Best Supporting actress 2007

[Damien]

This is a fine line-up. I have no problem with any of them, even if Saoirse Ronan was perhaps the least of the three actresses playing that role.

Ruby Dee and Tilda Swinton are both memorably formidable, and Blanchett gets past the gimmick casting and does nail Dylan down.

But Amy Ryan is so convincing in portraying a beleaguered working class woman whose travails have made her embittered and callous that you have to keep reminding yourself this is actually an actress playing a role. Seamless, frightening and ultimately heart-wrenching acting. She's my choice.

My Own Top 5:
1. Marie Pillet in 2 Days In Paris
2. Merritt Wever in Michael Clayton
3. Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
4. Alison Lohman in Things We Lost In The Fire
5. Haley Bennett in Music and Lyrics



Edited By Damien on 1292570735

[Uri]

This discussion is so fresh, nothing really changed; so here's what I wrote in real time:

My rating: A- the ultimate best of the year, B- very good, would make a decent, worthy winner, C- a nomination should suffice, D- not necessarily bad, but not award material, F- a failure.

Best Supporting Actress
1. Tilda Swinton – B. A fascinating characterization which probably has more to do with her persona and acting choices than the initial written role.
2. Cate Blanchett – B. We knew she was good at impersonating hugely recognizable celebrities, but unlike her turn in The Aviator, this time it serves a smart and poignant segment. A virtuosity well used.
3. Amy Ryan – B. A good, professional piece of acting well used. An intelligent study of a complicated character.
4. Saoirse Ronan – D. Geoffrey Rush won an Oscar for Noah Taylor's work, so why not her being here because Garai was very good (and Redgrave wasn't bad either).
5. Ruby Dee – D. A pointless nomination.

Other who could've been nominated: Olympia Dukakis for Far and Away, Garai, Charlotte Gainsbourg for I'm Not There, Kelly MacDonald for No Country for Old Men, Amy Madigan for Gone Baby Gone, Emily Mortimer for Lars and the Real Girl.

In retrospect, I can go with any of my top 3, but since, as was said here, it's not Blanchet career highlight, it's between Swinton and Ryan. And since it's still the only chance we have to honor any of them, Swinton gets it for having more career points.



Edited By Uri on 1292568164

[Precious Doll]

This is a reasonable line-up but none of the performances really grabbed my attention. I voted for Saoirse Ronan but would have preferred Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave for the same film and Amy Ryan was solid in Gone Baby Gone. Tilda Swinton had a couple of good scenes which were amongst the better moments of the dreary Michael Clayton. Cate Blanchett was the best thing about I'm Not Here and had the advantage to appear in what was the best segment of the film but hardly award worthy.

Ruby Dee was feeble with little to do in American Gangster.

My choices:

1. Demi Moore for Mr. Brooks
2. Nursel Kose for The Edge of Heaven
3. Elaine Jin for Lost in Beijing
4. Bernadette Damman for Ex-Drummer
5. Kerry Walker for The Home Song Stories

Also of note were Romola Garai & Vanessa Redgrave in Atonement, Laura Linney in The Nannie Diaries, Hanna Schygulla in The Edge of Heaven & Emma Stone in Superbad.



Edited By Precious Doll on 1292565053

[Mister Tee]

This one's so recent I feel like we just talked about it. But, to go through the motions:

Romola Garai definitely merited nomination as well as Ronan; she may have been the best of the Brionys.

Certainly both were better than Ruby Dee, who gave one of the oddest Oscar-nominated performances ever. She was a complete embarrassment throughout almost the whole film...until her last-minute confrontation with Denzel, a scene she nailed flawlessly. That moment is the only thing that saves this nomination from being a total outrage.

I love Tilda Swinton. Twice in this past decade -- 2001 and 2009 -- she won my private best actress award. Yet the performance for which she won an Oscar doesn't do all that much for me. She's fine, I suppose. But it irks me that, with the great work she's done elsewhere (throw in Benjamin Button, as well), this is where they decided to cite her.

And it irks me even more that they opted for her over not one but two glorious performances -- for me, two of the five best supporting actresses of the decade. I had my difficulties with parts of I'm Not There -- the Richard Gere segment went off into the ether for me -- but Cate Blanchett's scenes were all about perfect, and her uncanny impersonation/embodiment of the Dylan we know best was just exceptional. She'd be an easy choice...

...except Amy Ryan was every bit as good. I'd not seen Ryan prior to Gone Baby Gone (I've just discovered her work on The Wire in recent weeks), and I thought she just flew off the screen. The part was certainly one an actress would kill for, but what she did with it was still amazing to watch -- showing the unbridled narcicissm of the substance abuser and making it blackly comic as well as tragic.

A vote for either would be perfectly defensible. But, since I voted for Blanchett just a year ago, and because this is a career-height for Ryan in a way that Dylan was not for Blanchett, I'm going to salute the lady from Gone Baby Gone.

[Okri]

For the fourth time, I'm voting for Cate Blanchett. Clearly, I have a problem.

Ronan's easy second. Ryan and Swinton are next.

[Big Magilla]

This was the year year Cate Blanchett received not one, but two, undeserving nominations. Her stunt casting as one of the Bob Dylans in I'm Not Here, which more aptly should have been called I Wasn't There, was at least something different, unlike her tired retread of Elizabeth I in the best actress category. Different, though doesn't necessarily mean good, and it wasn't particularly, despite all the awards she won for it.

Ruby Dee was a legend and she had recently lost her long-time husband and frequent co-star, Ossie Davis, so her nod from the sentimentally inclined SAG committee was understandable even if her win for her walk-on in American Gangser wasn't. There was no reason for it to translate into an Oscar nomination.

Tilda Swinton had been one of the most interesting actresses around for some time, so it was nice that she was finally recognized by Oscar voters, although her conniving attorney in Michael Clayton was not her most challenging role.

Early favorite Amy Ryan took an ordinary role as the bereaved mother in Gone Baby Gone and soared with it. How she failed to parlay that into major stardom still baffles me.

Saoirse Ronan was excellent as the younger version of Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave in Atonement and it was nice she was recognized, but Redgrave should have been in the mix as well.

Also worthy of a nomination, certainly more so than Blanchett and Dee, were Catherine Keener as the aging hippie vagabond in Into the WIld and Tabu as the immigrant Indian mother in The Namesake.

My choice was, and is, Amy Ryan.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1293243445