The Best Actress race has had an unusual degree of animosity this year. I haven't seen it this contentious between awards-watchers since probably "Swank vs. Bening (Round 2) + Staunton" (2004). I'm predicting Cotillard and totally rooting for Christie ~ and the reason I never make any pretense of objectivity about it is that I think it's essentially a sham for anyone who blabbers about entertainment consistently (entertainment pundits, critics, Oprah ;)...and all of you) to hide their own feelings. The judging of art is a subjective activity.Regardless of how it goes tomorrow, Christie OR Cotillard, there will be a huge swath of people who didn't get their way and who feel that there was a terrible injustice committed ...and I hope everyone will understand that that's a shame. It's the downside of a competition about something that is impossible to definitively qualify. 20 years from now some of these movies will have been forgotten, some may not and the performances or careers involved may have been completely reevaluated or not... Even after Oscar closes the book the book remains open for history to decide if they chose well or not. And history is fickle, too.
The time capsule reaction and the subjectivity are the very things that makes awards watching both fun and aggravating. But really, as the cliché goes... they're all winners. The 5 nominated actresses nabbed terrific roles, and beat out hundreds of other performances to be recognized as the best and they're all fabulously wealthy talented and beautiful women on top of that. So essentially they all "won" long before AMPAS got involved or before any fans took sides.
Peace out,
____Nathaniel
