Sulmoney’s Oscar Predictions – Best Actress

Hans is currently in training this week, probably on how to become a better film critic, so I will be handling the Oscar’s Predictions writeups. Fear not sole fan of Hans, he will be submitting his prediction in list format later this week, before Sunday, so we can see who is the better prognosticator (me obviously).

Moving on, we come to what has been shaping up to be a two woman race in the Best Actress race, but containing 5 actresses well deserving of their nominations. The nominees are Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Meryl Streep (Doubt), and Kate Winslet (The Reader).

Who Will Win

 

Kate Winslet in The Reader

The sixth time will be the charm for Kate Winslet, as she goes up against her main competition in the category, the 15 time nominated Meryl Streep. The Reader has rode a wave of momentum in getting the Best Picture nomination, and the bump of Kate Winslet from the Best Supporting Actress to Best actress category. This will be more of an award that recognizes Kate Winslet for her work over the years, and to make up for past snubs. In my opinion though, she is the right actress, but the wrong movie (see below). 

Who Should Win

 

Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married

Anne Hathaway is an actress who has grown up in front of her eyes, bursting on the scene in Disney films, lending a supporting role in Academy Award nominated films, graduating to chick flick stardom and summer box office queen, but all the meantime, has found time for arthouse films. She may have been awkward and forced in some, but has finally blossomed into a fine actress. While there are many parts of Rachel Getting Married which I despised, my attention was immediately brought back to the screen anytime Hathaway was on it. Here is hoping that we get a chance to see more of her in wonderful roles and films. 

Who Was Snubbed

 

Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road

It’s hard to say someone was snubbed when I picked them to win the category, but I am sure I am not alone in thinking that Kate Winslet’s performance in Revolutionary Road was miles ahead of what she gave us in The Reader; being naked a lot in a movie does not a great performance make. Playing a housewife who feels as her life has passed her by, Winslet shows that she is the finest actress working today, and to be in two award winning roles that merit recognition is a testament to her ability as an actress.

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Sulmoney’s Oscar Prediction – Best Supporting Actor

Viola Davis packs quite the wallop in her sole scene in Doubt, and is deserving of the nomination. However, it appears that the Penelope Cruz train is too strong, and we both agree will carry her to Oscar gold a week from now. 

Now, on to a category with perhaps the least amount of suspense, but will most likely be the most emotional award of the night, Best Supporting Actor. The nominees are Josh Brolin (Milk), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road).

Who Will Win

 

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

If there was ever a sure fire, money in the bank winner, it has to be Heath Ledger in his last completed role before his unfortunate death as the diabolic villain, The Joker in the second highest grossing film of all time, The Dark Knight. While the whole of Christopher Nolan’s epic was amazing and elevated a comic book film above its genre, it was Ledger’s performance that ensured The Dark Knight would go down in the annals of film history.

Who Should Win

 

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

Ledger should win. But, for the sake of argument (and just so I can write a little bit more because I need a study break and am a huge fan of this guy), the winner (in any other year) should be…

 

Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder

It is not very often that an actor in a comedy (especially one directed by Ben Stiller) gets nominated for an Academy Award, but Downey’s performance in Tropic Thunder as Kirk Lazarus, the Australian method actor to put all other method actors to shame, was simply transcendent, and cemented Downey as an actor who could pull off anything thrown at him.

Who Was Snubbed

 

Eddie Marsan in Happy Go Lucky

There were many great actors in supporting roles this year, but Eddie Marsan in Mike Leigh’s quirky Happy-Go-Lucky was quite simply amazing. Playing a driving instructor who simply could not deal with the optimistic attitude of his student, played by the in fine star making form Sally Hawkins, Marsan is nearly as terrifying as Heath Ledger’s Joker, and literally looks like he will explode at any moment whenever he is on screen. En Ra Ha.

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Hans’s Oscar Predictions – Best Supporting Actress

Who Will Win

Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)

Couldn't they just trade places for 30 Rock?

When I was a young lad, I had a crush on Salma Hayek so large it rivalled the size of her ample… talent? And by talent I mean boobs, if you know what I mean. It’s been some years, and Salma has since shown us many more awkward, stilted performances and even fell victim to pregnancy for a short while, both of which have irrevocably tainted the love we once shared. Luckily, her semi-lesbian, fully-awesome relationship with Penelope turned me on to a beauty with the talent to back it up. Her boobs aren’t bad either, if you catch my drift. She’s 80% of the reason to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona, she’s been working her way up to this kind of recognition for a little while now, and she’s gonna take home the naked golden man very soon. And by naked golden man I mean hopefully me, if you follow where I’m going with this.

Who Should Win

Viola Davis (Doubt)

They must've photoshopped out the snot for the marketing promo.

It’s true that Taraji P. Henson, Sulmoney’s favorite in this category, was unquestionably the best part about Benjamin Button, but being the classier gentleman, I’m gonna go with the black actress who gave us something a little deeper than the borderline-racist Aunt Jemima mammy figure. It’s almost an insult that Amy Adams’s name is anywhere near Viola Davis’s in the nominations for this category. Ms. Davis has precisely one scene in the entire film, but in less than 15 minutes of screen time she delivers an incredibly complex, emotionally-challenging performance, leaving an impression that will stay with me much longer than the performance Amy Adams cobbled together from the deleted scenes of Enchanted. And she did it all with snot running down her face the whole time.

Who Got Snubbed

Well I haven’t yet seen Rachel Getting Married, so I can’t comment on Sulmoney’s choice, but on the whole I’m gonna say this category looks pretty snub-free to me. I haven’t seen everything out there, so it’s entirely possible that I missed something, but to me it looks like the men pretty much stole the spotlight this year. Damn you, paternalistic society with your glass ceilings and whatnot!

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Sulmoney’s Oscar Predictions – Best Supporting Actress

As we have recently finished up our top 10 lists of 2008, and the end of the award season coming up in just over one week, The Feature Preachers embark on prognosticating the major Academy Awards categories. We will make sure to belittle each other’s poor selections and life choices in true FP tradition. In our quest to bring something new to critiquing the films, we will not only be predicting who we feel will go home with those little golden naked men on February 22, but who we feel should win, and who was snubbed from receiving a nomination. To kick it off, we start with perhaps the most fiercely debated acting category, Best Supporting Actress. The nominations are Amy Adams (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler).

Who Will Win

 

Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

While I disagreed with Hans on the greatness of Woody Allen’s latest, I will give credit where credit is due: Penelope Cruz chews up the screen and brings a saving energy to the film. As soon as she enters the film in the second act of the film in her dramatic and fiery welcome, the entire film becomes better. She has perhaps the biggest supporting role compared to her competitions, and far and away the most flashy and loud, and will probably be why she wins. The frontrunner since its summer release, Cruz has rode the crest of momentum and should be soon able to append Academy Award winner to her name. 

Who Should Win

 

Taraji P. Henson in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Forrest Gump comparisons aside, and the fact that critics were split on the film just as Hans and I were, I hope that we can at least agree that Taraji P. Henson gives a career defining performance as Benjamin Button’s adoptive mother. While Brad Pitt’s performance may have been cold, distant, and hard to relate to for some, we all could feel for Queenie and her desire to be a mother and subsequent unconditional love for her son born under unusual circumstances. She was the human core of the film, and was a touch of reality in an unbelievable story. 

Who Was Snubbed

 

Rosemarie DeWitt in Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married is a wonderful movie…but there is about 30 minutes of extraneous material that should have been cut, and the handheld camera photography was about 0% necessary, and about 100% unwelcome. There are some incredibly raw and human performances from Anne Hathaway (more on her in a future post) and the relatively unknown Rosemarie DeWitt. Playing the one getting married, DeWitt embodies the role of a seemingly forgotten about because of her normalcy sister and daughter to perfection, and personifies the roller coaster  of emotions of a bride masterfully. Though this may be the first time you have heard of Rosemarie DeWitt, I am sure it will not be the last.

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Sulmoney’s #3 – Pineapple Express

There is no doubt that Doubt (shoot me now) is a great piece of theatre, either in the playhouse, or the cinema house. Hans is spot in saying that this film is tailor made for actors to strut their craft, and with less than capable thespians, Doubt would have been a debacle. The parallels to Frost/Nixon and Doubt are inevitable, as both were originally plays that were adapted for the screen; while Frost/Nixon may have been flashier and it got the Best Picture nomination, Doubt is the picture that will last the test of time. We get just what we expect from veterans Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep, but the real surprises are Viola Davis in her lone scene, and Amy Adams, who is on the verge of becoming a huge star. The best acting of the year is on display in these tense two hours, and the four aforementioned players got their well deserved Academy Award nominations. However, what kept me from truly embracing this film as one of the year’s best is my sheer frustration with Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius’ motivations. Perhaps that is why she is such an effective screen villain (or hero, depending on your viewpoint), but for me, it was purely infuriating. The final scene, designed to be (or not to be) some sort of conclusion, only added to my anger. Definitely something that I will revisit in the future though.

Now, for something totally different, I present what will likely be the most controversial pick of the litter, my #3 film of the year, David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express.

Pineapple Express

True Romance is my favorite movie of all time. If you have never seen it, well the cast alone should make you run out to get it immediately. Don’t waste your money on the rental; buy it now. Before Brad Pitt was Brad Pitt, he was Floyd the stoner, a guy who never got off his couch while everyone he ran into during the course of the film was caught up in a huge cross country chase involving drugs, guns, love, gangsters, and Elvis. The genius that is Judd Apatow had the brilliant idea of bringing Floyd from a bit character used for comic relief to the forefront and main protagonist of a story involving, well, drugs, guns, love, gangsters, and (sadly) no Elvis.

Kids, drugs are bad for you

Seth Rogen plays Dale Denton, a man who aspires to follow a different Christian Slater movie, with a habit that brings him together with the absolutely amazing James Franco as Saul Silver, a new stoner flick legend. When Dale witnesses a murder and leaves behind a blunt of the rarest weed in the city, with the murderer being the top most drug dealer in the city, the chase begins for Dale and Saul that leads them on a voyage that includes a night in the forest, a simultaneously hilarious and grimace inducing fight with the great Danny McBride as Red, selling drugs to minors to raise bus fare, a car chase unlike any you have ever seen, and a finale in an underground secret ex-army base. Oh, and don’t forget about the Asians.

I'd take my pants off for James Franco as well

What separates Pineapple Express from all the other comedies from 2008 is its perfect blend of two genres. It works as a stoner comedy, and it works as a summer action flick as well. The combination of the two works wonders, and is a welcome relief from an earlier 2008 stoner flick disaster. The laughs are constant, from the black and white introduction, to the diner epilogue, and the violence is brutal and pulls no punches. This is a movie that improves on every viewing, and credit goes to David Gordon Green for his solid direction. The  supporting roles are played to perfection, from Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan as two veteran enforcers who come across as a more real Jules and Vincent, to Gary Cole and Rosie Perez thoroughly enjoying their villainous turns. Danny McBride establishes himself as a player on the rise in the comedy scene, and Seth Rogen adds another notch to his comedic hits belt.

The main star of Pineapple Express, and the reason that we will be watching this for years to come, is James Franco. Franco, as we have never seen him before, fully immerses himself into Saul Silver, a role for which he garnered a Golden Globe nomination; in conjunction with his totally opposite role in Milk, he establishes himself as a bona fide movie star, capable of doing the summer blockbusters, to comedies, to rousing award worthy offerings. Missing out on this movie and especially Franco’s performance is like killing a unicorn…with a bomb.

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Hans’s #3 – Doubt

Well unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s much to bash in Sulmoney’s #4 pick of The Dark Knight. What can I say? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

…Sulmoney is the broken clock. Here, finally, is my #3.

Doubt

In Doubt, a curmedgeonly nun and Catholic school principal (Meryl Streep) works tirelessly to expel the progressive and popular priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who may or may not have molested a young boy, but let’s clear up one misconception right off the bat: this is not a movie about a Catholic priest molesting a young boy. In a way, that hot-button issue is simply what Hitchcock would call the “MacGuffin.” It’s only a device that motivates the characters and inspires the real meat of this film, which essentially boils down to 5 or 6 long, drawn-out scenes of brutally uncomfortable verbal conflicts riddled with subtext and unspoken implications. Much like Frost/Nixon, Doubt is a film about argumentation and ideological clash. Incidentally, both films draw on source material from the theater, but while Frost/Nixon adapted the subject matter with a familiar underdog structure, Doubt moves in an entirely different direction and delivers a moviegoing experience unlike any other.

Ah, child molestation. It warms the heart.

Doubt is an indictment of certainty, which seems a little obvious to say the least, so let me redo that: Doubt is an indictment of certainty. With this film, writer-director John Patrick Shanley (who also penned the play on which the film is based) has crafted a Rorschach test so ambiguous that it’s really a test of the viewer’s own biases. The film never even comes close to presenting the audience with enough evidence to make a valid assessment of guilt, but every viewer will likely come out of it with their own reasons for leaning one way or the other. It’s the ultimate form of audience participation, but anybody foolish enough to believe they’ve really “solved” the mystery has likely missed the point of the film entirely.

The scene where Father Flynn mistakes Amy Adams for a young boy.

And then there’s the cast. The film relies hugely on individual performances, so it’s very fortunate that the screen is populated with some of the best actors to ever grace the big screen.  As much as I liked watching Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio rip into each other for 2 hours in Revolutionary Road, the two of them got nothing on Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, though the Golden Globe voters would have you believe otherwise. In Doubt, these screen legends imbue every line with an intensity that’s just uncanny, and they do it all without shouting at the top of their lungs, growling all their lines, or smacking their lips while changing voices.

I haven’t even mentioned the supporting work of Viola Davis in one of the film’s most shocking reveals, the fantastic subtleties of the dialogue, or the pitch-perfect cinematography by Roger Deakins, who has made a career out of finding beauty in the mundane, but they’re all part of the laundry list of reasons why it’s a shame this film won’t receive the attention it deserves come Oscar time.

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