'Mother and Child' ... Oscar-Buzz for Mrs. Warren Beatty?

I am completely impartial to Annette Bening. I think she is an actress with potential (despite her youthful age of 52) but have only seen her in a few things.

My close friend, Claudie, absolutely hates her, attributing most of the hatred to her hammy performances in Being Julia and American Beauty: two of her most famous and celebrated performances, along with The Grifters; from the three, she won her three Academy Award Nominations (former two for Best Actress 2004, 1999, and latter Best Supporting Actress 1990). It is quite a shame that she had lost all three bids, but even more embarrassingly so, twice losing to the unconventional but formidable Hilary Swank.

Don't get me wrong, but Hilary is great, and absolutely hands-down deserved her first Oscar for Kimberly Pierce's Boys Don't Cry (1999). No argument there. But for 2004? I completely disagree with the Academy's pick. Million Dollar Baby is a solid film, though very much Hallmark-flavoured in terms of the narrative and script, but the performances and direction are solid. Clint Eastwood is a mesmerising director, whom always brings a subtle, sophisticated charm to his films. And Swank's performance is solid and hits all the right notes; it's a hark back to sporting flicks of the '70s and '80s, such as and Raging Bull and Rocky. But Swank is very much a limited actress, though she definitely has the androgyny element as her niche, and indeed, what an exciting niche to own. But was she Oscar-worthy in 2004?

I don't think so.

My rankings of the nominated performances that year are:

1. Imelda Staunton in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake: heartbreak perfection. Staunton won the Venice Film Festival's Best Actress Volpi Cup prize, and the BAFTA.

2. Kate Winslet in her cult-ish beloved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

and 3. Catalina Sandino Moreno in the raw Maria Full of Grace, for which she won the Berlin Film Festival Best Actress prize.

Those three should have been the front-runners, but instead it was Annette and Hilary.

Regardless, considering that you generally have to be a "front-runner", winner of the Globe to become Oscar champion, for 2004, Annette along with Hilary were in the lead, and considering both are quite limited ranged actresses (with Annette being slightly more diverse), it should have gone to Annette.

But now with 2010's magnificent, The Hours-esque female heartbreak melodrama, Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia, 2010), I am hopeful and wishing that she'll win the Oscar, come January 2011. All of this sudden passion for Mrs. Bening, arose from a viewing of Mother and Child.

Annette gives a restrained and thought-out performance; one which is far from her typical (sometimes effective, sometimes fanciful, sometimes disingenuous) histrionics. I think she may have it in the bag - with more chances arising from The Kids are All Right. Naomi Watts is, as always, remarkably stellar in the film too - she will probably get a supporting actress nomination and hopefully win (and like Annette, has other films in contention this year: namely, Fair Game (Doug Liman, 2010) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen, 2010). I'm also hoping, above all, that Julianne Moore will also be nominated and wins the Oscar. I've always loved Moore, but feel that she and Annette will be splitting the votes with The Kids are All Right, and for some reason, I don't see this 'dramedy' doing that well - maybe taking the token "independent, art-house, Americana" slot at the Oscars, but other than that? I'm turned off of that film because in the trailer, we see Moore's character falling for Mark Ruffalo, I thought she was a lesbian with Bening? I despise cheap, hetero-normative depictions of lesbianism.


Annette, Julianne and Naomi are three greatly talented actresses, whom I've felt as though there was a thread running through the three of them, primarily due to their acting styles that tend towards histrionics (and restrained histrionics). All three deserve an Oscar in my books.

Moreover, I am also waiting with bated breath for Leigh's Another Year, which I hear has a spectacular heartbreaking performance from Lesley Manville. Also Juliette Binoche in her Cannes Best Actress winning performance in Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010). However, I still feel that Manville and Bening have better chances at being nominated. I doubt that Manville will win because Leigh's ladies are, sadly, never triumphant, with even the 'powerhouse' Sally Hawkins (who you'd think Oscar-voters would love because she's young and attractive) being horrifically snubbed for a Best Actress nomination in 2008.

So, all in all, I am hoping for Annette to carry the label of "Academy Award Winner" as of 2011. I am now a fan of her work, and will intently revisit American Beauty. I don't mind histrionics at all, but only if they are done 'tastefully' or 'appropriately' that they are effective.

For Your Consideration:

Annette Bening, Mother and Child, Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, 2010.
Naomi Watts, Mother and Child, Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, 2010.

Re-Vitalisation of my Cinema Blog

Please let me kindly introduce myself.

My name is Matthew, and I am thoroughly fascinated by film. I am currently a student at the University of Sydney, appropriately majoring in Film Studies and English, amongst other things.

I previously had the joyous experience of writing a blog for one of my courses, entitled: Cinematic Modernism. From that experience, has now seen the birth of this new blog: "Oh Cinema, look what you've done to it."

Basically, the premise of this blog will be that of me writing a 'reading' of a film that I've recently viewed. The reading will be ecclectic and attempt to engage you, the reader; or rather it will be a means by which I will have the opportunity to express my feelings about a film on paper. So yes, as you may have guessed, this is very much an exercise in self-indulgence, but please feel free to read my opinions and comment, or yell back, telling me how wrong my thinking is.