Almost There: Charlize Theron in "Young Adult"

by Cláudio Alves

Ten years ago, Young Adult arrived in theaters, signaling the second collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody. It was also the creative duo's first work alongside Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron. Polarizing to this day, the picture divided critics and audiences alike, even as it gained champions heading into awards season. Cody's work and Patton Oswald's supporting turn won many admirers, but Theron's acidic star turn proved to be the movie's biggest Oscar bid. While already blessed with much critical recognition for her dramatic efforts, the actress wasn't known for comedy. Her casting was, thus, a bit of an against-type choice and her success a surprise. 

In retrospect, it sounds silly that there were any doubters. A decade after its premiere, Young Adult shines bright as Charlize Theron's greatest achievement…

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Dame Judi Dench deserved the Best Actress Oscar for "Notes on a Scandal"

by Matt St Clair

Dame Judi Dench is an international treasure. The legendary actress currently has seven Oscar nominations under her belt, having won once in Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (recently discussed right here at length). Should the stars align, she might add an eighth nomination to her record for her role as the lovable Granny in current Best Picture frontrunner Belfast. Even at 86 years-old, and with her deteriorating eyesight, Dench is still going strong, managing to get quality roles in an industry notoriously unkind to actresses when they reach a certain age and whose names don’t rhyme with Beryl Deep. 

Astonishingly, Dench didn’t become an official Academy darling until she reached her 60’s. Up until she joined the James Bond franchise as M in GoldenEye, and earned her first Oscar bid for Mrs. Brown in ‘97, Dench was more of a theater mainstay while working sporadically on film. Yet since that one-two punch, she's been a consistent movie presence with Notes on a Scandal being a high water mark. She deserved to win her the Best Actress Oscar that year...

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Kidman rising, Stewart holding for Best Actress. But who else?

by Nathaniel R

Our favourite category! Not that Oscar chooses well but it's always the best acting category IN THEORY. So let's discuss Best Actress. You know you want to.

THE SURE THINGS
While Kristen Stewart has maintained the early frontrunner lead handily for her work as Princess Diana in Spencer, response to this past week's screenings of Being the Ricardos have suggested that Nicole Kidman could overthrow her for Oscar #2 for her work as Lucille Ball. She's sensational in the film, doing really interesting work (vocally and physically) differentiating between Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo, and also marrying some elusive internal issues like creativity, inspiration, ambition, with external stuff like a chain-smokers voice and the drama of the plot and multiple interpersonal conflicts. Ball's tetchy relationships and hot/cold rapports with each I Love Lucy cast and crew member is brilliantly differentiated and articulated. Besides, if any current one-time acting winner deserves a second statue, it's Kidman. This theoretical competition between Stewart and Kidman is interesting because both films originally raised eyebrows with their casting...

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Almost There: Angelina Jolie in "A Mighty Heart"

by Cláudio Alves

There are few true stars in contemporary Hollywood. Angelina Jolie is arguably one of them, part of a dying breed of movie mythology. Not that it means she's a prolific thespian. For that matter, it's pretty sad how the actress has started to evade our screens in recent years, headlining fewer and fewer projects as time goes by. That being said, Jolie is back in theaters right now, thanks to The Eternals, where she plays an immortal goddess-like figure. It's a delightfully obvious casting choice. In celebration of this occasion, we shall look back. Look back to a time when this Oscar-winning powerhouse was at the high of her visibility and popularity, but the Academy ignored her just the same. In 2007, Jolie seemed like a likely Best Actress nominee for Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart…

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Winona Ryder @ 50: Little Women

We're celebrating Winona Ryder for her birthday this week

by Lynn Lee

Was Winona Ryder miscast in Little Women? Boy, was she ever. Or so I thought back in 1994 when I first heard she was playing Jo, second of the four March sisters, in the then-new film adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic.  As a teenager who’d read Little Women so many times it had become personal canon, I found the casting ludicrous on its face.  After all, in the book Jo is lanky, tomboyish, awkward, and plain.  Ryder, by contrast, was tiny, graceful, and so exquisitely pretty I had a bit of a crush on her, a fact that sharpened rather than softened my disapproval.  Still, in the end curiosity and my family’s tradition of going to see a movie on Christmas meant I got to judge for myself just how wrong she was for the role.

Readers, what can I say?  She completely won me over....

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