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Oscars in bag for Day-Lewis, Christie:
critics If the opinions of the nation's critics are anything to go by, Daniel Day-Lewis can pretty much pick up his best actor Oscar right now. The leading critics were almost unanimous in citing the English actor for his performance as an implacable oilman in Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," one of a number of movies that came up repeatedly as a favorite. Almost as popular was Julie Christie in "Away From Her," indicating that two English performers lead the acting pack this awards season. Nominees will be announced on Tuesday, and the 80th annual awards ceremony will take place on February 24. This year, the critics were surprisingly uniform in the films they praised, especially the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" and the comedy "Juno." Unlike previous years, when the critics lamented bitterly the dearth of high-quality movies, this time around, by and large, they praised the offerings in theaters. At the same time, they criticized the studio specialty divisions for top-loading so many good movies into such a narrow time frame at the end of the year. "The discouraging trend I find is that good smaller movies come along, and it's a Herculean effort to get people to go out and see them," says Leonard Maltin of "Entertainment Tonight." "When a 'Spider-Man 3' opens, everybody feels they want to be in the loop, even if they don't particularly care about the films. They rush out to see them right away. But there is no imperative for them to see a film like 'Waitress' or 'The Lookout' or 'Starting Out in the Evening.' And that's a real shame." What follows is the leading critics' picks for their very top choices in the major categories. LEONARD MALTIN ("ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT") PICTURE: "Juno" DIRECTOR: Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") ACTRESS: Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") SUPPORTING ACTOR: Andy Griffith ("Waitress") SUPPORTING ACTRESS: A tie: Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone") and Cate Blanchett ("I'm Not There") ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Diablo Cody ("Juno") ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Ronald Harwood ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") "Juno" is fresh, original, surprising, satisfying. It is a wonderful script, perfectly realized by Jason Reitman and perfectly cast, too. I liked the Coen brothers' film ("No Country for Old Men") and Paul Thomas Anderson's film ("There Will Be Blood") very much; but when I sit and reflect, the movie that gave me the most pleasure this year was "Juno." In "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Julian Schnabel took the unlikeliest possible subject matter for a movie, but it was brilliantly realized, without a touch of sentimentality. How does someone even begin to approach that story in cinematic terms? He and (screenwriter) Ronald Harwood did it magnificently. Daniel Day-Lewis is one of those actors who disappears into his character thoroughly and convincingly -- and, in this case, it is a character who does not reveal himself right away, which makes the characterization all the more layered. Marion Cotillard gives one of those transformative performances where the actress is consumed by the character, and here that was all the harder because there are so many stages of that character's life. Andy Griffith has always been a good actor. Fifty years ago, he did a great job for Elia Kazan (in 1957's "A Face in the Crowd"), and here he gets to play another character who isn't necessarily what he seems. It is a rich and entertaining performance. Amy Ryan seems absolutely and horrifyingly real. She is not a cardboard villain at all; she is just a poor excuse for a human being. As for Cate Blanchett, what can you say when your jaw is on the floor every time you watch a performance? You forget it's a woman playing a man -- and not just a man but a famous man at that. PETER TRAVERS (ROLLING STONE) PICTURE: "No Country for Old Men" DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead") ACTOR: Johnny Depp ("Sweeney Todd") ACTRESS: Julie Christie ("Away From Her") SUPPORTING ACTOR: Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men") SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett ("I'm Not There") ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Diablo Cody ("Juno") ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Joel and Ethan Coen ("No Country for Old Men") Literary adaptation is a tough thing to do, especially when the book is good. "No Country for Old Men" is not the best of Cormac McCarthy, but the Coen brothers formed a sort of blood connection with it. It works in every way, including the purportedly horrendous ending, which explains the whole title. Javier Bardem's villain is one for the ages -- a dehumanized villain who can scare you and make you laugh. He is the other, the alien, the one we can't talk to. We begin to look for a humanity in him that ultimately we can't find. This will be Sidney Lumet's 50th anniversary as a (movie) director -- his first film was "12 Angry Men" in 1957; and he shows that at 83, he can move at a vigorous pace in a movie that's a cross between a suspense thriller and (1962's) "Long Day's Journey Into Night." He has the energy that I would associate with some renegade young filmmakers. If you listened to Johnny Depp sing on the ("Sweeney Todd") CD, you wouldn't be very impressed, but onscreen that was the smartest move Tim Burton made: to cast an actor who has a soulfulness in his eyes that shows there was a human being before he became the demon barber of Fleet Street. He seems to be always a beat behind the action -- but that's because he has been so traumatized by what has happened in his life. We all have parents who age and are sick -- and Julie Christie got that (in "Away From Her"). Her performance stays with us because we have memories of (the younger) Julie Christie -- of that beauty, of the life she led; and as she is losing it, we are holding onto our memories of her. What Cate Blanchett did went way beyond impersonation (in "I'm Not There"): She found something at the core of what Bob Dylan was about -- his confusion, his way of not dealing with fame and striking out at the audience. I looked at that performance and thought, "This is astonishing!" It's very difficult for someone who sees movies all the time to find an original voice. But Diablo Cody ("Juno") has that. What makes this so satisfying is that every character becomes three-dimensional in a movie that could have been just a glib comedy. RICHARD ROEPER ("EBERT & ROEPER") PICTURE: "Michael Clayton" DIRECTOR: Joel and Ethan Coen ("No Country for Old Men") ACTOR: A tie: Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood"), Johnny Depp ("Sweeney Todd") and George Clooney ("Michael Clayton") ACTRESS: Laura Linney ("The Savages") SUPPORTING ACTOR: Tom Wilkinson ("Michael Clayton") SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone' |