Dear Gossips,
There was no Thanksgiving break for my favourite movie of the year. It screened (for the first time) in New York this weekend, and the response has been...like the rapture. I binged on all the critical responses to Les Miserables on Saturday and, like Argo, Lincoln, and Silver Linings Playbook before it, most agree that the film is a worthy candidate for Best Picture with some declaring that it IS indeed the best picture, which of course is what they said about all the others upon release too. But that’s how strong the field is this year -- the critics are bandwaggoning it from movie to movie every weekend. And this is what happened a day later when Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty was presented for the first time. Though the reviews have been very, very good, given how competitive the category is, Zero Dark Thirty may not be able to build enough momentum the way The Hurt Locker did a couple of years ago. But Zero Dark Thirty has offered up a legitimate challenger to Jennifer Lawrence: Jessica Chastain.
If there are any Academy voters hesitant on Lawrence’s age, they finally have an option now on someone who can match on talent, on quality of work, on industry reputation, and she’s never won before, AND she’s American -- which is why Marion Cotillard has been bumped into position #3 in the Best Actress race.
God I love award season. And when it’s a year like this? You almost want it to keep going and going.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
PS. Thank you for your enthusiasm re: adding Duana’s Name Nerding as a regular feature. Her latest installment will be posted to LifeStyle today.
