Tag: Janet McTeer

‘SHOULD WIN’ VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: Best Supporting Actress Janet McTeer, ALBERT NOBBS

‘SHOULD WIN’ VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: Best Supporting Actress Janet McTeer, ALBERT NOBBS

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Press Play presents "Should Win," a series of video essays advocating winners in seven Academy Awards categories: supporting actor and actress, best actor and actress, best director and best picture. These are consensus choices hashed out by a pool of Press Play contributors. Follow along HERE as Press Play decides the rest of the major categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Documentary. Important notice: Press Play is aware that our videos can not be played on Apple mobile devices. We are, therefore, making this and every video in this series available on Vimeo for these Press Play readers. If you own an Apple mobile device, click here.]

Narration:

Pretty much all of this year's Best Supporting Actress nominees are great, although a puking, pooping Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids may not exactly be the stuff of Oscar dreams. Bérénice Bejo offers a charming modern take on a silent film ingenue-turned-star. Jessica Chastain especially can do no wrong as The Help's Marilyn Monroe-style damsel in distress. And in that same film, Octavia Spencer offers a terrific steadying subversion as a maid who won't tow the line. But it is Janet McTeer who should take this award. Albert Nobbs itself is nothing to write home about; its depiction of a woman masquerading as a male servant feels as dated as the myth of the tragic mulatto. McTeer is so subtly wrought as Hubert, a lesbian passing as a male painter, that she redeems the film. Too bad that Hollywood loves to lavish accolades upon straight people who play gay or transgendered, but rarely rewards actors who remain mum about their sexuality, as McTeer has. Wry and doggedly watchful, hers is the sort of unobtrusively generous performance that should define this category.

Lisa Rosman has reviewed films for Marie Claire, Time Out New York, Salon.com, LA Weekly, Us Weekly, Premiere and Flavorpill.com, where she was film editor for five years. She has also commentated for the Oxygen Channel, TNT, the IFC and NY1. You can follow Lisa on twitter here. Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of Press Play. He is also a film critic and award-winning filmmaker. In addition to editing Keyframe, Kevin contributes to film publications and produces online video essays.

OSCARS DEATH RACE: Surveying the race for Best Supporting Actress?

OSCARS DEATH RACE: Surveying the race for Best Supporting Actress?

null[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sarah D. Bunting of Tomatonation.com is watching every single film nominated for an Oscar before the Academy Awards Ceremony on February 26, 2012. She is calling this journey her Oscars Death Race. She has completed the category for Best Supporting Actress and now surveys the competition. For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here. And you can follow Sarah through this quixotic journey here.]

Picking the winners in Oscar categories reminds me a lot of the arguments about the MVP in baseball, and how we should define "valuable" — is it the guy with the best stats? is it the guy who made the biggest difference to an otherwise mediocre team? a combination?

nullI'll compare almost anything to baseball, given a chance, but the MVP-argument parallel is apt in many of Oscar's acting categories this year, where several of the nominees represent not just a notable achievement in acting, but also the only thing worth a damn in the film in which it appeared.

The nominees

Bérénice Bejo (The Artist): I liked her well enough, but I wouldn't say she put a stamp on the role, more than anyone else would have.

Jessica Chastain (The Help): Adorable in this part. Absolutely sold me on a movie I expected to loathe with her sheer delight in shaking the chicken.

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids): I like McCarthy, I like the idea of that character, but the writing of it seemed like a man's notes on a woman's guess at what a real person like that character would act like, if that makes any sense at all. Points for the effort, but it's too broad, and the nom reads like the Academy trying to show that it doesn't discriminate against comedies.

Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs): Here's where the MVP conversation comes into play. McTeer keeps an inconsistent and overworked script on the right side of twee whenever she's onscreen. It's a steady and inviting performance, not too studied, and it would get my vote.

Octavia Spencer (The Help): The oddsmaker's pick, as of this writing. Another nomination for an above-average rendering of too-broad writing.

Who shouldn't be here: Bejo probably got filed in Best Supporting so she wouldn't run into the twin buzzsaws of Viola Davis and Meryl Streep in Best Actress, but I think her role's too big for this category.

Who should be here, but isn't: I wouldn't have minded seeing Robin Wright get a nod here for Rampart; she really raised her game in 2011. Ditto Amy Ryan in Win Win, which also threw a shutout at the Oscars. Hat tip to members of the Bridesmaids and The Help casts (Rose Byrne; Sissy Spacek) who could just as easily have slotted in here.

Who should win: McTeer.

Who will win: It's not impossible that voters give Davis Best Actress, then decide to share some wealth to Bejo in Best Supporting. (You could argue that two actresses from The Help might split the vote; I don't see Chastain figuring in this one, though.) But Spencer is the safe pick.

Sarah D. Bunting co-founded Television Without Pity.com, and has written for Seventeen, New York Magazine, MSNBC.com, Salon, Yahoo!, and others. She's the chief cook and bottle-washer at TomatoNation.com. For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here.