Best Actress 2016

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Vote for the best nominated Leading Actress performance

Isabelle Huppert - Elle
16
67%
Ruth Negga - Loving
0
No votes
Natalie Portman - Jackie
6
25%
Emma Stone - La La Land
2
8%
Meryl Streep - Florence Foster Jenkins
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 24

Big Magilla
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Re: Best Actress 2016

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't think Streep's nomination was the result of her Golden Globe speech. She was going to get her 20th nod anyway. Maybe not that she has it, they'll stop nominating for every little thing.

Streep's nomination should have gone to Amy Adams in Arrival, of course. I still haven't seen Annette Bening in 20th Century Women so I don't know who I would replace to make room for her, if anyone.

Bening in The Kids Are All Right was my choice over Portman in Black Swan the year she won her Oscar. This year, Portman gets my makeup vote for a performance she actually deserved to win for.
The Original BJ
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Re: Best Actress 2016

Post by The Original BJ »

I'll go through the motions quickly on these, for the record.

Adams and Bening would have been as worthy as (or more worthy than) some actual nominees. I'll also single out Jessica Chastain, whose candidacy faded quickly, but who I found very dynamic in Miss Sloane.

Streep was perfectly funny in Florence, but it's such a lightweight vehicle, and she really didn't need this gazillionth nomination by default.

At least Negga's nomination was a reward for a fresh face. I found her the strongest part of Loving -- her underplaying in the phone conversations communicates a ton without much dialogue -- but her role is pretty subdued throughout.

Stone was a delight -- as Sabin has said, she's really a very funny actress, with an ability to make dialogue even funnier than it is through her line readings. And her audition number was a great emotional high point of the movie. But she, too, is a bit lightweight given the competition.

I agree with Mister Tee, that Things to Come showcased a perfectly solid performance by an impressive actress, but Elle showed off why Huppert has the sterling reputation she does. Rarely have I seen a movie where the lead player's reactions were so crucial to unlocking the very meaning of the film.

But despite my enthusiasm for Huppert, I still would vote for Portman, who's a contender for performance of the decade for me. Portman's portrait of grief is both technically rich and emotionally shattering, capturing the mannerisms of a very well-known woman while bringing out the deep humanity within her.
nightwingnova
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Re: Best Actress 2016

Post by nightwingnova »

Hands down Isabelle Huppert for me.

Emma Stone was very good and charming in La La. But it wasn't much.

Huppert's performance was counter to expectations - tough-as-nails yet traumatized, likable yet harsh, morally principled yet fluidly adaptable. She jumped into the role and fascinated with her complex interpretation.
Last edited by nightwingnova on Tue Mar 07, 2017 2:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
bizarre
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Best Actress 2016

Post by bizarre »

A well-received bunch of nominees, but not my favourite slate. Isabelle Huppert, one of the best-renowned and most adored actresses of world cinema finally got a nod here, and watching her throughout the season was fun - she took to the American awards circuit like a dog after its first taste of blood. Her Globe win was a surprise, leading many to tip her for an upset over Stone, by no means a consensus winner, and Portman, whose press overshadowed Stone's out of Venice despite the La La Land star's Volpi Cup, but who soon faded into the background once it became clear the docudrama construction of her film was perhaps a bit too avant-garde for voter and audience tastes. Huppert's performance in an interesting little film, mischievous, sly and confronting all at once, while to my mind easily the best of this bunch isn't even much of a high point in her 40-year filmography, though it's good to see her acknowledged by the Academy after decades of vanguard work.

The competition were two good, not great performances in two good, not great movies that failed to generate enough passion to provoke a backlash. Ruth Negga had a quietly ascendant year, helped immeasurably by an extremely aggressive FYC campaign from Focus and her role in the successful new tv series Preacher - but the film was a BO disappointment, the role near-silent and as, for the cynically-minded pundit, a beneficiary of #OscarsSoWhite awareness her star was outshone by Taraji P. Henson for instance, who had good reviews for a likable lead role in Hidden Figures, a surprise box office phenomenon, but surprisingly failed to make a dent at the precursors. So ultimately, Negga's nomination can be seen as something of a surprise - though I predicted her.

There is an elephant in the room, though, which is Amy Adam's colossal snub for Arrival, which was one of the more shocking ones of recent times - I'd predicted that, in a year with frontrunner confusion, she could harness the popularity of her film and her run of unconsummated nominations to nab the statue. It wasn't to be, mainly due to Meryl Streep, serving typically fun fare from her "look at this wig" era in the kind of affable summer dramedy that Stephen Frears produces every few years or so, seemingly out of boredom. While she'd hit the checkboxes at the precursors, her nomination was in doubt until a blistering anti-Trump speech made upon accepting her Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes went viral and ticked her a lot of boxes from Hollywood fans who may or may not have seen her film.

Outside of Adams and Henson, this was an unusually rich year for options. Annette Bening had the ink but not the passion for 20th Century Women - alas - but there was also Emily Blunt in the schlocky The Girl on the Train, Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane, Amy Adams again in Nocturnal Animals, Isabelle Huppert again in Things to Come as well as fringe contenders such as Rebecca Hall in Christine, Kate Beckinsale in Love & Friendship and Hailee Steinfeld in The Edge of Seventeen.

My picks for the year outside of the Oscar conversation would be Sandra Hüller, endlessly creative, funny, astute and heartbreaking in Toni Erdmann, and Krisha Fairchild, a stage and voice-over actress out-Gena Rowlandsing Gena Rowlands herself in a brilliant, little-seen gem, the eponymous Krisha.
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