Halfway House 2012. Lead Actress (Thus Far)
Don't you love to take stock every six months? At the very least it's a good excuse for list-making. Lists! Wheeee. If all Academy members did this before they sent in their nominee ballots in January, we might end up with a spread of nominees that wasn't so December slanted. I never decide who to vote for this early but I do draw up lists of performances I enjoyed / respected to consider again later in the year when all the advertising rushes in an effort to shape the highly malleable collective subconscious and thus, votes.
If I had to draw up a ballot right now:
- Judi Dench, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
The movie is considerably less broad once it's reigned in by her warmth, laughter, and subtlety - Valerie Donzelli, Declaration of War (France's Oscar submission 2011, US release in 2012)
She still has raw wound access to what must have been a highly traumatic experience (she and her ex-boyfriend play fictionalized versions of themselves trying to save their nearly fatally ill child) but the turn has a wide range of feeling and levity via mischievous romantic impulses and gallows humor. - Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games
How soon till she's back at the Oscars? Maybe not for this... directly. - Stephanie Sigman, Miss Bala (Mexico's Oscar submission 2011, US release in 2012)
Wonderfully naturalistic. She just vibrates with impotent terror. - Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
A force of nature even while nature is whipping up mythological force all around in "the bathtub"
Oscar thoughts and other fine performances after the jump...