Dancing with Oscar

2011 Oscar Actresses Nominees

2011 OSCAR BEST ACTRESS CATEGORY

Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right") plays a lesbian wife and mother whose children have found their sperm donor father. Bening has clearly been more leading and better in other performances (American Beauty and Being Julia). She was also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performance by a female actor for same role.

Nicole Kidman ("Rabbit Hole") delivers outstanding performance as the mother whohas to cope with her son death in a car accident.  Kidman was also nominated for the same role by the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Independent Films Awards.

Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter"s Bone") as 17 year-old Ree Dolly embarks on a mission to find her father in the stark and hostile landscape of the Ozark Woods.  This headstrong and intrepid young woman gradually pieces together the chilling story behind her father’s disappearance.  With a face as impassively beautiful as the landscape she trudges through, Ree Dolly is a heroine you won't forget.  Lawrence was also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performance by a female actor for same role.

Natalie Portman  ("Black Swan") Natalie believably sells the madness, desire, and fear with her acting in Black Swan, but also pulls it off as a dancer. In a part like this, there was no way it could get away with a body double.

Portman devoted six months of ballet training for that aspect of her role and it shows. Nina is an incredibly complicated role that required Portman to make something beautiful look equally damaged and ugly at the same time. Portman has won several awards for best actress with the same role.

Michelle Williams ("Blue Valentine") gives amazing performance of raw, occasionally shocking honesty and bravery in this romantic drama that takes an intimate look at a young couple heartbreaking portrait of a not-so-fairytale love story. If you thought Williams showed married anguish and restraint in Brokeback Mountain, she outdoes herself in this movie back and forth scenes of their early courtship and later failing marriage.

 

2011 OSCAR BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS CATEGORY


Amy Adams ("The Fighter")

She puts in a great performance as Charlene Fleming as boxer Micky Ward’s girlfriend.  Adams nabbed her third nomination — capping a five-year run that landed her on the A-list.  Was also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild Awards for same role.

Helena Bonham Carter ("The King"s Speech") plays Queen Elizabeth. It’s a very emotional performance from the British actress as her character supports her husband through his difficulties to help him become the king that everyone hopes that he will be. 

Carter was also nominated by the 2011 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Melissa Leo ("The Fighter") delivers knock-out performance.  The L.A. Film Critics Association named Leo for best supporting actress runner up. She also won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Awards winner for same role.

Hailee Steinfeld ("True Grit") plays tough and single-minded teenager Mattie Ross.  For a first time actress who was 13 at the time, is incredibly outstanding and carries the film with more believability than the older Kim Darby did in the 1969 version.  Mattie might be the perfect Coen heroine, with a controlled exterior that makes it seem as though there’s nothing more emotional going on beneath the surface. Her final act in the film shows that perception to be a miscalculation

 
 Jacki Weaver ("Animal Kingdom") got her her first-ever nomination.  She is already a huge acting star in her native Australia but the rest of the world have only just got a taste of her talent with her new movie Animal Kingdom.  Kingdom is a grim and brutal thriller and Weaver’s performance is at its heart as the grandma from hell.  



A youngster is given an inside look at a criminal empire that also happens to be his family. Teenage Joshua Cody s suddenly on his own after his mother's drug habit catches up with her, and he's taken in by his grandmother Smurf (Jacki Weaver)



Which actresses will dance with Oscar?

You will find out on February 27th at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

2011 Oscar for Best Picture

Which movie do you think will win the Best Picture category?

"The King's Speech" directed by Tom Hooper's led the field with 12 nominations.  Starring Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush.  A movie about England's King George VI in his struggle to overcome his stutter and lead his country at the outset of World War II.

"True Grit" by the Coen brothers, starring Jeff Bridge, Matt Demon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld.  Got 10 nominations.  A movie about a teenage girl who enlists the aid of a boozy, trigger-happy lawman to hunt down her father's killer before a Texas Ranger finds him first.

"The Social Network" with Jesse Eisenberg landed 8 nods.  Adapted from Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.

Story: Computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. 

 

 "Black Swan" with Natalie Portman as a dancer who finds herself locked in a web of competitive intrigue with a new rival at the company.

"The Fighter” cast includes Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Mark Wahlberg. It’s about the life story of boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward and his trainer brother Dick Eklund, chronicling the brothers' early days on the rough streets of Lowell, Massachusetts through Eklund's battle with drugs and Ward's eventual world championship in London.

"Inception" with Christopher Nolan, Leonardo Dicaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page, got 8 nominations.  Story: Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

"The Kids Are All Right" with Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.  Movie about two teenaged children conceived by artificial insemination get the notion to seek out their birth father and introduce him into the family life that their two mothers have built for them. Once the donor is found, the household will never be the same.

"Toy Story 3" the top-grossing film of 2010 and the third animated film in history to be recognized as a best picture hopeful.  Story: Woody and Buzz had accepted that their owner Andy would grow up someday, but what happens when that day arrives? In the third installment, Andy is preparing to depart for college, leaving his loyal toys troubled about their uncertain future.

"127 Hours" with James Franco got 6 nominations.  Adaptation of the true-life story of Aron Ralston detailing a hiker's harrowing quest for survival after losing an arm to a fallen rock and the grueling five-day ordeal that finally ended with his rescue.

"Winter's Bone" with Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes, rounded out the field with 4 nominations.  Ree Dolly sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods.

The 2011 Oscar winners will be revealed Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.