OscarWatch – Meryl Streep and Glenn Close

Posted by Sasha Stone on Oct 7, 2011 in BEST ACTRESS, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Oscar Watch | 132 comments

If you came of age in the 1980s, you lived through a time when American actresses did not depend on conventional, youthful good looks, or hotness, to get on the A list.  The good parts went to those who took the craft seriously.  A lot has changed since then.  If you look at the Best Actress race of the 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s, the Best Actress race was dominated by strong roles, with established, respected actresses, many of them homegrown here in America, with well-earned clout in Hollywood — clout that was built on their talent, not just how much money they brought in.  Their Oscar nominations bolstered their dominance.  But something shifted.    Was it the moment the young, fresh, charismatic but untrained Julia Roberts became a box office sensation, thus rendering actresses who couldn’t “open” movies obsolete?   Was it the general globalization of the film industry overall? Was it the rise of the target demographic aimed at young boys?

Oscarwatch: On Genre Movies

Posted by Sasha Stone on Sep 9, 2011 in featured, Oscar Watch | 91 comments

Since there aren’t five Best Picture nominees to be had this year, although the rapid about-face the Academy did from last year to this leads me to believe that they will go back to five in the near future, we have a very strange way of going about finding the Best Picture nominees.  We are looking mostly at number 1 choices.  A movie can’t be nominated for Best Picture unless it has 300 number 1s.   It’s generally accepted that the Best Picture slate will wind up being between 6 and 9.

What I’m wondering is, will this help or hurt the genre movies?   By genre movies, we have to look at those popular entertainment pics that made bank.  Of the films that have a chance for Oscar crossover, there are a few that could be seen as genre movies.  With a solid ten nominees, we could figure in the “genre movie slot.”  But with it being only number 1s that get in, we have to rethink how we imagine the possibilities.  You’d be better off still trying to think of five rather than ten.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 = $375,934,867
2. Captain America = $172,509,991
3. Bridesmaids = $168,565,795
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes = $163,570,682
5. Super 8 = $126,569,715

Oscars 2010: Slipping Through Cracks

Posted by Sasha Stone on Dec 28, 2010 in AWARDS CHATTER, Oscar Watch | 0 comments

While Academy members are receiving and filling out their ballots, around the same time, beginning December 30, SAG voters will decide on their final winners. Many of the acting races feel wide open. We assume Best Actor will be Colin Firth, at last, winning for not just his entire career but for his extraordinary work in the very popular film, The King’s Speech. But Jesse Eisenberg could upset in what is the most talked about, or second most, performance of the year. He’s likable in the same way Hannibal Lecter was likable: we admire those who can slice and dice with mere words. It is a deceptively complex performance, one that must be viewed several times to fully appreciate. But Firth has it in so many ways, the least of which his body of work, general good nature, and extremely likable character.

True Oscar Hysteria Officially Launched

Posted by Sasha Stone on Oct 3, 2010 in Oscar Watch | 0 comments

October takes me by surprise every year. I think that things are cruising along at a manageable level and then, wham! October brings Oscar season proper and with it, the good, the bad and the ugly. It didn’t take long for word from last night’s Academy screening of The Social Network to hit the web. The reports varied slightly but somehow the same cast of characters showed up – the odd person who was enthusiastic about it, the odd person who said it lacked emotional something or other, and the odd person who mentioned The King’s Speech as the frontrunner. Pete Hammond at Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter gave slightly upbeat reports, that the Academy members were as entertained by the film as audiences have been.

OscarWatch – Will the Rainbow be Enuf for Tyler Perry?

Posted by Sasha Stone on Sep 9, 2010 in featured, For Colored Girls, Oscar Watch | 0 comments

The Huffington Post has a piece by Scott Mendelson wondering about Tyler Perry’s upcoming For Colored Girls and its Oscar potential. The film is based on the 1975 play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Anyone who ever went to acting school is quite familiar with this play as it’s a popular choice for monologues.

“Oscar potential” refers only to the possibility that the AMPAS will like it enough to nominate it, being that it’s a “Tyler Perry movie” and all. The movie just needs the perception of greatness to make it to the Big Show. It can get that by popping up in one or two of the early critics’ awards, specifically the National Board of Review or the New York Film Critics. It could still make it all the way up to Oscar nomination time, sweep the Golden Globes and not get nominated. But with ten slots, not only is anything possible, but we might be looking at a situation where the Blind Side slot could be filled by another fairly emotional money making powerhouse.

OscarWatch: Michelle Williams in Meek’s Cutoff

Posted by Sasha Stone on Sep 5, 2010 in Michelle Williams, Oscar Watch | 0 comments

By the time 2010 comes to an ambling close, Michelle Williams will have two very good performances under her belt. Blue Valentine, and Meek’s Cutoff.

Obsessed with Film, underwhelmed by the film but impressed by Williams writes:

Michelle Williams, who is working with the director for a second time, is absolutely, show-stealingly brilliant in her role as one of the travelers. Her face able to register a look of resentment and contempt the likes of which I have never seen. It also features Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson, who is brilliant as the uber-religious one and responsible for the films few comic moments, and Zoe Kazan, whose constant fearful bleating recalls a hyper-ventilating Shelly Duvall in The Shining. All these actors perform well on limited material. Only the titular Meek is played over the top, with Bruce Greenwood sometimes straying into the voice of an old prospector from a bad western. Everybody else downplays it and it works great.

Variety’s Justin Chang:

Williams, so heartbreaking in “Wendy and Lucy,” anchors the ensemble with a performance of fierce grit and unflinching moral strength, staring down Meek and firing a rifle with the same bone-deep conviction. Greenwood’s face is almost entirely hidden by a dark beard, but his gravelly voice is instantly recognizable, lending the cocksure Meek an undertow of menace. Fellow travelers Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan and Shirley Henderson have a more difficult time blending in with the milieu initially, while Rondeaux renders the Cayuse captive compellingly unreadable.

Such filmmaking’s near-spiritual devotion to landscape can occasionally swallow human players, but while big names (for this director, at least) like Paul Dano and Shirley Henderson feel a tad lost in the mix, Reichardt once more brings out the very best in Williams. As the story’s principal conduit of reason and morality, Emily could be a dour presence, but the actress is instead softly watchful and drily, unexpectedly, funny: “I want him to owe me something,” she crisply explains when granting the Cayuse intruder an unsolicited favor.

In Williams, Reichardt has found an actor capable of matching her contained integrity and opening it out to a broader audience; long may this partnership continue. Long, too, may Reichardt continue to inquiringly scope out the backyard of American indie film, applying her immaculate technical precision and near-accidentally feminist gaze to more distant milieux. Adventurous, ambiguous and truthful, “Meek’s Cutoff” may be a marvel in itself, but it only sets up greater expectations for the future.