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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:28 am
by anonymous1980
Haven't Adams' or McDormand's yet.

As much as I like Catherine Keener as an actress, I really don't understand her nomination. She doesn't do bad work per se but her role is underwritten and she does nothing really special with it that would make me go she's one of the five best supporting actresses of the year.

Rachel Weisz was quite excellent in her role and I don't begrudge her win.

But my vote would have to go to Michelle Williams. She totally nailed her role in what limited scenes she was in and made an indelible impression. The fact that we still sympathize with her makes Brokeback Mountain an even better film.

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:25 am
by Sabin
Even though the Academy should have gone with Maria Bello over Frances McDormand, this for me ranks alongside 2007 as strongest supporting actress lineup of the decade.

Going with Amy Adams. I was completely entranced. Don't care what anybody else says. I first noticed her as the brace-faced love interest to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, she blew me away here, and she's demonstrated very impressive staying power. I'm a fan.

Michelle Williams would be a very deserving runner up. Rachel Weisz is good in The Constant Gardener, but I'm just not a very big fan of the film and after seeing her as a fountain of good humor in The Brothers Bloom it fades even further from memory. Catherine Keener was nominated for her year entire, not her Capote performance. I think people were just glad to see her not play a bitch. They should have given it to her for The 40 Year Old Virgin.

My picks:
1. Amy Adams, Junebug
2. Michelle Monaghan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
3. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Happy Endings
4. Maria Bello, A History of Violence
5. Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain




Edited By Sabin on 1291975123

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:19 am
by Precious Doll
I voted for Rachel Weisz who gives by far the best performance of the nominated actresses but as I included her in my best actress line-up for the year I won't be including her here.

Michelle Williams was good but didn't have very much to do. Anna Faris made more of an impression in a much smaller role in the same film.

Keener and McDormand were dull at best in two very uninspiring films Capote & North Country respectively.

Amy Adams annoyed the hell out of me in Junebug and continues to do so in my her subsequent roles (with the exception of Enchanted).

My choices:

1. Ellen Barkin for Palindromes
2. Bonnie Hunt for Loggerheads
3. Tess Harper for Loggerheads
4. Lisa Long for Mysterious Skin
5. Bertha Ruiz for Battle in Heaven

Other notables performances included Seema Biswas in Water, Patricia Clarkson in The Dying Gaul, Shirley Henderson in Yes, Jessica Lange in Broken Flowers, Candela Pena in Princessas, Sisssy Spacek in Nine Lives, Lili Taylor in Factotum, Fernanda Torres in House of Sand & Karin Viard in The Ax.

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:24 am
by Mister Tee
Maria Bello is the only substition I'd make. Still waiting for her to get a comparable role.

She'd probably replace Franches McDormand, who actually does everything she can with her role in North Country. But the movie is godawful, and it galled me to see such tripe rewarded with major nominations.

Catherine Keener had that overall good year, which got her on the slate even though no individual performance was all that special. With all the bile I spilled Sandra Bullock last year, I honestly liked her Harper Lee more than Keener's.

Michele Williams does fine, honest work in Brokeback Mountain, but the role doesn't give her that much to do.

As I believe I said at the time, any scene from Amy Adams' performance could have been her Oscar clip. She was wonderfully funny in completely unexpected ways -- tenderly ingenuous, but never stupid; maybe alone among contemporary actresses, she can convey innocence without condescension. And her character grew as the film went on: her late scene in the hospital showed new sides of her even as the film wound down. I'd be perfectly pleased to give her my prize...

...except it would mean taking it away from Rachel Weisz, who I loved equally. Weisz, too often wasted in Hollywood crud, has a charismatic quality that perfectly suited her crusading wife. Constant Gardener was thin as thriller material -- I got to the end and thought, that's all that was about? But Weisz's performance gave the film purpose, and she'd be more or less my co-winner with Adams. That's how I left it in my private records.

Of course, our polls don't allow for ties, so I'll have to make a decision. And this is how I've gone about it: I've concluded that Amy Adams has a far brighter future than Weisz; that she will be getting further nominations, and I'll have other opportunities to vote for her. So, here and now, I'm giving an enthusiastic vote to Weisz, in what I'm guessing will be her sole shot at a win.

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:58 am
by Reza
My picks for 2005:

Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Maria Bello, A History of Violence
Thandie Newton, Crash
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes

I'm a bit iffy on MacLaine.....can't think of any other performance at this moment. Might change it once folks here chime in with their alternate choices and I find one better than MacLaine.

Best Supporting Actress 2005

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:35 am
by Big Magilla
If someone had told me after seeing Junebug that in just a few years Amy Adams would become one of my favorite actresses, I would have thought them certifiable, yet Adams has, in fact, grown on me with every performance since. But I still cringe at the very thought of her whiny performance in that film for which she inexplicably racked up a number of nominations and actual awards.

Catherine Keener was her usual professional self as Harper Lee in Capote, but it wasn't really much of a part.

Frances McDormand was excellent as the handicapped worker in North Country, but the film was disappointing overall.

Far better than those three were Maria Bello as the abused wife in A History of Violence, Shirley MacLaine as the feisty grandmother in In Her Shoes and Diane Keaton as the dying matriarch in The Family Stone, but they weren't nominated so we have to rule them out.

That brings us to Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, both of whom took sketchily written roles and made them memorable. Weisz's wholly sympathetic character in The Constant Gardener was the more popular and she won, but Williams in the more difficult role of the wife in Heath Ledger's marriage of convenience in Brokeback Mountain should have been one of three acting winners for the film that Oscar short-changed. She didn't get Oscar's vote, but she gets mine.