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

Awards Season

Hello!
I´m sorry, that I have to stop my blogging for a few months. I´m gonna be active and I´m gonna write something, but not as often, as I did til now. The award season is starting and I´ll be watching the new films more than the old films. And a day before the Oscar nominations, I will write my personal nominations.

Best Supporting Actress 1968

5. Kay Medford - Funny Girl
I don't understand this nomination, actually, because Kay Medford didn't show anything in her role in Funny Girl. There was not very much to play, but even the parts where she had something, she didn't use it very well. This nomination for this performance belongs to the misunderstood ones.

4. Estelle Parsons - Rachel, Rachel
Parsons makes a person from this terribly written character, but unfortunately it's many times very overacted and unnatural person. But never mind it, because the film is so boring that you will not see it objectively, because she is one of the best things in it.

3. Lynn Carlin - Faces
Almost the same case like Parsons. It's a terribly boring film she plays in, but her performance makes the film even watchable. She gives the best performance of the film, no doubts about it (maybe Cassell is also great), but it was still nothing special. Just very good...

2. Sondra Locke - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Extraordinary performance of a young actress that gave here the best performance of the film. Her Mick is a wonderfully written and likable character and I loved her. Not even the character, but the whole performance, too.

1. Ruth Gordon - Rosemary´s Baby
Very hard pick between Locke and Gordon, but Gordon brings the fresh air and a great charm and humor into this horror film that has got a great atmosphere. The scenes in the beginning and in the end of the film are wonderful and the proof that Ruth Gordon gave everything into this performance.

My Nominees:

1. Ruth Gordon - Rosemary's Baby
2. Sondra Locke - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
3. Shani Wallis - Oliver!
4. Lynn Carlin - Faces
5. Estelle Parsons - Rachel, Rachel

Best Supporting Actress 1968:Sondra Locke - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

I think, that The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a great film. Throughout the whole film I was not very charmed by it, because it has got some boring moments, but the end is terrific and it makes The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter to be a better film.
The performances in it are actually not some kind of excellent. Some are very dull (Wayne Smith), some are too overacted (Chuck McCann) and even some are really good (Alan Arkin). And where belongs Sondra Locke? Nowhere actually. She is excellent and gives the best performance of the film. She´s wonderfully believable and charming. She has got some great monologues written and she makes them excellent. You would say, that it is not her work, but the scriptwriter´s. But that´s not true, because she makes them believable and very clever.
I can even hardly choose the best scene of her performance, but I prefer maybe three scenes. (SPOILER!!!) The first scene is the scene where she finds the Arkin´s dead body. This type of scene we can see in many other picture and they are mostly terribly played by the person, that finds some dead body, but it´s not Locke´s case. (SPOILER ENDS)
The second scene is where she has the fight with his father in the beginning of the film and the third scene is the scene of the fight with her mother in the end.
So what else to say about this performance? You have to see it, because it is a wonderful and extraordinary performance.