I thought Maria Bello in the History of Violence was the stand-out performance of 2005.

I haven't seen Capote yet.

I also likedKeira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice & Gromit in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

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I thought Maria Bello in the History of Violence was the stand-out performance of 2005.

Maria Bello's performance in this movie and The Cooler (2003) have made her a very bankable actress. Together with Charlize Theron and Ziyi Zhang, it's going to be a difficult award decision year.

Maria Bello is indeed a very good actres and she keeps on improving her acting skills as time goes by..I like her much in the movie The Cooler rather than in her recent movie History of Violence.

I think Maria Bello's performance was pretty amazing, probably not very best of the year, but she'll probably get some oscar nods.

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I also likedKeira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice & Gromit in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

ha ha yeah, if only there was an oscar category for claymation dogs who dont talk or most expressive eyebrows, gromit would win for sure

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LordSmoogsbottomIII Enthusiast posted:


I think Maria Bello's performance was pretty amazing, probably not very best of the year, but she'll probably get some oscar nods.

Pretty well sums up the situation. Maria Bello's role in A History of Violence wasn't the primary focus of the movie as opposed to her husband's so in actuality unlike Charlize Theron or Ziyi Zhang so that her performance can't present that intensity and focus for best actress as these other actresses can. The distinction between best actress and best supporting actress is nebulous at best when it comes to co-starring roles.

She SHOULD get a Best Supporting NOM, finally.

I thought HISTORY OF VIOLENCE was good, not great, though Bello is certainly easy on the eyes. I don't know much about her. The first time she appeared on my radar screen was in THE COOLER, a film I didn't care for, but that had a lot of stand-out performances.

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ChrisFromAstoria:

The first time she appeared on my radar screen was in THE COOLER, a film I didn't care for, but that had a lot of stand-out performances.

What was it about The Cooler that you didn't care for? It is among my favorite movies. I think I know the answer to the apparent paradox about stand-out performances and a movie you didn't care for which is a nice thing to say about a movie. Please expand on the nature of the not caring.

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Originally posted by tabuno:
What was it about The Cooler that you didn't care for? It is among my favorite movies. I think I know the answer to the apparent paradox about stand-out performances and a movie you didn't care for which is a nice thing to say about a movie. Please expand on the nature of the not caring.

I don't know exactly why THE COOLER didn't work for me; I haven't seen it since original release. Alec Baldwin, in arguably his best performance, was flat out terrific as the sleazy casino owner. William H. Macy is always good and Bello was flat out terrific. As I said, it was the first time I noticed her.

Like so many movies I thought the film kind of fell apart at the end. It kind of became a conventional murder type of movie with Baldwin trying to off someone in a car. I can't remember if it was Bello or if it was Macy.

A good film with a similar theme to THE COOLER or with a character similar to Macy's is a Spanish film that was barely released back in '02 called INTACTO.

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ChrisFromAstoria posted:

Like so many movies I thought the film kind of fell apart at the end. It kind of became a conventional murder type of movie with Baldwin trying to off someone in a car. I can't remember if it was Bello or if it was Macy.

A reasonable explanation about your ambivalence of the movie.

[Spoiler somewhat]

What was fascinating about the movie was that the murder at the end was neither Bello or Macy in reality. The conventional murder ending was somewhat turned sideways and the twist at the end was for lack of a better word cool in the good sense. The changing and shifting perspective of Baldwin's character is at the sametime shockingly rewarded in his much more black demise while our close to the end romantic heros have a shockingly noisy climactic ending of twisted fate that while perhaps conventional, its cinematic script presentation was quite satisfying. This movie was afterall a romance movie set in Las Vegas where the house always wins, except in the movies.