Is there even a question here? I still do really, really want to see Dreamgirls, but it certainly won’t happen in the next two days, or likely even until the movie is released on DVD. That said, I am positively certain that this is the year of Jennifer Hudson.
My sister chided me yesterday for neglecting to admit how lovely and endearing Kate Winslet was in Pride and Prejudice, and I bow to her sisterly wisdom on this. I suspect the following admission will earn me another helping of sibling-guidance (or chide-ance): I don’t watch American Idol. EVER. Before I moved into my own apartment, I would watch the earliest rounds with my gleefully cruel roommates, maybe the first month, only to giggle at the people who were truly terrible. I have no desire to watch people who can actually sing. That’s what ipods are for, and even then most of my favorite singers (Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Patti Smith) would probably be cut in the initial loser round (because they’re songwriters, not singers). Elvis Costello, Nick Drake, and Ute Lemper might make it to Hollywood, but are resolutely not quite “pop” enough. Nina Hagen might stoop to fake it. In any case, sorry Skippa, no American Idol for me. So I’m tabula rasa on Jennifer Hudson, and in fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never ever heard her voice. But that’s what YouTube is for. Incidentally, I recommend giving this article, “The Academy’s Fatty Problem,” a quick read. Ms. Hudson seems to be almost more famous for her waist size than the size of her voice, and the author makes the weird claim that she’s bigger than Kathy Bates, which is rather a head-scratcher.
Let’s wrap the rest of these ladies up now, shall we?
When someone like Adriana Barraza is nominated for an Oscar, I almost automatically want her to win. I’ve never seen Babel, have no desire to see Babel, and probably never will watch it, but there’s something in me that sees a 50-year old woman who I’ve never heard of with a relatively short page of IMDB credits (which usually means she put her hard work in on stage?) and cheers for her. Plus, late-blooming actors are often preternaturally talented. Pace Steve Buscemi, John Malkovich, Willem Defoe, Glenn Close, both William H. Macy and his wife, et alia. They just come out of nowhere somewhere north of thirty-five, and when they hit, it’s huge.
Abigail Breslin is too cute to be a child Oscar winner; only bad things will follow. She’s headed down the Lindsay Lohan route, and her only chance to escape is to vanish for a few years. Run, Abby, run away.
All I know about Rinko Kikuchi is that she can’t dress herself. And she needs a pedicure and has really bad taste in shoes. Let’s not give her any more red carpet than is absolutely necessary, and certainly not a stage.
Here’s the conundrum for me. This really should be the year of Cate Blanchett. She could conceivably have had three nominations for her work in 2006. Everything that I’ve read and everything that I’ve heard says that The Good German, Babel, and Notes on A Scandal all gave her rein to deliver potentially-Oscarworthy leading performances. But, of course, you can’t win in a category (or for a role) you didn’t get nominated for, although this never has stopped the Academy in the past…
(and, on a side note, it seems to me that at least two or three of these so-called “supporting” roles are actually leading ones! Ah, Hollywood politics.)
No Comments