this stupidity gets their payoff and suddenly grows a conscience, is weak.  We see characters played by Bale, Carell, and even Gosling lose their inner stamina and despite making a career off of the greed of others and winning big, they don't like the way that they made the money and try to be the moral police in all of this when in reality they become multimillionaires off of the anguish of the American populace.  They may have wished the system wasn't the way it was, but the system being broken made them richer than their wildest dreams, and the screenplay can't really reconcile that.  Still, up until that point it's a pretty fun ride, and I particularly loved Gosling (such a welcome presence back on the screen in his "I'm ridiculously beautiful and talented" sort of way), Pitt (the only believable moral police), and Wittrock (who is insanely watchable as a guy trying to find his way into "the game").  All-in-all, it's worth the price of admission but the awards love seems a bit much.

Those are my thoughts-how about you?  Did you like, but not love The Big Short, and if not, where did your opinion differ from mine?  Who was the best-in-show amongst the cast members?  And what'd you think of the celebrity cameos?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Actress (2008)

OVP: Best Actress (2008)

The Nominees Were...

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

My Thoughts: 2008 was the Year of the Winslet.  After more than a decade in Hollywood, where she tried pretty much every angle to win an Oscar (Austen, Shakespeare, Hardy, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, famous author, adulteress, dying mother, death row journalist, Nancy Meyers, mistress, maid, and the highest-grossing film of all time), she came out with not one but two major pictures, going both the route of the Holocaust (an Oscar-bait tactic she cheekily parodied years earlier on Extras) and the lonely suburban housewife (another major Oscar-bait tactic).  While most people thought headed into the nominations that she'd end up with a Best Supporting Actress trophy after committing category fraud with The Reader, she was completely overlooked for Revolutionary Road and was cited for Stephen Daldry's film in lead instead.  However, though her win was never in doubt, she did get a pretty solid collection of competitors.  Let's take a look at them, shall we?

Anne Hathaway is in the only film we haven't yet discussed in the OVP writeups, so we'll begin with her.  Honestly, you'd be forgiven a bit if you couldn't recall that Hathaway scored this nomination-so much press has been spilt over her victory for Les Miz and the Hathahate that followed that it's difficult to remember she was actually on her second Oscar nomination in 2012, and her previous one had been in lead, no less.  It's also worth remembering that her Rachel was absolutely splendid-she portrayed an addict not as someone afflicted by her demons, but as someone who is romanced by them.  We see why this woman was able to have such an intoxicating persona, making such a mark on her family.  Hathaway plays Kim like a marvelous, complete creation, never sacrificing the good times to go along with the cold pricklies.  It helps that RoseMarie DeWitt and Debra Winger are great scene partners, but anyone who doubts Hathaway's talents needs to see this movie, where she plays someone too cynical to care but too electric not to still bruise those around her.

Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, could have used some of Hathaway's panache onscreen.  Though my opinion of Changeling has improved slightly with these write-ups, the impact of Jolie's performance hasn't gotten much better.  Jolie's performance in the film is plum, filled with Oscar-tastic moments about a woman who has lost her son, but she never really plays to much more than concerned mother.  There's great shouting and crying, but that's about it-every scene she seems to modulate not just her performance to the mood of that scene, but also her character, to the point where she's just reflecting those around her.  This could be an interesting tactic, except this strategy stops randomly, where suddenly she's in-charge and having none of it for no reason other than it's convenient to the plot.  It's a performance where she goes in so many directions that I just couldn't get into it, and wished that she would have picked a better crescendo or made more consistent character choices.

The same can't quite be said for Meryl Streep.  Her Sister Aloysius is someone who is consistent to the point of potentially devastating consequence.  Streep is an actor of such incredible range and ability that the film feels a little bit odd-there's never a moment of subtlety, and she doesn't have the advantage that she did in Devil Wears Prada where she isn't at the center of the story, instead just glaring from the sidelines.  Here she's constantly in the spotlight, and it does occasionally throw some harsh light on her work as she overplays certain dramatic scenes (particularly the wildly theatrical spars with Hoffman), but she does find moments of great wonder, particularly when acting off Viola Davis.  In those scenes you see not just Sister Aloysius challenged, but also Meryl Streep, watching an actress who came to win and to impress, and Streep plays those scenes like Serena Williams when she's being challenged by a surprisingly good upstart.  Still, it's a weird act where Streep is sometimes mesmerizing and sometimes hammy.

Melissa Leo doesn't have this problem-her work in Frozen River is outstanding, full stop.  The film is just a centerpiece for Leo to deliver her best performance to-date, here as a woman who is at the end of her rope, trying to find a way to survive in the poorest of situations (where she's trying to keep her trailer and force her son into school).  Watching the way that Leo transforms in this film, finding her life was in auto-pilot and then she suddenly finds a reason not only to live, but to think about the world outside of her purview is outstanding.  There's nothing particularly new about what Leo is doing here, and yet she sells the character and her work as if she does.  It takes an actor of fine talent to be able to transform a story we have seen before and engage us and challenge our way of thinking.  Melissa Leo's Ray Eddy does that.

Which brings us back to Kate Winslet.  Years later, I am still a bit swept-up by The Reader, a film that I loved when it came out and was stunned by the fact that it made it into so many Oscars, and then shocked to find out other people hadn't felt the same way about the film.  To me, though, it was a truly well-kept love story, romantic in its passions as well as in its questionable morality.  Winslet's pining for something, a world outside of her own, feels genuine here-I never felt like I was looking at someone creating a part, but instead at someone who was desperate to escape the tragedy of her existence.  Winslet plays her as someone who was not trying to improve her own world, but instead as someone who was desperately trying to understand it but didn't seem to have the grasp to be able to do it.  Her Reader is finely thought-out and fascinating, but Kate also finds a way to bridge her actions with the rest of the movie, which is not an easy feat.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course separate between Comedy/Musical and Drama, and they also kept Winslet in supporting so instead she won here for Revolutionary Road, taking out Hathaway, Streep, Jolie, and Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long, while Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky bested Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading), Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), and Emma Thompson (Last Chance Harvey).  The SAG Awards went with a near carbon-copy of the Oscar lineup, except here Winslet was nominated for Revolutionary Road and Meryl Streep won for Doubt.  The BAFTA's went with Winslet in lead for The Reader (she won here as well), with Melissa Leo being skipped for Kristin Scott Thomas.  In hindsight, while it is hard to tell where Winslet stood (it seems certain that if she had been in supporting for The Reader that she still would have been cited for Revolutionary Road, perhaps even winning two Oscars in the same night), I don't know that it's in sixth place, it's just very hard to tell which was in that position.  Sally Hawkins became the first person ever to miss after winning NYFCC, LAFCA, Boston, and the Globes, but Kristin Scott Thomas was in a drama that was far baitier.  Hawkins makes more sense on-paper, but I kind of think Scott Thomas was closer, and let's not forget that Cate Blanchett was also in the running.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: This is one of those rare years where I would have bucked AMPAS's rules if I was allowed and given two nominations to the same actor-Winslet is so good in both The Reader and Revolutionary Road and both pieces of work would make my Top 5.  Still, I can't help but feel a pang of sadness that Kristin Scott Thomas, who seems to be toying with retirement from film, didn't get a well-deserved second nomination for her mesmerizing work in I've Loved You So Long.

Oscar’s Choice: It was The Year of the Winslet-if she'd taken supporting already Meryl might have finally nabbed her third trophy or perhaps Angelina Jolie would have won the year after she was snubbed for A Mighty Heart, but with only one option the Oscars were claiming Winslet for their own.

My Choice: At the time I agreed with them and gave Winslet my statue, and I still love what Winslet was doing, but I will admit that I hadn't seen the stark winter of Melissa Leo's work, and I feel like that holds up better even if I like The Reader the movie more.  So I'm going to defy my better judgment (I don't know if Winslet will win an OVP after this and she's a favorite of mine, but that's not what the OVP is about) and go with Leo, with Winslet, Hathaway, Streep, and Jolie coming in behind.

Is anyone with me on defying The Year of the Winslet, or are you all about Kate the Great?  This is the lowest I've ranked Meryl Streep so far-do you have a "least favorite" of Meryl's nominated works?  And Kristin, Sally, or Cate-who was in that coveted sixth place position?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2008: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2008

Past Best Actress Contests: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

OVP: Prisoners (2013)

Film: Prisoners (2013)
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

It's hard not to judge a book by its cover, and in a way that's true for a movie.  A movie has a more complicated cover-it's sometimes the trailer, it's sometimes the real-life inspiration, but most of the time, it starts with the cast and director of a film.

In the case of Prisoners, for me, it could not have had a more interesting or less intriguing cover, somehow simultaneously.  On the one hand, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fall film with three actresses I love more at the moment than Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, and Maria Bello-each has given at least one Oscar-worthy performance in the past decade, and are consistently fascinating screen performers.  Denis Villeneuve, the film's director, recently picked up an OVP award from me for his complicated Incendies.  And Jake Gyllenhaal makes most everything better, particularly when he's playing a detective (Zodiac is one of the best films of the past decade, and a must-see if you haven't already).

This would normally be enough for me, but the men in this film gave me a collective yawn (with the exception of Jake).  Hugh Jackman, Terrence Howard, and Paul Dano have all had their moments before (well, Howard and Dano have), but I've grown to find them all extremely hammy since those moments, and each routinely takes the opportunity to serve their performance with a side of ham.  So I went into this movie somewhat optimistic (the reviews have been kind), but with a tense stomach.

(Spoilers Ahead)...and that's how I left.  The film unfolds in an even-keeled fashion-you get to know where it's headed quickly, and because it's a big screen adventure and not an episode of SVU, you know that it's coming with a solidly happy ending.  The movie unfolds swiftly-we meet two couples and their similarly aged children (Jackman & Bello, Davis & Howard), and thanks to tell-it-all trailers, we know their little girls will be taken (though, in the trailer-maker's defense, that was evident the second the movie started rolling).

The characters take wildly sharp turns after the kidnapping.  Howard and Davis, despite their daughter missing, get shoved to the background of the film-they are in mourning, but not doing anything that grieving parents wouldn't do.  Maria Bello's wife, who was so strong in the movie's opening scenes, becomes bedridden and lives off of a combination of sleep and medication.

Then there's he-man alpha male Hugh Jackman, who is trying very hard to show that he's not a musical actor (they even make a joke about his singing abilities early in the film).  Jackman's character (named Keller Dover, which is a name someone could TOTALLY have in real life) starts the film already on the edge-his sense of paranoia is sharp, and he stores shelves upon shelves of emergency supplies in his basement for some coming doom.  He's a loose cannon who just had his keg lit.

Jackman gets it through his head that one man in particular, Alex Jones (Paul Dano, who has gotten far too twitchy and overact-y since his strong turn in There Will Be Blood), and decides to take the law into his own hands when the police are forced to release Alex due to a lack of evidence.

My problems with these scenes were not that what Jackman was doing-torturing a man he has scant evidence was involved in his daughter's disappearance-was wrong, it's that it was obviously wrong the second he started doing it.  I would have to go back and look and see if Keller really heard the whispered, veiled message that spurred his taking of Alex, but it doesn't matter.   The film is trying to take a poke at recent hit films like Taken, where the love of a father justifies him killing dozens of potentially innocent people to get her back.  But to any sane human being, not killing innocent people is totally obvious.

The film takes a jut from "really?" to bad when they try to have their cake and eat it too with Keller-they want to make you think "edgy" and "how far will he go?" but they don't have the guts to have him not gain any knowledge from the torture (I wasn't kidding about the spoiler alerts, so look out).  He finally gets a comment about a "maze" which leads to him, eventually, learning that Melissa Leo's "aunt" to Alex is the real diabolical genius and kidnapper, and Alex was just a pawn.  By having the torture lead to something fruitful, the director seems intent on justifying what had just happened, and making everyone in the audience who thought "that's what I would do if I were in Keller's shoes" feel appeased.  The film would have been far edgier if they had left it with David Dastmalchian's enigmatic and haunted man as the killer-having Keller truly have to deal with the fact that he held an innocent man in captivity and tortured him to the brink of his life without any purpose or justification-that's an interesting movie.  But instead, we are given yet another cake-and-eat-it-to situation.

The problem with this, and why I cannot write this film off entirely, is that there are other strong elements at work here aside from Jackman's unfortunate plot and overcooked performance.  I adored, for example, what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing here with his complicated detective.  Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki (always a good sign when you don't have to look up a character's name after the first viewing) moves through the film, haunted and broken.  You learn just enough about him for him to remain interesting-he's what I was hoping Daniel Craig's character in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would have been-a phantom, someone of a strong moral compass who also has seen a bit too much of the world.  Gyllenhaal has had some wandering since he gave us all the epic lovelorn cowboy in Brokeback Mountain and followed it up with a nerdy, eccentric detective in Zodiac, but this is the same actor we fell in love with a few years back, who promised to take the art house circuit by storm.  Detective Loki is operating on a better movie than Prisoners, and hopefully someone will soon give Gyllenhaal just that.

The film also has other things worth noting, though Gyllenhaal is the greatest stand-out.  My love of Melissa Leo knows no end, and I have been dying for her to play a villain.  She also grabs her big moments toward the end of the movie-I love the way she spits out her reason for kidnapping children-you get shivers knowing the way she blurts it out, a speech she's likely given before many times in her head.  The surprise never really happens (you know it's her for most of the movie), but she doesn't pitch to the rafters and she keeps just the right sense of calm-had it not been for Detective Loki, you know she had the cunning to get away with the crime (I hate when movies suddenly make the villain an idiot so that they can get caught).  Leo, as the film's big reveal, has the best chance at awards love, though obviously you have to see the full movie to get the depth of what she's doing.

Eleven paragraphs seems about right for such a film, so I'll leave it at that, though the Comments section is there if you want to discuss Viola Davis or Dylan Minnette (Lost alert!) or Roger Deakins' cinematography.  What were your thoughts on the film?  Do you think it will play into the awards season?  Did you also notice the necklace on the corpse super early on and wonder why no one else put that together?  Share in the comments!

Creative Arts Emmy Winners...

Sorry for the couple day absence-I've been trying to juggle about sixteen different balls (...a metaphor, not a euphemism) for the past few days and have apparently dropped a couple.  We'll be back with our regularly scheduled politics, movies, and other such loveliness tomorrow evening, but tonight I just wanted to quickly chime in on a few of my favorite wins from yesterday's Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

I know the big winner of the night was clearly and deservedly Bob Newhart (speaking of the Kennedy Center Honors, shouldn't they have thought of him by now?), and so I'll lead with him, even though the next win got me more excited.  The guest categories occasionally seem a tad indulgent at the Emmy Awards (there are, by my count, at least seventeen different categories that reward actors at the primetime Emmy Awards alone, and that's not counting if they shuffle over and produce their work), but at least they're using the category for good when they reward Newhart for his befuddled former TV scientist on The Big Bang Theory, and by proxy, a lifetime of excellent television comedy.

But for me, and perhaps only for myself and the wonderful actress, there's no getting around how divine it is that Melissa Leo now has an Emmy to go right next to her Oscar (God bless you Louis CK for hiring my beloved).  Melissa Leo is one of my favorite performers right now (I get visibly gleeful when I find out she's in a movie I'm watching), and anyone who can find a video of her actually accepting this award gets my eternal love and devotion.

Carrie Preston, another incredibly talented character actress also pulled off a victory, in her case for a guest spot on The Good Wife (a show I've never watched, but I've heard is better than it looks, considering the procedural angle and the CBS-branding), so well-done to her.  Does she have a fairly recurring role on that show (or True Blood)?  If not, could someone figure out a way for her to get her own series?  Perhaps a buddy comedy with Melissa Leo (OMG-someone make this happen!)

And we'll end with another fab actress (who could be Preston and Leo's boss on the buddy comedy...just saying), Ms. Lily Tomlin.  While Tomlin has never landed that Oscar, she has a mountain of Emmys, so this doesn't carry quite the same weight as the first-time luck for Bob, Melissa, and Carrie, but Lily Tomlin is a treasure, so I needed to recognize her.  And perhaps, someday, maybe Oscar or the Kennedy Center Honors will too?

What was your favorite win of the evening?  Are you looking forward to this Sunday?  And would you watch a Leo/Preston/Tomlin sitcom?  Share in the comments!

Emmy Reactions

Don't you love them?

The Good

The Emmys are generally everyone’s favorite whipping boy when it comes to television, because, unlike movies, everyone watches so much of it and because there are relatively few precursors, and so everyone has a nomination they hated and a nomination they loved.   For me, my favorite nominations are always the ones that were “on-the-fence” and potentially not going to happen, so Adam Driver’s citation for Girls is about as wonderful as you get.  My current TV boyfriend Adam Sackler (give or take Robb Stark and Blaine Anderson) had a stunning season, particularly that terrific monologue at rehab that may have been the most “jaw-droppingly-awesome-acting” moment I saw on a comedy this year.

Likewise, I have to applaud the myriad nominations that arrived for some of my favorite shows, including Girls, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, and Mad Men.  It’s nice to get that pat-on-the-back for the shows you love, and getting to hopefully have more exposure for the shows (more exposure hopefully equaling more viewers hopefully equaling more time with these characters).

Since no one (except perhaps my brother, who is a wizard at keeping up with every television series) can watch everything, I do want to recognize thinking outside the box with a nomination for Laura Dern’s critically-acclaimed but low-rated work on Enlightened, a series that was cancelled earlier this year (which is partially my fault, as I didn’t watch it).

And finally, Melissa Leo is one of my favorite actors on the planet, and also one of my favorite celebrities on the planet, and so I am thrilled she’s an Emmy nominee once again.  She should win (I don’t care who is against her).  Melissa Leo should win all of the Emmys.  I would watch an awards show of Melissa Leo just accepting Emmys.  And they should give that awards show another Emmy.

Award-worthy?  Yes.  Guest star?  Hardly.

The Confusing

Every year there’s some sort of category confusion, particularly regarding guest work.  How is Diana Rigg, who was in at least half of the Game of Thrones episodes from last season a Guest star?  Or Dot-Marie Jones?  Or Robert Morse?  The person who does these designations seems to have turned this category into “Another Five Supporting Actors,” which seems a bit much.

I am definitely supportive of this move, but am stunned that Eric Stonestreet, Emmy’s favorite man on Modern Family (giving him two trophies) somehow got snubbed in favor of his three costars.  Stonestreet has always been the weakest link of the adults on the series (I’ve many times complained about how much better the Jay/Gloria and Claire/Phil stories are in comparison to Cam/Mitchell, which are typically bitter, redundant, and without any romance), but considering he won the Emmy last year and doesn’t even get nominated this year-strange, no?

The Shunned and the Overly Nominated

The Bad

Am I the only person who is so tired of Alec Baldwin?  I do agree that his Jack Donaghy has been strong through the years and deserved some of his hardware, but yet another nomination?  For what was far more of a Liz Lemon farewell season that a great Jack season?  I’m not buying it, and Baldwin’s been thoroughly obnoxious recently, so I really don’t want to see him beat the affable Jim Parsons or Louis CK.

Additionally, Sarah Paulson is very talented, and I am hugely supportive of her nomination for American Horror Story, but what part of that is a supporting role?  The entire main story arch on the first season belonged to her-she should be in the same company as Lange, leaving someone like Lily Rabe room in supporting.

I don’t really watch reality television, but do occasionally catch snippets of it, and I have to wonder why the reality-competition categories don’t have more variety.  Unlike every other race, cable hasn’t taken too much of a hold of the category yet, and I would imagine that there are a number of quality cable programs that should be replacing Ryan Seacrest and Tom Bergeron once again.  Plus, shouldn’t this entire panel be filled with the judges on The Voice if we’re going to stay on network television?

I would have found room to nominate all three.

The Ugly

My go-to is Jon Cryer here, and he didn’t get nominated, so major bonus points to the Emmy Awards on that front.  I find Anthony Bourdain beyond insufferable, so his nomination was the biggest vomit moment of the morning.

I don’t oftentimes throw stones when I haven’t seen all of the nominees, but I have trouble believing that “The Rains of Castamere,” one of the best-produced hours of television I’ve ever seen, didn’t deserve a Directing nomination to go with its Writing nomination.

I usually have trouble believing seven-wide fields (couldn’t they weight them more so that they don’t result in a tie, and why does it happen so often at the Emmys and it’s never happened at the Oscars with nominations?), and while Glee is very close to my heart, Jane Lynch doesn’t deserve to be alongside the other six women in her category (I watch all but Wever’s show, and I hear she’s the bee’s knees from a critic I trust, so I’m giving her a pass).  Lynch’s story this past year was almost non-existent, and she is certainly getting this because her celebrity is resurgent at the moment.  The problem is that the way the Emmys vote, she actually has a strong featured episode for herself (the Becky shooting episode), which could put at jeopardy a win for Sofia Vergara or Mayim Bialik.  Not to mention the fact that if they really needed a seventh nominee, wouldn’t Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, or Jemima Kirke, the supporting ladies on Girls, have been a far more appropriate choice?  Or better yet, they could have nominated all three!

And while I cherish any citation that goes to Glee, giving it to “Diva,” an episode I openly disliked over so many other great moments (Season 4 was way better than Season 3) is a slap in the face.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Who are you most bummed about Emmy snubbing?  Who were you jumping up-and-down for?  How much do you love Melissa Leo?  Share in the comments!