Best Supporting Actress 2008

Best Supporting Actress 2008

Amy Adams - Doubt
8
17%
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
7
15%
Viola Davis - Doubt
14
29%
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
1
2%
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
18
38%
 
Total votes: 48

Reza
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 2008

Post by Reza »

mojoe92 wrote:How has no one mentioned Misty Upham in Frozen River?!?!
Maybe because folks thought other performances out there were much better?
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 2008

Post by mojoe92 »

How has no one mentioned Misty Upham in Frozen River?!?!
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 2008

Post by mayukh »

Nothing compares to Debra Winger's cameo in Rachel Getting Married. It's a real example of what an immensely talented actress can do with a few minutes of screen time – her presence influences the whole film and our insight into the main character's psychology, as you start to understand why Kym is so fixated on attaining this very flawed woman's attention.

I can't stand Amy Adams' fussy, off-puttingly neurotic work in Doubt.

Likewise, Viola Davis hits few grace notes in her wildly overpraised scene. What she does with the role is not at all as explosive or surprising as it needs to be, especially if it's supposed to really kick the narrative into high gear.

Penelope Cruz is good when directors know how to use her, and Allen used her too simply. Though she is quite funny, it's a totally inert, simplistic characterization. (I also wonder why Rebecca Hall didn't get more traction for her work.)

Taraji P Henson radiates such delicate, soft warmth in her movie. I've been waiting for her to get a plum role since, because she's just wonderful here.

I've always liked Marisa Tomei, but many of her characterizations have seemed half-hearted to me (In the Bedroom, The Perez Family). Not here – this is the performance I'd been waiting for her to give for years. The deep, wounded sense of self-pity she conveys makes you understand why she'd direct her sympathies towards someone like Mickey Rourke, and you get the sense that this is what she's been doing her whole life – investing care in others who end up leaving her in the dust. There's one scene I remember vividly where she's dancing on stage, closing her eyes, before she realizes that Randy isn't there – and the range of expressions she catalogues in those few seconds left me breathless. She's certainly the best this year.
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 2008

Post by Jim20 »

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Hiam Abbass, The Visitor
Amy Adams, Doubt
**Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married**
Ellen Page, Smart People
Tilda Swinton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
bizarre
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 2008

Post by bizarre »

My choices:

1. Penélope Cruz, in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
2. Hannelore Elsner, in "Cherry Blossoms"
3. Kirin Kiki, in "Still Walking"
4. Kathy Bates, in "Revolutionary Road"
5. Yui Natsukawa, in "Still Walking"
ALT: Mila Kunis, in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
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Post by Hustler »

Amigos
I agree with most of you on your comments about Cruz.
I have seen so far two briliant perfomances from her, in Volver and Non Ti Muovere. As you can see none of them was in an English spoken character. I can´t understand this academy obsession with a non worthy oscar composition.
Viola Davis shines in a very short moment from Doubt.
Taraji P Henson makes nothing spectacular in a very boring film.
So, I have to consider Tomei and Adams as the best from this lineup. Marisa has delivered an intense work which must be watched as a rebirth in terms of talent after her incomprehensible win in 1992. Adams has been showing an important growth as an actress since Junebug. Her sister James is tender and adorable. She gets my vote.




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Okri
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Post by Okri »

So, without the duo from The Edge of Heaven or DeWitt or any of the amazing A Christmas Tale ladies (or Regulier from The Class) this is a dreary category.

I remember being annoyed that Henson wans't campaigned for Hustle and Flow so I was glad she got recognized for this turn. But it's not a great performance (this film is empty of great performances, though like Uri, Swinton's work really does creep up in my mind every now and then).

I think Doubt's a mediocre play and there's nothing particularly special about either of the ladies. I'm glad that Davis got a role that gave her a nomination, but I agree with Meryl on this one: Sombeody give her a movie!

I didn't get the praise of Penelope Cruz. Still. I didn't get it for Volver either (especially when the rest of the cast was much better).

So Tomei gets my default vote. Oh well.
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Post by rudeboy »

An unusually strong line-up. Taraji goes first - she's a warm presence, but that's about it. I don't really remember much about her work here. Adams is touching enough but pretty much sits back and watches Streep and Hoffman striking sparks. I pretty much hated Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but Cruz blazes onscreen and owns the film in her brief screentime. It's a cliched role, maybe, but she brings it to life, and its certainly the best work I've seen from her in a role that isn't completely in Spanish. Davis is pretty blistering. Maybe her role doesn't amount to much, but its hard to take your eyes off her when she's around.

But Tomei is an easy choice. A rich, moving, lived-in performance which steals the film even from the excellent Rourke.
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Post by Kova »

This is the first year I've agreed with Oscar's choice since Dianne Wiest in '94.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona was mostly painful to sit through (I really hate rich-people-on-vacation movies), but Cruz is transcends her (misogynistic) material. It's a fiery, fully committed performance, and she's a very worth winner.

Doubt is another film that doesn't amount to much cinematically, but the actors are all fine. I can't imagine anyone else handling these roles better than Davis or Adams--Davis would have been my runner-up pick, since her character has more impact in her one scene than Adams' has. They're both very good, though.

Taraji P. Henson is a terrific actress (a nomination for Hustle and Flow would have been most welcome in my book). But she certainly did not warrant a nomination for helping David Fincher revive Butterfly McQueen in the dreadful Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was kind of sad to see her saddled with that kind of material.

Tomei uses her familiar Tomei-isms in The Wrestler. Her character never comes together as anything more than a cliche, for me. Not a bad performance, but nothing that could not have been accomplished by dozens of other women in Hollywood.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Taraji P. Henson is fine as Benjamin Button's adoptive mother. She certainly deserved her nomination more than Brad Pitt. Together with Cate Blanchett, she helped us feel something for Benjamin Button. I don't begrudge her nomination but I won't give her a win.

Penelope Cruz is both sexy and rather funny as Javier Bardem's tempestuous, hot-tempered sometime lover. I strongly preferred her in Volver. I don't begrudge her win but she wouldn't get my vote either.

Viola Davis certainly makes an impression in her few minutes on the screen where she dominates and sets the stage for the denouement. Davis has been great in small roles in numerous films but the role has been written to make an impression so I'm not certain what percentage is because of her performance or because of the material.

I'm split between Marisa Tomei's humane, compassionate stripper/single mom with a heart of gold in The Wrestler and Amy Adams' role as the naive, conflicted young nun in Doubt. Both on the surface, opposite ends of the spectrum but both portraying similarly good people. Some people have said Adams is the weak link in Doubt but I disagree. She gives a very nice, nuanced performance from her standing up to Streep to her scene dealing with a student. It's a close call. But Adams gets my vote.




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Post by dws1982 »

Penelope Cruz's win is one of the most inexpelicable in Oscar history to me. I think Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of Allen's worst films (but then he went and made one the next yeare that was even worse), and the actors pretty much all go down with the ship. To me his high point of the decade, although I like Match Point, is easily Anything Else, which almost everyone hates. Henson is fine. Davis is fine, but nothing about her scene rings true at all, even though Shanley deserves most of the criticism for that.

I agree with Mister Tee about The Wrestler as film, but I think Tomei was the one thing about the film that actually merited the praise. I thought she was the one ray of sunshine in the film (I didn't even care much for Rourke), a character trying just as hard as The Ram to sort out her life. Instead of making the character dreary and defeated, she made it a triumph of sorts for the character as she realized that Randy cared more about the high he got from being in the ring than anything else, that nothing she could do would change that, and that leaving her old life behind meant leaving him behind too.

Adams was too quickly dismissed as a coattail nomination I thought. The script went way overboard trying to emphasize her character's innocence, but Adams played it as someone who is innocent and naive, but also someone who is (for probably the first time) having to ask questions she's afraid to ask, questions that could have answers she's afraid to even think about. I think she made it the most moving and conflicted character in the film. But...I also think she's as much a player in the drama as Streep and Hoffman, and as much a lead. That's where I put her in my awards.

I think I'll give this one to Tomei (I did give Adams my vote in 2005), but it's a close call.

My picks for the year:
1- Julia Ormond, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
2- Juliet Stevenson, When Did You Last See Your Father?
3- Rachael Regulier, The Class
4- Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
5- Tilda Swinton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.




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FilmFan720
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Post by FilmFan720 »

I'm surprised to see Tomei running away so quickly with this...my memory of 2008 was that Viola Davis was the year's consensus choice.

All in all, I think this is one of the stronger lineups we have had (especially after 2007). All actresses I like, in solid performances, in movies I generally like.

Taraji P. Henson is the fifth wheel here, mostly because she has the least to do in her film...she is a great creation, but doesn't really go anywhere. Amy Adams is certainly a strong point in Doubt, but I feel like she doesn't really bring anything new to the role. Part of my problem with that film is that everyone involved seems to make the safest choice possible. Nowhere was I surprised by a moment of the film, and I feel like the whole thing plays exactly as you would imagine it by a quick, surface read of the play (which may be a fault of the playwright directing his own work).

I love the other three performances, and in any other year may have voted for any of the others. Tomei gives a gut-wrenching heart to The Wrestler (when dealing with the weakest script here), Davis gives a depth that the rest of Doubt cannot find, and Cruz is wonderfully fun in a movie I like probably even more than Damien and Mister Tee (I don't think the film was hated by everyone here!). Cruz gets my vote.

MY TOP 5:
1. Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
3. Hiam Abbass, The Visitor
4. Viola Davis, Doubt
5. Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Honorable Mentions: Amy Adams, Doubt; Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Allison Pill, Milk; Tilda Swinton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Debra Winger, Rachel Getting Married




Edited By FilmFan720 on 1292947383
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Post by ITALIANO »

Mister Tee wrote: (And Italiano's "it was a play on a cliche" seems to me somewhat defensve reasoning -- reminiscent of when David Kehr tried excusiig Titanic's woeful script by saying it intentionally mimicked Nickelodeon era narratives. Come on)

It IS defensive, and I intentionally adopted a much-used (on this board and elsewhere) strategy. Yet I really think that it can be applied here better than in other cases - first of all because Woody Allen IS - unlike James Cameron - the kind of writer who can be intelligent enough to play with cliches. And also because it fits with the subtext of the rest of the movie, which is after all about the eternal contrast between America and Europe (Latin Europe, actually). It's one of the reasons while I think Vicky Christina Barcelona, while not a masterpiece, is slightly better than most think it is.

But still, intentional or not, hers isn't an Oscar-worthy performance.




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Post by Mister Tee »

It seems we covered this one so recently I can practically remember word for word what I said at the time.

Like BJ, I most lament the absence of Rosemary DeWitt, who'd have been my easy winner. I'd also cite Elsa Zylberstein in I've Loved You So Long and Vera Farmiga in Nothing but the Truth as superior to any of those nominated. Kate Winslet in the Reader? Not in any category.

As I prepared for this year, I realized I couldn't recall a Board consensus choice, but my guess about who would win has (so far) turned out right: Marisa Tomei. Let me say it flat out: Tomei is a decent actress, who didn't deserve her decade of abuse for the fluky My Cousin Vinny win. But I think the backlash against that abuse has pushed her to the point where many now wildly overrate her. For me, she's nowhere near the best of any of the three years where she was nominated. Then again, my opinion of this particular acceptable/nothing special performance is no doubt colored by my finding The Wrestler the most overrated movie of the crappy year 2008.

I guess Taraji P. Henson is sweet enough, but I don't find the character especially interesting or, certainly, complex.

I'm with Damien in liking Vicky Christina Barcelona far more than most here (for me it's, along with Match Point, Woody's decade high point) but also in being baffled why Penelope Cruz was so singled out for praise by critics. She's fine in a standard Latin-spitfire way, but I fail to see any singular achievement. (And Italiano's "it was a play on a cliche" seems to me somewhat defensve reasoning -- reminiscent of when David Kehr tried excusiig Titanic's woeful script by saying it intentionally mimicked Nickelodeon era narratives. Come on)

Which leaves the two ladies from Doubt. On stage, the one-scene encounter with the mother (played there by Adrienne Lennox, the recent saving grace of The Blind Side) was the high point of the show, and Viola Davis -- a splendid actress -- gives it her all. But one reason Lennox stood out so was that the actress who played Sister James -- Amy Adams' part -- was almost unbelievably shrill and over the top. Seeing an actress of subtlety -- an actress who can play simplicity and goodness without suggesting limited mental capacity -- do justice to the part, made me realize that Sr. James was a quite substantial role, and far more deserving of honors if done correctly. It may be that I'm unduly influenced by the extraordinary level of improvement I witnessed, but, for me, Amy Adams is the clear standout here, amd gets my vote among a field that in general doesn't wow me.
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Post by Snick's Guy »

Viola Davis easily gets my vote. What a memorable and powerful (though brief) role, in which she simply nails!

I see Tomei running away with this one, and though she is better than she had been in previous roles, and nomination is well deserved, Davis triumphs over her in my opinion.




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