Academy Awards (Oscars)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Will Smith Calls Bradley Cooper ‘Beautiful’ at National Board of Review Gala

      by

      “Licorice Pizza” was the big winner at the annual National Board of Review film awards.The National Board of Review awards gala is not televised. This fact was announced onstage by its host Craig Melvin and giddily repeated by several guests.The awards gala is among the last in the run-up to this year’s Oscars and, free of television, the night has a reputation for speeches that are chummy, quite long and laced with profanity. This year’s gala, at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday night, did not disappoint.“We just have a rip-roaring good time,” said Annie Schulhof, the board’s president.Alana Haim, left, and Cooper Hoffman accepted the award for breakthrough performance in “Licorice Pizza.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesIlda Mason starred in “West Side Story.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesFrom left: Bradley Cooper, Zazie Beatz and Spike Lee.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesThe guests included film executives, producers and a smattering of big-name stars like Julianne Moore, and many in the crowd made ample use of the complimentary Bellinis offered by a phalanx of servers in white jackets. There were also three open bars, along with free-flowing wine poured during the steak and shrimp salad dinner.The speeches delivered on the promise of backslapping and swear words but — mercifully — tended toward brevity.Will Smith, who was awarded best actor for his performance in “King Richard,” took the stage around 8:15 p.m. and pointed to Bradley Cooper at a nearby table. “I can’t even concentrate, he’s so beautiful,” he said.Alana Haim also gave Mr. Cooper a shout-out when she accepted her award for best breakthrough performance in “Licorice Pizza,” which she shared with Cooper Hoffman. “It means so much to have Bradley Cooper give us this award because you were actually the first real actor we had ever acted with,” said Ms. Haim, who wore a sleeveless, Kelly-green gown by Marni. She also referred to the cast and crew as “family.”Questlove accepted the best documentary award for “Summer of Soul.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesChris Rock, left, and Paul Thomas Anderson, who won for best director for “Licorice Pizza.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesJulianne MooreRebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesMarcus Samuelsson, the chef and television personality, took the “family” trope one step further, referring to Spike Lee as “Uncle Spike” for inspiring him to become a chef. Mr. Lee wore a hat that looked like a chef’s toque when he introduced Questlove, who won best documentary for “Summer of Soul.”Ilda Mason, who wore a white Naeem Khan gown adorned with beaded flowers, accepted the best actress award on behalf of her “West Side Story” castmate Rachel Zegler (she was shooting on location for “Snow White”). Ms. Mason’s voice cracked with emotion when she read her friend’s thank you message from her phone.As the ceremony drew to a close around 9:30, Chris Rock presented Paul Thomas Anderson with the award for best director for “Licorice Pizza,” the night’s big winner. He bemoaned the National Review Board for being “so cheap they don’t have a prompter.” “I’m coming here for Paul Thomas Anderson, a person who has never cast me in anything,” he said, using stronger language. “Not even to wash his car,” he added. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      Will Smith Calls Bradley Cooper ‘Beautiful’ at Film Gala

      by

      “Licorice Pizza” was the big winner at the annual National Board of Review film awards.The National Board of Review awards gala is not televised. This fact was announced onstage by its host Craig Melvin and giddily repeated by several guests.The awards gala is among the last in the run-up to this year’s Oscars and, free of television, the night has a reputation for speeches that are chummy, quite long and laced with profanity. This year’s gala, at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday night, did not disappoint.“We just have a rip-roaring good time,” said Annie Schulhof, the board’s president.Alana Haim, left, and Cooper Hoffman accepted the award for breakthrough performance in “Licorice Pizza.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesIlda Mason starred in “West Side Story.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesFrom left: Bradley Cooper, Zazie Beatz and Spike Lee.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesThe guests included film executives, producers and a smattering of big-name stars like Julianne Moore, and many in the crowd made ample use of the complimentary Bellinis offered by a phalanx of servers in white jackets. There were also three open bars, along with free-flowing wine poured during the steak and shrimp salad dinner.The speeches delivered on the promise of backslapping and swear words but — mercifully — tended toward brevity.Will Smith, who was awarded best actor for his performance in “King Richard,” took the stage around 8:15 p.m. and pointed to Bradley Cooper at a nearby table. “I can’t even concentrate, he’s so beautiful,” he said.Alana Haim also gave Mr. Cooper a shout-out when she accepted her award for best breakthrough performance in “Licorice Pizza,” which she shared with Cooper Hoffman. “It means so much to have Bradley Cooper give us this award because you were actually the first real actor we had ever acted with,” said Ms. Haim, who wore a sleeveless, Kelly-green gown by Marni. She also referred to the cast and crew as “family.”Questlove accepted the best documentary award for “Summer of Soul.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesChris Rock, left, and Paul Thomas Anderson, who won for best director for “Licorice Pizza.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesJulianne MooreRebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesMarcus Samuelsson, the chef and television personality, took the “family” trope one step further, referring to Spike Lee as “Uncle Spike” for inspiring him to become a chef. Mr. Lee wore a hat that looked like a chef’s toque when he introduced Questlove, who won best documentary for “Summer of Soul.”Ilda Mason, who wore a white Naeem Khan gown adorned with beaded flowers, accepted the best actress award on behalf of her “West Side Story” castmate Rachel Zegler (she was shooting on location for “Snow White”). Ms. Mason’s voice cracked with emotion when she read her friend’s thank you message from her phone.As the ceremony drew to a close around 9:30, Chris Rock presented Paul Thomas Anderson with the award for best director for “Licorice Pizza,” the night’s big winner. He bemoaned the National Review Board for being “so cheap they don’t have a prompter.” “I’m coming here for Paul Thomas Anderson, a person who has never cast me in anything,” he said, using stronger language. “Not even to wash his car,” he added. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      The Secret Sounds That Make Up ‘Dune’

      by

      Denis Villeneuve and his sound team explain how far they went to achieve an aural experience that would feel somewhat familiar, an unusual approach for sci-fi.Sand in Death Valley was manipulated in different ways for the “Dune” soundscape.“Dune” is in the details, and Denis Villeneuve knows nearly all of them. The French Canadian filmmaker grew up obsessed with Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel and has spent the last few years of his life adapting that 1965 book into a budding film franchise. The first installment came out in October and the second one will begin shooting later this year, so if there’s anything you want to know about the inner workings of “Dune,” Villeneuve is the man to ask.But last week in Malibu, Calif., as he regarded a blue cereal box with evident amusement, Villeneuve admitted that one key detail had eluded him until now.“I’m learning today there were Rice Krispies in ‘Dune,’” he said.We were at Zuma Beach on the kind of warm March afternoon that New York readers would surely prefer I not dwell on, and Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated sound editors Mark Mangini and Theo Green were nearby, pouring cereal into the sand. This wasn’t meant to provoke any sea gulls; Mangini and Green wanted to demonstrate the sound-gathering techniques they used to enliven Arrakis, the desert planet where the “Dune” hero Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) discovers his destiny.Theo Green, left, and Mark Mangini, demonstrating their work in Death Valley, were part of the Oscar-nominated sound team on “Dune.”“One of the most compelling images in the film is when Paul first steps foot onto the planet,” Mangini said. Since the sand on Arrakis is laced with “spice,” a valuable and hallucinogenic substance, the sound designers had to find an audible way to convey that something special was underfoot.By way of explaining it to me, Mangini ground his work boot into the soft patch of sand that he had dusted with Rice Krispies. The sand produced a subtle, beguiling crunch, and Villeneuve broke out into a big smile. Though he’d heard it plenty of times in postproduction, he had no idea what the sound designers had concocted to capture that sound.“One of the things I love about cinema is the cross between NASA kind of technology and gaffer tape,” Villeneuve said. “To use a super-expensive mic to record Rice Krispies — that deeply moves me!”Green using Rice Krispies to explain how a crunch was achieved in “Dune.”“Dune” is full of those clever, secret noises, nearly all of which are derived from real life: Of the 3,200 bespoke sounds created for the movie, only four were made solely with electronic equipment and synthesizers. Green noted that with many science-fiction and fantasy films, there is a tendency to indicate futurism by using sounds that we’ve never heard before.“But it was very much Denis’s vision that this movie should feel every bit as familiar as certain areas of planet Earth,” Green said. “We’re not putting you in a sci-fi movie, we’re putting you in a documentary about people on Arrakis.”Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage.A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.To that end, Green and Mangini made an early expedition into Death Valley to collect natural noises that could be used later for the film’s sonic palette. “When an audience hears acoustic sound, there’s a subconscious box that gets checked that says, this is real,” Mangini said. But within that reality, Mangini isn’t afraid to push things a bit: While working on “Mad Max: Fury Road,” for which he won an Oscar, Mangini mixed the sounds of dying animals into the crash of the movie’s most formidable vehicle.For another “Dune” demonstration, he began to bury a small nub of a microphone in the sand. “This is an underwater microphone, a hydrophone,” Mangini explained. “It’s the sort of thing you’d usually drop in the ocean to record a humpback whale, but we found another way to use it.”In “Dune,” the characters use a staked device called a thumper to rhythmically pound the sand and summon massive sandworms. To get that sound, Mangini and Green buried their hydrophone at different depths in Death Valley, then used a mallet to whack the sand above the buried mic.One sound involved a microphone normally used underwater.A mallet was then used to whack the sand above the mic.“We’d also record it above ground to get the actual sound of the impact,” Mangini said, demonstrating his method for me with a few sharp thwacks into the Zuma Beach sand. “Each one of these hits is the ka-dunk of the thumper, as you see it in the film.”To give the sandworm’s gaping maw some grandeur, Green recorded a friend’s dog as it gnashed its teeth, while Mangini added grumbling whale noises that matched the rhythm of the thumper — gunk, gunk, gunk. And how did they convey the sandworm rushing through the sand, liquefying every particle in its path?“I had this idea of taking a microphone, covering it with a condom and furrowing it under the ground,” Mangini said.“I was not aware of that,” Villeneuve said, trailing off. His sound designers laughed. “We never told Denis about the condom,” Green said.Green and Mangini worked with Villeneuve on his previous film, “Blade Runner 2049,” and the director brought them both on board as soon as he nabbed the rights to Herbert’s novel, instead of waiting until postproduction, as is more customary.Denis Villeneuve brought the sound team on board early so it could have “the proper time to investigate and explore and make mistakes.”“I wanted Theo and Mark to have the proper time to investigate and explore and make mistakes,” Villeneuve said. “It’s something I got really traumatized by with my early movies, where you spend years working on a screenplay, then months shooting and editing it, and then right at the end, the sound guy comes and you barely have enough time.”By hiring his sound designers early and setting them loose, Villeneuve could even take some of their discoveries and weave them into Hans Zimmer’s score, producing a holistic aural experience where the percussive music composition and pervasive sound design can sometimes be mistaken for one another.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      William Hurt, Oscar-Winning Leading Man of the 1980s, Dies at 71

      by

      A four-time Academy Award nominee, he starred in such films as “Body Heat,” “The Big Chill,” “Children of a Lesser God” and “Broadcast News.”William Hurt, who burst into stardom as the hapless lawyer Ned Racine in “Body Heat” and won an Oscar for best actor for “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” portraying a gay man sharing a Brazilian prison cell with a revolutionary, died at his home in Portland, Ore., on Sunday. He was 71.A son, Alexander Hurt, said the cause was complications of prostate cancer.Mr. Hurt, tall, blond and speaking in a measured cadence that lent a cerebral quality to his characters, was a leading man in some of the most popular films of the 1980s, including “The Big Chill” (1983), “Children of a Lesser God” (1986), “Broadcast News” (1987) and “The Accidental Tourist” (1988).In later years, Mr. Hurt transitioned from leading man to supporting roles, and was nominated for an Academy Award a fourth time for “A History of Violence” (2005).Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1985 of the “brilliant achievement” of Mr. Hurt and his co-star, Raul Julia, in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”“Mr. Hurt won a well-deserved best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for a performance that is crafty at first, carefully nurtured and finally stirring in profound, unanticipated ways,” she wrote. “What starts out as a campy, facetious catalog of Hollywood trivia becomes an extraordinarily moving film about manhood, heroism and love.”Despite his successes as a leading man in Hollywood, he told The Times in 1990 that “theater is a language I speak better or am more tuned into than English.”“Even one moment onstage is a glacier of comprehension,” he added. “That’s where the work is. And it’s as fascinating to study as any other science.”In a 2009 interview with The Times, he explained: “I don’t have to be the star, physically. My greatest offering is my concept. It isn’t my face.”His approach, he said, was to “basically try to make my body as much a matter of Silly Putty as I can, and in some sense sculpt that to be perfectly appropriate to themes and the metaphors that are in the play at hand.”A full obituary is being prepared.Christine Chung More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Oscar Rewind: When Rita Moreno Made History and Thanked No One

      by

      The actress explains why she gave one of the shortest Academy speeches ever when she became the first Latina to win an acting Oscar 60 years ago.It was the night that cemented her place in history, and Rita Moreno almost skipped it.In February 1962, Moreno, then 30, was in the Philippines, shooting “Cry of Battle” — a black-and-white World War II film in which she played the English-speaking leader of a band of Filipino fighters. So when she found out that she had been nominated for her first Academy Award — for best supporting actress for her performance as Anita in “West Side Story” — she took a moment to celebrate. And then, she got pragmatic.As a star of “Cry of Battle,” she would still be needed on set — 7,300 miles from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where that year’s Oscars ceremony would take place in April.“I was absolutely positive Judy Garland was going to win for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg,’” Moreno, now 90 and still vivacious and irreverent, said in a recent phone conversation from Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., where she was on a trip with her daughter.But then she won a Golden Globe — and had a change of heart. She bought an airplane ticket.“I flew into California thinking, ‘Hey, if there’s one iota of a chance that I may win, I need to be there,” said Moreno, who was up against Garland, Fay Bainter (“The Children’s Hour”), Lotte Lenya (“The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone”) and Una Merkel (“Summer and Smoke”).It didn’t hurt that the film she was nominated for — “West Side Story,” Robert Wise’s adaptation of the Broadway musical — was a hit both at the box office and among critics, or that it had racked up 11 nominations, including best picture. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it “a cinema masterpiece.”But leading up to the ceremony, Moreno was so pessimistic about her chances that she practiced her “loser face” and made up speeches about how “it was a lousy movie” and she “didn’t want it anyway.” But her heart wasn’t in it. She did want to win — badly.So on April 9, 1962, when Rock Hudson opened the envelope, paused, then read her name — making Moreno, who is Puerto Rican, the first Latina actress to win an Academy Award — her saucer-size eyes and open mouth said it all.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage.A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.“I didn’t expect to win,” Moreno said, then added with a laugh, “No one who’s watched it can argue with that.”But as she walked to the stage in her Pitoy Moreno gown, with a voluminous black-and-gold skirt and black sleeveless top, open-mouthed every step of the way, she had just one thing on her mind. (Well, two: The first, she said, was “Don’t run; it’s not dignified.”)“I remember thinking very clearly, ‘Do not thank anyone,’” she said. “They didn’t give you the part as a favor. They were forced to give it to you because you did the best screen test.”She delivered one of the shortest acceptance speeches in Oscars history: “I can’t believe it! Good Lord! I leave you with that.” It lasted just seven seconds.“I ran out of anything to say once I decided I wasn’t going to say thank you,” she said. “And I’ve been trying to make up for it with long acceptance speeches ever since.”But offstage, her night was only getting started: After accepting the award from Hudson, she ran into Joan Crawford backstage, who was there to present the best actor award and, as Moreno put it, “drunk as a skunk on vodka.”“She hugged me so hard she covered my face entirely,” Moreno said. “She was built like a linebacker. And she’s hugging me and the photographer is saying ‘Miss Crawford, I can’t see your face. Would you please uncover your face?’”Backstage Moreno missed the night’s other most memorable bit of drama: A New York City cabdriver, upset that Bob Hope hadn’t been nominated for his role as a radio host in “The Big Broadcast of 1938,” sneaked in, climbed onstage and announced, “Ladies and gentleman, I’m the world’s greatest gate-crasher and I just came here to present Bob Hope with his 1938 trophy.”He promptly produced a homemade statuette.“Really?” Moreno said when told of the episode. “I don’t recall that at all! I must’ve won the Oscar just before that and been in the press room. That’s the only way I wouldn’t remember that. That’s unforgettable.”Moreno didn’t linger too long after her big win, as she had a 15-hour flight back to Manila the next day. Her early departure also meant she missed all the phone calls, flowers and telegrams that arrived for her in the United States. But a friend told her later that up and down El Barrio in New York — Latinos stuck their heads out their windows the moment Hudson announced Moreno’s name — and screamed.“I was deprived of all of that wonderfulness because I had to go back and make this [expletive] war movie in Manila,” she said.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘My Cousin Vinny’ at 30: An Unlikely Oscar Winner

      by

      Much like Vinny in the South, the film was a fish out of water at the Academy Awards. But the comedy endures, thanks to a generous Joe Pesci and a fiery Marisa Tomei.When the culture-clash courtroom comedy “My Cousin Vinny” landed in theaters on March 13, 1992, the critical response was mostly positive. The Times’s Vincent Canby found it “inventive and enjoyable,” The Los Angeles Times’s Peter Rainer called it “often funny” and The Hollywood Reporter deemed it “a terrific variation on the fish-out-of-water/man-from-Mars story formula.”One phrase you won’t find in any of those reviews is “Oscar worthy.” Yet “Vinny” proved just that, landing an Academy Award for best supporting actress a full year after its original theatrical release — one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history, and a trophy that would prove both a blessing and a curse for its recipient, Marisa Tomei.Her performance as Mona Lisa Vito, the long-suffering fiancée and legal secret weapon of Joe Pesci’s title character, was a breakthrough for the Brooklyn-born actress, who had done her time Off Broadway and in the world of soaps and sitcoms. “I was fresh to the business and didn’t know how movies worked,” Tomei explained in 2017, “but Joe chose me for the part, then took me by the hand and guided me immensely, so I got very lucky.”“Vinny” concerns a pair of New York University students who, while driving through Alabama, are falsely accused of murder. They’re so desperate for legal representation that they call upon the only lawyer they can afford: Vincent LaGuardia Gambini (Pesci), a cousin of one of the accused and a novice who has just passed the bar after six attempts.Pesci roars into town in a pink Cadillac convertible at the eleven-and-a-half minute mark; on the DVD audio commentary, the director, Jonathan Lynn, calls this, with characteristically British understatement, “a star entrance.” And that’s an accurate assessment of Pesci’s station — he had just won an Oscar for his menacingly funny work in “Goodfellas,” and “Vinny” was one of his first attempts to leapfrog from supporting player to leading man.But Pesci wasn’t the only star making an entrance; a gum-smacking Tomei scores the first two laughs in the scene, first with her retort to his assertion that she sticks out “like a sore thumb” — “Oh, yeah, you blend” — and then her heartbroken realization, “I bet the Chinese food here is terrible.”Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage.A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.It’s noteworthy that Pesci cedes those laughs to her, and continues to do so throughout the picture, playing the George to her Gracie (though she is, clearly, the smarter one). A lesser actor might try to upstage her, but Pesci had been the scene-stealer before, in films like “Raging Bull” and “Easy Money”; he knew how to step back and let his co-stars shine. And this principle of generosity is most pronounced in the courtroom climax, when Vinny puts Mona Lisa on the stand as an automobile expert (she worked in her father’s garage), giving the testimony that exonerates his clients.It’s clear why the commitment-shy Vinny falls in love with Mona Lisa all over again. She charms everyone from judge to jury to onlookers, and, in turn, the moviegoing audience. Credible, fiery, funny and energetic, she and Pesci turn what could’ve been broad caricatures into grounded, empathetic characters.But “My Cousin Vinny” is not what we think of as an “Oscar movie,” and Tomei’s is not what is conventionally considered an “Oscar performance.” Credit where due to 20th Century Fox: When the film was an unexpected commercial success ($52 million on an $11 million budget), the studio spent some of those profits on a “For Your Consideration” campaign, paying off in her nomination for best supporting actress — alongside Judy Davis (“Husbands and Wives”), Joan Plowright (“Enchanted April”), Vanessa Redgrave (“Howards End”) and Miranda Richardson (“Damage”), formidable competition indeed.If the nomination was a surprise, Tomei’s victory over her distinguished competition was a shock. She was a newcomer triumphing over veterans, an American television actress taking on distinguished stage thespians from abroad, and, perhaps most importantly, the only comic performance against a quartet of scorching dramatic turns. And for all of those reasons, when Jack Palance opened the envelope and called Tomei’s name, it sent a shock wave through the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.Tomei with her Oscar for her performance as Mona Lisa Vito.Barry King/Liaison, via Getty ImagesMaybe the uniformity of Tomei’s competition canceled each other out in her favor. Maybe she had the home court advantage. Or maybe, in a flurry of dramatic performances, the comedic joy of Mona Lisa Vito was a breath of fresh air.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Who Will Win This Year’s Wild Best Actress Race?

      by

      There are cases to be made for and against every contender, and no one has an obvious advantage in this upended season.The best actress category is doing the most.Without a strong front-runner to dominate the field, nearly every awards show is offering a different lineup of ladies as we hurtle toward the March 27 Oscar telecast. Will that make it hard to predict the ultimate winner? Yes, but I’m choosing to revel in the chaos.After all, the only actress who hit every notable awards precursor was the “House of Gucci” star Lady Gaga, who wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. And while you’d normally look to this weekend’s BAFTA ceremony, the EE British Academy Film Awards, to offer some sort of clarity — as it did last year, when the organization picked the eventual Oscar winner, Frances McDormand for “Nomadland” — not a single one of BAFTA’s best actress nominees made the Oscar lineup this year.Like I said, chaos! But fluid races are often more fun, and each of the five Oscar nominees has some notable pluses and minuses that could keep us guessing until the very end. Here’s my rundown.Jessica Chastain, ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’The case for her: A big, prosthetics-laden performance in a biopic is exactly the sort of thing that awards voters tend to go for, but even Chastain seemed shocked when she prevailed over a tough field at last month’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. Another win in the best actress category at the Critics Choice Awards this Sunday could give her some serious momentum, and it doesn’t hurt that she recently starred in the HBO series “Scenes From a Marriage,” offering a prestige-TV display of her range that can help contextualize the work she did as the lavish-lashed evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Also, after two previous nominations, you could argue that she’s due for a win.The case against her: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” came out all the way back in September and failed to make much of a splash with critics or moviegoers. And though that SAG victory gave Chastain a nice, televised bump, only one of the last three best actress winners there also prevailed with Oscar, suggesting a recent trend of academy members going their own way.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.Olivia Colman, ‘The Lost Daughter’The case for her: It isn’t easy to win a pair of best actress Oscars in short succession, but after Frances McDormand snagged two of the past four trophies in this race, why shouldn’t Colman add another to the Oscar she won for “The Favourite”? (I suspect she came very close to winning a best supporting actress Oscar last year for her sympathetic performance in “The Father,” and that will only raise her chances.) It helps, too, that she’s the only best actress candidate from a film with a screenplay that was also nominated — in fact, “The Lost Daughter,” about a conflicted mother, took the screenplay award and two more this past week at the Independent Spirit Awards, including the show-closing trophy for best film.The case against her: Despite all of that love from the Indie Spirits, Colman’s performance wasn’t even nominated by the group, and she was snubbed again by BAFTA even though British actors are ostensibly her main constituency. (I told you this best actress race was screwball!) Some Oscar voters simply aren’t sympathetic to her character’s doll-stealing arc, and there’s always the chance that her co-star Jessie Buckley’s presence in the supporting actress category might dilute Colman’s candidacy, since they play the same woman at different ages.Penélope Cruz, ‘Parallel Mothers’The case for her: The membership of the academy is growing ever more international, which probably helped Cruz leap into this lineup and may even push her toward a win. Sony Pictures Classics is handling “Parallel Mothers,” and Cruz’s late-breaking momentum recalls the studio’s “The Father,” which netted a lead-actor win for Anthony Hopkins last year after it peaked just as his competitors’ films began to fade. And in a field of polarizing performances, Cruz’s well-reviewed work offers a chic choice that Oscar voters can feel good about taking.The case against her: Cruz is the only actress on this list who was snubbed by SAG, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Awards, and though it’s harder to score with those groups when you’re delivering a performance that’s not in English, that still leaves her with no real place to pop before the Oscars.Nicole Kidman, ‘Being the Ricardos’The case for her: Doesn’t Nicole Kidman seem like the sort of movie star who should have two Oscars by now? Her only win came almost 20 years ago, for “The Hours,” and when Colman and Cruz are also vying for a second statuette, Kidman could credibly claim that she’s been waiting the longest for her pair. Kidman’s “Ricardos” co-stars Javier Bardem and J.K. Simmons were nominated, too, suggesting that the academy’s sizable actors branch has real affection for the film. And of all of the best actress candidates who transformed themselves to play a real person, Kidman may have had the highest difficulty curve to overcome, since her character, Lucille Ball, was a once-in-a-lifetime comic genius.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More