Oscar Week: Best Supporting Actress

As the week progresses I will hit the five major categories, the four acting categories and Best Picture. I will give a brief description of the characters that the actors are playing, you will get the idea pretty quickly. All nominees will be listed in alphabetical order and be warned, there may be character spoilers and maybe movie spoilers in the descriptions.

Adriana Barraza, Babel

A couple's Mexican nanny, Amelia (Barraza), taking care of their two young children while the couple is stranded in Morocco. Due to the parents' long vacation, she is forced to take care of the children longer than anticipated. Unable to secure help to care for them, she takes them to her son's wedding in Mexico. Rather than stay the night in Mexico with the children, she decides to make the journey back with her nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) who throws caution to the wind and drives while intoxicated. At the United States border crossing, the vehicle arouses the suspicions of the border guards. Despite having passports, Amelia has no letter of consent from the children's parents allowing her to take them out of the United States, and they suspect that Santiago is intoxicated. Hilarity ensues.

Cate Blanchett, Notes On A Scandal

At the start of the school year, a new teacher, Sheba Hart (Blanchett), begins to teach pottery at the school. She is befriended by Barbara (Judi Dench), a history teacher. Sheba gets into a relationship with a fifteen-year-old student that Barbara discovers. Barbara is disgusted and confronts Sheba at a local pub. Sheba explains that she has been teaching Steven after school for quite some time and that she fell in love with him after learning that his father is abusive and that his mother is dying from kidney failure. Barbara agrees not to inform the police if Sheba ends the affair. Their friendship continues, but Sheba is unable to end her relationship with Steven and lies about it to Barbara. Hilarity ensues.

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Seven-year-old Olive (Breslin) learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days. Unable to afford other alternatives, the family decides that they have no choice but to pack all six family members into their yellow Volkswagen Type 2 mini-bus for a two-day road trip to California. The finale takes place at the pageant, in which 6-to-7-year-old girls model swimsuits and evening wear, and perform elaborate dance numbers. Olive is out-classed by the other girls' emulation of adult beauty queens, but the family reluctantly allows her to continue the competition, and pursue her dream. In the talent portion, Olive scandalizes the audience and pageant judges with a striptease-style burlesque performance (to the tune of Rick James' Super Freak), taught to her by Grandpa, which she performs unaware of its risque nature. When her family rises to defend her from the pageant organizers and shield her from the humiliation of being removed from the stage, the ensuing chaos brings the formerly dysfunctional family together by dancing on stage together. Hilarity ensues.

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Effie White was one of the original members of the girl trio The Dreamettes (later changed to The Dreams) along with Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson. After being spotted at a talent show, the girls were managed by shady used-car salesman / music producer Curtis Taylor, Jr. Curtis then convinces up and coming R&B star James aka Jimmy "Thunder" Early to allow The Dreamettes to become his backing singers. After relative success as an R&B act, Jimmy Early and The Dreamettes span out into mainstream pop. Due to rising tensions and conflict within the group, Curtis decides to fire Effie from The Dreams and replaced with Michelle Morris. Effie finds out prematurely that she is to be replaced and that Curtis is finishing their relationship due to her unpredictability. This information causes Effie to sing the highly emotional And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going which tells of her desperation for love and how she refuses to give in, this falls on deaf ears. Several years later Effie is back in her hometown of Chicago where she is raising her child, Magic, as a single parent. Curtis never knew that Effie was pregnant; she was replaced before she could share the information.

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

A rebellious deaf Japanese teenage girl, Chieko (Kikuchi), who is traumatized by the recent suicide of her mother and a sense that she is not seen by others which is especially exemplified by interactions with her father, Yasujiro (Koji Yakusho), and boys her age. In response, she has started exhibiting sexually provocative behavior, such as wearing a short skirt and no underpants. She attempts unsuccessfully to initiate a sexual encounter with her dentist. She even goes so far as to try to seduce a police detective, Kenji Mamiya (Satoshi Nikaido), who visits the house to question Chieko's father about his gun. Hilarity ensues.