NYFCC Winners

[Big Magilla]

And by the way, in case Jennifer Lawrence gets a nomination this year (and she definitelly will), will it be only the second time that an actress is nominated in consecutive years, first as Leading and then as Supporting? I remember only that other Jennifer, but there have been probably others.

One that came to mind is Renee Zellweger nominated for Best Actress in 2001, 2002 and then supporting in 2003.

Who is the other Jennifer?

Jones. Winning as lead for Bernadette in ’43, then being nominated in support for Since You Went Away the following year.

The "the other Jennifer" also received additional Best Actress nominations the next two years and garnered a fifth nine years after that. Another odd coincidence is that her career was guided by the original David O. - Selznick.

[Mister Tee]

Why would it be crazy to think that some of the December candidates could make serious headway in knocking out someone who looked good in October?

The bountiful quality of the year has exposed the limitations of thinking in the blogger universe. All five candidates they decided on a month or more back, for both best actor and actress -- Ejiofor/Redord/Dern/Hanks/McConnaghey, Blanchett/Bullock/Dench/Streep/Thompson -- have perfectly strong nomination credentials. In a standard year, they'd all be more than likely nominees. However, the year's final weeks have yielded just-as-strong candidates -- DiCaprio/Isaac/Phoenix, Adams/Exarchopoulos (who should have been there all along). Normally, people would simply adjust their lists, because only 2-3 of their projected candidates would feel SO strong that they were un-purgeable. Here, though, they're not only so seemingly solid, the bloggers who do twice-weekly updates have been writing down these same names so many times that for anyone else to suddenly enter the list does feel to them like a home invasion.

What'll be interesting to see is if the groups that take their cues from bloggers -- BFCA, obviously, but SAG to a degree, as well -- fall in line with the season-long dictates...and then if AMPAS follows, or (like last year, or 2007), goes its own way regarding the late-openers.

[The Original BJ]

Well, Sasha Stone, I've seen Philomena and I think Dench is vulnerable. But that's because in a slate this crowded, almost everyone would have to be considered vulnerable in some way -- we could go round and round in circles at this point, but until half of these movies actually open, it's hard for anyone to have any clue what will happen. And I sort of resent her implication -- which she doesn't even have the guts to articulate clearly -- that it would be sexist AND ageist to nominate someone like Adèle Exarchopoulos, who is way more deserving than a number of these ladies.

I have to say, in both Best Actor and Best Actress, the bloggers seem to have almost predicted themselves into a corner, acting like both categories are all locked up, when a number of the late-breaking candidates in each field (especially Actor) are just now emerging. Why would it be crazy to think that some of the December candidates could make serious headway in knocking out someone who looked good in October?

[ITALIANO]

The most intriguing performances this year by women were delivered by powerhouse actresses at a time when those kinds of films and those kinds of performances have been selected out in favor of younger and younger women to appeal to the majority of ticket buyers.

Her writing really sucks.

Not only her writing. I still have to read something from this woman which doesn't sound as if it has been conceived by a 9-year-old.

[flipp525]

The most intriguing performances this year by women were delivered by powerhouse actresses at a time when those kinds of films and those kinds of performances have been selected out in favor of younger and younger women to appeal to the majority of ticket buyers.

Her writing really sucks. I had to read this sentence three times before I could parse the words. I guess "powerhouse" means older?

[Big Magilla]

Sasha Stone on the Best Actress race:

The most intriguing performances this year by women were delivered by powerhouse actresses at a time when those kinds of films and those kinds of performances have been selected out in favor of younger and younger women to appeal to the majority of ticket buyers. That majority, however, do not often factor in to the Oscar race, despite how many young people remain fascinated by the Oscars and film awards in general. Our American youth have been weaned on shows like American Idol and Survivor and gasp, The Bachelor. They believe that popularity should always win out, no matter what. And perhaps that is sort of true in the Oscar race. Perhaps it has always been thus, but it is often our job here at AwardsDaily to point out patterns, delightful evolutionary turns in the race that broaden the horizons of film goers, young and old, and offer an array of human experiences, not just those that dwell in fantasy or in the eternal youth we here in America seem so obsessed by.

The actresses this year are so astonishing, in fact, we might see the category filled, for the first time in a long time, with the elders of the craft. The youngest of these, Cate Blanchett, happens to also be the frontrunner. Just behind her is Sandra Bullock, an actress approaching fifty with two films that together earned over $400 million. They are joined by Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks, Judi Dench for Philomena and Meryl Streep for August: Osage County. Right now, these are your best performances by women in 2013.

But there will be major push-back coming from several areas on this point. The first, as is usually exhibited on the more male-oriented websites like Hollywood-Elsewhere, where such a selection of actresses would be referred to “blousy hens.” You see, in their world, although men can grow older women must never age. They like them as young as possible and as naked as possible. Oscar does too, or so their history would illustrate.

But to include one of the very talented younger actress who show a little (okay, a lot) of skin, one of the five above will have to be bumped. The trouble is, I can’t find one we should be willing to sacrifice. People on Twitter keeps saying absurdities like “Judi Dench is the weak link.” But have you seen Philomena? Have you seen her richly drawn portrait of a woman who became a teenage mother, had her baby taken from her by the Catholic Church and yet remains both optimistic and un-bitter about it all. Yes, this woman still believes in not only God but in Catholicism itself. Dench is mesmerizing as Philomena — as the moments she’s reliving, and the moments that are new to her play across her deeply lined, experienced face. Each time that non-botoxed portrait feels something we feel it too. Her face takes us through the story, we are moved by and changed by it. That face. That beautiful beautiful face. So next time you say or hear someone else say “Judi Dench is vulnerable” or some such nonsense just ask them if they’ve seen Philomena. Sure, it can’t really compete with an erection and a panorama of fantasy but this is the stuff that builds what our lives are, what they have been and what they will become.

[ksrymy]

If you'll allow a one year gap, Jessica Tandy did it too in 1989 and 1991.

[Precious Doll]

Thanks Uri.

[Uri]

And by the way, in case Jennifer Lawrence gets a nomination this year (and she definitelly will), will it be only the second time that an actress is nominated in consecutive years, first as Leading and then as Supporting? I remember only that other Jennifer, but there have been probably others.

One that came to mind is Renee Zellweger nominated for Best Actress in 2001, 2002 and then supporting in 2003.

Who is the other Jennifer?

Jones. Winning as lead for Bernadette in ’43, then being nominated in support for Since You Went Away the following year.

[Precious Doll]

And by the way, in case Jennifer Lawrence gets a nomination this year (and she definitelly will), will it be only the second time that an actress is nominated in consecutive years, first as Leading and then as Supporting? I remember only that other Jennifer, but there have been probably others.

One that came to mind is Renee Zellweger nominated for Best Actress in 2001, 2002 and then supporting in 2003.

Who is the other Jennifer?

[Eric]

best director and best original screenplay are going to leave blood on the floor.

Hopefully, A. Payne's.

[Mister Tee]

Bullock seems to have more pluses than anyone beside Blanchett -- popular star, best reviews of her career, virtual one-woman show, biggest hit of the bunch by far. But, when you've got a 6 (or 7)- into-5-won't-go situation, it can sometimes be that the seemingly invulnerable is the one to fall -- as in best director last year, or in 1995.

It's starting to feel like this year offers that kind of crunch in every top category. There are lots of actors I think would have been strongly competitive, say, two years ago, but this year will either struggle to get in, or will knock out someone else seemingly set -- DiCaprio/Phoenix, Adams/Exarchopoulos, Abdi/Bruhl/Gandolfini, Hawkins/Spencer. And best director and best original screenplay are going to leave blood on the floor.

[The Original BJ]

I think Bullock will be the one left out this year.

Yeah, this thought entered in my head yesterday, and the more I think about it the more plausible it seems.

Me three. I mean, as I've said, I think everyone has the qualifications to make it so right now I have no real argument for why one or the other will fall...but I do think that, with the genuine emergence of Adams, Bullock is more vulnerable than a lot of us thought. Of course, last time I doubted Bullock based on my personal opinion of the performance, that didn't get me very far in the prediction department. But, as a Gravity fan who doesn't think Bullock is any kind of must-have on the list, I could see others thinking the same thing and leaving her off their ballots even when the movie does very well.

Then again...I was also thinking about the John Hawkes comparison more, and I realized that, in last year's photo finish to the nominations, it was the candidate whose movie did the worst overall that was knocked off the list, while a far less praised performance (Jackman's) made it in due to more enthusiasm for his film. So, using that as a precedent, even voters' default-to-Dench impulses might not carry the day for such a minor movie as Philomena this year.

[Eric]

I think Bullock will be the one left out this year.

Yeah, this thought entered in my head yesterday, and the more I think about it the more plausible it seems.

[ksrymy]

Early word on Adams was that her "terrible" British accent made her performance hard to like

I'm pretty sure it's deliberately supposed to be bad. She (and Bale) are at least at the beginning of the film low-rent hustlers.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I don't think Adams' character is supposed to be doing Shakespeare in the Park. It's like saying that Natasha Richardson was vocally weak as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" when the character is supposed to be not all that great a singer.

I think Bullock will be the one left out this year.

I see Bullock making it as a kind of redemption for her unnecessary nomination, and even win, for The Blind Side. I don't see Adams making it.