TIFF 51: Best Actress Watch – “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” and “Prima Facie”

by Eurocheese

Rinko Kikuchi could become the first Japanese Best Actress Oscar nominee ever if HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY! goes all the way.

Continuing our quest to find potential Best Actress contenders among TIFF screenings, we have already seen nomination potential in The Debut, Being Heumann and Onwards and Sideways. Next up, we have the Canadian premiere of Rinko Kikuchi’s performance in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! after its Sundance competition slot earlier in the year, and the international premiere of Cynthia Erivo’s work in the film adaptation of Suzie Miller’s one-woman play, Prima Facie…

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TIFF 51: Best Actress Watch – “Being Heumann” and “Onwards and Sideways”

by Eurocheese

Ruth Madeley might be a new Best Actress contender for her work in BEING HEUMANN.

Coming into the fall festivals, no category has been a larger question mark in the Oscar race than The Film Experience’s highest honor – Best Actress. Aside from a couple of clear frontrunners (see my comments on The Debut), there appears to be room for a number of new challengers to find their way into the race. How likely are some of the pictures debuting at Toronto to factor in? If these two world premieres are any indication, the race is heating up. There’s Being Heumann, starring a heroic Ruth Madeley, and Onwards and Sideways, with the lovely Laura Linney…

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TIFF 51: “The Debut” Explodes off the screen and into the Oscar race!

by Eurocheese

In Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut, heltered housewife Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore) is the only person who applies for a small role in her local community theater musical other than perennial starlet Serena Cherry (a lovely cameo from Bernadette Peters). When the diva drops out for a better part in Annie Get Your Gun, the grouchy director, Jerry (Paul Giamatti), is forced to cast Mona, much to his chagrin. The film’s trailer suggests a straightforward premise, and the audience assumes we know where it is headed. When Jerry decides to push Mona to test her limits to draw a better performance out of her, though, he breaks something in her. And then, the film is off to the races...

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Best Actress in WWII: An Alternative History

by Cláudio Alves

Greer Garson earned herself five consecutive Oscar nominations during WWII. For BLOSSMONS IN THE DUST (1941), MRS. MINIVER (1942), MADAME CURIE (1944), MRS. PARKINGTON (1944), and THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945). She won the Best Actress trophy in 1942 for William Wyler's first Best Picture champion.

TIFF is almost upon us, so my Alternative Oscar History series will have to take a break. In the meantime, in this last post for a while, let’s look at the period between 1940 and 1945, the war Oscars and the actressing they should’ve honored.

After all, these are my picks, not the Academy’s, so don’t expect an avalanche of Greer Garson in the incoming ballots. The English star found an American home at MGM in the late 30s, just as WWII was breaking out in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, and was AMPAS’ most beloved star with five nominations and a victory to her name. In this, she edged out Bette Davis’ four nods in the same time span. Then again, though it’s impossible to talk about Hollywood in WWII without acknowledging Davis’ work in initiatives like the Hollywood Canteen, her relationship with the Academy was a rocky one. Famously, she became its first female president in January 1941, before resigning in March. I promise I won’t hold that against her in my votes. It might actually help her case, considering how little I tend to agree with Oscar’s choices…

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Venice: The Mara Sisters in "Bucking Fastard"

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

BUCKING FASTARD © Gateway to Orkney LLC

Back in the 1980s, Werner Herzog met the Chaplin twin sisters for a project, but he is the first to warn against connecting his return to fiction filmmaking after a string of documentary projects too closely to that real story. In his new film Bucking Fastard, Jean and Joan are not twins but sisters who "speak, move, dress, dream and even slip their tongues, as the title proves, in the very same way." The movie is about their quest for true love, one that is neither particularly well planned nor particularly successful, as if the point were simply to find a way not to feel alone. Joan and Jean feel that way - alone together - even though they are always together, even though their understanding of each other is absolute...

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