Best Supporting Actress 2006

1998 through 2007

Best Supporting Actress 2006

Adriana Barraza - Babel
13
23%
Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
13
23%
Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine
3
5%
Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
15
27%
Rinko Kikuchi - Babel
12
21%
 
Total votes: 56

Okri
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Post by Okri »

Feeling comfortable that Barazza would lead the vote tally and loathing Babel on a profound level, I voted Blanchett (who was my favourite of the category, though yes, she wouldn't make my top five in either category), and what do I see? A Hudson-Barazza tie. Sigh.
Uri
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Post by Uri »

Yes – a very problematic list, representing quite a problematic year for supporting actresses in English (or semi-English) speaking films – I'm allowing the Babel ladies' nods based on this technicality.

Once again, Marco more or less manifested my sentiments regarding the actual nominees (I particularly liked the Blind Side analogy). Hudson's win is, if not THE lowest point in the history of the acting Oscars, then at least at the top (or bottom) five. A miserable choice. Kikuchi's nomination must have seemed to be rather edgy to some. It wasn't. Breslin was believed to be non conventionally cute. She wasn't. Blanchet may have not been so great as Marco suggested, but she was good and every bit as lead as Dench was. That leaves me, unenthusiastically, with Barraza.

Yes, Volver could have supplied me with enough candidates to fill this list – the runaway standout is by far Portillo – and Sabine Azema was indeed, as always, great, but that would be cheating. So if I have to come up with 5 names I'd go with Blunt and then Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin for their freewheeling double act in A Prairie Home Companion and Catherine Keener and especially Frances McDormand in Friends with Talent, sorry, Money.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Not a great line-up, true, but not the disaster some here say (though that does admittedly make voting for a dreadful performance more bearable). Two of the nominees were quite good actually - though one was probably in the wrong category.

The worst, definitely, is Jennifer Hudson. Probably the worst nominee in this category with the exception of Leslie Browne. She's not an actress, and it painfully shows, especially in the second half of the movie when she should be older and bitter and she obviously can't express that. It's an embarassing turn, but of course she was black, she was fat... The Academy behaved like Sandra Bullock towards her. It made them feel good, I guess - but now we can easily realize that it was a mistake, and we should be honest enough to admit it.

Abigail Breslin was cute and not much more in an overrated comedy.

Rinko Kikuchi had at least an interesting role in another overrated movie. It's not the kind of performance that can give one the idea of an actress's general talent, but she was right for the role (and playing a disabled person is always a plus in the Academy's eyes).

Cate Blanchett's is her best nominated performance. Very good, really, and the role wasn't an easy one. But she successfully conveyed her character's frustrations, sense of failure, very human weaknesses. Her love scenes with the teenage student were extremely well played, too. I can understand why, having to choose between her and Dench, the Academy picked Dench as Lead, but I can also understand those who see this as a category fraud, or semi-fraud. So I'm glad that she was nominated, but I can't vote for her.

But Adriana Barraza was the heart, the soul of a movie I didn't like much - though I liked her in it alot. In this case, even if one, like me, had never heard of her, it's easy to see the talent of the actress behind the certainly solid performance she gives. It's a beautiful, rich supporting turn - which definitely gets my vote.
rudeboy
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Post by rudeboy »

The worst line-up every seen in this category? Maybe. With great reluctance, voted for Hudson.

My choices

1. Lola Dueñas, Volver
2. Sandra Bullock, Infamous
3. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Stranger Than Fiction
4. Frances de la Tour, The History Boys
5. Jane Adams, Little Children
mlrg
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Post by mlrg »

Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
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Precious Doll
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Post by Precious Doll »

I can only echo what pretty much what everyone else already has. What a terrible line-up.

Cate Blanchett is another example of category fraud. She's a co-lead, out acted by co-star Judi Dench and not worthy of a nomination in either actress category.

I hate Babel and everything about it like few other films. Little Miss Marker is nothing more then an overlong episode of a terrible sit-com.

That leaves Jennifer Hudson. She tried hard but the lack of experience and a thin screenplay limited her ability to bring more to the material. However her singing is sensational and her break-up number is a show stopper. The one truly great moment in a rather bland ordinary affair.

Given this poor line-up the omission of Carmen Maura in Volver is quite galling.

She gets my vote on that number alone.

My choices:

1. Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls
2. Carmen Maura for Volver
3. Lola Duenas for Volver
4. Blanca Portillo for Volver
5. Amanda Henderson for I Am a Sex Addict

Also notable were Sabine Azema in Private Fears in Public Places, Jennifer Coolidge & Catherine O'Hara in For Your Consideration, Chus Lampreave in Volver, Deborah Mailman & Greta Scacchi in The Book of Revelation, Mo'Nique in Shadowboxer, Fiona Shaw & Hilary Swank in The Black Dahlia, Phyllis Somerville in Little Children and Kat Stewart in Em4Jay.
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Post by Sabin »

Och. Lame. Barazza, although Abigail Breslin is certainly pretty good in the film. Kikuchi is ridiculous, Blanchett is ridiculous, Hudson is dull. Very bad lineup, especially following last year's.

1. Carmen Maura, Volver
2. Emma Thompson, Stranger than Fiction
3. Eva Green, Casino Royale
4. Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada
5. Lola Dueñas, Volver
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Eric
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Post by Eric »

Horrible, horrible lineup. Hudson sang better than the other four and is slimmer than two of them, but her scenes involving meat-n-potatoes acting were strictly H.S. league.

Barazza gets my vote for ... well, I guess you couldn't say she survives Babel with dignity intact, because the movie never gives her any in the first place. But she got through without flashing bush, so she wins on merit points.

Luenell, Borat
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
Blanca Portillo, Volver
Fiona Shaw, The Black Dahlia
Grace Zabriskie, Inland Empire

(I file Luminita Gheorghiu as a lead actress.)
Damien
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Post by Damien »

I really didn't want to vote for Jennifer Hudson because I don't think hers is an Oscar-worthy performance. But I had forgotten how pathetic the competition was. This might well be the lamest line-up in the history of this category. One has no choice but to vote for Hudson.

Babel is a self-parodistic piece of crap. The whole thing is ridiculous but never more so than when Barranza is wandering around in the desert. She's an SCTV character waiting for Andrea Martin to play her, Rinko Kikuchi -- moodiness bordering on the catatonic does not a performance make, and when showing off a hot naked body.

I will admit that she's gotten much better in subsequent performances, but while watching Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, you just want to kick her down the cellar steps and lock the door. Forever.

Notes On A Scandal contains preposterous material that could only work as absurdist comedy. But Richard Eyre, scripter Patrick Marber and the actors treat it all like a piece of kitchen sink realism as if it were offering up some kind of psychological insight. And as such, Blanchett is the height of camp in this movie, only she seems utterly clueless about it, gamely trudging on like the trouper she is. I'll always treasure the moment when the heavily made up Blanchett leaves the house in a rage and flings herself into the mass of reporters. It's atrocious acting of a high order.

So one is forced to vote for Jennifer Hudson. She's not even my favorite supporting actress in Dreamgirls -- that would be Anika Noni Rose. But Hudson does at least have her moments, and that's more than you can say for any of the other nominees. She gets my vote.

My Own Top 5:
1. Simone Signoret in Army Of Shadows
2. Hillary Swank in The Black Dahlia
3. Maribel Verdú in Pan’s Labyrinth
4. Luminita Gheorghiu in The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu
5. Lily Tomlin in A Prairie Home Companion
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Reza
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Post by Reza »

Yes a very dismal lot. Voted for Hudson.

My picks for 2006:

Jeanne Moreau, Le Temps Qui Reste
Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada
Phyllis Somerville, Little Children
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal




Edited By Reza on 1292308192
Kova
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Post by Kova »

What a dismal lineup.

First out is Kikuchi. This is the epitome of male Academy members voting with their crotches. She does nothing particularly memorable in a ridiculous role.

Next out is Breslin. She is well cast in the film, but this is not a terribly demanding part...not even for a girl of her age.

Hudson sings powerfully and looks sad convincingly, but her line readings remain fairly amateurish throughout the film. I still think Anika Noni Rose was the only member of the title group who attempted to make her character remotely three-dimensional.

Notes on a Scandal is entertaining, but it's certainly not substantive enough to warrant Oscar #2 for Blanchett. She's as arresting as ever, but this is not the type of performance this category was created to reward.

So, by process of elimination, I'm picking Barraza. I still cringe at what Inarritu had her do in this film (the red dress...egads), but the fact that she manages to flesh out a sympathetic character that kept my attention amidst the onslaught of nonsense deserves some credit, I suppose.




Edited By Kova on 1292306222
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Post by Big Magilla »

An odd year to say the least.

The year after Crash caused a furor by winning the Best Picture award over Brokeback Mountain, Crash II or Babel as it was called, pulled off a stupefying seven nominations including one for Best Picture and two for Best Supporting Actress. I'm still trying to figure how how that happened.

Adriana Barraza as the illegal immigrant maid was no more memorable than hundreds of TV actresses in similar roles over the years have been in unheralded performances on weekly TV programs. Rinko Kikuchi as the mute Japanese teenager was an improbable creation. Nothing in the film made sense.

Cate Blanchett was at her best as Judi Dench's victim in Notes on a Scandal, but Dench was the one you couldn't take your eyes off of. In a stronger year Blanchett may not even have been nominated.

Abigail Breslin continued to impress as the talented little girl in the spoof of child beauty pageants, Little Miss Sunshine, but the nomination seemed enough.

Jennifer Hudson's acting in the straight dramatic scenes in Dreamgirls was merely okay, but when she opened her mouth to sing, she was extraordinary. Generally that wouldn't be enough, but in this company it was. She gets my vote.

Others I liked include Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada and Emma Thompson in Stranger Than Fiction.
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