Best Actress Predix: Authors & Astronauts & Immigrants (oh my)

And princesses too! Actually I'm predicting neither Princess Grace (Nicole Kidman) nor Princess Diana (Naomi Watts) for the eventual shortlist though their names will undoubtedly continue to come up. Yes, the Best Actress Chart has arrived. 

Who wins ANOTHER Oscar this year? So many previous winners are back

My final shortlist is all Oscar winners -- which has only ever happened once (just last year in Supporting Actor ) but this is what my crystal ball is telling me so I obey. And anyway, it's a Previous-Actress-Winning Heavy year at least in terms of who got jobs headlining major motion pictures. Even lower in the charts there are a lot of Oscar winners, all told.  It's (maybe) that kind of year... though I could see a scenario where unOscared supporting chart players hop over to Lead Actress if they see a window and their roles are substantial enough (Adams? Harris? Winfrey?). And with 235 days left to go before Oscar nominations are announced, a lot could change: a quickly filmed or under-the-radar movie could hit it big on the fall festival circuit; holiday box office could shift focus around substantially at year's end; films could suddenly be moved to '2014 TBA' status.

Marion Cotillard will win Cannes Best Actress for... oh wait, people said this last year too and it didn't happenThe Wild Card
This time it's not a person but The Weinstein Co. themselves.  They've got more actress hopefuls than even they can handle since they're representing Grace of Monaco, The Immigrant, Philomena, August: Osage County and The Butler. (Does this clear the way for Sandra Bullock to win a second Oscar? I'm only mostly kidding) There is about a 1% chance that TWC will stay supportive of all of those films since they regular abandon their runts rather than nurturing them, to concentrate on the pick of the litter. Some of the ladies in question can generate some degree of media and internal industry interest even without puppet masters behind the scenes but not all of them. What do you think TWC will do when it's time to play favorites?  

Fun Trivia About The Top Ten on This Chart

• They have 47 acting nominations and 11 acting Oscars between them
• They range in age from 37 to 78 (will it really be a year skewing that mature?)
• 6 of them have competed directly with Meryl Streep for Oscar glory but only one, Sandra Bullock, has ever prevailed in head-to-head combat. (7 & 2 if you count Nicole winning the only Best Actress nomination from The Hours.)
• 3 Australians, 1 French, 3 Brits, 3 Americans

All First Wave Oscar Predictions
Index | Picture | Director | Actor | Actress | Supporting Actor | Supporting Actress |  Screenplays | Visuals | Sound | Animation 

Emma Says "Hi"

Say What, Emma T?

Amuse us. Caption this photo of Emma Thompson in the comments.

Oh and... yay, she's back in front of cameras where she belongs (It's a scene from Love Punch a new divorced couple comedy with Pierce Brosnan)

In the Name of the Emma

JA from MNPP here with a bit of happy news for those of us who bow down before the awesome thespian powers of Emma Thompson (and our knees hurt because we've been bowing for awhile hoping it will make her work more often, to not enough avail) - she's at work on several new projects (that Richard LaGravenese project Beautiful Creatures sounds interesting to me, but then I've been waiting 15 years for him to make something as good as Living Out Loud) and today it's been announced she's actually going to go back and play a character she already has before... and it's not Nanny McPhee! She was nominated for an Oscar for playing the human rights attorney Gareth Pierce in 1993's In the Name of the Father and she's going to play Pierce again, says Screen Daily.

"The Middle East- and London-set drama [called The Secret Evidence] follows a young British couple mistakenly caught up in the war on terror who turn to Thompson’s character to get one of them out of prison. However, in fighting for her boyfriend’s freedom, the film’s young female lead finds herself and her family subject to attack from the UK Government’s secret service."

Sounds like there's a juicy role for a younger actress in here too. Could Emma get another Oscar nomination out of this? It's been far far too long.

Kiera vs. Dakota: Who Will Make the Greater Artist's Muse?

With all the projects in development in the world drawn from an infinite number of topics, it's always curious to note how many of them inexplicably arise simultaneously on the same topics. Thompson in Hollywood reports that Keira Knightley is considering the lead role in Untouched (2013?) which is a romantic triangle biopic on the artist muse Effie Gray and her relationship to two men, the art critic John Ruskin and his protégé the painter Everett Millais. She married them both during her lifetime, though only the second marriage was consummated. 

But get this... Dakota Fanning is also playing this role in a competing feature called simply Effie (2012?) written by everyone's favorite Acting/Screenwriting Double Oscar Winner Emma Thompson. While we'd love to see more movies written by Thompson as well as meatier roles for Dakota Fanning (especially since Elle Fanning fever threatens to consume Hollywood), Keira has actual experience as an artist's muse. She's currently filming Anna Karenina, her third feature as Joe Wright's muse (He's only made four features prior to this so by the time Anna Karenina arrives, Keira will have starred in 60% of his filmography; they be tight.)

Effie (2012). Costumes by two time Oscar nominee Ruth Myers<-- Here is Dakota Fanning in costume as Effie. That's Greg Wise (Emma Thompson's real life man and Kate Winslet's heart-breaker in Sense & Sensibility) as her first husband, the art critic John Ruskin. Their marriage was famously unconsummated before she left him for his protege Millais (Tom Sturridge) which caused all sort of social drama in Victorian England.

Millais painted both Effie and her sister Sophie and other family members frequently. There's no word on IMDb about who plays "Sophie" or even if she's in the film but is it too much to ask for Elle Fanning in a surprise uncredited appearance?

Keira or Dakota?
Make your case in the comments.

Or did your eyes glaze over at "Emma Thompson"? Yes yes, we know. We were just saying. She's really all that matters in most movie conversations that involve her. Happily she also acts in Effie. Yay!