Best Actress

For the films of 2011
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Re: Best Actress

Post by Big Magilla »

You never know with Tarantino. Django Unchained could be a huge hit or a huge flop. Its Christmas day opening, however, suggests that Harvey may know something. He probably has his Oscar campaign already mapped out in his head.

An edgy Tarantino film could be one to stand out from a crowd of histoprical epics (Steven Spielberg's Lincoln; big screen musicals (Tom Hooper's Les Miserables and Leo's more likely bid for a nomination (Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby) and Peter Jackson's highly anticipated Hobbit movie.
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Re: Best Actress

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Sabin wrote:Oh, he'll push Django Unchained. But I'm guessing his dog in the race will be "Heretofore Unheard Of Twee, Vaguely Historical Trifle-Concoction" to be premiered at Toronto, directed by whomever Lasse Hallstrom's eldest son is.
Starring British actor who is due for an Oscar co-starring veteran sure to get a nomination and a special surprise nominee.
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Re: Best Actress

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Oh, he'll push Django Unchained. But I'm guessing his dog in the race will be "Heretofore Unheard Of Twee, Vaguely Historical Trifle-Concoction" to be premiered at Toronto, directed by whomever Lasse Hallstrom's eldest son is.
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Re: Best Actress

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OscarGuy wrote:Or put all his ducks behind Django Unchained in an effort to get Tarantino the recognition he couldn't back in 1994?
Of course he's going to do this. It has the best shot at nominations (especially for DiCaprio who many feel was snubbed; however, there's no way they'd ever file him into support. If he's nominated it'll be a borderline perfomance).
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Re: Best Actress

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I'd like to see him push something radical again, but can it happen? I'll give him the push for Blue Valentine (though his heart didn't seem in it apart from Michelle Williams) and his company has put forth a handful of atypical productions (Nowhere Boy, Submarine, A Single Man, Inglourious Basterds) in the last few years...but 2012 doesn't look great. Django Unchained and The Bully Project seem his most daring projects and he's picked up the rights to The Intouchables, so I guess we'll have to see. But will he push The Wettest County or Butter? Or put all his ducks behind Django Unchained in an effort to get Tarantino the recognition he couldn't back in 1994?
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Re: Best Actress

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Sabin wrote:So, I don't hate Harvey Weinstein as a person or a campaigner. I think he's a complicated individual who has changed the filmic landscape mostly for the better and in some ways for the worse. I just wish he would push better films.
I'd make a slight adjustment to what you say, despite mostly agreeing.

What hurts about Weinstein is, he's the charismatic revolutionary -- the guy who brought The Crying Game, The Piano, Pulp Fiction into the Oscars -- who it turns out only wanted to be the new, barely-changed establishment. Once he got to a position of power, he was all about Chocolat and the King's Speech -- and about fending off the very kinds of films he'd once made his reputation nurturing.

And I wonder if he had this in mind from the start. There was a telling quote from him: someone was talking with him about the great movies of the 70s -- an era vitally important to many of us, what we hoped the indie boom of the 90s might partially re-create. His take on it was, "1939 kicks the 70s' ass". Which is a legitimate position, certainly, one I'd expect, say, Steven Spielberg or Brian Grazer to take. It's not what I'd expect the guy who championed those early films to say, and makes me feel he was only pretending to be on my side from the start.
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Re: Best Actress

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Do you have personal contact with the man?

Speaking for myself, it's very complicated.

He's incredible at his job and he's completely changed the filmic landscape in America likely for the better. It's possible that someone like Ted Hope or Bingham Ray could have overseen one of stronger artistic integrity on behalf of the auteur, as Weinstein quickly graduated from pushing the works of Soderbergh, Tarantino, and Campion to that of Madden, Hallstrom, and Damon & Affleck (not really Van Sant). But tomato, tomahto. Like so many politicians, it's very easy to ascribe virtues to them that were never there, and many of his trifle concoctions are incredibly endearing. I maintain that Shakespeare in Love was indeed a much better film than Saving Private Ryan.

The Iron Lady looks quite bad and everyone that I know in my personal life seems to dislike it, so I'll likely never see it. But I'm not in the camp of people who think that Viola Davis was particularly "robbed". I was rooting for Rooney Mara in a field devoid of Paquin, Binoche, and Olsen. It's impossible these days to divorce the campaign from the film/performance (which we'll get to in a moment), but it does seem to me that voters went with Meryl Streep in lieu of the fact that they clearly liked The Help enough to give it a Best Picture nomination for a variety of reasons: 1) if they didn't like The Iron Lady, they liked Meryl Streep's performance more, 2) she's been nominated an incredible number of times since her last win and considering that her films have become surprisingly popular these days for the most part the industry has a lot of affection for her, and 3) it's a huge role and Viola Davis' was supporting. Meryl's win is all about Meryl.

The Artist winning Best Picture is a bit odder. I think Harvey Weinstein did his job, took advantage of a dearth of competition, and created a masterful campaign that in many ways I believe supplanted the film itself. But that would have felt like the case regardless of who was pushing it for the gold. It just happened to fall in the hands of someone who knew how to make it happen. It's hard to tell where the trailer for The Artist ends and the film begins.

Harvey Weinstein has guided four film to Best Picture victories, and this is his second in as many years, and while I doubt many people will see 2011 as his crowning year, his job was never easier than everything leading up to last night. He hasn't won for any of his radical endeavors, but rather for his middlebrow affairs. Films like The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, The King's Speech, and The Artist are stroke-jobs for the AARP crowd. I don't much care for The Artist, but it's not as though anything within spitting distance of it had a shot.

So, I don't hate Harvey Weinstein as a person or a campaigner. I think he's a complicated individual who has changed the filmic landscape mostly for the better and in some ways for the worse. I just wish he would push better films.
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Re: Best Actress

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Do you people genuinely hate Harvey Weinstein as a person/campaigner or do you just not like his company's films? It's really hard to tell with some of you.
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Re: Best Actress

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Along with frontrunners The Artist and Hugo, this award also made The Iron Lady the only multi-winning film of the evening.
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Re: Best Actress

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Sabin wrote:That clip of The Iron Lady did not compel me to watch it.
I am surprised they did not go with the many "old lady" moments since that is where Streep really shined. Also, for all its flaws, THE IRON LADY is a better film than THE HELP.
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Re: Best Actress

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Now, I don't want to sound too tough but... even just thinking that Harvey Weinstein is responsible for Meryl Streep's win... I don't know - I think it means that one (while obviously intelligent, and certainly expert in other fields) doesn't exactly understand too much not about the Oscars but maybe about cinema - he understands much, but not too much.

A win for Viola Davis - for THAT performance in THAT movie, I mean - would have been an embarassment for the Academy, and it would have led to one of those typically embarassing moments - you know, standing ovation, tears, "I want to thank God", "this is for all black people" - terrible, just terrible. Too much even for the Academy, I guess. They are more serious, it seems, than I thought, and spared us that. (And we can be grateful, in this case, that it's not just the actors who vote here).

Sabin, you survived The Help and Viola Davis's performance in it - I'd honestly say that you'll survive The Iron Lady, too.

And let's leave to other boards the vote-splitting theory - rolotomasi is right. By the way, I feel that had Davis been nominated in support, she would have lost to Spencer, too. But we'll never know.
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Re: Best Actress

Post by OscarGuy »

I think those examples you cite, rolo, are a bit ill-fitting to the example...well, the Amy Adams/Melissa Leo a little less so, but neither of those pairings was really expected to be competitive. I still think Davis would have won should she have competed in support, but if it were Spencer vs. Davis, it might have been a stronger competition.
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Re: Best Actress

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That clip of The Iron Lady did not compel me to watch it.
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Re: Best Actress

Post by Franz Ferdinand »

The last time Streep won an Oscar I was in embryonic fluid. It was wonderful to see it happen, my entire party was predicting Davis but it was a true delight to witness such a moment.
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Re: Best Actress

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Snick's Guy wrote:So, I was just thinking. There was talk earlier in award season whether Davis would be placed in lead or supporting. Had Davis been placed in supporting would she had won? Would Spencer still had triumphed? Or would they have split the vote, leading to a win by either Bejo or McCarthy?
Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer did not split the vote, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams did not split the vote, Catherine Zeta Jones and Queen Latifah did not split the vote.

I think this vote splitting thing happens much less than people believe. Viola Davis definitely would have won if she had been in Supporting instead of Lead.
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