Best Actress (January thru April)

We're a third of the way through the year now. Imagine. So, let's check briefly in with the worst of our Oscar-obsessed selves and the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories. If, God forbid, I had to fill out a ballot of Best Actress right at this moment on May 8th, taking only the films from January 1st to April 30th into account, my ballot would look like this (in alpha order)

Lead
Maggie Cheung in Clean
Bryce Dallas Howard in Manderlay
Gretchen Mol in The Notorious Bettie Page
Julianne Moore in Freedomland
Keke Palmer in Akeelah and the Bee

...I would fill it out whilst cringing since two of these I have major problems with, one is pleasant but no great shakes, another is impressive but leaves me cold. There's only one actress here I can root for. She's also, happily, the only one with a potential awards-run at year's end. And who'da thunk it? It's my one-time punching bag Gretchen Mol. I think The Notorious Bettie Page has a lot of problems as a film including a distinct lack of energy (frisky and otherwise) but Mol does a lot to cover up the flaws. I'm particularly fond of the way she manages to modulate her 'aw shucks -why not?' default cheery innocence throughout and also the way she doesn't remotely overplay her characters spirituality especially towards the film's end when many actresses would've viewed that as the juicy bait on the awards hook. Well done. (Plus, she looks great naked)

Supporting
Edie Falco in Freedomland
Catherine Keener in Friends with Money
Frances McDormand in Friends with Money
Danny Perea in Duck Season
Lili Taylor in The Notorious Bettie Page

For those of you immediately asking "Where's Jodie Foster for Inside Man?" Let me just say right off the bat that it's my favorite bad performance of the year. I don't think she has a clue how to play her über power-bitch role but I think it was a ton 'o' fun to watch her flail about. I mean that in the nicest way possible even though it sounds über power-bitchy.

But back to the category. It's much better than lead. Of course there are always more worthy supporting players than leads --simple mathematics. There are more of them to begin with. The biggest surprise in this lineup is Edie Falco in Freedomland. The film is such a mess narratively and even emotionally as many of the character arcs make not a lick of sense or are just poorly handled. But when she's onscreen you get the sense of a much finer movie in her head and her character provides great calm within the storm of poor storytelling choices raging all around her. I'd probably vote for Frances McDormand as the standout in this lineup. If Jennifer Aniston in the lead role of the same film had even half her skill, Friends with Money might've been something, deeply cynical though it would remain. But when the center of your film is lifeless, the film gets dragged down too.

This just in: Friends with Money and The Notorious Bettie Page are flip sides of the same coin. It's what happens when your film has a dead center versus what happens when your film has a lifeless periphery. In truth I liked them both but fix those problems and they immediately become susbtantial movies that are much easier to love.

Related Film Experience Posts/Pages:
Film Seen in 2006 * Actress Oscar Predictions * Supporting Actress Oscar Predictions * Julianne Moore Shrine * Top 100 Actresses of the Aughts (Foster @ #65, Keener @ #26, Cheung @ #16, McDormand @ #14, Moore @ #6 ) * A History of... Jodie Foster *

tags: Jennifer Aniston, movies, celebrities, Oscars, awards, Gretchen Mol, Bettie Page, Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore