Best Actress Finale: Dresses, Reactions, Questions

Like we did with supporting actress, I've displayed the most lauded ladies of 2010 in the order of your preference: Natalie Portman stabbed all competition with a nail file "IT'S MY TURN" to the tune of 47% of your votes; Annette Bening (19%) just barely edged out Nicole Kidman (18%) in the last day of voting for second place and second place is always where Bening seems to end up (more on that tomorrow); Michelle Williams (11%) and Jennifer Lawrence (2%) followed. But look at Lawrence. She doesn't care. She had a grand time at the Oscars apparently, turning heads in the red tank dress and relaxed enough to quip to the press about bringing her brother as her date.

I'm from Kentucky, so that's normal.

It's interesting that her distinction  "Second Youngest Best Actress Nominee Ever" has been so ignored by the media; She's only 20. We might be seeing a lot more of her on Oscar's red carpet. She's already too old to nab the "fastest to two nominations in any acting category" since Angela Lansbury was 20 when she accomplished that. But theoretically Lawrence could still beat Joan Fontaine's record of fastest to two Best Actress nominations (Fontaine did the double by 24 and won) if good lead roles come soon. Up next are three supporting roles: The Beaver, Like Crazy and X-Men First Class.

Reaction shots, questions for readers and Portman's speech after the jump.

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Best Actress. Final Notes

My favorite category didn't disappoint this year, offering up the strongest overall lineup in quite some time. In fact, though these 2010 Best Actress roles won't prove as iconic in the long run as 2006's primo batch, I actually think as an entire range of performances, it might be that year's equal. Would you agree?

Should Natalie Portman be nervous about her chief rival? Or is it all in her head?

The question in terms of who will win is whether Natalie Portman's long lead is going to pay off or if a recent arguable passion / mood to finally crown The Bening has grown enough in the industry to yank that shiny gold man away. If that happens, Natalie, not Annette, will be the one yelling "Interloper!"

But I don't think it's going to happen. The Bening can console herself with the knowledge that she is one of my 33 all time favorite actresses. ;)

THE UPDATED BEST ACTRESS PAGE
includesPOLL "Who Should Win?" and the reader requested "how they got nominated? silliness. Which is actually not ever entirely silly even though it's meant for fun. We all know Oscar is not only about the performances. And if you don't know that, you must have slept through Sandra Bullock's win last year.

Best Actress. My Ballot and Time Capsule.

Time is a funny thing. It shifts our feelings, sorts them out. Awards are a product of time, a time capsule. They're equally funny. If you'd told me back in January 2010 when I first saw Blue Valentine that it would end the year as my 4th favorite picture and that Michelle Williams would be in my best actress list, I wouldn't have believed you. I liked her and the movie quite a lot back then but now come February 2011, I love them. The Williams/Gosling duet yields richer rewards each viewing, little intricacies thrown into sharper relief while other ideas you held about the characters get foggier with mystery.

It says a lot about the quality of this year's Best Actress field that Sally Hawkins in Made in Dagenham didn't even make the finalist list. She does expert work revealing how ordinary courage and moral outrage properly channeled, can transform even the meekest of people. It says a lot about the quality of this year's Actress field that Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone didn't even make the semi-finalist list. She does fine work embodying the cold small range of feeling that this life might allow for and she gives the hard film just the right amount of heart as a resilient eldest sibling acting as parent. In the end though, despite Lawrence's absence, my own ballot is the closest its come to Oscar's Actress list since...er... 1987. [Trivia: that's the only year from the past three decades that my own choices for Best Actress line up 5/5 with Oscar.]

Needless to say I was quite pleased with Oscar's nominations. It's my favorite Best Actress Oscar list in recent memory with the exception of 2006... maybe.

Needless to say part two: It was such a toss up for spots 4-8 that I'm sure I'll regret my choices tomorrow. If anyone in tier 2 had come out in 2009 or 2008 or 2007 or even 2006, they would've knocked someone out of the 5th spot. And if they'd ALL been released in 2005, my awards would have been radically different. Such is the arbitrary nature of awards, chained to calendars as they are.

Favorite Dozen Lead Actresses 2010 (in alpha order). If only I could nominate 12 people!

• Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
• Greta Gerwig, Greenberg
• Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham
• Kim Hye-Ja, Mother
• Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
• Lesley Manville, Another Year
• Natalie Portman, Black Swan
• Ruth Sheen, Another Year
• Paprika Steen, Applause
• Emma Stone, Easy A
• Tilda Swinton, I Am Love
• Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

My nominees with write-ups

This will undoubtedly feel anti-climactic as my own nominees are usually more off Oscar's path -- who knew they'd have such good taste this year ;) -- and I usually finish before Oscar nominations and here I am wrapping up the first half of the Film Bitch Awards (medals and all) a week late.

I think the year produced two true masterpieces I Am Love and The Social Network so I split on Picture/Director, Picture going to the one I've remained most possessed by but I think both will stand the test of time. And yes, Nicole Kidman finally gets her Gold Medal after many years of near-misses. She's just transcendent in Rabbit Hole nailing the insatiable hunger of grief for more and more of itself and doing so with the barest minimum of histrionics and more humor than you'd think was possible. She also brilliantly foreshadows Becca's escape route through her thicket of pain, a path cleared by her curiousity, compassion, and capacity for stillness on a park bench, feeling whatever it is she needs to feel.

Blogger Man: Turn Off the Link

Serious Film Michael (a TFE columnist) is counting down his favs of the year.
Final Girl Stacy's cartoons of the Friday the 13th series almost make it seems as cute as a Pixar movie... okay no. I amend. It's still sick so it's almost as cute as a Don Hertzfeldt animation.
Parabasis a fascinating thoughtful and scathing review of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
In Contention Guy's 25 favorites of 2010. It was a very good year.

Alternative Film Guide RIP Miriam Seegar, one of the last surviving silent film actors.
Vulture Quentin Tarantino responds to the collective internet freakout also known as "OMG, why isn't Sofia Coppola's Somewhere which he awarded in Venice on his top ten list?!?"
Pop Matters chooses their (collective) favorite 20 female performances of 2010. Interesting li... okay, it's a bizarre list. We do appreciate Matt's writeup of Barbara Hershey in Black Swan. We do not appreciate the Annette Bening snub.

Fuming Actresses
US Weekly Michelle Williams is not pleased with the way Nightline edited her statements about Heath Ledger's death and their breakup.
EW's Inside Movies Julia Roberts has had it with everyone ignoring Javier Bardem in Biutiful. OBEY!
The Advocate Glenn Close is horrified that she has an unauthorized cameo in that anti-gay USS Enterprise Navy video that recently caused such a ruckus.