Best Actress 2002

1998 through 2007

Best Actress 2002

Salma Hayek - Frida
2
3%
Nicole Kidman - The Hours
6
9%
Diane Lane - Unfaithful
9
13%
Julianne Moore - Far From Heaven
49
70%
Renee Zellweger - Chicago
4
6%
 
Total votes: 70

Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

It was a pretty thin field. I think Hayek is the weakest -- her nomination seems mostly a tribute to her having mounted the project successfully. But all I really have to rerplace her is Streep in The Hours, a film for which I don't much care.

From which you may infer, I don't approve of Kidman's win, either. In addition to the possibilities around her win you mention, Magilla, there was also a sense it was Kidman's "time" to win -- she'd been accumulating credits, certainly since To Die For. I don't know why this company-town consensus so rarely forms around performances I like. I found it an adequate performance at best.

I think Lane is good in Unfaithful, and I was pleased for recognition for an actress I'd always crushed on. But the nomination was plenty.

I actually think Chicago was as good as Renee Zellweger ever got -- her comic timing was (for maybe the last time) golden, and I thought her singing and dancing were just fine. It has baffled me for almost a decade that Zeta-Jones' one-note bitch was, in general, more critically praised.

But it will surprise no one that my vote is for Julianne Moore -- my favorite performance of the decade in my second-favorite film. I haven't always been a Moore fan -- I started off a detractor, till Boogie Nights, and there are times right up till now that I've found her work disappointing. But her Cathy Whitaker seemed to me almost touched by god...there was something so touching, so precious about the performance that I can only sit back in admiration. And, of course, hope that Julianne one day finds the role to bring her the Oscar of which she was robbed here.
dws1982
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Post by dws1982 »

Diane Lane. Trashy movie, but Lane is excellent, perfectly controlled and perfectly balancing the excitement and the fear of a woman throwing herself into an adulterous affair.

I could've voted for Zellweger just as easily. I don't "get" Julianne Moore in general, although she is better in Far From Heaven than in The Hours, where she was worse than most Razzie contenders. Nicole Kidman was not half-bad in The Hours. Hayek was serviceable in Frida.
jack
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Post by jack »

My vote goes to Moore as well. I can't stand The Hours or Bridget Jones, and despise even more the performances of both Kidman and Zellweger. Selma Hayek was very good in Frida (I may be the only one who thinks she'll win an Oscar one day). And I haven't seen Unfaithful so I can't comment.

However, Julianne Moore was fantastic in Far From Heaven. It's a film I could watch again and again 'cause it's just so well made, though I do love Todd Haynes, and think I'm Not There is one of the best films ever made.

So I vote for Julianne Moore.
Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

This is the only year in which I think Meryl Streep should have gotten a nod for a film she didn't - her co-lead in The Hours as opposed to her supporting role in Adaptation, a film I need to revisit. The only time I saw it was in a theater in which the projector crashed before the film ended. I believe she had completed her scenes by then, though.

The big question is did Nicole Kidman, Streep's co-star in The Hours, win her Oscar for hiding behind a false nose or because the Hollywood community sympathized with her for he way she was dumped by Tom Cruise.

The weak link here, though, is not Kidman but Hayek, a limited actress in an OK portrayal of Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. Hers wasn't even the best performance in the film. That belonged to Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera.

Diane Lane was my choice at the time, but I hardly remember either her film (Unfaithful) or her performance aside from one or two scenes.

Renee Zellweger gets A for effort, but although Roxie is the main character in Chicago the actress playing the role has always been overshadowed by the actress playing Velma, and Catherine Zeta-Jones does no different here.

In preparation for this poll I revisited Far From Heaven, a film I didn't much care for when I first saw it. Now, however, not only has the film grown on me but so has Julianne Moore's portrayal of the naive 1950s Connecticut housewife. Though her performance as another 1950s housewife in The Hours is more realistic, this one is cinematically richer.

Much has been written about the placing of Moore in support for The Hours while Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep who have arguably smaller roles were pushed as leads for awards consideration. But Moore's last scene in the film, her best, is one in which she supports another performer, thus earning, unconventionally perhaps, her disgnation in that category.

Moore gets my vote here. Kathy Bates (About Schmidt) gets my vote in support.




Edited By Big Magilla on 1268788537
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