Oscar Prediction Discussables, The Actresses!

The first Oscar predictions of the year are complete. Woo-hoo. These are always both fun and aggravating to do. I love being proven both wrong and right. New film years offer so much promise of success, failure, and everything inbetween.


My own excitement for Darren Aronofsky's freaked-out ballerinas picture Black Swan is all intermingled with my fears that no matter how good it is (assuming that it's good), Oscar voters have notorious trouble embracing the visionaries until they really do something middlebrow (case in point: David Fincher and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Black Swan sounds way too weird to be middlebrow... but, then, so did Button come to think of it.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and predict Natalie Portman for Best Actress anyway. Oscar has embraced histrionic ballet stars before (The Turning Point, anyone?) And even if voters are still wary of Aronofsky (how has he not been nominated yet? Argh!) they do recognize his enviable skill with actors, as evidenced by the nominations from Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler.

In the end, these are the dozen performances I (currently) feel we should most keep an eye on for Oscar play

• Hiam Abbas in Miral (though I could also see this as supporting)
  
• Annette Bening for Mother and Child or The Kids Are All Right
  
• Anne Hathaway for Love and Other Drugs
• Nicole Kidman down the Rabbit Hole
• Diane Lane for Secretariat
• Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone
• Lesley Manville has Another Year
• Julianne Moore thinks The Kids Are All Right
  
• Natalie Portman in Black Swan
• Julia Roberts for Eat Pray Love
  
• Robin Wright Penn as The Conspirator

The red highlights are my predicted nominees but visit the Best Actress page for more details as to why I chose who I chose.

I've also posted the Supporting Actress hunches -- which includes Helena Bonham-Carter in The King's Speech -- though in truth I didn't really have any hunches. Ha! That's the way it goes sometimes.

Early Bird Oscar Predictions
Complete!

I'd love to hear your feelings on these two actress categories. Next week, after I've had time to examine and build spreadsheets, I'll share your communal prediction for Best Actress from the "Actress Psychic" contest. It's always interesting to note what Consensus imagines about something so intangible.

Linker

Glark makes an of-the-moment funny. RIP Swayze [thx Joe Reid]
Dave Kehr interviews Lars Von Trier but also discovers some new (old) Italian masterpieces that sound intriguing
Indiewire A Single Man will be distributed this year by the Weinsteins. Colin Firth is gunning for Best Actor. I love festival season. It always makes the awards race seem so near
New York Times 5 great upcoming performances: Gabourey Sidibe and Carey Mulligan have more buzz than they can deal with already but this article also contains less common drooling over Robin Wright Penn in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee


Variety Nicole Kidman continues on her gloriously pathological quest to work with every fine director in the world. Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) will direct The Danish Girl. Unfortunately Charlize Theron has bolted. I want to root for Theron, I do. But her filmography bores me
Some Came Running Glenn Kenny on three TIFF titles
Self Styled Siren isn't too fond of Mad Men. Her new post on it and movies she loves from the era might make an interesting sidebar for you if you've been reading and enjoying the Mad Men @ the Movies series right here
In Contention maybe Robert De Niro is worth watching in Everybody's Fine?
/Film Karyn Kusama's next project may terrorize, destroy or otherwise alter Rachel Weisz's gorgeous body

Finally, as you probably read yesterday (what? I'm busy. I've had two hellish days of spotty internet service. Leave me alone) Hollywood Elsewhere loves Annette Bening in Mother and Child. Loves the whole film actually. Will it find distribution in time for an Oscar run?

I think it's "cute" that Jeffrey Wells thinks it's the best performance of The Bening's career. You see, someone says that just about every time with her. That's how you know you're dealing with a major actress. With lesser actresses everyone always agrees on what their "best" is, you know? It was Warren Beatty who said it about Running With Scissors but then, he has vested interest in her eventual (?) Oscar crowning.

May Flowers, Sean Penn

May Flowers, evenings at 11... or thereabouts

Playing against type is an ancient Oscar-winning trick but it only works if you do it really well (or if enough people are hoodwinked into believing you've done it really well). A lot of people, including myself and Academy voters, rethought Sean Penn last fall due to his twinkly and affable work in Milk. The famously sour Penn was suddenly funny, likeable, warm... sweet even.

Sean Penn in 1996. Sweet smiling Sean was always in their somewhere.

In other words, not "Sean Penn".

How on earth will he follow Harvey Milk up?

He himself probably isn't feeling the pressure, "Great Actor" status having been granted long long ago, but I was curious. Would he return to directing, to more typically Penn parts? Turns out the 48 year-old actor is booked until he's 50. At least. He's got five new identities lined up for our cinematic enjoyment over the next two years.

Contemplative Narrating Penn: In Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (previous post) he plays "adult Jack" and since the film is focused on a father (Brad Pitt) and his three boys... I guess that means Sean Penn is playing Brad Pitt's son. Brad really did age in reverse!

Political Penn: In Doug Liman's Bush era dramatization Fair Game he's Joseph Wilson, the administration's nemesis and husband to CIA Agent Valerie Plame, played here by Naomi Watts. It's their third time playing Very Intense Screen Couple (see also: 21 Grams and The Assassination of Richard Nixon).

Tough Penn: I'm not sure who he is playing in Cartel, but it involves guards protecting a lawyer trying a mafia case.

Slapstick Penn: He's "Larry" in the Farrely Brothers The Three Stooges... but you knew that already. Jim Carrey is "Curly" and Benicio Del Toro is "Moe"

Rock Star Penn: I saved the oddest one for last. Odder than The Three Stooges? Maybe not. Okay okay, I saved the furthest away for last. Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian writer/director behind the award winning Il Divo, is prepping a movie called This Must Be the Place. The plot is unusual. A retired rocker (Penn) decides to find his dad's executioner, a former Nazi.

Excited for Penn's upcoming projects? Or are you more excited about the continuing drama of the on again off again on again off again on again off again (I actually think that's the right number of times) Robin Wright Penn divorce? Can those two crazy kids make it work? Or make it work again as the case may be?

Red Carpet Lineup (Festival de Cannes)

Oh yeah... it's on.


They've rolled out the rouge carpet in Cannes for the opening of the über film festival of film festivals, now in its 62nd year.

Asia Argento was a camera hog (I trust you not to be surprised) at the jury press conference in a white and black dress. Aishwarya Rai absorbed the light of every flashbulb on the croisette for the opening film, Pixar's Up. Jury member Shu Qi started the day in a simple champagne dress but switched to flowing teal for the opening ceremonies. We'll see the Three Times star next in the omnibus film New York, I Love You. Her fellow juror and NY... cast member Robin Wright Penn, recently interviewed in Gotham Magazine which went to press before Sean Penn filed for divorce, started Day One in a white pantsuit but switched to this shimmering gown later. She's starring in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee later this year. And finally... no Cannes event is complete without fashion icon, festival regular, Oscar winner and Film Experience goddess Tilda Swinton. She's currently on screens in both Julia and Limits of Control.

<--- Genius Isabelle Huppert is President of the Jury this year.

You can read some amusing speculative thoughts on Cannes opening day from Vanity Fair's blog, check out Anne Thompson's take on the promotions for the Up party, read industry types pontificate about what Cannes means or doesn't mean these days at IndieWire, and see a ton of photos of Aishwarya Rai photos at Just Jared.

Do you wish you were there?

Robin Wright Penn Is Nothing But Trouble

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I like to believe that there's a human-character equivalent to Roger Rabbit's Toon Town and that The Princess Bride's Westley and Forrest Gump have gotten over the constant drama Princess Buttercup and Jenny keeps putting them through and have found each other, moved into a ice little apartment together, and at last found peace.

I like to believe that.

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What ridiculous movie character fantasies do you harbor?
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