Beauty vs Beast: Cloud Actress
Monday, January 25, 2016 at 1:30PM Jason from MNPP here with your weekly dose of "Beauty vs Beast" -- it's the 61st birthday of the French director (excuse me, they call them "auteurs" over there) Olivier Assayas, who's just come off one of his greatest successes, the role-playing actressy drama Clouds of Sils Maria. I reviewed Clouds way back at the 2014 New York Film Festival for TFE and I was bowled over by it then and I remain so today; when it continued getting Oscar talk all the way through this season I was happily surprised to see it even remembered. Of course come nomination morning it wasn't, because them's the breaks. I can easily suss out the names I'd boot in both Actress categories to make room for Binoche and Stewart's lively and lovely performances (Bye J-Law! See ya later, McAdams!) but if we were to face the two off against each other, well, then it gets tougher...
PREVIOUSLY The Revenant continues doing boffo box office and everybody seems to think it's Leo's Oscar to lose, but here at TFE y'all shoved him face-first in a snow-bank and ran away laughing -- it was a close contest but by a few points you decided that you prefered a murderer by Tom Hardy better. Said Nick T:
"I'm voting Fitzgerald because yes it's Big but Christ at least Hardy offers us a performance that's interesting because of the performance itself instead of how much he's Suffering, and once Glass is on his own Hardy was only thing that got me through the ordeal of The Revenant."
Reader Comments (11)
Will Juliette Binoche ever receive a first nomination outside The House of Weinstein?
As impressed as I was by KStew in this film, I must bow down to the Binoche, always.
I picked Maria (Binoche) because she is the actress who is trying to keep it together, facing death, younger upstarts, old co-stars, etc. None of these reasons are really necessary.
Because, in the end, it's Juliette Binoche who is always the best.
Glamour, diva, star that's all I needed to read to vote Binoche. Easy choice.
Binoche, of course.
Love Kristen in this like everyone else but is it that people already have sky-high expectations of Binoche that her phenomenal turn isn't mentioned more?
stella -- i think that would have to explain it because she amazed me.
Ha, I voted and now it is exactly 50:50!
curious which way it will go
Maria: tragic starpower and nuanced sorrow win every time over moody hipsterdom for me.
Really, I refuse to choose. Both performances are made greater by the interactions with the other. Without either, I doubt the film as a whole would haven as wonderful.
This result is just testament to how great these two actresses are together. Their interplay and chemistry is what makes the film so memorable.