The Oscars: Best Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role

And the nominees are:

Cate Blanchett - Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Cate Blanchett reprises her Oscar nominated role from 1998. (Here is a bit of trivia for you to impress your collegues with. There have been 4 previous actors to be nominated twice for playing the same role. Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley, Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, Peter O'Toole as King Henry II, and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. This marks the first time an actress has done it.) It is 27 years after Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England (which takes place in Elizabeth). Elizabeth faces one of her biggest challenges when Spain works at undermining her reign and installing Mary, Queen of Scots as the rightful Queen. Spain eventually send the Spanish Armada and the Spanish Inquisition (I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition*) and hilarity ensues. It seems to me that all an actress has to do to pretty much guarentee an Oscar Nomination is to play an English Queen. Blanchett didn't win last time, she lost to Gwyneth Paltrow, and I don't think she will win this time either. I think she has a lot better chance winning best supporting actress, and I think her being nominated for Best Supporting Actress will cost her votes on Best Actress since the voters will be able to say they voted for her.

Julie Christie - Fiona Anderson in Away From Her

Julie Christie plays a woman with Alzheimer's disease. Fiona decides to check into a nursing home so that she doesn't become a burden on her husband Grant. We follow Grant as he comes and goes from the nursing home and watch as Fiona slips further and further away from him. Christie does an extraordinary job in this movie. I thought very seriously that she had a good shot at the Oscar until...

Marion Cotillard - Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose

...I saw La Vie En Rose. Marion Cotillard plays Edith Piaf, the famous french singer and cultural icon. The movie follows the life of Piaf through flashbacks all the way back to her childhood. Cotillard really captures Piaf from what I am able to gather from other sources (Piaf died 7 years before I was born, but i have still heard some of her songs even though I didn't know it.) Speaking of the 1999 Academy Awards, that was the last time an actor won an Oscar in one of the four major acting categories from a role in a Foreign Language film. In that case it was Roberto Benigni for La Vita E Bella. I can definitely see one going to Cotillard.

Laura Linney - Wendy Savage in The Savages

This is the movie that I haven't seen yet (there seems to be one every day). Laura Linney is a wonderful actress but I can't really judge her performance. She plays Wendy who, with her sibling Jon, with whom she has drifted apart, have to take care of an aging parent.

Ellen Page - Juno MacGuff in Juno

I really first came across Ellen Page in Hard Candy and the movie just really blew my mind and I have love watching her ever since. After taking three pregnancy tests, 16-year-old Minnesota high-schooler Juno discovers she is nine weeks pregnant with a child who is fathered by her friend and longtime admirer, Paulie Bleeker. Although she initially opts for an abortion, a last-minute change of heart leads her to decide to have the baby and make a plan for the child's adoption. I loved her in this film too. She showed an acerbic wit and intellegence you don't usually find in teenage film charcters (they are usually in comedies and stuff). I really hope she can win it this year but I think she is a dark horse at best. She will definitely be back as long as she picks movie like these two.

Well, there you go, tune in tomorrow for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

*Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

(If anybody got that joke before looking down here give yourself a gold star. If you got it after looking give yourself a silver star, If you have yet to get it, go watch Monty Python's Flying Circus right now, before it is too late!)