If I picked the winners...

[I figured out that it's much better if I do only one decade of winners per entry, because the list of the winners is not endless. So...]
The category is Best Actress in a Leading Role and the decade is the 1980s. Let me tell you that this the decade ws probably the best for this category. There are so many worthy nominees (e.g in 1983 and 1988 there are three, in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985 and 1986 there are two), so this was a hard entry to make but so relaxing.
So my winners are (this time I do runner-ups since the races wer very tight, but I'm not gonna do it on a regular basis):
1980: Sissy Spacek in The Coal Miner's Daughter (happy birthday Sissy)
runner-up: Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People
1981: Diane Keaton in Reds
runner-up:Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman
1982: Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice
runner-up: Jessica Lange in Frances
1983: Meryl Streep in Silkwood
runners-up: Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment & Julie Walters in Educating Rita
1984: Sally Field in Places in the Heart (no runner-ups, this was an awful year)
1985: Geraldine Page in A Trip to Bountiful & Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple
runner-up: Meryl Streep in OUt of Africa
1986: Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God
runner-up: Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (they might change places in time, but now I stick to this)
1987: Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction
runner-up: Cher in Moonstruck
1988: Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons
runner-up: Jodie Foster in The Accused (this is rather a tie for me between them)
1989: Jessica Tandy in Driving Misss Daisy
runner-up: Jessica Lange in Music Box (NO MICHELLE PFEIFFER PLEASE THX!!!)

So how do you like them? Are they satisfying to you? Or no? Or do you say 'damn you'?

Happy Holidays!

I wish happy holidays to everyone and everything nice. :-)

Thoughts on this award season (acting categories)

So, let's start with my two favorite categories, Best Actor and Actress.

Best Actor: I really want Jeff Bridges to win, I really do, but I'm less and less certain that it would happen and I really hope that I'm wrong. I think this looks so much like last year with Bridges as Rourke and Clooney as Penn. Clooney received at least ten critics' awards and rave reviews, he's a very popular and beloved actor in the Academy and if Up in the Air wins Best Picture it has to win at least two or three other awards. The screenplay award is locked IMO and it might lose Director to Kathryn Bigelow and the supporting ladies cannot win with Mo'Nique as a lock. So the only option is Clooney.
So my prediction: George Clooney in Up in the Air

Best Actress: Although Carey Mulligan seemed to be a far-out front-runner before the award season began and she won the first two critics's awards. But a very popular overdue actress suddenly turned up and won some awards ( e.g. NYFC), that seemed to be in the bag of Mulligan. Yes, she's the brilliant Meryl Streep, who might just receive her long awaited third Oscar. And she will IMO. She's overdue and there are two other factors in her favor: the only thing the Academy loves more than Meryl is BIOPICS. Haven't you noticed? Since 1998, there's always been a biopic winner (just check it if you don't believe me) and the Academy fall for much weaker performances than Meryl's superb turn in Julie and Julia. So it might be Mulligan after all, but I doubt it, because this "young Oscar princess" worked in the 1960s, but the world has changed a lot and unless you're Gwyneth Paltrow and your father pays for your Oscar, you can't expect to win under 30.
So my prediction: Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia

Best Supporting Actor: I don't think I should waste much time to this category, because unless Woody Harrelson gets stronger or the sentimentality makes them vote for Christopher Plummer, this is Waltz's to lose. He won all the awards (too much IMO) and I think the Oscar won't be a problem to him either. I really don't understand the fascination with his performance, it was very good, but I guess I have to rewatch the movie (I've just received a DVD).
So my prediction: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: This category is not very exciting either. It's Mo'Nique and it's alright. When was the last time that a sweeper performance was THIS worthy? She's excellent and gives the best supporting performance of the decade. I don't think that ANYONE can beat her, especially not Anna Kendrick. And not campaigning like Mo'Nique does can be a good campaign too.
So my prediction: Mo'Nique in Precious

About Best Picture and Director: I decide it later, because I haven't seen many of the movies.
What do you think?

Review: Notes on a Scandal

Gah! I've read a lot of mixed reviews about this film and I did not think that it was going to be as great as it was. The tension throughout the movie was so high, that it made me cringe.
It's about Barbara (Judi Dench), a lonely sixtysomething spinster, who works at an awful school and who's disliked by her collegues. However, when an inexperienced young teacher, Sheba (Cate Blanchett) comes to teach at the school, she finally makes a friend. But Sheba has a secret life, which becomes clear to Barbara.
Let me start with the nominated screenplay: it's very good. The story is terrific, the scenes are excellently written, so the nomination was worthy, but a win would have been too much.
But not for Dench: she's so damn perfect. Her loneliness, her sadness and bitterness ad the way she portrays a spinster living a pathetic life and being a useless for other people. A person who has to answer every time her relatives ask "Have you met someone?", who becomes desperate and loses every connection SPOILER! when her cat dies (oh, the scene where she buries it is unforgettable). She's unforgettable and I think she gave the performance of her lifetime. So, I love Helen Mirren, but I think Dench owned that category.
Blanchett is also exceptional in her very difficult role, her performance is also excellent, but her part does not involve the possibility to be as unbelievable as Dench was. The nomination was worthy, even though Abigail Breslin may have been a bit better. But let me tell you Blanchett was a lot better than Jennifer Hudson.
I think Bill Nighy also could have been nominated instead of Eddie Murphy (I'm always super-pissed when people say that Murphy should have won).
And I forgot to mention the magnificent score of Philip Glass. I've always been a big fan of his scores (if you haven't seen Koyaanisquatsi watch it, it's terrific) and this one is no exception. It really SHOULD HAVE WON over the music of Babel, which was really nothing.
Ok, so you should all watch Notes on a Scandal. It's compulsory for Dench-fans, but I guess they've all seen it. (I mean how can you miss the best performance of the actress you love) :-) So, great entertainment.
My grade: 8/10
Nominations: Best Actress (Judi Dench); Best Supporting Actress (Cate Blanchett); Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Original Score
My wins: Best Actress and Score and maybe Best Supporting Actress

Review: Places in the Heart (1984)

I'm so grateful for this movie and I really mean this. It's such a relief that there are some truly enjoyable and entertaining movies, which can also make you think, and which is full of emotion.
The story is about a southern woman (Sally Field) who after the sudden death of her husband has to deal with financial difficulties. With the help of a black man (Danny Glover) and with the support of her sister (Lindsay Crouse) she is able to run her cotton farm during the depression.
As I said, this movie was an enormous relief for me. I loved its honesty and its emotional story, which in my opinion deserved to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Robert Benton's direction is firm and he's able to create an excellent and very fetching atmosphere. Although he won the Best Director for Kramer vs. Kramer five years prior, this movie is way better and less sentimental than Kramer vs. Kramer.
I might be biased because I really love this movies about the American South, the Depression and racism like To Kill a Mockingbrid, Fried Green Tomatoes or The Color Purple. They might be quite similar but who cares? I love all of them.
Sally Field gives a very moving and good performance in the lead as Edna, and even though she's not even close to the brilliance of her magnificent turn in Norma Rae, she richly deserved this Oscar too. This is definitely not one of the best winning performances, but I think 1984 was a damn weak year for both Best Actress and Supporting Actress. So Sally is great and I might also add that she's a terrific actress and I'm really sorry that we don't see her on the silver screen as much as we should.
The members of the supporting cast give memorable and strong performances: John Malkovich received a nomination for playing the blind man living at Edna's house. His nomination might have been deserved, but he did not deserve to win.
Same for Lindsay Crouse, who I think deserved that nomination because it was a damn weak year, but apart from being good, she's nothing special.
There are some good turns by Danny Glover (who's nomination-worthy IMO), Ed Harris and his wife Amy Madigan (as his mistress here).
I want to also add, that I'm quite shocked that Nestor Almendros did not receive a Best Cinematography nomination, because his work was also terrific.
So, again: thank you for making this great movie, mr. Benton! It richly deserved the Best Picture nomination.
My Grade: 9/10
Nominations: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actress (Sally Field WON); Best Supporting Actor (John Malkovich); Best Supporting Actress (Lindsay Crouse); Best Original Screenplay; Best Costume Design
My wins: Best Actress and Screenplay

Smackdown

The category is Best Actor and the year is 1958. It was a very strong year, not the best ever, but it was a very interesting one.
And the nominees were:
• Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones
• David Niven in Separate Tables *
• Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones
• Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea

And my ranking is:
1. Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones: Oh Poitier is one of my favorite actors ever. I love the honesty in his performances. He's always really subtle and I couldn't imagine him yelling. In The Defiant Ones he gives an emotional and moving performance as a black man who has to get along with another (white) convict. His role is less flashy than the one of Curtis, but it certainly got me.
2. David Niven in Separate Tables: He's great, well he's David Niven. This guy was a genious and the only reason why I prefer Poitier is because Niven is almost supporting. Apart from that, he's just fascinating as the Major. He gave a very strong and dignified performance, which could seem to be a bit dated, but IMO it's flawless.
3. Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: I am a big fan of Newman, but I was never able to like this performance, I think he had better movies (I think his best performance ever was in The Verdict). However, I can appreciate it, because he's charismatic, but I think Liz Taylor stole the show from him sometimes. But Newman's confrontation scene with Burl Ives was simply breathtaking.
4. Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones: I prefer Poitier, but Curtis was also excellent in The Defiant Ones which is a bit more about Curtis than Poitier. Yet I believe Poitier has the better role. Curtis is very good though with the material he was given but he was not very memorable. He was really worthy of that nomination though.
5. Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and The Sea: I like Tracy but not in this movie. I had extremely high expectations and he wasn't good enough. I felt as if he reprised his role from Captains Courgaeous, except that he was a bit older. But he is able to carry this movie on his shoulders, which was awful in itself and it would have been even worse if it wasn't for Tracy.

What's your opinion?

Review: Cat Ballou (1965)

I have mixed feelings, because I really enjoyed this movie, but somehow it just left me as I've never seen it. Everything was given for a great movie: great story, Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Nat King Cole, so I might have had some expectations, to which it actually lived up, I just really can't say that this is a masterpiece.
It's about Cat Ballou (Fonda), who is supposed to become a teacher, but ends up being an outlaw. There are some other weird characters, including a heavy boozer gunfighter, Kid Sheleen (Marvin), who she hires to protect her father.
This movie is actually a comedy and a very good one at that, but is this movie Oscar-type? Well, not really, but it's surely a lot of fun.
Jane Fonda is extremely young and sexy as Cat Ballou, her performance is funny, lively and even though this is definitely not the role of her lifetime, her acting is a very good and entertaining one and this was a very good beginning(?) to her very versatile career.
Lee Marvin is surprisingly hilarious in his double role. Even though he's great I'm not sure if he deserved to win this award. I'm very happy that a terrific comedy performance was recognised, but I don't know. I might have to re-watch it and get to see his co-nominees to finally decide if he deserved that. When Marvin won, Rod Steiger admitted to have been very shocked, but I don't know why it was such a big surprise, since Marvin won the most awards that year.
The screenplay (also nominated) is a very well-written and entertaining one. It has excellent lines, and it provides the actors with lots of possibilities to give a great comedy performance. It lost the Oscar to the adaptation of the great novel Doctor Zhivago (I liked that film even though it was COMPLETELY different from the book) and I think Cat Ballou did not deserve that award.
However, the score and the songs are the best parts of the movie. They are so great, that I would listen to them again and again without the movie just for fun. Nat King Cole's presence really lifts the movie, so I was happy that he was there. I'm a big fan of his music.
So, if you're really bored and you think that your life cannot be worse I strongly recommend this movie, in other cases I say it's good to watch and you will enjoy it. But this is definitely not a masterpiece.
My grade: 7/10
Nominations: Best Actor (Lee Marvin WON); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song; Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment

Review: Elmer Gantry (1960)

Some movies never get dated. This one is not one of those movies. I guess it must have been a shock for the audiences back then, but now it's just simply a sometimes boring and sometimes quite entertaining movie.
It's about Elmer Gantry, a hard-drinking traveller salesman, who joins Sister Sharon (Jean Simmons), an evangelist and very soon he also becomes a preacher. And his hard-hitting "performances" attract people, but the scandal is unavoidable when a hooker and ex-lover of Gantry, Lulu Baines (Shirley Jones) turns up and mixes things up.
I really like Burt Lancaster as an actor, I really do and I think that he was an actor who definitely deserved an Oscar for something (Atlantic City for instance), but not this role. I thought he could only give either horrible (The Rose Tatoo) or brilliant performances (Atlantic City, The Leopard, Sweet Smell of Success), but I was wrong. He could also be so-so. His work is a really decent one and I certainly liked it, but the scenes when he was laughing annoyed me so much. His best scene was the very last one, it was a really brilliant one and the ones with Lulu were also quite good. It's only the beginning which is very distracting (or at least for me). I'm saying that he did not deserve to win the Oscar, but the nomination was deserved (my pick is either Jack Lemmon or Spencer Tracy).
Jean Simmons gives a quite weak performance as Sister Sharon. Many people are disappointed that she did not receive a nomination for this work, but in my opinion her acting in this movie is far from nomination-worthy.
Enough about the leads, because the two very best performances are given by the members of the supporting cast. Arthur Kennedy should have received a nomination for his very strong and memorable performance, which I really admired, and to tell the truth his character was the most decent one.
And there's Shirley Jones. I deliberately left her to the end, because she gives such a dazzling, exciting and sexy performance that it certainly earned that Oscar. She gives so much to the movie. Shortly: life. She appears 70 minutes into the movie and she's in it for 10 minutes maybe, but this short time was enough for her to make an impression. Many people are sad, because she won over Janet Leigh in Psycho, but I think the Academy made the right choice by choosing Jones, because she was both worthy of the award and SUPPORTING. I think Jones' Oscar was the only deserved one.
Richard Brooks' direction and screenplay are both quite dated. It's sad, because I really like his movies, I just did not get anything out of this.
But the last scene is excellently made so it's worth mentioning and there were some very good scenes throughout the movie, so it's not bad at all.
My Grade: 7/10
Nominations: Best Picture; Best Director (Brooks); Best Actor (Burt Lancaster; WON); Best Supporting Actress (Shirley Jones; WON); Best Adapted Screenplay (WON); Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
My wins: Best Supporting Actress for Shirley Jones.

R.I.P Jennifer Jones (1919-2009)

Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Jones died on Thursday in her Malibu home. She was one of the most underrated Oscar-winners ever, but thousands of fans and film lovers will miss her and cherish her memory. She won her very well-deserved Oscar for playing Saint Bernadette in The Song of Bernadette. She was nominated four other times, in 1944 for Since You Went Away (Best Supporting Actress), in 1946 for Love Letters, in 1946 for Duel in the Sun and in 1955 for Love is a Many-Splendored Thing and she should have been nominated for The Towering Inferno. She will be missed, may you rest in peace, Jennifer. You will be missed.

Congratulations Meryl and Mo'Nique!

The Boston Film Critics have just announced their winners. They are:
Best Picture
Hurt Locker
Best Actor
Jeremy Renner for Hurt Locker
Best Actress
Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia
Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow for Hurt Locker
Best Screenplay
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for A Serious Man
Best Cinematography
Barry Ackroyd for Hurt Locker
Best Documentary
The Cove
Best Animated Film
Up
Best Film Editing
Bob Murawski and Chris Innis for Hurt Locker
Best New Filmmaker
Neill Blomkamp for District 9
Best Ensemble Cast
Tie between Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire and Star Trek
Best Use of Music in a Film
Crazy Heart

I'm more than happy for Meryl because I thought that she was brilliant in Julie and Julia. I really think even now that she will win because... Well I'll explain it in a later post because I need a lot of space to do that. I just say: go Meryl and beat these newcomers! (please no hate comments, I'm not a die-hard Meryl fan, but I really want her to win)
Well Mo'Nique gave the best supporting performance of the decade so now surprise here. She gave the best performance of 2009 so no wonder she won.
I'm very happy for Jeremy Renner too, because he really needs critic's support to get the nomination. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker yet, but I'm planning to because I have it.
About Christoph Waltz: I liked the movie, but I think his performance is waaaaaay overrated and I don't think he should win. But maybe it's just me who's tired of villians winning. Or if they have to win, then at least they should be deserving.