Every year I do my MAFFE awards (the Michael Awards for Feature Film Excellence) just so I have a record of what moved me each year, and why. It is something I refer back to many times. This will be the first year they are put online. They will be starting at some point soon, but I am having the biggest problem with Best Actress. There are 2 performances I love more than any this year. Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet, who will it be? I still have a few films left to see before I publish them so I am hoping I will see something that blows them out of the water so I don't have to decide. Until then let me leave you with this amazing little scene from Little Children where she playes a bored suburban wife and mother having an affair. Oh Kate, you are truely great. Look at the way she gains strength as the scene plays out. Her mood shifts from being uncomfortable with having to speak, to a confident calm as she seemingly realises something about herself, or something she can use to justify her actions. Look at the way her face gives the slightest emotional truth away, and all the while speaking with a faultless accent. Then at the end she leans in and subtley asserts the fact that she is the intellegent one in the argument, then relaxes back....point proven.
Before I commit to my nominations, I think I need to see a few films again. Pan's Labyrinth is haunting me. I enjoyed and admired it, but didn't LOVE it on first viewing. now I am rethinking things as this film has stayed with me. Read this wonderful article by Sasha Stone over at Oscar Watch and please go and see it.
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