One Category at a Time: Best Actress

Another year, another super competitive crunch for Best Actress nominations. Things were so tight this year it prompted Viola Davis to jump ship to the Supporting race, saw Amy Adams miss for a complex Best-Picture-headlining turn and Annette Bening get passed over for some of the best work of her career. And yet as tough as it's been to crack the Best Actress lineup these last few years, eventual winners have been easy to call.

My Award Nominations: Leading Actress

Yesterday I bit the bullet and committed to five nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Trying to do the same for the leading ladies was even more brutal. Forget five to ten Best Picture nominees... Let's apply that rule to Best Actress instead!

Review - Thor

It's hammer time! Marvel's latest cinematic installment of their extensive comic book canon stars the fabled Norse god of thunder as the superhero of the month, kicking off a summer movie season that literally features a new superhero every month. Hopefully they can match the boisterous fun of this one. The mighty Thor is a mighty good time.

Chris Hemsworth brings the thunder in the title role of Thor, doing a terrific job of selling the Asgardian prince's vain pride, and an even better job of evenly transitioning to the selfless nobility that makes him the hero on Earth we recognize from Marvel's lore. His compelling star turn is playful but not farcical, and plays a big part in defining the film's appropriately unembarrassed B-movie tone, although as much credit should go to director Kenneth Branagh. A veteran of Shakespearean stage and cinema, Branagh may not have been the intuitive choice to helm one of Paramount's precious special effect extravaganzas, but what he might lack in action savviness he makes up for in theatricality, one of Thor's winning qualities. His way with actors is a benefit for the whole cast, which includes Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, and Colm Feore, barely recognizable beneath a fantastic makeup job that disguises him as the menacing king of the Frost Giants.

Not everything in the picture works. It stalls whenever the romantic subplot becomes the focus of the otherwise fluent screenplay, and the glossy CG-rendered realm of Asgard seems a tad overproduced sometimes, but like a good popcorn pick should, it remains enjoyable underneath all those layers of butter.

*** out of ****

One Category at a Time: Actress

There have been whisperings that Annette Bening is lurking as a serious spoiler threat in this category, pushing the publicity wagon hard as she can in the final weeks before ballots are due. And there's certainly a valid case you can make for her upsetting the frontrunner: she's a beloved actress who's put in years of hard work to create a diverse and respected filmography, she's due for a win, and her performance in The Kids Are All Right is a sincere one. However, if she was going to turn the corner, it had to be at this past Sunday's BAFTAs, and of course that didn't go her way.

So, having nailed down the Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA, it would still be foolish to predict anyone but Natalie Portman taking the Oscar. You'll be hearing no complaints from me. It's a helluva performance that showcases such a wide range from the actress, and she still manages to keep it under control, which is remarkable given how out of control her character is. Even though Black Swan isn't really the Academy's cuppa tea, they surely won't mind awarding it this one prize. After last year's mini-travesty, looks like this category is gonna be right back on track with a quality winner.

But of course, that would still be the case even if Portman somehow loses, because every nominee is all aces. It's simply impossible for them to pick a bad winner from this bunch. Jennifer Lawrence owned Winter's Bone from start to finish with her no-bullshit stoicism, Michelle Williams spun a heartbreaking tandem with Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine, and Nicole Kidman's brilliant turn in Rabbit Hole is one of the most emotionally flavourful she's ever given.

I know how corny this sounds, but seriously, they're all winners.

Will win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Runner-up: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Should win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Should have been nominated: Katie Jarvis, Fish Tank

SAG winners

Well, went a perfect 6/6 with my predictions, although that's hardly saying much given the incredibly predictable nature of the nominees this year... or any year, for that matter.

So obviously The King's Speech is the one to beat for Oscar's top honours, but the question is to what extent will it sweep? How many of its overly generous six craft nominations can it capitalize on? Art Direction, Costume Design, Score... probably. But there's such more deserving work to choose from in those categories. How many people honestly think Desplat's work is better than Zimmer's or Powell's or Reznor & Ross'? Will they actually go for Beaven's subtle threads over Atwood's "look-at-me" wardrobe? Is this just my own personal bias clouding my judgment? Or are there still cases to be made for the other nominees?

Too many questions. I hate all this uncertainty!

Anyway, the SAG winners, not that you need me to remind you.

Best Ensemble: The King's Speech Best Pic is a done deal.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech All hail the King.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan All hail the Swan Queen.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale , The Fighter Moving right along...

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter I'd say the Oscar is pretty safe now.

Best Stunt Ensemble: Inception Predictable, but well deserved.

My Award nominations: Actress

What an outstanding year it's been for Best Actress. It killed me to leave some of the contenders off. Here's who made it:

KATIE JARVIS in Fish Tank:
Jarvis gives a searing portrayal of youthful anger, repression, longing, disillusionment, and self-liberation with furiously commanding yet completely authentic flare. She perfectly embodies what it means to feel trapped inside one's own life, and the pain that's involved in mustering up the willpower to simply leave it all in your rear view.

NICOLE KIDMAN in Rabbit Hole:
Kidman gives one of her finest performances to date as a grieving mother struggling to cope healthily with the death of her son. Her caustic wit serves as a defense mechanism from comforters, but we can see how desperately she needs comfort as her maternal urges begin to override her stubborn sensibilities.

CAREY MULLIGAN in Never Let Me Go:
Mulligan's performance is a devastating blend of unrequited love and graceful maturity. She is a moving centre for a film that is unfortunately not all that moving. She aptly communicates a girlish fear and shyness that evolves into gracious but heartbreaking resignation, all of it underlined with a quiet but immeasurably deep compassion.

NATALIE PORTMAN in Black Swan:
Portman's transformation from 'sweet girl' Nina Sayers into the confident but vicious Black Swan is one of the best descents into madness put on film. Another impressive feat is her dancing; That she is able to exude character and arc on the stage while maintaining complete discipline of technique is astonishing.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS in Blue Valentine:
Every bit as raw and unfiltered as her costar Ryan Gosling, Williams finds genuine pain, joy, love, and heartbreak somewhere inside of her and brings it out onto the screen. Not unlike her outstanding work in Wendy and Lucy (2007), the performance feels lived-in and uninhibited.


Just missed: Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, Emma Stone in Easy A.

Review - Black Swan

Some films make a point of delicately straddling the fine line between reality and fantasy, but Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan takes the visceral approach, hop-skip-jumping between the two without giving its audience the slightest warning. The result is a staggering work of cinema about the artist's odyssey and the self-consuming quest for perfection.

Natalie Portman plays dancer Nina Sayers, who's thrilled when her director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) casts her as both the White and Black Swans in her company's upcoming production of Swan Lake. But Nina is struggling: while she has no problem at embodying the innocent, virginal White Swan, Thomas insists that she is too restrained when dancing the jealous, seductive Black Swan. Only through releasing her dark impulses can Nina liberate the Black Swan within her, but as it starts to spread its wings, Nina starts losing her grip.

To call Black Swan a towering artistic achievement would be an understatement. Darren Aronosfsky, who has a way of getting his actors to turn themselves inside-out (Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler or Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream), draws a powerful career-best performance out of Natalie Portman, whose transformation from 'sweet girl' Nina Sayers to the confident but vicious Black Swan is one of the best descents into madness put on film. Another impressive feat is her dancing, which any ballerina will tell is damned hard to do! That she is able to exude character and arc on the stage while maintaining complete discipline of technique is astonishing.

But this is still Aronofsky's show, and what a terrifying show it is. He puts us inside Nina Sayers' head for a stylized exploration of a tragic artistic process. The screenwriters Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John McLaughlin deserve credit for providing a strong, thematically rich story, but it's more by Aronofsky's direction that we understand Nina's doomed journey. A combination of things release the Black Swan within: oppression from her domineering mother (awesomely played by Barbara Hershey), lust for her director, paranoia toward a rival dancer (Mila Kunis), self-stimulation, self-inflicted injury, and most of all, jealousy of what she thinks she cannot be.

Helping to put us inside Nina's crumbling mind is DP Matthew Lebatique. He has lots of fun with mirrors and reflections in this film, but none of it is gimmicky. It's all used to evoke relevant themes such as the duality of human nature and as a striking symbol for the destructive capability one's own self-image can have on an individual. The dance sequences are dazzlingly shot as well, intricately gliding about the stage, capturing the dancers' faces and movements with dizzying elegance. The man deserves an Academy Award. Plain and simple.

No less deserving of Oscar is Aronofsky's sound team, who make the free-fall of Nina's sanity as much a sonic experience as a visual one. Well-appointed sound effects (wings fluttering, laughter, white noise) are cleverly laced throughout key moments to mirror Nina's thoughts and anxieties.

Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, Actress, Cinematography, and Sound had better be coming. I'd also be thrilled to see Amy Westcott's terrific character-serving costumes recognized.

**** out of ****