2007,The Year of Cate Blanchett

看板Cate作者paulik (Scandalous Boy)時間17年前 (2007/09/19 09:09)推噓1(1推 0噓 2→)

留言3則, 1人參與討論串1/1

MORE OSCAR BUZZ AT TIFF ‘O7 Part two by Stephen Holt One thing TIFF ‘O7 did definitively for Oscar categories this year was to define the race for Best Actress. People keep saying “But what about the films that are yet to open this fall?” But I have to say, “They are, unfortunately, all male-centric.” Virtually none of the major, upcoming fall films that will open post-TIFF have anything resembling a leading woman’s role in them. And the word on the street, the buzz among the golden Oscar bumblebees, was that anyway you slice it, 2007 is now The Year of Cate Blanchett. One way or another, the great Cate is going to get another Oscar this year. Most likely for the bravura performance she gives in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” And though reaction was divided on the film itself, Cate Blanchett’s SECOND tour-de-force performance as Queen Elizabeth I, is probably the one AMPAS and most certainly the Hollywood Foreign Press, are going to acknowledge. Debate raged among the 1, 100 + journalists ensconced at TIFF, on whether this film, was better than the first. Me, I liked “The Golden Age” better. It was sharper, more focused, more dramatic and in a big surprise, very, very gay. “Elizabeth:The Golden Age” shockingly, but probably realistically, posits that the Virgin Queen’s energies, frustrated in her search for a suitable male suitor for herself, settled her romantic feelings on her ladies-in-waiting, who were more than happy to reciprocate. “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” is the biggest lesbian epic to hit the screen, perhaps ever. It makes sense that Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, was a closet Sapphic. Elizabeth, in the film, focuses all her amorous attentions, on her head lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton, played bouncily by Abbie Cornish, who enjoys a very pivotal role in the movie. She kisses her queen. They embrace, ever more fondly, many times, hold hands constantly. She even gives her a bath! By contrast, Clive Owens’ Sir Walter Raleigh is strangely flat as the hetero side of Elizabeth’s frustrated urges. In the end, she marries Throckmorton off to Raleigh and they have a child! Now, that’s sublimation! This tasty bi-sexual triangle takes up most of “Elizabeth:The Golden Age”. When the Armada comes in to the picture, (the Spanish are the real clown/villains in the picture) it’s almost as an annoying afterthought. It means we have ANOTHER hour to go. Did I mention that this film, like many at TIFF was LONNNNG? But as we know, Our Valiant Elizabeth rises to the occasion. She is even seen on horseback in armor! How historically accurate this is, I don’t know, but she does get a rousing, Henry V/Joan of Arc-type battle speech to the troops, and Cate aces it magisterially. In range and scope and coupled with her FIRST “Elizabeth”, this is a ferocious performance the Academy and the Golden Globes, can’t, and won’t ignore. Given all this historical baggage, I think that Hollywood, just might, in its singular, guilty tradition of correcting past oversights, give Cate the Golden Weight, she did not get ten years ago for her first take as the young “Elizabeth.” She lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow, for “Shakespeare in Love” which swept the awards that year. And I think that even though she has an Oscar already for her Supporting turn as yet another great Kate, Katherine Hepburn in “The Aviator”, AMPAS and the HFPA will right that wrong this year. And she doesn’t have a lot of heavy competition this year, really. Jodie Foster was MIRACULOUS, MAGNETIC and FIERCE in “The Brave One,” a TIFF Gala film I really, really loved. BUT she’s got two Oscar wins behind her, and that diminishes her chances against Cate’s only one Oscar for Supporting. But they’ll nominate Foster for sure for the sheer gutsy intensity of her powerful mugging-victim-turned vigilante in “The Brave One. ” And it’s also scoring heavily at the box-office. And then there’s Cate’s lauded turn in male drag as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” Cate is having a VERY gay year indeed! “I’m Not There” won Cate the Best Actress award in Venice, while TIFF was unfurling. But I don’t think the Academy is going to be able to watch FIVE MINUTES of that DVD at year’s end, when they get set to nominate. So I don’ t think she’ll score in Supporting Actress for that difficult, unusual film of Todd Haynes’ with five different actors playing Bob Dylan. But they will all watch all of “Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” Because of all its astoundingly rich visuals and juicy performances, “The Golden Age” is Pomp and Circumstance personified the way that the Academy and especially the HFPA like it . The Costumes, sets, etc. will all likely merit Awards attention at year’s end, so it might even squeak out a nod for Best Picture. ANOTHER performance of note in “The Golden Age” is Samantha Morton, turning up as Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s cousin and rival for the throne. Mary loses this battle royal, as we all know, and Samantha Morton, may score another Supporting Nomination (her third Academy nod) for the five minutes or so of absolute silence she sustains as she is about to be beheaded. It’s a stunning piece of silent screen acting, as Morton crams wordlessly into those last minutes of Mary’s life, expressions of love, pain, hope, loss, fear, vulnerability and ultimately death. Morton is also holding her own very strongly in another film that could get her nominated, for either Supporting, or lead, the B&W Brit punk rock flick “ Control”. As the anguished, discarded working class wife of the suicided rock singer Ian Curtis of Joy Division, she is wrenching, unforgettable. She has the last shattering scene of that dark movie, as she discovers her beloved, troubled, 23-year-old husband’s body hanging, dead in the kitchen. She could get a Best Actress nod for this, or surely Supporting, but she’s competing with herself in “Elizabeth,” so maybe she’ll cancel herself out. Or get two nominations. As Cate might, too. That would make this a very unusual and very Brit/Aussie centric year for actresses, indeed! In addition to all the trends and buzz, I noted in “Oscar Buzz at TIFF ‘O7 Part One" this weekend, there was, as VARIETY and the NYTIMES have noted, was a definite feeling of Iraq War Picture Fatigue. This was illustrated to me most tellingly in the alarmingly mixed, luke-warm reaction, the EW Fall Film Preview issue cover girl and story got at TIFF. That would be Reese Witherspoon in “Rendition.” “Rendition” was not the hit any one expected it to be, and Ms. Witherspoon’ s screechy, annoying performance is one of the main reasons this film went down in flames with the audiences at TIFF. Iraq-War-Film-Fatigue being the other and as I sat there wondering where I had seen this film before I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a new sub-genre of movie, “The Pregnant-Wife-Whose-Husband-Gets-Kidnapped-And-Tortured-(or Killed)- by-Terrorists” Film. And Angelina Jolie did it better, in retrospect, in “A Mighty Heart.” In fact, the whole film of “A Mighty Heart” did it better than “Rendition.” Reese Witherspoon’s unconvincing, petulant performance, bumped Angelina Jolie right back into the center of the Best Actress Oscar discussion at TIFF. Though long pre-TIFF, I heard Jolie mentioned over and over again at TIFF by all and Sunday as foregone conclusion and a lock for the Best Actress category. She should send flowers and a Thank-You note to Reese Witherspoon for helping her get another Oscar nod, to add to her Supporting Award for “A Girl Interrupted.” It was an amazing, frightening thing to see “Rendition” crash and burn so incredibly quickly at TIFF. Its Oscar chances nullified almost in an instant by the audiences reaction there at the Press and Industry and also the public screenings. So No Oscar or GG nods for “Rendition”, except for Meryl Streep, chillingly running the CIA, and for newcomer Omar Metwally’s unbelievably strong supporting turn as Witherspoon's’ “Rendered” husband. The Egyptian Metwally is kidnapped and tortured-nearly-to-death, naked ,and his performance and Streep’s, which is even scarier, COULD be remembered at year ’s end despite the misfire that is most of “Rendition.” Well-meaning but not well done. So we have Cate Blanchett, Jodie Foster, and Angelina Jolie emerging as locks from TIFF. And May-fly Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose” was still being actively discussed among the golden Oscar bumblebees of TIFF. She may be nominated for Best Actress in a MUSICAL by the more important than ever Golden Globes. And we have on the outside Keira Knightley in “Atonement”, Laura Linney in “The Savages” being mentioned, but more as an after-thought… and newcomer Ellen Page in “Juno”. Page is something that the Academy might do, but the celebrity driven Golden Globes, probably not. Everyone, even in Canada, seemed to have totally forgotten Julie Christie as the memorably-slipping Alzheimer’s patient in “Away from Her” even though it was a Canadian film, directed by hometown girl Sarah Polley. Nicole Kidman's very difficult to watch or sit through performance in the title role of “Margot at the Wedding,” was going down in flames, and illiciting cries of “I want a divorce!” from some critics. Which doesn’t preclude, of course, Kidman’s cranky, off-putting neurotic wedding crasher getting a Globe nod (she always does, no matter how bad the movie), but the Academy won’t go for this kind of acting-nonsense. Gosh! There was so much Oscar Buzz at TIFF’07, I’ll have to wind it up in Part Three! 好誇張的一篇文章這是凱特布蘭琪經記事務所發出來的稿子嗎？百分之90都是阿姐的伊莉莎白奧斯卡聲浪（但是看得好爽）不過他提出來對I'm Not There的意見也挺有趣不管怎樣，凱特今年一定會拿到至少一項提名！ -- 【2007】凱特布蘭琪【要拿女主角】～ＣＡＴＥＢＬＡＮＣＨＥＴＴ～ The Golden Age‧I'm Not There -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 61.30.74.220 ※ 編輯: paulik 來自: 61.30.74.220 (09/19 09:16)