Awards Page Index * OSCAR coverage here
'09 FiLM BiTCH Awards
by Nathaniel R

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Please note: I follow similar rules to Oscar in terms of double nominations. Like Oscar I don't allow them in the individual acting races but I also don't allow them in the behind camera categories either so, for example, a costume designer can't be nominated for two different movies in the costume design category.

 

Best Actress in a Leading Role
the goddesses

Abbie Cornish "Fanny Brawne" Bright Star	Carey Mulligan "Jenny" An Education	Kim Ok-Bin "Tae-Ju" Thirst	Gabby Sidibe "Precious" Precious	Tilda Swinton "Julia" Julia
Manages to build a headstrong girl who is entirely free of girlpower cliché (and believably period). You love and ache with her. Bonus Points: That pride in her first triple-pleated mushroom collar	A winning star-is-born performance. She's wonderful at oscillating between older-than-her years smarts and school girl ignorance. Even at her most maddening she's utterly endearing	Every time you've got the character pegged, she reveals another queasy layer. It's a daringly big portrait of a relentless little sociopath. And you thought vampires were monstrous!	So nakedly emotional, despite the (initially) impenetrable persona. The beauty of the acting is in the way she slowly lets in the light, finally making Claireece her own woman	Julia has two primary modes: Drunk, Lying. Tilda, though, has infinite resources in this miracle star turn. Bonus Points: Gets the dark humor but never winks for audience love
Finalists: Catalina Saveedra gives heartbreakingly tiny (but believable) arc in The Maid * Meryl Streep is buttery joy in Julie & Julia * Michelle Pfeiffer holds mortality at bay (with great frivolous effort) as the aging courtesan in Chéri * Penélope Cruz continues to dazzle for Pedro in Broken Embraces (and from multiple angles, too)* Semi-Finalists: Helen Mirren does diva histrionics with the best of them in The Last Station * Ellen Page's Bliss is not Juno, but feels just as real in Whip It * Charlotte Gainsbourgh tears up her vocal chords (and soul) in Antichrist *
Oscar Race in this Category

 

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Best Actor in a Leading Role
the idols

Jeff Bridges "Bad Blake" Crazy Heart	Colin Firth "George" A Single Man	Joseph Gordon-Levitt "Tom Hansen" (500) Days of Summer	Joaquin Phoenix "Leonard" Two Lovers	Jeremy Renner "Sgt William James" The Hurt Locker
So lived in and vanity-free here, that you sometimes have to look away. 'Great American Actor' rep is fully earned. Bonus Points: Never forgets the characterization when singing.	Beautifully captures both the piercing newness of grief as well as the banal aftermath. Resists overplaying his own rebirth Bonus Points: That devastating call, his whole world vanishing	With his physically dextrous, creative and funny star turn -- "You Make My Dreams Come True" is just one high-light --he registers every beat of a hopeless romantic's love affair with hopeless romance.	When your movie starts with a suicide attempt, you'd better find a way to internalize that despair w/out making the character one-note. He has with this fine rendering of a damaged soul.	He doesn't sweat from the demands of the performance just the heat of the desert. Renner is totally under this adrenaline junkie's skin.. an itchy place to be. He'll always need another hair-rising fix.
Finalists: Ben Whishaw all internalized feeling and enigmatic watchfulness in Bright Star. Like Fanny, you're always wondering about him * George Clooney has once again faced the criticism that he's merely playing George Clooney in Up in the Air. But even so, he's getting better at it all the time. * Semi-Finalists: Sharlito Copley finds surprising layers to his all too human and then tragically inhuman character in District 9 * Michael Fassbender provides Hunger with its radical haunted center * Viggo Mortenson in The Road is memorably haunted by those offscreen years * Hal Holbrook wasn't finished with Into the Wild. He paints another moving portrait of the twilight years in That Evening Sun * Sam Rockwell doubles up for Moon, amusingly perplexed by himself *
Oscar Race in this Category

 

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Best Actress in a Supporting Role
huge assets

Marion Cotillard "Luisa Contini" Nine (also "Billie" in Public Enemies)	Vera Farmiga "Alex Goran" Up in the Air	Samantha Morton "Olivia Pitterson" The Messenger	Mo'Nique "Mary Jones" Precious	Rosamund Pike "Helen" An Education
Imbues her numbers with as much acting as singing -- just like you're supposed to in musicals! Bonus Points: Turns "My Husband Makes Movies" into the languishing heart of the film	A sexy revelation: She lives for a good game and loves a confident player Bonus Points: Adept at screen chemistry. Doesn't it feel like her male co-stars have to earn her? More please. And soon	The film strings acting vignettes together, but her widow needs to stick. And does. Bonus Points: At the mall, turning her army widow's introverted pain inside out to stunning effect	This spellbinding turn is irreducible. This 'monster' is no cliché but all too recognizably human. She fully details the mental illness and self-loathing turned poisonously outward	At first glance she's mere arm candy, but this skilled actress offers delicious glimpses of Helen's limited worldview and her multi-faceted reasons for taking Jenny under her seductive wing
Finalists: Diane Kruger lays the coquettish charm thinly over frayed nerves in Inglourious Basterds. Well done. * The things that come out of Mimi Kennedy's mouth in In the Loop! (including bloody tissues. lol) * Semi-Finalists: Mélanie Laurent is mostly used for iconography in Inglourious Basterds but that peak at the little girl who waited for the cream? Dynamite. * Penélope Cruz garbles her big number in Nine but the rest of her performance is sensationally funny/sad * Juliette Binoche works minimalist wonders in Summer Hours. You can feel her characters restless desire in every frame, like she's practically screaming to get out of this movie and back to the unseen one that's hers... all this while serving the movie rather than pulling focus * Juliette Lewis shades her threatened tough-grrrl cartoon in Whip It to perfection * Celia Weston's slurred line readings are pure joy as the continually sozzled sad mama bear in Observe and Report *
Oscar Race in this Category

 

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Best Actor in a Supporting Role
lynchpin players

Anthony Mackie "Sgt JT Sanborn" The Hurt Locker	Christian McKay "Orson Welles" Me and Orson Welles	Paul Scheider "Charles Brown" Bright Star	Stanley Tucci "Paul Child" Julie & Julia	Christoph Waltz "Col. Hans Landa" Inglourious Basterds
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then this under-rated talent is the soul of the film. We see and better understand Sgt. James's (Renner) risk addiction through his worry and exhaustion	Never mind about the mimicry -- yes, it's good -- what works so well here is the way he lets Welles love of "Welles" continually bubble over. He's his own disciple. and publicist. and best audience	He marks both the gruff character of the man and the man's marking of his territory: John Keats. Bonus Points This while never neglecting the softer emotion of their brotherly bond	For having the good sense to know to do very little. He's so winning and relaxed here that he anchors the joyful fussiness of Meryl's turn Bonus Points: "It was always Julia"	Each scene reveals yet more range in his performance as the Jew Hunter. Bonus Points: That facetious diplomacy: he knows he controls each scene, as do his victims, er, scene partners
Finalists: Woody Harrelson is moving as the by-the-book alcoholic "Captain Tony Stone" in The Messenger * Michael Fassbender proves wonderfully suave as the film critic/spy "Lt. Archie Hicox" in Inglourious Basterds ... (Three is so my favorite Chapter!) * Semi-Finalists: Peter Capaldi as "Malcolm Tucker" in In the Loop * Ray McKinnon as "Lonzo Choat" in That Evening Sun * James Gandolfini as "Lt Gen George Miller" in In the Loop * Dominic Cooper as "Danny" in An Education * Fred Melamed as "Sy Abelman" in A Serious Man *
Oscar Race in this Category

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