Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

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HarryGoldfarb
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

Reza wrote:
bizarre wrote:
Reza wrote: It would be such a great moment if Janet McTeer wins against all odds.
Lol, why would this be true?
Simply because it would bring a much needed jolt to the show.
I can deal with no surprises at the beginning of the show (Plummer and Spencer, Hugo winning the technicals, etc...) but my "very needed jolt" would be delivered by a surprise win by Oldman, and a not so expected but desired win by Malick. Those two would make me tolerate a little bit more the apparently inevitable Best Picture win by The Artist.
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
Reza
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by Reza »

bizarre wrote:
Reza wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:Chastain still/could get it on her sheer versatilty. , but the powers that supposedly are have alrady ordained that Spencer should win and so she will.
It would be such a great moment if Janet McTeer wins against all odds.
Lol, why would this be true?
Simply because it would bring a much needed jolt to the show.
bizarre
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by bizarre »

Reza wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:Chastain still/could get it on her sheer versatilty. , but the powers that supposedly are have alrady ordained that Spencer should win and so she will.
It would be such a great moment if Janet McTeer wins against all odds.
Lol, why would this be true?
Reza
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:Chastain still/could get it on her sheer versatilty. , but the powers that supposedly are have alrady ordained that Spencer should win and so she will.
It would be such a great moment if Janet McTeer wins against all odds.
Big Magilla
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by Big Magilla »

Chastain still/could get it on her sheer versatilty. , but the powers that supposedly are have alrady ordained that Spencer should win and so she will.
bizarre
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by bizarre »

This isn't a great selection. I've seen all but Bejo - Spencer is deserving of note for exploring the 'stock' attributes of a stock character and giving them emotional purpose. It is a smart performance of a dumb role. Chastain's is another 'smart' performance of a 'dumb' role - too smart for her own good, I'd say. She applies the same studied approach to comedy as she does to drama and the result is overthought and never quite loose enough to be either amusing or moving. McTeer is affable but stands out only because her vibrancy is at odds with her film's stagnant dramatic milieu. Her performance is unrefined and more repertory theatre than anything. McCarthy is obnoxious - she doesn't have a character to play but doesn't try to create one, opting instead for the broadest, most bizarre farce capped by the kind of 'illuminating' dramatic scene that smacks as more of a cheap writer's trick than a success in true character development. From what I hear Bejo's performance was swept in with the film - I'll see the film soon, but I doubt she'll beat Spencer for my vote here. Octavia Spencer doesn't give a perfect performance but in a field this shallow she stands head and shoulders above the competition.

Closest to a nomination were certainly Shailene Woodley in The Descendants, probably Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus, Carey Mulligan in Shame and possibly Jessica Chastain for two of her other 2011 performances in Take Shelter and The Tree of Life. Anyone other than those women were also-rans.
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Categories One-by-One: Supporting Actress

Post by Mister Tee »

The nominees:

Berenice Bejo (The Artist)
Jessica Chastain (The Help)
Melisa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
Octavia Spencer (The Help)

What happened to make this category so uncompetitive? I thought from last August that Octavia Spencer would be a strong contender, but I never enivisioned her Mo 'Nique-ing her way through the latter part of the season.

Part of what happened was, the reputable critics decided -- not unreasonably -- that Jessica Chastain's breakout year should be noted. Unhappily, they opted to do this without distinguishing among her several performances. This set up, for the Academy, the obvious move of citing her most widely seen work, in The Help, rather than what I'd single out as her best, in Take Shelter. I certainly doubt she'd have ever won for the latter, but at least it would have set her apart. As it is, she's paired with Spencer the same way Queen Latifah was with Catherine Zeta-Jones: as the clear junior partner, one very unlikely to get votes from those disposed toward the film.

This critical mass around Chastain also prevented two other praised candidates -- Carey Mulligan and Vanessa Redgrave -- from getting any post-season traction. Janet McTeer is the only one to truly arise from the critics' corner, and her film is such a wee thing that her chances are negligible.

This leaves Berenice Bejo, who mostly acts perky for an hour and a half, and is not in Dujardin's class as far as range or winning over voters, and Melissa McCarthy in a thoroughly Academy-atypical performance. I've heard a few folk wonder if she could be this year's Marisa Tomei, but that misses the point of 1992. Tomei, yes, was the likable female character in a popular comedy, buts she was up against two unhappy middle-aged women in not-very-well-liked films, and two older ladies in corset films. As I see it, Octavia Spencer in her goes-down-easy film is already filling the Marisa Tomei slot. I'd be shocked were she to lose.
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