In case you hadn’t heard, I was the guest on AwardCircuit’s Power Hour this week. We discussed the Best Actress and supporting actress race. Also, you can hear me weekly on the Oscar Poker podcast with Jeff Wells and Phil Contrino. This week’s guest was Variety’s Jeff Schneider.
Meanwhile, Nathaniel has decided to put the Anne vs. Amy dynamic up to his readers up for discussion. Both actresses continually turn in brilliance performances. They both surprise at every turn. Hathaway, to my mind, takes bigger risks (and therefore can sometimes fail harder), while Adams is more consistently good. Check it out.
Yes, Mel that’s absolutely right. She’s this year’s Demian Bechir. Or Daniel Jenkins, and this year’s Best Actress is sparse, surprisingly. She worked with everyone and they all love her, but she’s NEVER had a part like this! I felt so happy for her! Ann the actress, not the character, Sandra, she’s portraying so memorably. An unattracive, middle-aged woman who is simply trying to do her job and all hell breaks loose!
Critic’s awards, the Actot’s branch loving her, I can see it all happening. I hope it does. But this is how it starts, AND she’s in a very well done thriller, too. AND it opened a Sundance. I guess both Sundance debut-ers she and Qu’venzhane Wallis are going to be in the Oscar mix come the holidays.
Looked it up, I will have to wait until August 31st for it to play in San Diego. Not too long!
I want to see that movie badly. If she’s that good, it would be nice to see an unexpected face pop into the race like we had last year with Rooney Mara and Demian Bichir.
Stop the presses! I just saw “Compliance” and Ann Dowd, a three-decade veteran character actress, whose name you don’t know, but will now never forget, just blew the roof off the IFC Center in NYC with a tour-de-force of tour-de-force performance. She’s playing a middle-aged, plain, working woman in rural Pennsylvania. She’s a manager of a fast food restaurant called Chick Wich, and I was TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY by the surprise and strength and masterful command of the screen she has, but has never been ever able to show before.
The audience was GALVANIC! They were SCREAMING AT THE SCREEN! I’ve never seen anything like it! Ten people walked out! At least! And the Q&A people were SHOUTING out questions! This is going to be a VERY controversial film, because of the nubile blonde victim at the center of the hell that happens when Sandra, Dowd’s character, gets a call from the police about said blonde.
And the most suspenseful film I’ve seen since Hitchcock erupts violently, but there’s no blood. Just suspense, suspense, suspense and one of the best performances of this or any year by Ann Dowd.
She’s hapless. SHe’s helpless. You love her and you hate her. And it’s the simplest of movies. Just Ann Dowd and a cell phone. And the voice of the devil at the other end of the line. You wouldn’t think something so simple, set in a bare STORAGE ROOM, for cripe’s sake, would be something so memorable, but it is It is.
And Ann Dowd is somebody the Academy, especially the Actor’s Branch, are going to lovelovelove. She’s no glamour girl. She’s no Rita Hayworth. Or Marilyn Monroe. She’s a great actress emerging in a great role, the greatest of her career.
If you’re talking about some dark horse coming out of left field to light up the sky, it’s Ann Down. In “Compliance”. It’s based on true events. People are going to hate this movie. Some of them. But you can’t deny Ann Dowd’s heart-rending, infuriating, unbelievably simple performance. True. Acting. Greatness.
And an AMPAS film all the way.This, they’ll watch.
^ I’d LOVE to see Annette win. In my mind, she is the greatest alive right now that does not have an Oscar. Does she have something Oscary this year though? I haven’t seen Ruby Sparks, but I haven’t heard much buzz about her in that.
I like the Triple A -idea of having Anne, Amy and Annette. If this turns out to be true, watch out for Annette, because in Academy’s (another A) eyes, she is the most overdue and was even pretty close to winning last time.
i don’t know what it is about amy adams. she is a great actress yes, but she just annoys the shit out of me.
That was a typo. The typo of typos. I MEANT to say “Baker’s Wife” but I guess Patti Lupone as Sweeney Todd, the butcher, was bubbling up from my unselfconscious unconsious. I can’t believe I typed that!
And “Into the Woods” is a popular hit and I liked Amy in it, as I said. But it’s a good, sympathetic, but PALE role compared to Cinderella who gets the BIG number and the Witch(Donna Murphy) singing “Children WIll Listen.”
But that VERY bad Ben Brantley review more or less killed the show’s chances of transferring anywhere else. So catch it quick! On the night I went it had rained all afternoon, and so people thought it would still continue to rain out the performance, too. But it stopped, was a lovely evening, and they were HANDING OUT tickets before the performance!
Well the Into the Woods in the Park got a pretty scathing review from the New York Times. An excerpt concerning Amy, who plays the Salesman’s Wife, Mrs Loman.
Ms. Adams, the beguiling star of the films “Enchanted” and “Julie & Julia,” overcomes the handicap of a furry tea cozy of a wig to deliver a lucidly spoken and sung performance. But she remains an attractive blank throughout, without the nervy, dissatisfied restlessness the part requires. (It might be better if she and Ms. Mueller, whose Cinderella comes across as a prickly doormat, changed parts.) As her husband, Mr. O’Hare goes for a deadpan affectlessness, even as we yearn to connect empathetically with his beleaguered Baker.
The full review.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/theater/reviews/into-the-woods-by-stephen-sondheim-and-james-lapine.html?smid=fb-share&pagewanted=1
Now I’m not one to rely on hearsay and gossip, BUT I can’t imagine anyone voting for Amy to win an Oscar with this lurking travesty. Maybe she could overcome this malignant impediment by making an appearance on you-know-who’s show (Don’t want a google search to bring him here) and telling the world how otherwise fantastic she is.
Hathaway. Has the more appealing role at least to the Academy. Her role in a box office hit as the best thing about TDKR will only boost her work in Les Miz.
Adams seems to have an interesting unsympathetic role, but she does have Harvey backing her up along 3 nominations in 7 years.
I’ve always thought Supporting would come down to Anne and … Bening (Imogene)?
Amy is wonderful, and yes, she has Harvey. It could happen. But I feel like she is a close 2nd or 3rd RIGHT NOW.
If Imogene winds up being ‘something’. I feel like it could be Bening’s to lose.
Eh, what do I know? 🙂
Why can’t Anne go lead? it may be a stretch for that character, but if the movie is a hit, TWS could campaign her there (you know the Globes will nominate her for Lead Actress in a Musical, hell, she might even win). The Lead Actress race looks empty as hell and if she’s nominated there we can have Amy and Anne be Oscar winners and everyone in Hollywood and in the world would be happy ’cause they’re like the sweetest and nicest actresses around, and they also happen to be talented.
The CANDLESTICK MAKER (thanks for the set-up, Antoinette)
Didn’t Amy play the candlestick maker’s wife?
Butcher, Baker, Marcy, Spy
There’s gotta be someone else.
I’m more of a baker than a butcher, steve50. So it must be someone else killing you.
rufussondheim – you are killing me tonite!
It’s the baker’s wife. Her husband was a baker. This is not Sweeney Todd. It’s Into the Woods. You can tell because of the presence of Little Red Riding Hood. You see, Little Red shows up at the baker’s and asks for some bread because she’s going to grandmother’s house, and then she asks for sticky buns (or four) and a few of the pies (at least she says please)
She does not ask for lamb chops or mutton or ground turkey, she doesn’t ask for chicken or a certificate of authenticity for a chicken declaring that it’s a free range chicken. If she did, than maybe I could see you thinking that a butcher was in the mix here. But it was not.
The poor guy, even his father was a baker, having believed his father died in a baking accident. Baking, apparently, is a family business (see The Hunger Games for proof)
Butchery, like in Sweeney Todd, always ends in death.
Well, the Baker’s Wife does get crushed by a giant, so maybe I can understand your confusion.
Well, I’m going out on a limb and stating that neither Amy nor Anne will take BSA. Both will likely be nominated, but the eventual winner hasn’t surfaced yet. Buzz dies fast for supporting roles and that’s when the unexpected happens.
This was back in the days when I didn’t have a blog. Only a TV show and a web series, and I thought that would be enough, but no…
And now I remember why I didn’t get to barely interact with Amy, I was sort of corraled by Viola Davis, who was ALSO there, also in “Doubt” as everyone knows, and she who I had seen on the stage, she and I had a few nice, exciting moments of chatting. Before yes, they all had to go onstage and do the Q&A with Meryl, John Patrick Shanly, Viola AND Amy! It was a memorable Q&A but I don’t remmber Amy saying ANYthing!
Lovely performance in “Into the Woods” in Central Park by Amy as the Baker’s Wife. Glamour-less, and with the worst hair piece in the history of theater but she still made you feel for her as the Butcher’s Wife.
It’d be win / win either way, both are Academy caliber actresses, Amy feels more overdue after three nominations and is pretty consistently wonderful; great and a surprise in The Fighter. I can’t imagine Anne Hathaway thinks of herself as a featured actress at this stage of her career BUT it is a featured role in the stage version, so the category would be correct for her.
they were probably guarding poor Amy because instead of asking her something interesting or enlightening you probably would have asked her to check out your blog
Can’t believe he forgot to mention THE MUPPETS in Amy’s Musical box. It IS a musical, she sings several songs. Ooops!
Yes, Annie is a campaigner. She’s been on my show TWICE! And Amy never has…I saw her once…off-stage…where she was getting ready to go on stage for “Doubt” and I thought she looked as though she wanted to say “Hi” or something, but the press reps were guarding them all. This was for a BAFTA screening in NYC, followed by a Q&A and Meryl, and Shanley, of course, dominated.
Based on Jessie Crall’s tweets and comments right here at AD, he seemed to think that Amy didn’t have enough of a part in “The Master” but of course, it’s a Harvey film so all bets are off…
Harvey RARELY misses a chance to hype an Actress or Supp. Actress nom. but he certainly did overlook poor Juliane Moore who was sooooo wonderful in “The Single Man” where he was giving Colin Firth the big TWC full-coiurt push.
You’d almost never know Julianne was even in the movie! Unless you saw it!
He even had Colin call me via satellite from London for “A Single Man” and though he didn’t win THAT year. He did get nominated and won handily the following year for “King’s Speech.”
It’s just how “Les Miz” turns out, and TDKR is NOT an “Academy performance.” But “Les Miz” judging by the now legendary trailer, sure is.
And yes, I finally saw TDKR and no, I wasn’t crazy about it. OK but not much more.
I’ll just ignore how horrible that trailer for Great Expectations was…the movie looks ok. Carter looks like the highlight of the whole movie…then again, Miss Havisham was the highlight of the novel, at least for me. By far the most colorful and exciting character.
It was like a video sparknotes of the book. Hoping the movie doesn’t disappoint
Great Expectations Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OLdUO2dCIRE
Add Helena to the Mix I think, she is the type of actress that can do this part justice (Unlike Gillian)
Even though, critics are raving about her performance in Dark Knight Rises, she simply won’t be nominated for that role. It is what it is, when it comes to comic films at the Academy Awards. They only get tech nominations, besides the late Heath Ledger (rare case). She MIGHT be nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal in TDKR, though!
Just what is a musical. Anne’s 12 nights was a musical and so was Elle Enchanted. BUt I do not see Anne on the camping on the trail for an Oscar, nominations possible for both miserable and bats.
Jane where did you find that photo?
Jon: He’s talking about Doubt. Though myself and many others would probably disagree. I would have put Adams in my top five that year.
It will come down to which actress gives a more heartfelt performance. If we’re going by this picture alone, we see a possible winner in her near future! 😀
http://tinyurl.com/9qsrbpb
She’s about to set the bar high. This without a doubt, will be her best performance of her career.
Two great actresses who both will probably win an Oscar one day anyway. I am trying to think of the Adams performance you didn’t think deserved the nomination? The Fighter? I didn’t think it was that bad of a nomination.
Had Anne Hathaway been nominated for One Day last year, it would’ve been a calamitous decision on a Crash-over-Brokeback scale.
Just on paper…. Anne seems like a winner.
Her character has everything the Academy is a real sucker for.
It might change if LesMiz bombs big times, but I just don’t see that.
I love Amy, I really do. But unfortunately it seems she might be the bridemaid all over again.
Of course I could be wrong and I wouldn’t mind it.
She’s a wonderful actress and I’m still sad over her loss for “Junebug”, but well… can’t change it.
Anne has the advantage right now, until things go in the wrong direction.
And even then…. even if the movie gets only mixed reviews…. as long as HER performance get raves, she still has the chance to win.
One thing to consider is that Anne will campaign the hell out this year. Amy has shown that she pretty much is happy just to be nominated and to be invited to the party. She doesn’t really go out of her way to campaign for herself. Anne has made it pretty clear that she wants an Oscar and will have no problem putting everything out there to get it, like Clooney. Not saying that Anne won’t deserve it but we all know that it comes down to campaigning. I mean Meryl didn’t win until Harvey made her campaign. If Harvey doesnt forget about Amy and makes her work for it then we might have a race. If he just focuses on the “boys” and lets Amy do what she has always done then Anne will win easily.
Anne Hathaway looked very strong in “One Day” last year. She deserved a nomination, but 2011 was very over-crouded with strong and powerfull female performances.
Wait… you don’t consider Hathaway’s non-nomination for “Love & Other Drugs” a snub?
Two of my favorite actresses, and I hope both win an Oscar soon. More than likely one of them will this year.