10th Anniversary: Nicole Kidman On Her Oscar Win

Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of The Hours. That's just another reason to feel merry today and remember that gratitude isn't just for Thanksgiving. Especially not when it comes to the gift of cinema. We celebrate the movies all year long but we get extra weepy about the greatness of the artform right about now when drowning in awards and top ten lists .

Christmas 2002 brought three very special actresses together

Not that The Hours is an especially festive or celebratory movie but each Christmas does seem to bring us a super-depressing Best Picture Event (this year's iteration: Les Misérables). The Hours tracks three parallel women Virginia Woolf (Oscar winning Nicole Kidman), Laura Brown (Oscar nominee Julianne Moore) and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) who are connected by difficult personalities, anxious spirits ("I feel as if I'm unravelling"), and Woolf's masterpiece "Mrs Dalloway" which she is writing and Laura and Clarissa are reading in the braided plots. 

The 2002 Best Picture nominee is a beloved classic to actressexuals the world over and, as such, I know it's close to the heart of many of you. When I spoke with Nicole Kidman recently, we took a time machine detour to talk about her winning year. (I thought I'd save that piece of our conversation for a surprise Christmas gift for you. Surprise!) The Oscar winner herself was totally taken aback when I mentioned the approaching anniversary. "Wow. That was ten years ago?!?" 

Indeed it was, Nicole, indeed it was. 

NATHANIEL R: You've been invited back to the Oscars with Rabbit Hole recently but what's your most vivid memory of that winning journey with The Hours?

NICOLE'S PERSONAL MEMORIES AFTER THE JUMP...

Click to read more ...

Tonight's Celebrity Endorsement Fantasy

She came to check her rank on the Best Actress page but got totally sidetracked by the Kidman interview. It happens.

An Evening with Naomi Watts

Jose here to talk about Naomi Watts. She's having a great month. First, she won Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes for her work in The Impossible (opening today!). Then she got a hell of an endorsement from Reese Witherspoon who promised she'd "tap dance on Sunset Blvd." to get her an Oscar for this movie. If other people in Hollywood start feeling she's as good as Meryl in Sophie's Choice (Reese's words) Naomi's stars might be finally aligning for a statuette.

Earlier this week I attended a preview screening of The Impossible (hosted as part of 92Y's Reel Pieces series) which was preceded by a Q&A with Watts. She discussed working with green screens, working with boy wonder Tom Holland (nominated for Best Young Actor at the "Critics Choice" Awards) and spent a surprising amount of time discussing her work in Mulholland Dr. But, hey, a lot of us have been talking about that for years as well!

[Mulholland Dr, King Kong and The Impossible after the jump]

Click to read more ...

Premature Jessica Chastain Nostalgia. Is She Streep 2.0 ???

Remember when Jessica Chastain brought her grandma Marilyn to the Oscars in February?

What a sweet moment that was. Do you think she'll take her again this year?

What a difference a year makes, huh? Just last year we were wondering who she was and how she'd arrived to us so fully formed as an actress, and I had the pleasure of asking her just that shortly before she won her first nomination (Best Supporting Actress, The Help). This year she'll be fighting it out for the actual Best Actress trophy for Zero Dark Thirty.

Should Jessica be nominated in January (very very likely), one might even be tempted to think of her as Streep: The Next Generation. Meryl Streep is a tough act to be compared to but consider the similarities. Meryl Streep was a late arrival to the cinema (as actresses go) making her first motion picture in 1977 (Julia) in her late 20s after stage triumphs and degrees from Vassar and Yale. Jessica didn't arrive on movie screens until her early 30s last year though she had been filming movies since her late 20s (some of them were significantly delayed before release) after stage triumphs and an acting degree from Juilliard. By Streep's third year in the public eye she had co-starred in three Best Picture Nominees (Julia ,The Deer Hunter, and Kramer vs. Kramer -- the latter two won) and was a two-time Oscar nominee and winner and a full-fledged movie star. By Jessica Chastain's second year in the public eye she will have presumably co-starred in three Best Picture nominees (The Help, The Tree of Life, and Zero Dark Thirty) and become a two-time nominee.

The only thing missing in the comparison is a) the Oscar win for her second nomination which is a maybe at this point and b) the full fledged stardom. Chastain is definitely a known quantity now but not exactly a household name. Her films haven't had the seismic impact of Streep's breakthrough pictures -- The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were colossal hits of their day though The Help's box office reign last year was not unimpressive.

Jessica Chastain and her Take Shelter co-star Michael Shannon at a party for Zero Dark Thirty this week.

If Chastain wins this year, do you think she's got a triple the caliber of French Lieutant's Woman, Sophie's Choice and Silkwood, in her immediate future? Or is this way way way too much to ask? 

SAG Nominations: Bless Them For 'Charlotte Bless'

The Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, now in their 19th year, are often a bipolar experience to read through. I'm annually enraged by the rules dictacting who receives a nomination when an ensemble nomination happens, but generally speaking there tends to one thing worth being super-thrilled about in the mix beyond all the sleep-inducing reiterations of every Oscar pundit's list.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
BRADLEY COOPER / Pat - “SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” (The Weinstein Company)
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS / Abraham Lincoln - "LINCOLN” (Touchstone Pictures)
JOHN HAWKES / Mark - "THE SESSIONS" (Fox Searchlight)
HUGH JACKMAN / Jean Valjean - "LES MISÉRABLES" (Universal Pictures)
DENZEL WASHINGTON / Whip Whitaker - "FLIGHT" (Paramount Pictures)

In with Bradley Cooper. Out with Joaquin Phoenix? The Master enters the Oscar nomination period looking shakier than ever. We could see a complete shut out or 4 or 5 nominations for the handsome, well acted but ultimately not too accessible film. It might just be the year's biggest wild card at this point.

It's worth noting that people often emphatically exaggerate the meaning of "snubs". For all we know Phoenix's no show here was a matter of one vote, rather than anything to do with the movie (though it probably isn't well enough loved) or his feelings about awards campaigns. MORE...

Click to read more ...