PLEA TO VOTERS OF THIS SEASON’S ACTING AWARDS

 

Having spent this entire award season as a member of the SAG Nominating Committee, I’ver seen just about every eligible performance. I take this responsibility very seriously, and therefore I’ve done hardly anything else this season outside of going to screenings and watching screeners that were sent to my house.

There are three things that are not totally fair about this process: 1) I have a feeling that very few nominators/voters for any awards have the time to see movies on their own, (meaning ones that we don’t receive at our houses, or get invited to,) so those movies without the budget to get their films seen by us may fall through the cracks. 2) I’m absolutely positive that no other nominators or voters, for any of the film awards any season, are as diligent as I. That means that they are voting on a very limited viewing, or worse yet, on heresay. Which brings us to 3), (which is the reason I’m writing this to begin with): I have a feeling that most nominators and voters have the crowd mentality, so they just vote for who they think everybody else is.

I don’t get the thought process on that last one at all. I’ve always been a free thinker, and never went with what everybody else did, even if mine was not the most popular move. When I reported for jury duty a little while ago, and they asked the pool if we’d change our vote if we were the only hold-out, I said absolutely not! The judge and lawyers grilled me on it, but I said I know my own mind and what I think, so why should I just go along with the crowd if I think they’re wrong?!

And that’s how I feel about voting for something even as possibly insignificant as acting awards. (I say “possibly” because they are far from insignificant to people in the business; but in the scheme of life, it’s low man on the totem pole, as far as I’m concerned.)

There were so many fabulous performances this year, and so many mediocre or way too over-the-top ones, that, as a major fan of fairness, I’ll be really upset if nominators and voters don’t get it right!!!

For example, I have a list of six lead females that I have to pare down to five, and trust me, as much as I like them in other films, Sandra, Meryl, and Julia just don’t come anywhere close to what these other females, especially young Sophie Nélisse, did in their respective roles.

I was just going over the booklet we got of the possible performances to nominate, and I realized that most other members of these award committees will just go with the big movie stars on the list: Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, etc. etc. I don’t care about the first three, but I do consider Meryl Streep to be the greatest American actress of all time. I’m thrilled she won for The Iron Lady a couple of years ago, but I’ll still never get over that the idiot voters of the Oscars gave it to Cher for a not even good performance in Moonstruck the same year that what Meryl did in Ironweed was beyond belief! (We watched it on TV, and Mr. X had to leave the room because she was so real that it was too painful for him.) But that’s a perfect example of voting for what they think the popular thing to do is.

I know I’m behind in my movie reviews this year, but in the next few months I promise to get to as many of them as humanly possible, (since I’m not solely a movie critic, as you know from reading this e-zine!) But what I have to say about August: Osage County, (which I know is going to, if not win everything this season, at least be nominated,) is that even with that cast of excellent actors, all I saw was the “acting.” It was just all too much continuous scene-chewing. But because of the budget for promotion, (you should see the stupid little cardboard house they sent us, separate from the DVD, for no reason other than to sway our votes because they’re not allowed to send actual gifts,) I’m sure at least Meryl and Julia will get nominated. And that they should not be.

And as good as Tom Hanks was in Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks, neither performance is worthy of a nomination in my opinion. Not when you have people like Woody Harrelson in the difficult-to-watch Out Of The Furnace, and even Matthew McConaughey’s one scene in The Wolf of Wall Street. Those two guys were really brilliant!!! (Tom Hanks was good enough in his two films, but that’s at least as good as you should be when you’re getting paid millions of dollars to act! Neither performance of his went above and beyond, like Christian Bale always does.)

And if you vote for Sandra Bullock for Gravity, you must just be a space geek because that performance was sub-par, bordering on boring. (And I do like her at other times.)

So, to all you award nominators and voters, please, please, please try to have a discerning eye when you watch these performances, and fairness in your soul when you vote. (I’m not posting my predictions of just who will get nominated here; I’m going to wait till after all the nominations come out to tell you what I thought, and why many of the people who I think will get the nods don’t deserve them. I just don’t want to put them in the voters’ minds right now, while the jury is still out.)

Not that you should copy me, either, but, just in case it does help, below is my list of my frontrunners so far. (I still have Lone Survivor and Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom left to see this week-end. How appropriate is that latter one now?) I now have to whittle them down by Monday morning, which will be hard in some categories, like Lead Actor. There have been so many years where there was a clear front-runner, with most of the other four nominees just along for the ride. But this year has brought an overwhelming amount of fabulousity, which is making choosing just five in each category a really tough task.

If, like me, you have to vote by Monday morning, and you haven’t already made up your mind, maybe this will stimulate you to vote for the real best performances. [Note: My top picks are in bold, with the others being ones I’m considering.]

 

BEST LEAD ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio—The Wolf of Wall Street (this is his finest performance since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, in which I thought he was an actual mentally-handicapped boy!)

Matthew McConaughey—Dallas Buyers Club

Christian Bale—Out Of The Furnace

Geoffrey Rush--The Book Thief

Bruce Dern—Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor—12 Years A Slave

Christian Bale—American Hustle

Michael Shannon—The Iceman

Robert Redford—All Is Lost

James Cordon—One Chance

 

BEST LEAD ACTRESS

Judy Dench—Philomena

Sophie Nélisse—The Book Thief (This is an absolutely stunning performance by such a young girl! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. And it’s not even in her native language! If she gets screwed-out of a nomination, which I’m afraid she will, I just may have to give back my SAG card.)

Adèle Exarchopoulos—Blue Is The Warmest Color (Yet another brilliant young newcomer, though not as yet brilliant as 13-year-old Sophie, above.)

Emma Thompson—Saving Mr. Banks

Amy Adams—American Hustle

Kate Winslet—Labor Day

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Woody Harrelson—Out of the Furnace

Jared Leto—Dallas Buyers Club

Casey Affleck—Out of the Furnace

Daniel Brühl—Rush

Matthew McConaughey—The Wolf of Wall Street

Nico Liersch–The Book Thief (Yet another wonderful kid!)

Steve Coogan—Philomena

Colin Farrell—Saving Mr. Banks

Ryan Gosling—Place Beyond The Pines

Keith Stanfield—Short Term 12

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Emily Watson–The Book Thief

Jennifer Lawrence—American Hustle

Sally Hawkins—Blue Jasmine

June Squibb—Nebraska

Gloria Perez—Reaching For The Moon

Léa Seydoux—Blue is the Warmest Color

 

BEST CAST (This is a category unique to the Screen Actors Guild Awards.)

The Book Thief

The Wolf of Wall Street

American Hustle

Out of the Furnace

Saving Mr. Banks

All Is Lost (That’s a funny one since Robert Redford is the only one in it!)

Fruitvale Station

The Iceman

Nebraska

One Chance

Philomena