Let's Talk About Best Actress

[Sabin]

criddic3 wrote
"schmoozing" or no, Stone deserved her Oscar nomination. The Globes had nominated her previously for "Basic Instinct," a performance that was unfairly overlooked due to the nature of the film and the controversy it elicited. She was seen as having redeemed herself for years of iffy projects like "Insurrection" and "Sliver." As the sole representative of Scorsese's "Casino" at the Oscars, a result of having been compared to the recent "GoodFellas," Stone impressed a lot of people. I think the fact that "Dead Man Walking" had more support in other categories and Sarandon's previous nominations gave her the edge. Stone proved that "Casino" wasn't a fluke by giving other solid performances in "Last Dance" (a performance which Siskel & Ebert claimed she could be "proud of" while panning the film itself), "The Muse" and "The Mighty," another Globe nominated role.

I think you meant to quote Mister Tee instead of me. I didn't accuse her of schmoozing or say she was unworthy of a nomination, although I don't agree with you that she deserved her Oscar nomination, especially in the vast field of contenders that 1995 had to offer, including Annette Bening, Toni Collette, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore. Although Sharon Stone winning a Golden Globe for Casino is a move that feels very on par of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

But your comment about how Sharon Stone "redeemed herself for years of iffy projects" got me thinking. As I've said, 1995 was the year I started watching movies and Sharon Stone was very much *A THING*. Her Golden Globe win seemed to signal either a change of a confirmation of the career of Sharon Stone. And despite those projects that you listed which flirted with respectability, I'm struggling to think of anything else Sharon Stone did post-Golden Globe victory. Glancing at her resume for the second half of the decade, it's almost entirety duds. In addition to the projects you listed, I see Diabolique, Sphere, Gloria, Simpatico, followed by some straight to DVD fare like whatever Beautiful Joe is. For literally the rest of Sharon Stone's career in the 21st century, she's been basically an ensemble player. I remember thinking about Elisabeth Shue's career went nowhere post-nomination. Sharon Stone's certainly worked more but to not much avail.

I say this because those iffy projects are unquestionably the highpoint of her drawing power and stardom. The only times when anybody went to the movies to see Sharon Stone was in crap. I don't know why exactly her career went the direction it did afterwards. Maybe she pushed towards more respectable projects so sharply that she lost track of why audiences went to see her in the first place. Maybe -- and this sucks -- she sort of aged out by Hollywood standards. After all, she only became a box office star in her mid-30s. Or maybe Hollywood just moved onto the next hot thing, Demi Moore. It was probably a combination of the three. Either way, her Golden Globe for Casino proved not to be a turning point in her career. It was the apotheosis.

[criddic3]

The Globe win for Stone (abetted, as per tradition, by serious shmoozing of the voters) threw me off course, but, once SAG fell in line, I figured Sarandon was good for the victory. I wouldn't say she was a shoo-in the way too many are today, but she was a solid favorite.

"schmoozing" or no, Stone deserved her Oscar nomination. The Globes had nominated her previously for "Basic Instinct," a performance that was unfairly overlooked due to the nature of the film and the controversy it elicited. She was seen as having redeemed herself for years of iffy projects like "Insurrection" and "Sliver." As the sole representative of Scorsese's "Casino" at the Oscars, a result of having been compared to the recent "GoodFellas," Stone impressed a lot of people. I think the fact that "Dead Man Walking" had more support in other categories and Sarandon's previous nominations gave her the edge. Stone proved that "Casino" wasn't a fluke by giving other solid performances in "Last Dance" (a performance which Siskel & Ebert claimed she could be "proud of" while panning the film itself), "The Muse" and "The Mighty," another Globe nominated role.

[Greg]

This race is such a pins and needles one that the reveal should be the last one presented. If they could that for Best Actor last year, they can do it for Best Actress this year.

Recalling last year's ceremony does not a compelling argument make. Even just ending with Best Actress this year could give a significant percentage of viewers PTSD.

[Mister Tee]

Over the last ten years, they've honored ten actors who weren't previous Golden Globe winners:
* Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
* Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
* Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
* Denzel Washington, Fences
* Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
* Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
* Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
* Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
* Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
* Viola Davis, The Help

I know we don't like to think of them as important (or, at all), but the Broadcasters had actually chosen four of these at the start of January -- Ali, Vikander, Nyong'o, and Davis (The Help). Since the Broadcasters live to validate conventional wisdom, I think we'd have to say in those years the Globes had deviated from the blogger template, and SAG was more restoring it than striking out on their own. And Vikander is a singular case, due to the way she (and Mara) were nominated in lead some places (BAFTA, Globes), supporting others (Broadcasters, SAG, eventually AMPAS). She never lost a supporting prize for which she was nominated.

Tommy Lee Jones is, to me, the interesting one on the list, because I thought he was the logical choice, and was surprised it took all the way to SAG for someone to pick him. I thought the Globes/BAFTA were the ones off course, going with Waltz. Stupid me. (The Broadcasters took an atypical flyer that year, going with Philip Seymour Hoffman.)

[Big Magilla]

I still haven't seen Parallel Mothers, but I have read a full synopsis of the film. It is, as Tee says, a significant Davis-Crawford type role, but it is one in a less than stellar Almodovar film. I basically saw the twists and turns coming. Hell, I saw most of them coming before I even read the synopsis.

I'm sorry, but how can you in any way judge a film based on this, let alone a performance? The twists and turns are the least important part of this film, and the plot points are secondary to anything else in the film. And Cruz is not at all in the "Davis-Crawford" vein in this film. She is creating something different, which you can't see in a Wikipedia entry. It certainly uses the tropes of a melodrama, but it weaponizes them in fascinating ways.

It is also my favorite film of the year.

The synopsis I read was a scene-by-scene description, not a Wikipedia entry.

It's only a temporary assessment until I see the film in order to give it some perspective.

[Mister Tee]

To your larger point, yes, I definitely remember on Oscar night that Susan Sarandon was largely considered the consensus favorite for a host of reasons: previous year's nomination, right time in her career, directed by her husband, and the right film. Both Dead Man Walking and Leaving Las Vegas weren't Best Picture nominees but they had a similar aura of respect around them. But what I'm talking about is did anyone call this race over as soon as the nominations were announced, before the SAG winners were announced? I just don't remember that. It was my first Oscar race and what I remember hearing was that it was the most open race at the time next to Best Picture.

The minute that SAG announces that the winner is whomever, social media will declare that person the favorite, which is why I pray they give it to Lady Gaga or Jennifer Hudson.

It was, of course, a much earlier, less-stratified era -- BAFTA followed the Oscars chronologically and wasn't viewed as part of the run-up (that didn't change till this new millennium); the Broadcasters I think only set up shop that year, and took a while to turn into the look-at-us-predict-the-Oscars shill group they are today; SAG was only in its second year and, though they'd gone 3-for-4 with acting awards first time around, that supporting duo (Landau/Wiest) had swept through the critics' groups like Waltz/Mo'Nique did 15 years later, so their prediction-accuracy had not been truly tested.

The big critics' groups held a lot more sway then -- Nicolas Cage was seen as pretty much unstoppable, having secured NY/LA and National, as well as NBR; the Globes and SAG agreed, and set him on an easy path to the Oscar.

The supporting categories were much more murky. Kevin Spacey had won NY and NBR (for his body of work -- se7en and Swimming with Sharks alongside Usual Suspects), and Don Cheadle had taken LA and National for Devil in a Blue Dress. The latter, though, was hurt by his film's commercial flame-out, and left off the Oscar slate. Brad Pitt won the Globe and veteran Ed Harris the SAG, leaving the category fully up in the air. In the end, the Oscars reverted back to NY/NBR, and chose Spacey. In supporting actress, Joan Allen and Mira Sorvino had split the big critics -- Allen taking LA and National, Sorvino nailing NY and NBR. Sorvino taking the Globe had put her possibly ahead...but then SAG surprised by opting for Kate Winslet, making it a 3-way race (won, as we know, by Sorvino, occasioning a gallon of tears from her father).

Compared to those two, best actress was somewhat less competitive in the end -- but that's not to say it was clear from the start. NY's choice, Jennifer Jason Leigh, was as divisive as Kristen Stewart this year, and failed to make the AMPAS slate. Elisabeth Shue won LA and National, but her ragged resume (she'd never been remotely taken seriously as an actress prior) made her iffy. Emma Thompson had NBR, but her recent win -- and the likelihood she'd prevail in screenwriting -- seemed to rule her out. Dead Man Walking had been a late arrival -- its Globe nominations were the first signal we'd had that it was considered good -- but, once it was established as in the race, Sarandon (with her four recent-enough losses, including for the beloved Thelma and Louise) struck me as the likeliest winner. The Globe win for Stone (abetted, as per tradition, by serious shmoozing of the voters) threw me off course, but, once SAG fell in line, I figured Sarandon was good for the victory. I wouldn't say she was a shoo-in the way too many are today, but she was a solid favorite.

The main thing is, in those days, we had competing sources of influence -- the critics' groups, Globes and SAGs -- and they, with often competing agendas, created interesting races. (Note the years just following, where each group had successes and misses.) Post 2000, the alignment of Globes and SAG choices, the addition of the BAFTAs, and the stultifying desire of the Broadcasters to make everything clear by January, has often taken that puzzle aspect of the awards away. It may be, though, that just now, we're backing out of that arrangement -- with SAG expanding to greater people's choice-level mundanity, BAFTA going a bit mad, the Globes disgraced, and AMPAS rapidly changing its membership for greater national and racial diversity, the monolith may have been demolished (or at least chipped away at), making for more entertaining contests like we used to take for granted.

[Sabin]

For purposes of determining the impact of the Best Actress race, I have a question about the SAG awards. I almost wrote it in my response to mlrg but I thought it warranted a different post: when was the last time the SAG Awards did more than co-sign a winner, when they grabbed the wheel of a race and steered it towards a different direction?

Let's limit this to performance. I think the high-water mark of the group might have been in giving it to Parasite.

Over the last ten years, they've honored ten actors who weren't previous Golden Globe winners:
* Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
* Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
* Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
* Denzel Washington, Fences
* Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
* Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
* Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
* Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
* Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
* Viola Davis, The Help

Four of them ended up winning. That's not a great average but it's not the worst.

If we throw out what can only be considered protest votes like Emily Blunt and Idris Elba, then it's 50% odds.

Of those four, only one of them also picked up the BAFTA on their way to the podium: Youn Yuh-jung. Mahershala Ali, Alicia Vikander, and Lupita Nyong'o also lost. Yes, they were also nominees but there is precedent.

Here's another interesting fact: eight of them are from Best Ensemble Cast nominees. Of the other two, one (Blunt) was in a race were none of them were from Best Ensemble Cast nominees, while the other (Vikander) was in a race where two were from Best Ensemble nominees but nobody thought they had a chance of winning (McAdams, Mirren). This above point is interesting to me because this year only Lady Gaga is from a film with a Best Ensemble Cast nomination. So, yes, Lady Gaga has a real shot of winning the SAG.


Is there anything we can divine from any of these races? Or the sense that anyone can win?

Last year's Best Supporting Actress race doesn't quite feel like a 1:1 with Best Actress in the dialogue this year is "Any of them can win" whereas last year it felt like "Can any of them win?" I think we were creeping towards consensus that it would probably be Youn Yuh-jung before SAG gave out their prize and they (plus BAFTA) made it official.

Viola Davis' victory certainly shook up last year's Best Actress race, although not enough voters took into account how much more weight Ma Rainey (and Davis) held with SAG than the Academy vs. Nomadland and Promising Young Woman. Davis was the only nominee from a film nominated for Best Ensemble. Anyway, the Academy didn't follow suit.

Denzel Washington's victory for Fences also made for a very complicated race. Casey Affleck went from the most far ahead frontrunner to perhaps the closest finish overnight. There were reasons to doubt the forecasting "judgment" of both SAG and BAFTA that year. In the end, Casey Affleck won.

SAG signaled a Mahershala Ali victory for Moonlight, but this felt largely in the works before his win. He won the bulk of the critic's awards and Aaron Taylor-Johnson wasn't nominated. BAFTA honored Dev Patel. If anyone wanted to guess Patel, it would be within their right but I recall thinking this race was largely over for a bit.

Similarly, SAG signaled a victory for Alicia Vikander as well although her win seemed in the works. Only Rachel McAdams was from a Best Picture nominee. I recall the race was largely seen as Vikander vs. Winslet. Vikander had the kind of incredible year that usually wins and picked up a series of critic's awards. Winslet won the Globe, but her chances cooled when her film only picked up acting awards and failed to even get an expected nomination for her film's writer.... Aaron Sorkin (hmm). Winslet won the BAFT as well but this wasn't a terribly unclear race.

By co-signing Lupita Nyong'o, SAG seemed more like they were weighing in rather than setting the race in motion. It was Nyong'o vs. Lawrence from day one.

Tommy Lee Jones is a case of a race in almost total mystery. Waltz's lack of a nomination (to be fair, due to lack of screeners) meant we counted his chances out. We were wrong.

And finally, Viola Davis' win for The Help. I think pretty much everyone figured that the race would be down to the two Doubt co-stars. SAG went for Davis. I vaguely recall the feeling being that it was Viola Davis' time even before the award was given out. It wasn't.

(This was a very long post)

[Sabin]

mlrg wrote
At the time there was no internet and I had no access to Variety, EW, etc... Stone won the globe and that was, at least for me, an indication of a possible winner (I was not aware at the time of the star whoring the HFPA were), so I always thought of her as the front runner. It was not until oscar night that I was aware that the SAG awards existed (it was their first year) but I remember from live interviews on the red carpet that everyone was predicting a Sarandon win, which made sense since she was already in overdue status and Dead Man Walking clearly had supporters (I bet it was sixth or seventh for a best picture nomination). BAFTA were awarded after the oscars at the time, so no influence whatsoever.

To the BAFTA point, sure, but do we know if a nomination back then was meaningful? Also, I'm not sure Dead Man Walking was even eligible for a BAFTA that year.

To your larger point, yes, I definitely remember on Oscar night that Susan Sarandon was largely considered the consensus favorite for a host of reasons: previous year's nomination, right time in her career, directed by her husband, and the right film. Both Dead Man Walking and Leaving Las Vegas weren't Best Picture nominees but they had a similar aura of respect around them. But what I'm talking about is did anyone call this race over as soon as the nominations were announced, before the SAG winners were announced? I just don't remember that. It was my first Oscar race and what I remember hearing was that it was the most open race at the time next to Best Picture.

The minute that SAG announces that the winner is whomever, social media will declare that person the favorite, which is why I pray they give it to Lady Gaga or Jennifer Hudson.

[FilmFan720]

I still haven't seen Parallel Mothers, but I have read a full synopsis of the film. It is, as Tee says, a significant Davis-Crawford type role, but it is one in a less than stellar Almodovar film. I basically saw the twists and turns coming. Hell, I saw most of them coming before I even read the synopsis.

I'm sorry, but how can you in any way judge a film based on this, let alone a performance? The twists and turns are the least important part of this film, and the plot points are secondary to anything else in the film. And Cruz is not at all in the "Davis-Crawford" vein in this film. She is creating something different, which you can't see in a Wikipedia entry. It certainly uses the tropes of a melodrama, but it weaponizes them in fascinating ways.

It is also my favorite film of the year.

[Big Magilla]

I look at this race in two ways - both for my own awards and the Academy's.

For my awards, Stewart is out for reasons I don't need to go into again. My fill-in nominee, Lady Gaga, is just that, a fill-in with no chance of winning.

Cruz is someone I only nominated once before (for Volver). Colman is someone I've long respected but haven't given an award to as yet. Kidman, after a long dry spell, finally won an award from me for her supporting role in Boy Erased just three years ago. Chastain is someone I awarded out of the gate for The Help over co-star Olivia spencer who I gave a makeup award to for Fruitvale Station, nominating her a total of five times thus far.

In a close race with no clear favorite, my choice is Colman for a film I didn't particularly care for but didn't totally hate although it's one of those feminist things where all the men are jerks or worse, a genre I'm not particularly high on.

The Academy's choices are somewhat different. Colman is a recent winner, Cruz a winner (in support) from more than ten years ago, and Kidman is a winner from twenty years ago. Chastain has never won despite giving consistently fine performances for more than ten years. If anyone is due, she is, and would probably get my vote over Colman but if any of the previous winners deserve a second win this year it's Colman who probably couldn't give a bad performance if she tried.

I still haven't seen Parallel Mothers, but I have read a full synopsis of the film. It is, as Tee says, a significant Davis-Crawford type role, but it is one in a less than stellar Almodovar film. I basically saw the twists and turns coming. Hell, I saw most of them coming before I even read the synopsis.

Kidman has had an amazing career, which many would say was an award in itself, she doesn't deserve a second Oscar for such a flawed film as Being the Ricardos. She does, however, deserve the nomination unlike her two co-stars and therein lies the rub. If AMPAS members felt that good about Javier Bardem's off-kilter impersonation of Desi Arnaz and J.K. Simmons' standard angry old man portrayal of William Frawley, then they probably like Kidman's performance more than most of us mere mortals.

As for Stewart, not only do I not get the adulation for her idiosyncratic impersonation of Princess Diana, I don't see how anyone else can, so I'm clearly not a reliable authority on her chances but given her lack of consideration in other quarters all season long, I doubt that I'm really that far off.

Bottom line, I will applaud a win for either Chastain or Colman, smile at a win for Kidman, shrug at a win for Cruz, and raise an eyebrow at a win for Stewart.

This race is such a pins and needles one that the reveal should be the last one presented. If they could that for Best Actor last year, they can do it for Best Actress this year.

[mlrg]

The 1995 best actress race was a very interesting one. Thompson was bound to win adapted screenplay so she was probably fifth. Shue was the critics darling but the spotlight was on Cage. Streep was very good but the film failed to score other nominations.

At the time there was no internet and I had no access to Variety, EW, etc... Stone won the globe and that was, at least for me, an indication of a possible winner (I was not aware at the time of the star whoring the HFPA were), so I always thaught of her as the front runner. It was not until oscar night that I was aware that the SAG awards existed (it was their first year) but I remember from live interviews on the red carpet that everyone was predicting a Sarandon win, which made sense since she was already in overdue status and Dead Man Walking clearly had supporters (I bet it was sixth or seventh for a best picture nomination). BAFTA were awarded after the oscars at the time, so no influence whatsoever.

Do we have anyone overdue in the race this year? Kidman, Cruz and Colman are previous winners. Stewart is to devisive. Chastain is not overdue but she had a pretty respectable career during the last +10 years. As of today, that's my choice.

And I will join Sabin in the praying circle for a Lady Gaga SAG win.

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
I think it’s entirely possible both lead acting awards are up in the air till the moment the envelope is opened, and, as Sabin rightly declares, the most wide-open of these is best actress. Even more than last year, I think you can make solid arguments for the entire slate, and any advantage one may want to ascribe to a particular candidate is of the wispiest sort.

I literally deleted this very point for time in my original post. Last year, Best Actress was an open field… but nobody thought Vanessa Kirby was going to win and very few thought Andra Day was as competitive as Davis, McDormand, or Mulligan. So, really it was a three way race. I’m not sure I remember the last time any race felt this open… and then I recall when I first started watching the Academy Awards. When the nominations were announced for Best Actress, I’m sure anyone could’ve made the case for Sarandon, Shue, Stone, Streep, or Thompson prior to the SAG awards. Maybe Thompson wasn’t in the race but by that point she would have been one of the few in the race to pick up a critics award so how could one truly declare her chances dead especially when she’d had such a fine year, and when she (along with Shue) we’re the only actors to get a BAFTA nom (did one pay attention to this one back then)? Then of course the SAG’s gave out their award to Susan Sarandon and EW gave her even odds of winning, which will be exactly what we do when whomever wins. That is why I am praying SAG honors Lady Gaga this year.

Mister Tee wrote
I think, given the trajectory of the season –- the vernal early predictions, the brutal audience scores, the miss at SAG –- it’s easy to forget that Stewart has an extremely committed core of supporters. Beyond the ones I cited earlier, the most consistent reaction in those nominations You Tube videos was sheer jubilation over Stewart’s making the cut.

But are there any of these supporters in the Academy? I suppose by virtue of her nomination, there must be.

I haven’t thought about Veronica Guerin in years.

[Mister Tee]

I was going to toss in my two cents yesterday, but found out I’d be seeing my one outstanding nominee (Parallel Mothers) today, so I delayed till now.

I think it’s entirely possible both lead acting awards are up in the air till the moment the envelope is opened, and, as Sabin rightly declares, the most wide-open of these is best actress. Even more than last year, I think you can make solid arguments for the entire slate, and any advantage one may want to ascribe to a particular candidate is of the wispiest sort. We’ll have televised moments between now and March 27th that attempt to give some direction to the race, but 1) BAFTA has recused itself; 2) SAG -– which miscalled all three top races last year (fine: best cast doesn’t equate to best picture…but they picked a movie that went 0-for-the-Oscars) –- may be less indicative than ever, having added all those DJ’s and TikTok influencers; and 3) the Broadcasters, going late rather than right out of the gate, will be desperate followers this time around, rather than putative agenda-setters.

I think Sabin has it about right: Kidman is seen as front-runner, but for no particular reason. She did win the only TV prize given out so far, but that’s hardly enough to push her into anything like dominant position. What I hear about Kidman at this point is “I’m fine with her winning; she’s had a worthy career, and a second Oscar isn’t an outrage.” You have to dig deep to find anyone saying she deserves a prize for this performance or film. And, while Ricardos’ three acting nominations is better support than we see for any other best actress nominee except Colman -– it’s basically just one notch better than Steve Jobs, a movie no one thought had a chance at winning anything. I just detect no enthusiasm for anything related to the film. I mentioned, I watched some of those Oscar-predictors-follow-the-nominations YouTubes; the two most consistent reactions I saw were 1) “Thank Christ Jared Leto wasn’t nominated” and 2) boredom over anything to do with Sorkin’s film (and close to glee over its misses in film and screenplay). This may be a case of Oscar voters being different from Oscar fans, and maybe, in a race I think we can all agree will be splintered, a default to something that doesn’t seem to actively annoy anyone is possible. But I’m inclined to think a candidate who generates real enthusiasm from a segment of the electorate might be in better position. Every other nominee on the slate (and a few who failed the cut) have won some award or other from a critics’ group – however minor that group might be. Kidman has won literally nothing. Her only citation all year was from the Hollywood Foreign Press (when, supposedly, none of us were watching).

And, there’s this: almost all the people who’ve won two lead Oscars have won their second (or, in the Hepburn/Day-Lewis/McDormand cases, third) for films nominated for best picture. (SPECIFIED: Two LEAD Oscars. Augmenting a supporting award with a lead one can be done with smaller films, as Lange, Denzel & Zellweger, among others, can attest.) In the entire history of the Oscars, there are only two exceptions: Ingrid Bergman, returning from her scandal exile, and Meryl Streep, when, after several failed efforts, Harvey finally pushed her to a third. Both those, by the way, won the NY Critics’ Award in advance of their wins. Do we really want to argue Kidman is in that league? For a movie that missed a roster of a full 10?

This also applies to Olivia Colman, of course. More on her in a bit.

Tangential note: it was somewhat startling to read Sabin’s comment about Sorkin’s actors never taking home a prize…especially realizing this year’s trio bring his total such nominations to 11 (with at least two others, Garfield/Social Network and Chastain/Molly’s Game, getting close). It could be Kidman just flukily manages to pull off what better performances haven’t been able to. (I could name half a dozen more memorable Hitchcock performances than Joan Fontaine in Suspicion; she still had the luck to be his one winner.) But it also may be that Sorkin’s roles are the showy sort that grab nominations but never end up in the winners’ circle.

Jessica Chastain has been sort of the opposite of Kidman: consistently under-rated (especially by pundits) all season long, despite turning up everywhere (except SAG, like everyone), and giving a performance that fits squarely in Oscar’s wheelhouse. This neglect probably came partly from the film’s box-office flop –- though, as Sabin notes, all the other films have done basically the same; in retrospect, I’m not sure it counts as a mark against Chastain. But it may also flow from a weariness -- hearing Chastain’s name touted nearly every year since her 2011/12 breakout, with no end result, has turned her into old news, and made her seem less an Academy likelihood. But I’d submit her position is not that different from Cate Blanchett’s, in the years post- her Elizabeth arrival. Blanchett was on the hopeful list pretty much annually: The Gift, Charlotte Gray, Bandits, Veronica Guerin –- it wasn’t an Oscar season without a Blanchett vehicle that crashed and burned. She became close to a joke. But, as we know, what followed was an Oscar on her next nomination, many additional citations, and a second win in the decade that followed. Chastain could well follow that trajectory.

For this particular performance: I think she’s got a real shot. Some are dismissing it as more a product of make-up than acting, but 1) it’s not as if the Academy has been averse to such wins; the opposite, in fact; and 2) that sells her work short: particularly in the last half-hour of Tammy Faye, she really bangs it out of the park. The fact that she’s the three-time-nominee-without-a-win is clearly helpful to her. A SAG win, provenance aside, would do even more for her.

Penelope Cruz’s debits are easy to tot up: she missed every TV roster, including the BAFTA long-list; her performance is subtitled, in the not-most-prominent International film of the season; she’s a previous winner (albeit in supporting). It’s possible she’s just another Antonio Banderas/Isabelle Huppert. But she has some intense support (especially from two of the most prestigious critics’ groups). And, having just watched the film today, I’ll suggest she has maybe the most easily watchable movie of the bunch. I wouldn’t say I’m over the moon about Parallel Mothers; I have many of the issues Sabin had in his review (to which I’ll add when I have time). But this film is like a Bette Davis/Joan Crawford movie: it’s got a soap-opera like hook (even if it plays at a higher level), and Oscar voters will find it goes down pretty easily. And Cruz has some very strong emotional scenes in the latter stages that are going to grab voters pretty hard. If this film were in English, I think it’d be a solid pick; even with the subtitled handicap, I think it’s in the running -– with the newly-added international voters perhaps putting her over the top.

I’m not sure Magilla is correct that Spencer is the only film of the five here more hated than liked. That would be ignoring the dismal audience scores, on Metacritic/RT/IMDB, for The Lost Daughter. I know there’s a tendency to say, well, three nominations, they can’t hate it that much – but those could be small-plurality nominations that disguise general antipathy. I will say that it does appear Olivia Colman maintains personal popularity despite one’s reaction to the film – hell, I disliked the thing, but I’m happy to salute her work in it. And she is truly at the beloved stage, accumulating nominations across the show business board at a rate that defies belief. (Remember when people were suggesting people would turn on her if she deprived Glenn Close of an Oscar? That belongs in the Hall of Fame of missed calls.) I think, if Colman wins here (and, like everyone, she has a chance), it will be a real case of personal affection triumphing over a vehicle.

And, finally, Kristen Stewart. I think, given the trajectory of the season –- the vernal early predictions, the brutal audience scores, the miss at SAG –- it’s easy to forget that Stewart has an extremely committed core of supporters. Beyond the ones I cited earlier, the most consistent reaction in those nominations You Tube videos was sheer jubilation over Stewart’s making the cut. There’s definitely a significant bunch of people going to be voting for her in this race. In a typical-of-recent-years race, where things get whittled down to binary choice by the end, I doubt she’d have much chance. But this shows all signs of being a free-for-all –- it may be that barely over 20% of ballots being marked in your name will be enough for you to slip through. (Think Ex Machina in visual effects.) I think Stewart is very, very much in the race.

I'm serious when I say the race is wide open. I'm not even going to attempt a final call till a few days before the Oscars.

[Mister Tee]

Regarding their screentime, this may be surprising, but I checked it on ScreenTimeCentral:

Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter) - 1:08:08 / 55.41%

Kristen Stewart (Spencer) - 1:18:15 / 67.03%

Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos) - 1:23:55 / 63.52%

Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) - 1:36:42 / 76.45%

He hasn't counted Penélope Cruz's time yet, but I assure you she may well be between Kidman and Chastain.

Regarding this:

It's somewhat misleading to show them here in order of amount of screen-time rather than percentage -- in which latter case Stewart would come second to Chastain.

I'd be surprised if Cruz were close to Chastain in this sort of reckoning; there were early portions of the film where I was surprised how long her absences were, as the film focused on Ana's story. Though it clearly becomes Janis' film the further it goes on.

And, as Sabin says, it's more a matter of how it FEELS, not this minute/second count. Chastain, Stewart and Cruz feel like they dominate their films; Colman does to a degree, as well, whenever the film is focused on her -- though (using your statistics) the flashbacks to Buckley must take up more screen-time than it seemed while I was watching it, if she's on-screen that small a percentage of the time. Kidman always seems part of an ensemble to me -- the least dominant of the group -- but others may have different impressions..

[Reza]

I think the race is between Chastain and Stewart. Phillip is right...Chastain will win.