Twelve Years A Quvenzhané

JA from MNPP here. In case you fans of Beasts of the Southern Wild were worried that its formidable child star Quvenzhané Wallis was going to disappear the way formidable child stars sometimes do - especially if they're of color - you set aside your fears for today. The Playlist has word that she's joined the cast of Steve McQueen's next film Twelve Years a Slave, and also share that picture of her on the set with Slave's lead the wonderful Chiwetel Ejiofor. (He's so wonderful I even know how to spell his name without looking it up now - even Matthew McConaughey can't say that.) (Although neither can Quvenzhané just yet.)

Slave tells the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free man who was kidnapped and thrown into slavery in the 1840s. It co-stars McQueen regular Michael Fassbender, as well as (deep breath) Brad Pitt, Paul Giametti, Alfre Woodard, Garrett Dillahunt, Adepero Oduye, Paul Dano, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ruth Negga, Michael K. Williams, Taran Killam, and as of last week Quvenzhané's Beasts papa Dwight Henry.

Unlike Nathaniel and oh I'd say 97.5% of the rest of you I personally wasn't sold on Beasts the movie, but I agree with the consensus that Quvenzhané was wonderful, and I'm looking forward to seeing her show us more in the future. Maybe she can tell Michael Fassbender who's the man.

Halfway House 2012. Lead Actress (Thus Far)

Don't you love to take stock every six months? At the very least it's a good excuse for list-making. Lists! Wheeee. If all Academy members did this before they sent in their nominee ballots in January, we might end up with a spread of nominees that wasn't so December slanted. I never decide who to vote for this early but I do draw up lists of performances I enjoyed /  respected to consider again later in the year when all the advertising rushes in an effort to shape the highly malleable collective subconscious and thus, votes.

If I had to draw up a ballot right now:

• Judi Dench, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
  The movie is considerably less broad once it's reigned in by her warmth, laughter, and subtlety
• Valerie Donzelli, Declaration of War (France's Oscar submission 2011, US release in 2012)
  She still has raw wound access to what must have been a highly traumatic experience (she and her ex-boyfriend play fictionalized versions of themselves trying to save their nearly fatally ill child) but the turn has a wide range of feeling and levity via mischievous romantic impulses and gallows humor.
• Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games
  How soon till she's back at the Oscars? Maybe not for this... directly. 
• Stephanie Sigman, Miss Bala (Mexico's Oscar submission 2011, US release in 2012)
  Wonderfully naturalistic. She just vibrates with impotent terror. 
• Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild 
  A force of nature even while nature is whipping up mythological force all around in "the bathtub" 

Oscar thoughts and other fine performances after the jump...

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