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21-2-2000OSCAR BLUES
ell Blanchetteers, our Cate was robbed again. It surely seems Cate could have been recognized this year for an extraordinary trio of supporting performances. Her work in "Pushing Tin", "An Ideal Husband" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" was as fine as anything that graced the screen all year.
W The one consolation is that the Academy did at least recognize several strong performances in the Supporting category. Brit Samantha Morton continues to amaze and is assured ascension to the hierarchy of female actresses, if not already there. Her wonderful turn as Sean Penn's mute girlfriend was positively extraordinary, likening back to the best of the silent film actresses, where everything was conveyed with "just one look", or in this case many wonderfully emotive gazes.
It was great to see the wonderful Catherine Keener at long last receive some recognition. And, Angelina Jolie continues to perform admirably every time out. Chloe Sevigny was superb in "Boy's Don't Cry", although that did not seem too much of a stretch from her other roles.
The one surprise was Toni Collette's nom for "The Sixth Sense", in which she was excellent, but questionable in a role playing another Yank that paled in comparison to her turn last year in "Velvet Goldmine". And, it seemed to be one of those "brief" supporting roles in the vein of Lady Dench's in "Shakespeare" last year.
The Los Angeles Times: carried a couple of related Oscar bits Cate fans may find of interest.
All around, Oscar nomination day was a sweet one for Hilary Swank.
Swank, filming "The Gift" in Savannah, Ga., said her publicist sent her doughnuts and the movie's crew gave her a cake with a "little Oscar guy on it."She was nominated Tuesday for best actress for her gender-bending role in "Boys Don't Cry" as a real-life woman who posed as a man and ended up a murder victim. Swank won a Golden Globe for the role last month.
Her co-star in "The Gift," Cate Blanchett, lived through the Oscar hoopla last year with her nomination for "Elizabeth."
"It's really nice to have someone on the set to share that feeling with," Swank said. "She's been able to say, 'I know how you feel," really without having to say anything."Then, for all of you diehard fashion fiends, there was this item of note.
Hollywood fashion stylist Jessica Paster woke up at 5 a.m. Tuesday to watch the Oscar nominations on TV and cheer for "her girl"--first-time Oscar nominee Hilary Swank. Then she spoke by telephone with several European designers, all before 9 a.m.
That's because the star of "Boys Don't Cry" is the fashion "It" girl this season--the one designers want to dress as she walks down the red carpet. Who can resist taking a woman most famously known for looking like a boy and turning her into a glamorous princess?
But Swank isn't alone. This year is shaping up as a plum year for designers who will have their pick of "It" girls. Nominations include such consistently stylish women as Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Angelina Jolie. Even more fun will be to dress the relatively unknown but beautiful supporting actress nominees like Catherine Keener, Chloe Sevigny and Toni Collette.
The dress-up contest begins, and everyone in the tight circle of fashion and entertainment knows the first phone call to make is to a stylist like Paster. She's the one who dressed Cate Blanchett in the John Galliano butterfly gown at last year's Oscars, and put Minnie Driver in the drop-dead red Halston gown two Oscars ago.
And finally, for those of you who feel a residual need to acknowledge Cate's fine work this year, may we encourage you to take part in this year's Chlotrudis Awards. The Chlotrudis Awards is a non-profit organization that honors, supports and educates about independent and non-mainstream movies.
Each year they hold an Award Ceremony, and this year marks their sixth. It will be the first held publicly, on April 8, at the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. We congratulate Michael Colford, Chlotrudis Awards President and ACBO admirer, on his fine work and outstanding efforts in bringing attention and appreciation to those films and actors whose work is not always recognized.
Cate News fans are encouraged to go to the Chlotrudis Awards and vote for Cate, who is up for Best Supporting Actress. We would encourage you to check out all the nominations, however, as they are all unusually perceptive and well-written capsules of many fine films and performers. Here's what they have to say about Cate, for instance:
"Cate Blanchett for the role of Lady Gertrude Chiltern in An Ideal Husband and Meredith Logue in The Talented Mr. Ripley Last year's Best Actress winner for the title role in the film, Elizabeth proved that she's not a fluke with two incredible and very different supporting performances this year. Australian Blanchett has intensity, beauty and an ability to pull the viewer in her characters whether they be nonchalant or complicated and intricate character sketches. As Lady Gertrude Chiltern, Blanchett is a feminist from a very early time who prides herself in her lack of artifice and deceit. Yet when her marriage almost crumbles due to these impossible standards, she learns that an ideal husband is not necessarily a saint. Then as Meredith Logue, we meet a spoiled and bored young American aristocrat on vacation in Italy. Blanchett so thoroughly inhabits all the characters she plays, she is almost unrecognizable in each her performances."
All of the descriptions are similarly thoughtful. And, all descriptions are linked to a high quality website should you wish to pursue the matter. We are pleased to have been chosen to represent Cate. We will post the results of the voting at a later date.
ON LOCATION WITH 'THE GIFT'
ne of the great things about creating a website such as ACBO are the wonderful people you come in contact with, including many terrific folks whom you never even imagined would know of the existence of ACBO.
O
This week we received a wonderful greeting from Dave and Carol Schneider of Springfield, Georgia. They wrote to say the following:
"Hello Folks,
We just wanted to say that we enjoyed checking out your fine web site.
TG Productions/Lakeshore/Paramount will be filming segments of "The Gift" (Courthouse and Duncan's Office, Set #16 and #17) outside our home at the Effingham County Courthouse here in Springfield GA beginning next Tuesday, February 22 through Saturday, February 26. They began setting up equipment around and inside the building yesterday.We are not big movie fans in particular but we were curious to learn more about Cate since this is a small Georgia town about 30 miles north of Savannah and nothing much exciting ever happens around here. She is a fine actress."
They were kind enough to send along this picture of the courthouse where the filming is taking place. It was built in 1909. And, as befits Southern hospitality, they extended their hands to show us around should we ever visit their neck of the woods. We sincerely appreciate their kindness and generosity. We hope they might furnish us with an update at a later time.
ARTICLE ROUND-UP
n our never-ending effort to stay on top of all the press that
I fits, regarding dear Cate, we came up with a couple of gems this week. The first is a wonderful concept the New York Times came up with whereby they asked fourteen film directors to imagine casting contemporary actresses in the role of actresses in classic films of the past. What was extraordinary was that the actresses of today played along with the idea and got dressed up for the part!
Once you got past Milos Forman choosing to cast Courtney Love as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" (what is with these two.why don't they just get a room and leave the rest of us out of it!), there were some wonderful ideas expressed featuring some genuinely inspired casting. Pedro Almodovar had Christina Ricci playing the Bette Davis role in "Jezebel" (a perfect fit). Garry Marshall saw Juliette Lewis in the Shirley MacLaine role in "The Apartment; Cameron Crowe cast the oh-so-hot Zooey Deschanel in the Audrey Hepburn role in "Love In The Afternoon".
Amy Heckerling had Mena Suvari take the Ann-Margret role in "Bye Bye Birdie". And, in one of the more inspired castings, and incredible photos, Tim Roth had the amazing Lara Belmont, from his directorial debut of "The War Zone", take on the role of Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange".
So, what does this have to do with Cate, you might ask. Well, as you can see from the accompanying picture, Cate was chosen by director David Fincher ("Fight Club") to play the role of Faye Dunaway in "Network". Said Fincher, "Diana Christensen is a character whose sleek exterior requires obvious strength, intelligence and palpable drive. She is incredibly feminine, she had better be beautiful, and she'd better be handled by someone who is flat-out amazing. Cate is all that."
That she is, and so is her outfit.Cashmere sweater, $720, silk shirt with tie, $550, and ostrich leather skirt, $2,800, by Miuccia Prada. Photograph by Stephane Sednaoui. Styled by Elizabeth Stewart.
For those of you needing more of a fashion fix, we direct you to an NYT article we like to call Photo Shoot Cate, and that goes something like this:
In a Culver City studio called SmashBox, founded coincidentally by descendants of Max Factor, Cate Blanchett is meeting with a photographer and stylists to create her persona du jour, and also to conjure up the star she would have been in old Hollywood.
At 30, Cate is no Hollywood ingenue. She comes from Australia and lives in London. Besides the title role in "Elizabeth," for which she received a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination last year, she has acted in seven movies, is scheduled to work on three more and can currently be seen in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
She has also appeared on enough magazine covers to make a supermodel seethe with envy.
But you would not mistake Cate for a model. Her face is too interesting to be conventionally pretty. Broad through the forehead and cheekbones, it tapers to a long, narrow chin. Her lips are full, and her smile is boyish and wide. It is the instrument of an actress who makes herself over to inhabit each character.This morning, Cate's first role is herself. Her hair is getting star treatment from Danilo, a specialist in celebrated scalps, whose own hair is shaved, with a clump in the back left longish and dyed apricot.
For the entire, incredibly descriptive saga, check out Photo Shoot Cate.
Last but not least, we will pass on this bit that appeared in the Evening Standard UK in the context of an article on Gwyneth, and how hard it is to be Gwyneth. The important bit read:
"Not even winning the Oscar has fully settled that argument,
because many people felt that it should have gone to Cate Blanchett for her performance in Elizabeth. Blanchett is also in Ripley and, according to Paltrow, the two became firm friends. 'During the Oscars, people were trying to pit us against each other and it was so awful, and so not what it was about,' she claims. 'I thought she was going to win the Oscar, I couldn't believe she didn't. But at least she won the BAFTA, so I feel like it was OK.' Blanchett might see it differently, especially after her experiences in Italy during the Ripley shoot. 'She said she kept getting stopped by people asking her for my autograph,' giggles Paltrow."
Ha ha, very funny. People must have been wondering why Gwyn looked so much prettier in person. Another peculiar aspect of this piece referred to a feud between Gwyn and Winona Ryder, and the fact that they don't speak these days. Gwyn fairly blew it off, didn't want to discuss it, and said they had never really been friends. JUST ROOMMATES!!
On the brighter side, the Evening Standard UK has been making prominent use of this nice quote from Time magazine: 'Paltrow and Blanchett radiate an unforced glamour that recalls Hollywood in its golden age' .
Okay Blanchetteers, guess we'll leave you with that. As always, we suggest you keep up to date with the Lord of the Rings shoot via our companion news page, The LOTR News. And we must not forget our usual advice.....when all else fails, "PLAY A VOLTA!!". Until next time.
