Oscar noms thread with link to streaming announcement — Page 8

**Sighs** Have Chastain and ZD30 not taken enough knocks??? Yeah she should just retire and become a really competent, interesting indie director.

Anyway, I see it as Riva vs. Lawrence in the actress race. The end.

With Little Miss Sunshine, Arkin won indicators- albeit very late when Eddie Murphy still looked invincible. He won the Spirit Award and the BAFTA. Slumdog Millionaire Best Picture won with no nominations (The Departed and The Hurt Locker won with no awards for their acting though they both got an acting nomination) in acting (while also getting the SAG ensemble) so it is not the worst thing if Argo wins picture with no acting honors, especially when its ensemble got recognized at SAG.

Ordinary, yeah, I felt that strongly about Watts. I don't expect her to win, as I said because the film wasn't that popular.

I was anxious to see Chastain in ZD30 because I enjoyed her immensely in Help. And I thought I'd love the film in general. I was waiting for Chastain to show some acting chops. Maybe it was the fault of the script? Anyway all this is subjective. I just didn't feel it.

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Edit: I was only joking, Jane. Actually real criticism of it as a film is fine since the onslaught of criticism it faced had nil to do with whether or not it was good. But Sofia Coppola, actress, does seems like a little bit of unfair comparison. lol

Have you seen the other nominees? I feel with people who think Riva in Amour is the front-runner they all think it is the most revelatory performance for the ages (don't get me wrong it is is a great performance but Jean-Louis Trintignant did the heavy lifting for me in it).

And I actually have a copy PDF of the script of Zero Dark Thirty on my hard drive. It is a pretty dense script, which I think should win an Oscar mind you, but this is not a script where you can parse through and immediately take one scene on a certain page as the rock star acting scene. Jennifer Ehle and Edgar Ramirez with their characters took surprising, and I would say beneficial, choices from what it said for the characters in the script. Oddly, the only specific character that actually felt like it all 100% came directly from the page without a flinch was Mark Strong's character George. For the Maya character it says outright she has a steely core, is immersed in her work, that often her obsession speaks for her, and comes off too strong when trying to play with others. Chastain played her as the smartest kid at school and knows she is the smartest kid in school, which I felt like was a good choice for the character. I don't want to come off as a Chastain partisan (I am not that invested in her winning the Oscar for this role as much as I like the overall film) but her favorite role for me is still in Take Shelter. Her and Michael Shannon are incredible.

Updated On: 2/18/13 at 06:47 PM

haha, Strummer, you are right, Sofia Coppola was quite harsh. I was trying to think of the worst actress I could! I even like Chastain, but not in that film. Thanks for the explanation of her character but that didn't come through to me. Nothing did. Maybe it's just me, but I saw not much personality there.

I don't think the comparison of her and Watts makes a bit of sense this year. Here's a better analogy - the year Julia Roberts in Erin Brokovich won over Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream. I'm saying that that performance by Burstyn is oneof the best acting performances I've seen on film by a female. She didn't stand a chance of winning because the film wasn't popular enough. Meanwhile, that film, by Darren Aronofsky was BRILLIANT. One of the best I've ever seen. Talk about an audience being so stunned by a film that they can't move for quite a long time when it's over.

I saw several of the other films this year, but not all, so I'm limited with my opinion on Watts.

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Burstyn's performance was brilliant in that and it still upsets me she did not get the Oscar. Roberts was fine, and thankfully the film was in Soderbergh's hands or it could have really have gone off like a lead balloon, but Burstyn did better.

And I agree with BWayToday. The character is just not a role to be open and emotional like a Celia Foote in The Help. Chastain has said this was among the toughest and least fun acting challenges she has ever had because she has to play closed off in about 99% of her screen time. I almost want to blame the character of Carrie Mathieson in Homeland (people have made enough lazy comparisons between Maya and Carrie enough that it is a problem), an actually clinically mentally ill person as a character, for giving off this impression that anybody in the CIA can be that emotionally naked. But that will just get me on a Homeland rant about last season and this is an Oscars thread.

I already pre-ordered the DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack of Zero Dark Thirty (well duh, I'm a partisan hack with this movie) and it is coming out in mid-to-late March.

Argo coming out on DVD now with the Oscars in days is interesting. Lincoln is still a pre-order (and it really went out to lunch, with a 4 disc DVD/Blu-Ray set available).

Oh, I'm sorry you got that impression also, Bway T'day! These kinds of discussions are better in person so that you can hear tones of voices!

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Chastain is wonderful in what I found to be one of the most fascinating and well-executed films of the year. Chastain's turn Is truly is a master class in restraint, she's truly one of the greats, I agree with others who thought she had an incredibly difficult challenge and rose to the occasion. I can definitely see how people wouldn't respond to her though, but I think the film is inviting that kind of reaction in some ways, we're so used to feeling for a character that it's challenging when someone comes in and makes a movie that doesn't necessarily asks us to identify with her, or feel for her even. In that way it reminds me of the work Leo Carax does in HOLY MOTORS where we're always asked to identify with the protagonist and as we're about to do it, the rug is pulled from under us.
So glad to see some support for Watts, she was so impeccable in it. It is a travesty Ewan McGregor didn't get in for equally great work, that phone call scene snuck up on me in the most unexpected ways.
I think this year's lead actress category is an embarrassment of riches much like 2010 where I wanted all of the actresses to win. It's great when it really is an honor just to be nominated. Still, it comes down to a vote, and my (imaginary) vote goes to Jennifer Lawrence. I just thought she transformed a character that could have been incredibly annoying and character-y and turned her into a hilarious, emotional, extremely real woman, paying homage to some of the great screwball heroines along the way. Comedy rarely gets its due, and while I love every one of the nominees (have yet to see AMOUR but cannot wait), I want Lawrence to win so badly.

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