Categories One-By-One: Best Supporting Actress

Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

In my opinion, Melissa Leo gives the least impressive nominated performance this year and her behavior has been classless. I don't even care about her trade ads. The more awards she takes it becomes imminently clear that she's an obnoxious person playing an obnoxious person. I would have had an easier time understanding the hate for Mo'Nique last year if all the questions she was asking ("Why should I have to campaign?" "What do these awards really mean?") weren't completely legitimate. Melissa Leo is the desperate flip-side to Mo'Nique, a hot mess who seems to have become entirely defined by her desire for on-camera approval. I wish more actors had the integrity to truly question the meat parade that are the Oscars rather than the verbal diarrheic Leo.

Melissa Leo is likely going to win if only because the Oscars are on a bitch streak. Tilda Swinton, Penelope Cruz, and Mo'Nique all plaid bitches. Melissa Leo plays a bitch. She'll likely win. I am completely shocked at the praise for her performance but I'm not likely to pick someone else like I did when I didn't understand the acclaim for Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (who admittedly is more bitchy than a bitch).

Who will they turn to? Jacki Weaver clearly plays a bigger bitch. She's older, has a better part, and there is a more interesting ease to how calculating her character's pathology is. It's mostly the part, we can't deny this, but the shades of what she's given wipes the floor with Leo. But the film is most likely the least seen of the bunch and she wasn't nommed for a SAG. Hers is probably the performance that tallied the fewest votes. Helena Bonham Carter might be close behind though. Had the film actually given her something more to do, she'd be a lock. There is such warmth to her performance that register more strongly on a second viewing. Just as Geoffrey Rush does, her performance lingers on a second viewing. There is a moment from the trailer that has been cut where she says "I should be a very good queen to a very great king." When will Weinstein be satisfied? When he cuts every film down to the trailers they practically are? Her role is too small. So is Amy Adams'. I love the career trajectory of Amy Adams! She has turned into such an unexpectedly reliable character actress and she is wonderfully tart in The Fighter. I wouldn't have a problem with her winning on this her third nomination and likely not her last. Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter...she shows different sides of herself in every role. The biggest problem with The Fighter is that it sidelines her relationship with Wahlberg far too much. I love watching them interact with each other.

It'll be Hailee Steinfeld if anyone. Obviously. There is clearly a precedent set for her win. Child actresses win. She probably has the strongest arc of any nominated performance this year. It even continues beyond her exit. The Academy clearly loves True Grit and more so than for cinematography, this is the place to honor her. Does The Fighter seem like the film that will win more than one Oscar or does True Grit? I think True Grit.

Basically, I'm asking myself if I should go with my gut that others will recognize how unexecptional Leo is on-screen (and off) or if they will vote like, well, an Academy member.
"How's the despair?"
Reza
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Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:These things are seldom based on performance alone. Melissa Leo was the early front-runner with a lot of good will in her corner. She was a middle-aged actress finally getting career recognition that had largely eluded her, making her representative of thousands of actors and actresses in similar situations. It was a choice made easy for SAG members.

Then came those tacky self-promotion ads and her wan rejoinder that she was so new to this she didn't know she was doing anything wrong. That alone wasn't enough to convince AMPAS voters to look in another direction, but when she started talking about nominees "pimping" themselves out and running into fourteen year-old Hailee Steinfled "pimping her film", one has to wonder if she is so good at playing trashy characters is because she's rather trashy herself.

She says that she "thinks" Amy Adams support of her has been genuine and that she hopes some day to return the favor. Here's hoping she gets that chance next Sunday.
I wouldn't mind seeing Bonham Carter accompanying the sweep of her film.
Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

These things are seldom based on performance alone. Melissa Leo was the early front-runner with a lot of good will in her corner. She was a middle-aged actress finally getting career recognition that had largely eluded her, making her representative of thousands of actors and actresses in similar situations. It was a choice made easy for SAG members.

Then came those tacky self-promotion ads and her wan rejoinder that she was so new to this she didn't know she was doing anything wrong. That alone wasn't enough to convince AMPAS voters to look in another direction, but when she started talking about nominees "pimping" themselves out and running into fourteen year-old Hailee Steinfled "pimping her film", one has to wonder if she is so good at playing trashy characters is because she's rather trashy herself.

She says that she "thinks" Amy Adams support of her has been genuine and that she hopes some day to return the favor. Here's hoping she gets that chance next Sunday.
anonymous1980
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Apart from Best Director, I do believe this is one of the hotly contested categories. Melissa Leo is the front-runner in this category but she's such a soft front-runner and the one with the most points against her than any of the acting front-runners this year: Her personal ads, her crazy acceptance speeches and interviews, the fact that her co-star may be taking away a number of her votes from fans of her film, her performance which some see as way too over-the-top, her lack of a BAFTA nomination, etc.

If she doesn't win, then who does? Hailee Steinfeld might do it. She's actually a lead in her film (that didn't hurt Tatum O'Neal) and her film is also well-liked so fans of it might wanna give it a major win and she's their best chance. Another possibility is Helena Bonham-Carter, who has been charming the press lately plus she's also a ubiquitous presence this year appearing in 4 films up for various Oscars. I'm beginning to suspect she might surprise.
anonymous1980
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
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