Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Updates & Supporting Actress Stuff

Time still short. Must.compile. year-end review listage. In the meantime, Oscar Predix have been slightly revised. The next big events for setting Oscar's table are the Screen Actors and Producers Guild nominations, both to be announced on 01/04/07 --smack dab in the week in which most Academy voters are filling out their Oscar ballots.

In other site news: There's a fresh poll at the site, the final in the "20 years of acting wins" series: Supporting Actress. That should get you in the mood for the next two Sundays of supporting actress events.

Sunday December 31st: Supporting Actress Smackdown, 1975
Sunday January 7th: Stinky Lulu's Supporting Actress Blog-a-Thon ~think of it as FYCs for 2006

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny. From #1 to #7 in your BP chart, they're all B, B+ or B-.

-cal roth

Glenn Dunks said...

I really must ask: How on earth does Adrianna Barraza have the most "affecting role" in Babel. I also didn't see it as "confident rich and moving". She didn't really have anything to do other than stand around until half way through her story and then she had to walk through the desert a lot screaming for help. Did I miss something?

I'm staunchly in the Kikuchi club. Not because she's a deaf mute, but because I just identified with her character much more. Granted, the reason for her character's issues are because she is a deaf mute, but it's not like grunting makes a good performance. I just liked her more.

Having said that, I don't think either is Oscar worthy.

Anyway. It's 4.16am and I don't know what I'm still doing up.

Anonymous said...

Just a really stupid nit-picking moment I'm having at work...but the foreign nominees aren't getting that nomination in the totals at the top of the updates page (e.g. Volver should have 3 instead of 2, Pan's 2 instead of 1, etc.). I'm at the office, trying to avoid work during the Dead Week, so I'm forgiven for being a pain, right? :-)

Incidentally, camel, I'm with you on Kikuchi over Barraza. I'm not sold necessarily on whether Kikuchi is a hell of an actress (I don't think she had much of a rep even in Japan prior to Babel) but she got the bait role and sold it really well. I think she should be nominated and if I had a vote (a boy can dream) I'd throw mine her way for the statue.

But I see a lot of strife on message boards (particularly IMDB) re: Barraza vs. Kikuchi. This shouldn't be a one-or-the-other thing. I loved Rinko but I want them both to get nods; I think if one is a Babel fan (I dug it, I guess) then they should hope for both, not put one down to build the other up.

NATHANIEL R said...

sorry about any quirks. it's a lot of pages to keep track of ... if i were more of a computer whiz...

Anonymous said...

Wow. Really impressed to see Dianne Wiest is running away with this thing... twice over, in fact! (So far.)

This was, by far, the toughest of the 4 acting polls to date.

They've been an eye-opener. Normally I only judge past winners in context with their fellow nominees and/or also-rans; I've never spent much time thinking about them in context with other past winners.

It was a tough call, and you know I really wanted to pick Judi!

But in the end I picked out Juliette Binoche. My favourite choice on so many levels: (1) I love her, (2) I love her performance in The English Patient, and (3) it remains my finest Oscar viewing memory - one of the few times I've got a sense of the Academy voting where they felt the vote deserved to go, rather than where Oscar pundits told them they WERE going to go. Glorious.

Rob

adam k. said...

Wow, there are a lot of good winners in the history of supporting actress. I think it goes with the "surprise" factor of the category... the surprised are usually good ones. People vote there for what they actually like. Anyway, nice to see the votes spread around.

That said, I voted for Paquin mainly because of the "OMG she won!" moment and that amazing YouTube video showing it. Like Brody, she stands out not just because her perf was great, but also because she surprised and gave a highly entertaining speech... and then walked back to her seat instead of to the back (hee!).

I was torn between the two Wiest wins. My favorite perf of hers is actually her non-winning one from Parenthood. LOVE it.

What does everyone think about Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost? I used to really love her in it a lot, but then as grew up I realized that the movie's kinda bad. I still enjoy the Whoopi... though I feel Oda Mae Brown probably holds a place in Nathaniel's Hall of "Annoyingly-Overpraised-Perfs-That-Won-Makeup-Oscars" Shame.

Anonymous said...

I'm personally fond of Whoopi in that role. OK, I prefer Bracco that year, but Goldberg is by far the best thing about her movie, which is - by now - assuredly in the "so bad it's good" category. We've all seen it at least 800 times, so resistance is futile.

It ain't the best Whoopi work (Color? Sister Act?), but since when did actors win an Academy Award for their best work?

Rob

adam k. said...

Ghose IS so bad it's good. Seriously.

adam k. said...

Oops, that would be "Ghost." Dammit.

DL said...

I think "Ghost" is so good it's REALLY GOOD. And I'm sticking to that. :P

But yeah, I don't think Whoopi Goldberg should have won for her Oda Mae Brown. If she could've just won for The Color Purple, someone more deserving (like, say, Diane Ladd!!) could've won in 1990.

DL said...

Hey! Where's my icon?

Brian Darr said...

Slight nitpick in your text for the Best Director category: Akira Kurosawa was never a "regular" nominee in this category, having been picked only once, for Ran. His films did much better in the Foreign Film category. Fellini was nominated 5 times in the sixites and seventies. Bergman was nominated 3 times in the seventies and eighties.

Glenn Dunks said...

I think it was because his films were regularly in Oscar's mind. They got noms in tech categories often, didn't they?

And I chose Paquin. She's a darl.

NATHANIEL R said...

Brian --i hear you on Kurosawa but his films were such a mainstay of special prizes that I figured he counts. If Pedro starts getting nominated every couple of years in foreign film (than we can probably add him to that short list)

Cal --the fact that they're all Bs means I'll probably have more fun with this Oscar night. I won't care as much and will therefore not be as devastated should it not go my way ;)

Glenn Dunks said...

Knowing that, they'd also nominate Flags of Our Fathers and make it win because it's in English or something ridiculous like that.