Wednesday, January 31, 2007

What About the Ladies?


Okay, we’ve got the leading man category all sewn up, what about the ladies? Prevailing wisdom says Dame Helen Mirren will take the prize, and I’m not generally one to disagree with prevailing wisdom. Since, in my world, all roads lead to Matt Damon, I’ll just point out here that Ms. Mirren was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov, and in The Good Shepherd a lot of time is spent trying to discern which of two men is the similarly-named Valentin Mironov. Dame Helen played Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, and she was so believable I felt as if we were being allowed into the very private life of this very public monarch. Every move, every gesture, every articulated phrase was so much the queen I’ve come to know from a lifetime of television appearances that I had no difficulty at all believing that this queen reacted in this way to the death of that princess. One has to wonder how the actual queen felt watching this performance. I do hope we will one day learn Her Royal Highness’ response to Ms. Mirren’s dignified and seemingly uncanny impersonation.

The Dame has some rather stiff competition for this year’s brief embrace by a fickle Hollywood. Meryl Streep has been nominated 14 times (winning twice, for Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice), and is this time nominated for playing hell in heels. Meryl’s portrayal of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada not only fleshed out a rather one-sided character, but made her the center of focus for this rather slight story, which, in turn, made the story more interesting than it ever meant to be. Meryl definitely deserves accolades for her uproariously entertaining turn as a fashion doyenne of the bitchiest caliber. No no, it wasn’t a question.

Dame Judi Dench took the lonely old spinster role for a ride in Notes on a Scandal. In learning the secrets of a not-very-careful (and not-very-discriminating) younger teacher, Ms. Dench held the fate of Sheba Hart in her cigarette-laden hand. She also bore the burden of narration, keeping a lively pace in a somewhat sluggish plot. Between Dench’s line-delivery and Philip Glass’ ostentatious score, much more was made of this Scandal than might have been, or perhaps should have been…Likewise, Kate Winslet was nominated for a film called Little Children, whose repute is a little overstated, if you ask me. Basically, it’s a movie about two married people having an affair with each other and then deciding that it isn’t in their best interest. That’s fine for a Lifetime (television for women…and gay men) flick, but for a theatrical release you have to spend $10 for? I think it’s a whole lot of nothing very much.

Penelope Cruz, who my friend Cheryl thinks should be asked to stay home and not inflict us with her periodic bursts of “acting,” was nominated for her role in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest zany epic, Volver. At first, I was sure this film was about a car, but then I found out that’s actually Volvo. Then, I thought of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry can’t remember his girlfriend’s name and she reminds him it rhymes with a part of the female genitalia, so he guesses it must be Mulva. But no, neither of these two suspicions turned out to be correct. Although I generally hear this film’s title pronounced as “vol-vare,”, I discovered from imdb.com that the correct pronunciation is “bol-ber.” Unfortunately, that site didn’t tell me what the word means, so I turned instead to babelfish (which is not nominated for an award this year, even though the film Babel is) and found that “volver” means “to return.” So good for Penelope Cruz for returning to Spanish films in an Almodóvar masterpiece, and bravo to Almodóvar for returning to the old story of family secrets. But to get me to return to movies I have to read, it’s going to take more than that. So no, I haven’t seen this one.

Nonetheless, what a race we have, no?! A queen, a couple of Dames, Hollywood royalty and a former co-star of Matt Damon’s. Not exactly a horse race, but it’s fun to judge all the pretty horses anyway.

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