Next Year: Best Leading Actor 1974

The Nominees:

Al Pacino - The Godfather Part II

Albert Finney - Murder on the Orient Express

Art Carney - Harry and Tonto

Dustin Hoffman - Lenny

Jack Nicholson - Chinatown

So what do you think will be my pick? Write your predictions for my pick (or ranking) in comments. ;)

Best Leading Actress 2011

5. Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This is an extremely strong year in this category. And Rooney Mara doesn't make it different. Her role of Lisbeth is a character that very easily could be overacted. Rooney Mara makes Lisbeth a human being, instead and it works perfectly in the film. I have only two blames to this performance. The first is her accent that I never found very convincing. And the second thing is the fact that this is not a performance you will remember long time after watching the film. But it still is a great performance...

4. Viola Davis - The Help
Viola Davis undoubtably gives the most convincing performance of the The Help. While the rest of the cast was overacting (I'm not saying, it's bad) she gives us a realistic portrayal of a suffering and worried woman and there's no way not to like her performance. She's really charming and after a great performance in Doubt she only proves that she's a great actress. I just think this is the same case like Mara. You'll not remember her performance for a long time...

3. Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady
I love Meryl Streep. I have not seen her playing badly so far and her performance in The Iron Lady is not an exception. The Iron Lady is not the best biographic movie and it's not even one of the best. But Lloyd still did an advance after Mamma Mia!. But Meryl really helps the film to be not just average. Her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher is really excellent, especially in her old scenes, but she's very good even in the rest of the film, but sometimes it's a little bit overacted. Just like in Julie & Julia she wonderfully copies the accent and the gesture of the real person she's playing, but she doesn't forget to show us the character of her character. Really perfect performance...

2. Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs
Many people dislike this performance, she was even nominated for The First Annual Soilies (which should be more candid variation of Razzie Awards) for it, but I really enjoyed it. I think that he hate of her performance rather comes from the awfulness of the screenplay, which really is terrible (talking to her/him self? WTF?) and from the fact that Albert Nobbs is not very likable character. But does it matter? She plays this character really realistic way and I loved it. I just would like to know what was so bad about this performance...?

1. Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn
I didn't even want to write Michelle Williams, because it's not Michelle who's in the film. It's only Marilyn. I really loved every second of her performance from the beginning to her last scene. She is just excellent playing Marilyn and I can't imagine anyone better for this role. She's just like she should be and just like Marilyn was: naive, adorable and irresistible. Michelle will be a great and worshiped actress, trust me... 

My Nominees:
1. Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn
2. Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs
3. Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
4. Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady
5. Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk about Kevin

Best Supporting Actor 2011

5. Nick Nolte - Warrior

Many people think that Warrior is an excellent film. I don't think it's somehow extraordinary, but it certainly is very good and likable. Nick Nolte's performance in Warrior is really very good. His scenes are probably the best of the film and it's Nolte who makes them so good. But some scenes was overacting and they seemed to me unrealistic. That's the reason he's the last...

4. Jonah Hill - Moneyball
I really liked Moneyball and I loved everything about it. And so I loved Hill's performance. I really liked the way he played this role. He knew exactly, what he is supposed to do. He was never overacting and he didn't try to steal the movie for himself. And maybe that was the reason I really loved every moment of his performance. He was completely realistic and mad Peter Brand a real person, not a movie character. And we can not see it every often these times...

3. Christopher Plummer - Beginners
I didn't enjoy Beginners very much. It's not a bad film, but it's a little bit boring. Some ideas are really original and funny, but the thing I liked the most on it is the performances of Melanie Laurent and Christopher Plummer. His character could have been very simply overacted, but Plummer never fails to give a realistic and very convincing performance. I really think that without him the film would be worse...

2. Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Though many people say, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is Stephen Daldry's worst film, I think it's as good, as his previous films. And I really liked all the performances in the film (yes, even Thomas Horn) and Max von Sydow wasn't an exception. His mute character is very likable and charming performance and his scenes are the best of the film. I really am sorry for not giving him the win...

1. Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn
I have never seen Sir Laurence Olivier in any film so far (I know, shame on me), so I can't say, if he was good in imitation of Olivier, but his performance is perfect alone, not just in comparing with Sir Olivier. Branagh's scenes are just brilliant. His character's passion for the directing is wonderfully acted and never fails to be convincing enough. Really excellent performance by a great actor playing another great actor...

My Nominees:

1. Albert Brooks - Drive
2. Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn
3. Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
4. Christopher Plummer - Beginners
5. Jonah Hill - Moneyball

Best Supporting Actress 2011

5. Octavia Spencer - The Help
She is very talented and I would like to see her in a dramatic role. But here she does something, I call "comedy overacting". That´s exactly what Adam Sandler (or Eddie Murphy) does in his comedies and that´s the reason, nobody finds these comedies funny. And so Octavia Spencer does this and destroys her character with this...

4. Berenice Bejo - The Artist
Berenice Bejo is really charming playing the likable character of Peppy Miller, but I found her performance a little bit lackluster, especially next to the entertaining Jean DuJardin´s performance. She should be much more overacting in a silent performance like this...

3. Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs
Very good performance by Janet McTeer. She certainly knows, what she´s doing, but it´s clear to everyone, that she is not a man. How can the other characters in Albert Nobbs be so blind and not to see in. McTeer´s behavior is too womanfully to be really convincing...

2. Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
McCarthy completely understood what is funny. It´s not about overacting. It´s all about being "real" and the audience is going to roll on the floor laughing. I think all of the comedians (or many of them - Sandler, Murphy and so on) should learn from McCarthy´s performance...

1. Jessica Chastain - The Help
Chastain gave a depth into this (not very well written) character and I simply loved every moment, she was on the screen. While I was watching her scenes, I was screaming (just like she was in one of her scenes): "This is so much fun!"

My Nominees:

1. Jessica Chastain - The Help
2. Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
3. Mia Wasikowska - Albert Nobbs
4. Sandra Bullock - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
5. Demi Moore - Margin Call

Best Supporting Actress 2011: Berenice Bejo - The Artist

To make a silent black-white picture in 2011 may seem like a real madness. But it´s not. The Artist is an extraordinary wonderful film, that is beloved by many people, just like the Academy.

This idea would never go well, if the performances in the film were bad. The actors must overact much more, than in a "normal" film to show the emotions and feelings of their characters. Berenice Bejo is really very good in her performance. She is funny and very likable as Peppy Miller, she dances very well, but I have one little problem with this performance.
If you look at Jean DuJardin´s performance he´s wonderfully charming and he is overacting as much, as it´s needed. His face-play is over the top, but it´s just how the old silent movies are played. Berenice Bejo unfortunately doesn´t do this. Her mimicry is never as bold, as it should be. We understand Peppy´s feelings, but Bejo becomes a little bit lackluster.
And if I should say her best scene, I couldn´t name any. It´s not because she´s not good in any, but she´s the same in every. None of her scenes is better, than the rest of her parts.
I´m not saying, Bejo was bad in The Artist, or she did the bad job. But next to DuJardin´s charming performance she is getting a little bit lost. Sorry Berenice...

Best Supporting Actress 2011: Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs

Albert Nobbs is not actually this year´s award season´s very beloved film. Some people say, the main character of Glenn Close is not likable and that they didn´t care about him/her, but I disagree. I liked the film very much, but it was mostly because of the performances, because the script is really bad.
McTeer´s character is maybe the best of the film. It actually has got some depth and McTeer makes this character very likable. For me, it was not so, at all.
I would never believe, that McTeer is a man, but the characters in the film do. McTeer never gives up her femaleness and that makes her character unrealistic. For example the scene, she shows us the proof, that she is a woman (the scene the photo up is from) should be a shock for us, but it isn´t. From the first moment, we know, that Hubert is a woman.
It´s not only McTeer´s fault, even makeup designers should make her look more like a man. But it seemed, that Janet is not even trying to make Hubert look like a man. And there is a contradiction. Because she´s about to play a woman that wants everyone to think, that she´s a man, but she personally doesn´t want it.
But her performance is not bad, at all. As the film is ending, her performance is better and better and at the end it is really a honest and wonderful performance. But some scenes from the beginning should be a little bit better, because they are making her character unrealistic...

Best Supporting Actress 2011:Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids is a huge precious of Guild´s Awards, but at the Academy Awards there are only two nominees. Best original screenplay and best supporting actress - both deserving. For me it really is a very funny comedy, we don´t see very often. Last time I saw something similar was in The Hangover, or Borat and it was very long time ago.
Melissa McCarthy is wonderful in her character. Her role could so easily be extremely overacted, but McCarthy isn´t. She completely understood, what is funny and what should she do to be funny. Her poker-faced line reading is one of the most funniest performances I´ve ever seen. You can see, how McCarthy enjoys playing in Bridesmaids and so you do.
There definitely are moments in Bridesmaids, that I found embarrassing, for example the huge puke scene. But Melissa does everything she can do to make these scenes be something more than just a complete disaster.
What else to say? This is really how I imagine a Oscar-nominated comic performance...

Best Supporting Actress 2011:Jessica Chastain - The Help

The incredible work of Jessica Chastain this year is a nomination worthy itself. She played in The Help, The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, Coriolanus and Texas Killing Fields. Personally, I have only seen the first two films, but she was really great in both of them, though she is playing a completely different characters in them.
In The Help she plays a young woman, that is not very experienced in marriage and so she pays a housemaid played by Octavia Spencer. The most of the time she is on the screen, she is with Octavia Spencer and she shines.
Mostly in her first scenes, Chastain is a little bit overacting, but she can wonderfully find the right way to be funny, but not annoying. Her overacting just greatly suits to the character. You know, just to watch her playing is a great experience and a great joy. She just enjoys every moment she´s on the screen.
I can very easily imagine this character played by any other actress. It would be probably very dull performance and you would not remember it a week after watching the film. But that´s not what happened in Jessica Chastain´s hands.
(SPOILER ALERT) Her best moment in my opinion is probably the scene of her interruption. It´s a scene, she has to show a real sadness and depression and she does it wonderfully.
I just really can say, that this is a deserving nomination and one of the best supporting female performances of the year...

Best Supporting Actress 2011: Octavia Spencer - The Help

The Help is a honey of the audience this Oscar season. The lots of people and the lots of money they spent in the cinemas are just incredible. I must say, that I was not so much impressed by it. It is a nice film, no doubts about that, but there is too much clishé in it. But it´s a very likable film, anyway.
And so is Octavia Spencer´s performance. Her character is very likable and it has some very comic scenes, but even some serious scenes. In the serious scenes she is perfect, but in the comic ones, she just fails to be just a little bit realistic. She is just extremely overacting. Some overacted moments are wonderful, because, if they weren´t overacted, they´d not be funny, but the other are terrible. I know, that for example Jessica Chastain is in The Help also overacting, but it is always funny and in the favor of the character.
Woody Allen once said, that the worst thing, you can do if you make a comedy, is try to be funny. But Octavia Spencer does exactly that. On the other side we see nominated Melissa McCarthy and she was incredibly funny in Bridesmaids, but she never really tries it. That´s the way, comic performance should have been played, not this way.
I think, Spencer has the biggest chances to win and I will not be very disappointed, if she wins, because some moments of her performance are really very good and enjoying, but this is not the way I imagine a really great Oscar-worthy performance...

Next Year:Best Supporting Actress 2011

The Nominees:
Berenice Béjo - The Artist
Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs

Jessica Chastain - The Help

Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Octavia Spencer - The Help

Deserving Performances:
Mia Wasikowska - Albert Nobbs

Shailene Woodley - The Descendants

My prediction:
Octavia Spencer - The Help