Smackdown '05: Amy, Catherine, Frances, Michelle, and Rachel Weisz

The Supporting Actress Smackdown series picks an Oscar vintage -- 2005 this time -- and explores. 

THE NOMINEES 
A pregnant meercat obsessive, a gaslit housewife, a reckless activist, a tough union rep, and the perceptive companion to a famous writer.  For the Best Supporting Actress slate of 2005, the Academy went with two then fresh faces (Amy Adams in Junebug, Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain), and one mid-career actress stepping up her game (Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener). They filled out the remainder of the field with familiar players, an Oscar regular (Frances McDormand in North Country) and a previous nominee (Catherine Keener in Capote)

THE PANEL  
Here to discuss these actresses and films of 2005 are from left to right: cinephile and actress obsessive Ali Benzekri, Los Angeles Times' Justin Chang, Awards Daily's Joey Moser, the actress Kerry O'Malley (Snowpiercer, Boardwalk Empire, Strange Angel) and your host at the The Film Experience, Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

2005
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...

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Vintage '05

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 2005 is just a week away so get your votes in! Before we get there it's time for more context of that year in showbiz history. Ready? 

Great Big Box Office Hits:
Franchises of multiple kinds dominated the box office with Harry Potter 4, Star Wars Episode 3, and the launches of Chronicles of Narnia and Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy as half of the top ten list that year. Other huge hits were the romantic comedy Hitch, the Brangelina pairing of Mr & Mrs Smith, the remakes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, and King Kong, and the comedies Wedding Crashers and Meet the Fockers.

Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: 
In the mid-Aughts the Oscars were veering away from big hits in their Best Picture lineups (to eventually rule-changing results) but Brokeback Mountain was the most successful of the lot with $178 million globally...

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The beauty of Rodrigo Prieto's cinema

by Cláudio Alves

Our look at 2005's Best Cinematography Oscar nominees continues. First, we explored the filmography of Australian wonder Dion Beebe, and now it's time to shine a light on another master cineaste, this one from Mexico. 

Throughout his career, Rodrigo Prieto has worked with a variety of artists and projects, spanning from independent shorts to internationally acclaimed auteur cinema, from pictures full of Oscar buzz to Taylor Swift video clips. His big breakthrough came in 2000 with Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Amores Perros and, since then, he's become a name known to any cinephile worth their mettle. In those early projects, Prieto's style was mostly identifiable by a passion for high-contrast imagery with coarse, grainy textures, but, over the years, he's evolved into a creator of sober imagery that's more interested in evoking a severe elegance than dazzling with aggressive stylings.

Here are 10 highlights from Prieto's enviable filmography…

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Linkmaids

• Variety The Venice Film Festival will commence (not cancelling) on September 2nd
• IndieWire does some myth-busting by looking back at an historic movie weekend in 1977, when both Smokey and the Bandit and Star Wars opened
• Variety on how Carole Lombard becamse the first Hollywood casualty of WW II

After the jump including the first drag queen Emmy nominee, fight challenge, Michel Piccoli RIP, no Bridesmaids sequel, trivia and Brokeback reminiscences with Oscar pundits, Diva, and more... 

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1999 with Nick: Best Cinematography Falls on "Cedars"

This week, in advance of the Oscars, Nick Davis is looking back at the Academy races of 20 years ago, spotlighting movies he’d never seen and what they teach us about those categories, then and now...

Spotlight Movie: Snow Falling on Cedars

Today's case study from the 72nd Academy Awards is a less auspicious instance than yesterday's of a movie sneaking onto Oscar's ballot with just one nomination. I'd also call it an example of good filmmaking that, in context, arguably constitutes bad filmmaking, or at least disappointing and misguided filmmaking. Cinematographer Robert Richardson is not the exclusive or even the primary defendant in the case I’m going to make. He was probably executing to the best of his ability the mandates of a director and a producing team intent on the picturesque. Still, I’m not sure we needed to reward him for following such dubious orders. And now, as so often in this movie, we flash back...

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