Overrated supporting actresses.

I just realized that for every year since 1998, I find an popular Supporting Actress choice to be either extremely overrated, or just plain bad. (Here's me being grumpy again.) So, here they are.

1998: Joan Allen, Pleasantville (you know how sometimes, you just don't see what other people see in a performance, and you can't really explain why? Yeah. That's the case here. So well-described, I know.)
1999: Thora Birch, American Beauty (as far as supporting actresses in that film go, Mena Suvari schooled her. Thora pouted a lot and was terribly boring, but she flashed her boobs at 16 so the guys liked her. Thora Birch is really a pretty awful actress; she doesn't add any depth to her performances, but because people tend to relate to her characters, they like her more. Except for Paradise, I've never liked her in anything.)
2000: Kate Hudson, Almost Famous (more ridiculously overrated than bad. I wouldn't have screamed and cried had she got the Oscar, though Harden was better.)
2001: Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind (utterly awful. Her Oscar win is a joke)
2002: Julianne Moore, The Hours (like Hudson, not bad, just ridiculously overrated. And lead. Can't touch Zeta-Jones or Streep as well as several others, way outclassed by Collette in the scene between the two, and wayyyy inferior to her turn in Far from Heaven. I've found more than one person that considers this the best performance of her career, and one of the best of all time...frightening.)
2003: Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April (oh Patty. You're capable of so much more. Like The Station Agent and All the Real Girls this very same year.)
2004: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator (I'll never understand the praise for this. Shallow, empty, one-dimensional, and without an ounce of the fun Hepburn exuded.)
2005: Amy Adams, Junebug (good, yes. Better than a lot of other supporting actresses that year [Bello, Linney, Weisz, Williams, Zhang, Gyllenhaal, Johansson, Keener in 40-Year-Old-Virgin...], no. Heck, she wasn't even the best red-haired supporting actress that year; that honor goes to Isla Fisher. The way some people were calling this the "best performance ever" caused me to think this chick was so overrated. I still like her, though. She's adorable, and a great example of how an annoying performance can be good.)
2006: Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada (need I say more? [I will anyway] Remember how I was saying Cate was one-dimensional? Well, Emily might get away with it a little better, because her character isn't as well-written, but it doesn't mean she gets away with it. Not even people who are good at writing about movies can defend her properly. They're all just like "err...she's funny! And then her character gets desperate! Funny! Ha!" Emily's hardly alone, though; Blanchett in Notes [a blatant co-lead] and Kikuchi in Babel are also hideously overrated. Blanchett was both unspecific in her character choices and way over-the-top, and though I hate to simplify performances like this [though I did it for Thora up there, I suppose], all Kikuchi did was flash her vagina a lot and make odd faces.)


ranking these, best to worst:
Amy Adams
Kate Hudson
Julianne Moore
Joan Allen
Emily Blunt
Patricia Clarkson
Thora Birch
Jennifer Connelly

not like i have anything better to do

"dogville" haunts.

sure, why not: the top 10 male and female performances of the new millennium.

Male
10. Campbell Scott as Roger Swanson in Roger Dodger
9. Russell Crowe as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind
8. Hugh Jackman as Tomas/Tommy/Dr. Tom Creo in The Fountain
7. Ryan Gosling as Dan Dunne in Half Nelson
6. Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain
5. Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
4. Tom Wilkinson as Matt Fowler in In the Bedroom
3. Bill Murray as Bob Harris in Lost in Translation
2. Jack Nicholson as Warren Schmidt in About Schmidt
1. Clive Owen as Larry in Closer
Oscar nominees: 7 (Crowe, Gosling, Ledger, Wilkinson, Murray, Nicholson, Owen)
Oscar winners: 0 !

Female
10. Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte in Lost in Translation
9. Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly in Chicago
8. Laura Linney as Sammy Prescott in You Can Count on Me
7. Nicole Kidman as Grace in Dogville
6. Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada
5. Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream
4. Kate Winslet as Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Uma Thurman as The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo/etc. in Kill Bill
2. Naomi Watts as Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Dr.
1. Jennifer Connelly as Marion Silver in Requiem for a Dream (not kidding. You know how the NY Times [dumbly] called Watts in 21 Grams the "best sufferer ever on screen" or something like that? Not true at all. For that performance, just look here.)
Oscar nominees: 5 (Zeta-Jones, Linney, Streep, Burstyn, Winslet)
Oscar winners: 1 (Zeta-Jones)

2000

2000. Another bad year cuz I might as well get 'em done with.

Best Picture
1. Requiem for a Dream
2. You Can Count on Me
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
4. Traffic
5. Best in Show
6. The House of Mirth
7. Wonder Boys
8. Gladiator
9. George Washington
10. Amores Perros (Iñárritu's best, and it's not even close)

Best Director
1. Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2. Darren Aronofsky for Requiem for a Dream
3. Steven Soderbergh for Traffic and Erin Brockovich
4. Ridley Scott for Gladiator
5. Lars von Trier for Dancer in the Dark
6. Kenneth Lonergan for You Can Count on Me
7. Mary Harron for American Psycho
8. Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu for Amores Perros
9. David Gordon Green for George Washington
10. Sofia Coppola for The Virgin Suicides

Best Actor
1. Christian Bale in American Psycho
2. Billy Crudup in Jesus' Son
3. Clive Owen in Croupier (Cliiiiive. <3)
4. Russell Crowe in Gladiator (I'll defend him to the death)
5. Tom Hanks in Cast Away (him too)
6. Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls
7. Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys
8. Ed Harris in Pollock
9. Jamie Bell in Billy Elliot
10. Geoffrey Rush in Quills

Best Actress (quality-wise excellent, quantity-wise pretty shitty...I can't think of anyone other than these 9 that I'd really want to nominate)
1. Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream
2. Laura Linney in You Can Count on Me
3. Renee Zellweger in Nurse Betty
4. Gillian Anderson in The House of Mirth
5. Cate Blanchett in The Gift
6. Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich (no, she didn't deserve the Oscar but it's hardly embarassing to say the least)
7. Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath
8. Michelle Rodriguez in Girlfight
9. Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Michelle...?)

Best Supporting Actor
1. Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me (not supporting. Ignore this.)
2. Benicio del Toro in Traffic
3. Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire
4. Jeffrey Wright in Shaft (!!!)
5. Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator
6. Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich
7. Morgan Freeman in Nurse Betty
8. Ian Holm in Joe Gould's Secret
9. Michael Douglas in Traffic
10. Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys

Best Supporting Actress
1. Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream (years later, still standing as the best performance of the new millennium...and I don't even like Jennifer Connelly)
2. Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock
3. Samantha Morton in Jesus' Son
4. Kate Winslet in Quills
5. Ziyi Zhang in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
6. Parker Posey in Best in Show
7. Catherine Deneuve in Dancer in the Dark
8. Laura Linney in The House of Mirth
9. Kirsten Dunst in The Virgin Suicides
10. Frances McDormand in Almost Famous

Best Screenplay
1. You Can Count on Me
2. American Psycho
3. The House of Mirth
4. Requiem for a Dream
5. Nurse Betty
6. Traffic
7. Amores Perros
8. Billy Elliot
9. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
10. George Washington

Please note, all: Almost Famous blows, except the acting...and even there, Patrick Fugit was sooo dull and Kate Hudson wildly overpraised. Still, everyone else pretty much rocked. Maybe I'm just mad because of how they used "Tiny Dancer" (yes, I love Elton John, now let's move the fuck on)... oh. and if you asked me to see any of these movies again or Chocolat, I'd probably say Chocolat. Yeah, it's only deserving of a C+ movie-wise, but it's warm and adorable...and keep in mind, this is from someone who hates Johnny Depp (GASP!) and who just kind of half-shrugs when she hears Juliette Binoche's name (GASP!).