One Category at a Time: Actress

After the SAG Awards, the Best Actress race appears to have a frontrunner, but there's more nuance to it than that. A couple of the nominees weren't even in competition for the SAG or the Golden Globes, and even though I find myself predicting the obvious choice, it's a category that feels ripe for an upset.

Sifting through the Brits' tea leaves...

The British love their tea, wot? And the British Academy of Film and Television Arts have left all sorts of tea leaves for awards pundits to analyze from today's BAFTA Movie Awards. Even though BAFTA never matches up exactly with AMPAS, we might do well to heed their winners more closely this year, as they could bear more significance in the Oscar race than ever before.

Why is BAFTA significant? It's not so much the membership overlap between them and AMPAS (although that factor is appreciable), but a procedural change the organization made to mirror the Academy's voting practices. In the past, the entire BAFTA membership was invited to determine all the nominees, while only the specific chapters (or branches) could determine the final winners in their associated categories. This often lead to some baffling snubs (Tree of Life's Cinematography snub, anyone?) and peculiar winners (remember In Bruges winning Original Screenplay?).

Review - Amour

Finally got to see this recently, and despite having to endure months of hype from critics and privileged festival-goers, the film more than met expectations. Michael Haneke has never made a more moving and emotionally honest picture than this celebrated Palme d'Or winner; a heartrending study of what love really means.

Set almost entirely in the apartment of George and Anne, an elderly couple whose life together requires significant readjustment when Anne suffers a mild stroke, Amour effectively imposes a sensation of being trapped by a hopeless situation; a revelant thematic undercurrent to the piece. Haneke's often static camera rarely cuts to different angles within a single scene, allowing us to fully absorb his actors' unbroken performances, and yet it never feels like a play put on film. Using efficient vignettes to evoke the gradual decline of Anne's condition keeps the film's stillness from boring the viewer, and with a pair of such soulful performances on display, it's hard to look away.

Emmanuelle Riva is getting the most notice from awards bodies for her incredibly nuanced embodiment of a woman becoming increasingly trapped by her own body, exhibiting remarkable control over her physicality throughout. Jean-Louis Trintignant is equally refined in his ability to tap into deep emotions through quiet gestures and minimalist expression. As the couple's frustrated daughter, Isabelle Huppert conveys in just a handful of scenes all the pain and anguish of being truly powerless over the inevitable.

**** out of ****

Oscar Nominations! ZOMG!

First and foremost, here's the link: http://oscar.go.com/nominees (it's just easier than writing 'em all down).

Second, and more substantially, here are my reactions:

WHOA!WOW!HOLYSHIT!IDON'TBELIEVEIT!AREYOUKIDDINGME!

In a phase 1 as condensed and crazy as this, we could be forgiven for hoping the Academy would throw us a few surprises, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Best Picture was stuffed, boasting nine nominees. Seven of them I anticipated -- Argo, Django, Les Mis, Life of Pi, Lincoln, SLP, and ZDT -- but the two I didn't predict have made me a very happy man; Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour (along with the aforementioned Argo), represent the three best movies of the year in my opinion, and it's a thrill to see all of them up for the big prize. And I thought I wouldn't have any movies to root for!

My Award nominations: Actress

My picks for Best Actress of the year:

SAG shines light on some unexpected outliers

As the critics groups mostly fall in line with the same, repetitive choices this time of year, it's always a brief treat to see what the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee can come up with to surprise us.

The major talking points with this year's crop are the unexpected inclusions in the Supporting categories of Nicole Kidman in the critically polarizing The Paperboy and Javier Bardem for his charismatic Bond villain in Skyfall. Both Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor have had lots of wiggle room (at least more than the Lead categories which are beginning to solidify), and either of these nominations could have an influence on Academy balloting which begins in just one week.

The crowded Lead categories are naturally more noteworthy for the performances that were excluded than the ones they let in. Best Actor has seemed like a six-way race for some time now between Day-Lewis, Cooper, Jackman, Washington, Hawkes, and Phoenix all vying for five slots. It was Phoenix who suffered the unavoidable SAG snub, a victim of his film's challenging nature. I've been wondering if his undeniable performance is in fact deniable after all, but up against leading men in five more universally liked movies could be the kiss of death. For the leading ladies, it was Emmanuelle Riva who got left off the ballot, but Marion Cotillard got in. Let's not kid ourselves: two Lead Actress nominees for foreign films at the Oscars was always going to be a long shot, and with Cotillard more of a household name stateside than Riva, this could be the slate we see on Oscar night (although I'll be rooting for Quevanzhane Wallis, who was ineligible with SAG, to be nominated).

The Ensemble category filled out with all the usual Best Picture contenders, though some might be surprised by The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I'm not. If ever there was a film that could play to old Academy types, this is it. All nominees with brief thoughts after the cut.