Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:11 pm
It was a pretty thin field. I think Hayek is the weakest -- her nomination seems mostly a tribute to her having mounted the project successfully. But all I really have to rerplace her is Streep in The Hours, a film for which I don't much care.
From which you may infer, I don't approve of Kidman's win, either. In addition to the possibilities around her win you mention, Magilla, there was also a sense it was Kidman's "time" to win -- she'd been accumulating credits, certainly since To Die For. I don't know why this company-town consensus so rarely forms around performances I like. I found it an adequate performance at best.
I think Lane is good in Unfaithful, and I was pleased for recognition for an actress I'd always crushed on. But the nomination was plenty.
I actually think Chicago was as good as Renee Zellweger ever got -- her comic timing was (for maybe the last time) golden, and I thought her singing and dancing were just fine. It has baffled me for almost a decade that Zeta-Jones' one-note bitch was, in general, more critically praised.
But it will surprise no one that my vote is for Julianne Moore -- my favorite performance of the decade in my second-favorite film. I haven't always been a Moore fan -- I started off a detractor, till Boogie Nights, and there are times right up till now that I've found her work disappointing. But her Cathy Whitaker seemed to me almost touched by god...there was something so touching, so precious about the performance that I can only sit back in admiration. And, of course, hope that Julianne one day finds the role to bring her the Oscar of which she was robbed here.
From which you may infer, I don't approve of Kidman's win, either. In addition to the possibilities around her win you mention, Magilla, there was also a sense it was Kidman's "time" to win -- she'd been accumulating credits, certainly since To Die For. I don't know why this company-town consensus so rarely forms around performances I like. I found it an adequate performance at best.
I think Lane is good in Unfaithful, and I was pleased for recognition for an actress I'd always crushed on. But the nomination was plenty.
I actually think Chicago was as good as Renee Zellweger ever got -- her comic timing was (for maybe the last time) golden, and I thought her singing and dancing were just fine. It has baffled me for almost a decade that Zeta-Jones' one-note bitch was, in general, more critically praised.
But it will surprise no one that my vote is for Julianne Moore -- my favorite performance of the decade in my second-favorite film. I haven't always been a Moore fan -- I started off a detractor, till Boogie Nights, and there are times right up till now that I've found her work disappointing. But her Cathy Whitaker seemed to me almost touched by god...there was something so touching, so precious about the performance that I can only sit back in admiration. And, of course, hope that Julianne one day finds the role to bring her the Oscar of which she was robbed here.