Possible Acting Nominees - 2011

[Big Magilla]

By the way, let's add Carey Mulligan ot the Best Actress discussions for Shame, which has just been picked up by Fox Searchlight.

Also add Michael Fassbender to the Best Actor list for the same film and consider Christopher Plummer a doubel threat - Best Supporting Acotr for Beginners, Best Actor for Barrymore.

From what I can tell her role is too small to be considered Lead. However I doubt the Academy will touch Shame with a ten-foot-pole. Some of the critics' groups may be brave enough to, though.

First they said no distributer would touch it, now... I dunno, I vividly remember the same arguments being made against There Will be Blood four years ago. It's not a film that would win , or probably even be nominated for Best Picture, but I could see the actor's branch embracing it.

[bizarre]

By the way, let's add Carey Mulligan ot the Best Actress discussions for Shame, which has just been picked up by Fox Searchlight.

Also add Michael Fassbender to the Best Actor list for the same film and consider Christopher Plummer a doubel threat - Best Supporting Acotr for Beginners, Best Actor for Barrymore.

From what I can tell her role is too small to be considered Lead. However I doubt the Academy will touch Shame with a ten-foot-pole. Some of the critics' groups may be brave enough to, though.

[kaytodd]

I predict Sandra Bullock's role in ELIC will be expanded from the mother's role in the novel. This could result in a supporting nom if the film is well received. The narrative spine of the film should focus on how Hank's widow and son deal with his loss, with suddenly becoming a family of two instead of three, and with living in a city where almost everyone they meet has been touched by the 9/11 tragedy. The son's memories of his father, represented by the flashbacks, should take up a greater portion of the time in the film than it did in the novel. I thought the parts of the novel in which two other major characters remember tragic events in their lives were well written and moving. And also a reminder of how often people commit mass atrocities against each other. But I hope the screenplay drops that storyline in favor of more scenes between the father and son and especially the mother and son, because the ones in the book are terrific and should bring out the hankies.

[flipp525]

I read somewhere that all four will be campaigned as lead. Foster seems to be gettign the best notices, but the film, which is apprently four people in a room screaming at each other, is far from an awards magnet.

Have you ever seen Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf??

[Big Magilla]

By the way, let's add Carey Mulligan ot the Best Actress discussions for Shame, which has just been picked up by Fox Searchlight.

Also add Michael Fassbender to the Best Actor list for the same film and consider Christopher Plummer a doubel threat - Best Supporting Acotr for Beginners, Best Actor for Barrymore.

[Big Magilla]

I mast admit I'm quite amused by this category placement debate. It would be interesting to see where people who so naturally accepted Alfree Woodard as supporting in Passion Fish for example (yes, I'm talking to you, Magilla) will stand on this one.

Not having seen the film I have no opinion on where she should be placed, but the scuttlebut of the moment is that she will insist on being considered lead as she did with the Broadway revival of Fences for which she won the Best Actress Tony opposite Denzel Washington for the same role Mary Alice won the Best Featured Actress award in the original production in support of James Earl Jones. However, we'll have to see what the critics do. if she starts winning supporitng awards all over the place, which is possible, the chances of a Best Actress Oscar nomination becomes less likely.

[Uri]

The problem with Davis is not whether she's lead or support – the problem is that she, a very good and charismatic actress, was denied of a real, three dimensional role to play. While in the book (a readable but naïve one, if I may quote Marco's mother) the character of Aibileen had a voice and substance, in the film she is reduced to a saintly cardboard cliché, right out of the Sidney Poitier's spectrum of 1967. While the book opens with her story, told by her inner self, the film first image is of Stone's very white hand, which is the correct choice for it is Skeeter's story. While in the book she is one of two protagonists and in a way, at least at the beginning, secondary to Aibileen, the makers of the film clearly choose her POV and everybody else in it simply inhabit her universe.

If I were to consider any aspect of The Help comes awards time (which I'm not), I'd place Davis in support. The only justification for having her as lead seems to come straight out of white guilt – isn't she so noble, so graceful, she doesn't really have to have actual screen time or to really do something for us to get the massage – she's there to look gloomy and more moral than us, which she does. Anyway, we must have enough time to find out about this guy Skeeter is dating. Really, was the point of the film better served in any way by us, while having a very limited knowledge about these maids, knowing all about Skeeter's hair, work in that newspaper, the cars she was driving or indeed her dating habits? (Speaking of which - it's not incidental that while the white women have husbands whom we see, get pregnant, some are allowed to be sexpots - hell, even Sissy Spacek is getting lucky at one point - the black women are totally de-sexualized here. Even the maid of Skeeter's family, who in the book is light skinned and has a daughter who passes for white, is depicted here as a dark skinned as is her offspring. No one can come out of this squeaky clean movie thinking of improper stuff).

I mast admit I'm quite amused by this category placement debate. It would be interesting to see where people who so naturally accepted Alfree Woodard as supporting in Passion Fish for example (yes, I'm talking to you, Magilla) will stand on this one.

[The Original BJ]

If Viola Davis is nominated in support, it will be one of the more loathsome cases of Uri's theory that supporting categories are for supporting people, as if the black maid couldn't possibly be considered the lead of her own story.

To play devil's advocate, I actually think Davis will be a Best Actress nominee. It's pretty clear that Emma Stone is NOT a contender, but Octavia Spencer is, so pushing Davis for lead and Spencer for support would be a way to prevent the film's two acting contenders from competing against one another.

Also, doesn't The Help's box office only help Davis's lead campaign? It's clear this movie is going to be an Oscar player in some capacity, and the more popular it is overall, the more likely Davis will be able to solidify a spot in the top category (sort of the way the surprise enthusiasm for The Reader propelled Winslet to a Best Actress spot when most thought the Academy would just fall in line with the precursors and list her in support.) And...bird-in-the-hand rule...isn't Davis a pretty decent bet in Best Actress regardless of what competition MAY be coming down the pike?

[OscarGuy]

But isn't Davis pushing herself as lead? I thought I read somewhere that she's refusing to be campaigned in support? If that's the case, she's throwing herself under the bus. And on top of that, if they do nominate and award her in support, don't you think civil rights groups will cry foul saying the Academy's just giving a token award in the wrong category? Davis probably should have won an Oscar for Doubt, which would have alleviated this whole mess, but Streep should have won for Doubt, so they caused their own 3rd Oscar mess this year.

[Reza]

The category confusion will bug Davis to the end but ultimately I think she'll end up in, and win, Supporting Actress. Moving her to lead in a year full of strong, better known candidates - especially for a performance in what amounts to an ensemble film - would be an incredibly unwise decision. I think the film's box office and popularity and the critical support for the performance will help keep it from turning into a Johansson '03 or Bello '05 situation.

I agree and it is also going to be yet another opportunity for the Academy to award an African American actor (shades of 2001when Washington, Berry & Poitier won) along with the already selected Honorary twosome - Oprah Winfrey & James Earl Jones.

[bizarre]

Ok. I think it's time to solidify some things. Although the studio will probably choose things differently, of the four main actors of Carnage, which are supporting characters and which are lead.

By order on IMDB, I'd say Waltz and Foster are lead with Winslet and Reilly support, but that could be reversed for all I know as I am not familiar with the source material.

From the reception to the performances and the fact that the Academy like sorting things into neat little boxes, I'm thinking Foster as lead, Waltz and Reilly in Supporting Actor and Winslet in Supporting Actress. The only one of these I can't see potentially going the distance is Reilly, who gets 'also-ran' notices in every review. Winslet hasn't been incredibly well-received for this performance but she gets to vomit, yell "I WIPE MY ASS" and get drunk which will be enough to get the Globes interested in a 'looser' turn by a 'serious actress'.

The category confusion will bug Davis to the end but ultimately I think she'll end up in, and win, Supporting Actress. Moving her to lead in a year full of strong, better known candidates - especially for a performance in what amounts to an ensemble film - would be an incredibly unwise decision. I think the film's box office and popularity and the critical support for the performance will help keep it from turning into a Johansson '03 or Bello '05 situation.

[Sabin]

I don't think Carnage will register very strongly come Oscar time. Just a hunch.

Let's be honest...it all depends on how strong the competition is for Best Actress is, and it's too soon to tell right now. It would seem as though there are a few viable contenders, but I could just as easily see her pushed for Support where she could win. The problem is that Octavia Spencer is a strong contender for Support. I think the critics will line up behind Jessica Chastain, because years like she's had don't come along very often. If Spencer is nominated alongside Davis, they're both done. Their performances exist in the same film but not in the same world.

[mayukh]

Is there any word yet on whether Viola Davis will be campaigned for Lead or Supporting? (I think she's obviously lead, by the way, but...)

[The Original BJ]

On stage, all four actors in God of Carnage were clearly leads -- the film version would have to alter the story drastically to change this fact. It would be ludicrous to suggest that any of the actors were subservient to the others.

Since the original play has been discussed briefly in numerous threads, I'll throw out my quick thoughts. First off, I thought the play was quite funny, with terrific performances from the entire cast (with Marcia Gay Harden's role the real standout). I also thought it was interesting the way the battle lines shifted throughout the play -- sometimes the characters sided with their spouses, other times they sided based on gender lines, still other times they sided with the opposite sex character to whom they were NOT married. But, overall, I didn't think the material probed very deeply -- I remarked to my friend after seeing it that it felt at times like a strangely highbrow treatment (a drawing-room drama about a pair of bourgeoisie couples) of a lowbrow subject (a sitcom-ish couples spat, complete with numerous instances of projectile vomiting).

I mostly wonder how/if Polanski has pulled off the transition to the screen. The play features four characters in one room in real time; that's about as non-cinematic as you can get.

[Big Magilla]

I read somewhere that all four will be campaigned as lead. Foster seems to be gettign the best notices, but the film, which is apprently four people in a room screaming at each other, is far from an awards magnet.