Sunday, January 7, 2007

MORE PLAUSIBLE THAN "BEST ACTOR, BEN STILLER:" A challenge for you folks. As we move into awards season, there are a bunch of people who it's widely assumed will be nominated for Oscars, and a smaller group of people who are equally widely assumed to be winning them (Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, the folks who wrote Listen, and Emmanuel Lubezki, Children Of Men's cinematographer). Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to offer someone who coulda, woulda, shoulda been a contender, but isn't. Please refrain from being quite as ludicrous as Manohla Dargis in today's Times, who has Sacha Baron Cohen for Best Supporting Actor from Talladega Nights, the screenplay for Talladega Nights, and Gong Li from Miami Incoherence as Supporting Actress.

My pick? Jacinda Barrett, from The Last Kiss. Previously known primarily for being "that hot model chick on the boring season of The Real World," Barrett actually gets to be the moral center of the underappreciated and poorly marketed drama. (Attempts to market as "A wacky comedy from the people who brought you Garden State and Crash!" were both inaccurate and ineffective.) No, she doesn't get a grand moment of lashing out in song, like Hudson does, but she may be the one character who's got herself together, but finds her life falling apart because of outside pressures. It's extremely nice work, and had Rachel McAdams not dropped out of the picture shortly before shooting, I suspect her "it girl" status would have led to some more critical and buzz love. Barrett makes you take notice, and makes you even sadder that the rest of her film output this year consists of the exerable Poseidon and School for Scoundrels.

No comments:

Post a Comment