MCN Columnists
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 - 7 Comments »
Be Sociable, Share!

20W20: Best Actress Chart, Oct 23, 2011

10/23/11 Charts
Picture | Actor | Supporting Actor | Actress | Supporting Actress

BEST ACTRESS
Picture
 Comment
The Field
Michelle Williams
My Week With Marilyn		 Transformative performance by a twice-nominated actor playing a famous person in more than an imitation,
Rooney Mara
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo		 No doubt she’ll be great and the role is brutally good… but will The Academy get shy?  I’m betting, “no.”
Meryl Streep
The Iron Lady		 She’s the Streepiest!
Charlize Theron
Young Adult		 A great into-middle-age role for an actress whose comedic skills have been wildly underrated.
Viola Davis
The Help		 She is the perfect face of stoicism.  Oddly, this is far from her best work.  Sometimes that wins.
Glenn Close
Albert Nobbs		 How can a performance be overrated and underrated?  Well, people expect a fireworks show from Close playing a woman playing a man in her life.  It’s not that role.  But Close makes a meal of every tiny gesture… really a career crowner.
Kirsten Dunst
Melancholia		 A career-best performance on a level she’s never approached before. But will The Academy see the movie or just get distracted by Lars’ press conferences?
Keira Knightley
A Dangerous Method		 The vote on this performance is split.  I am in the “daring and amazing” camp.  Others see it as over the top.  They’re wrong.  But a too-busy-to-campaign Keira may not be able to get the full embrace.
Scarlett Johansson
We Bought A Zoo		 Haven’t seen it yet. But whatever app gets her cell phone to take pictures like that could sell a million copies.
Sandra Bullock
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close		 Haven’t seen it yet.  I kind of think that she’s gotten her award and another nomination will be harder, not easier.
Tilda Swinton
We Have To Talk About Kevin		 Tilda is always amazing.  Lynne Ramsey is brilliant… and really difficult for audiences. Too many more accessible films out there for her to make the cut.
Elizabeth Olsen
Martha Marcy May Marlene		 It’s one of the great movie debuts of the last 20 years.  But Williams, Mara, and Dunst are ahead of her on line.
Michelle Yeoh
The Lady		 One of the world’s great leading ladies.  Looking forward to seeing the recut of the film to see if she gets back into the race.
Be Sociable, Share!

7 Comments »

7 Responses to “20W20: Best Actress Chart, Oct 23, 2011”

  1. Rob says:
    October 24, 2011 at 7:03 am

    If Extremely Loud is anything like the book, both Bullock and Hanks would be supporting.

  2. Danella Isaacs says:
    October 24, 2011 at 7:17 am

    Isn’t anyone pushing for Kristen Wiig for BRIDESMAIDS? It wouldn’t be undeserved.

  3. tc says:
    October 24, 2011 at 8:30 am

    Jennifer Lawrence jumped over those three last year, no reason to believe Olsen won’t do the same

  4. Bradley Porter says:
    October 24, 2011 at 3:28 pm

    Olivia Colman much? Best performance by any actor, male or female this year.

  5. David Poland says:
    October 24, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    I think you’re looking for another blog, Bradley.

    She IS wonderful and so is Mullen. But there is zero opportunity with Oscar for this one.

  6. Lola says:
    October 25, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    Most are saying that Sandra and Keira are going supporting//? and Scarlett is too. What about Felicity Jones?

  7. Danny says:
    October 25, 2011 at 10:14 pm

    Sandra, like Tom, would be supporting for EL&IC. The kid is really the only lead in the movie.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon