The Oscars: Anne Hathaway

Watching Rachel Getting Married is like showing up at a friends dinner party and watching his family fall into disarray. Personal grievances get aired. Family secrets spill across the table. Hurt relatives say things to one another that can never be taken back. You witness all of this, an outsider forced to sit uncomfortably as the party disintegrates.

Kym (Anne Hathaway) has come home for her sister Rachel's wedding. Kym's been in rehab for all of eight months. She learns soon after getting home that she won't be her sister's maid of honor -- this from a guy she met and screwed in the garage. Later, at the rehearsal dinner, she snatches a cordless mic to toast her sister, but her toast turns into this rambling atonement (one of the "12 Steps"). She's self-deprecating and open in a way that makes the entire room uncomfortable. You want to turn away from this because it's so damn raw.

But that's not the half of it. There's a scene that comes much later. Rachel is sitting with her father and friends assigning seats for the reception. She's placed Kym with some distant cousins. When Kym arrives, she lounges just outside the circle, lights a cigarette and asks, "Where'd you put me." "With the family," her father answers. "But that would mean there are 13 people at that table and Rachel wanted 12," Rachel's best friend says.

Hathaway offers a devastatingly acute performance as recovering addict Kym haunted by guilt over the death of her brother. Her work here is head-and-shoulders above the sometimes cartoonish Meryl Streep in Doubt and just a cut above the superb Angelina Jolie in Changeling. I'll see Kate Winslet in The Reader this weekend, but if some of the critics are correct in saying Winslet is better in the snubbed Revolutionary Road performance, I won't be disappointed if Hathaway pulls an upset in the lead actress category Sunday night at the Academy Awards.

The Oscars: Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie may not win an Oscar for her work in Changeling, but that shouldn't stop you from seeing this movie.

Directed by Clint Eastwood in a story inspired by true events, Jolie delivers her strongest performance to date. Despite the hype of Brangelina and her ever-present image on every magazine and tabloid cover, she managers the near impossible: She sheds her public persona and fully embodies Christine Collins.

In A Mighty Heart, she shines in one scene (and if you watched A Mighty Heart, you know the scene). In Changeling, she never slips. She's fully devoted, vulnerable in a way we've never seen her before.

As the Star-Ledger put it: "This is one movie where the star really is the star. "

I'm disappointed I waited for the DVD to see this.

The Oscars: Frozen River

I'll admit this up front: When I put Frozen River at the top of my Netflix queue, I did so reluctantly, only because I promised myself I'd see every film with a major Academy Award nomination. Melissa Leo is up against the likes of Meryl Street (Doubt), Kate Winslet (The Reader), Angelina Jolie (The Changeling) and Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) in the lead actress category.

I had imagined this seasoned but relatively unknown character actor was as boring as, say, her counterpart in the leading man race -- you know, Richard Jenkins in The Visitor, older character actor up against powerhouse actors in major films that people actually saw and/or are talking about: Brad Pitt (Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Sean Penn (Milk), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon). Jenkins work was solid, but it was so subtle as to be boring... kind of like Julie Christie in last year's Oscar-nominated Away From Her performance.

But Frozen River was good ... Gone Baby Gone kind of good. And Leo was phenomenal. There are no moments of typical high drama for her, no wailing and crying, no nudity, no prosthesis. Just the careful work of a craftsman who completely disappears into her work.

The Oscars: Sean Penn a lock for lead male win

I can say with some certainty that Sean Penn will walk away with his second Academy Award on Feb. 22 for his critically acclaimed work in Milk.

Before the Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced Jan. 25, I thought the wind was blowing in the direction of Mickey Rourke, who received a Golden Globe for his work in The Wrestler.

A Globe is nice.

But an Actor almost always leads to an Oscar.

Only twice since the Guild began doling out acting awards has it failed to predict the Oscar winner in the leading man category. Both times, the circumstances were a bit peculiar.

In 2001, for example, the Guild gave its top male acting prize to Benicio del Toro for Traffic. Del Toro went on to win an Oscar for the same role, but in the supporting category. The leading male Oscar went to Russell Crowe for Gladiator.

Then in 2004, the Guild gave its top award for a male actor to Johnny Depp for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Movies based on comics, cartoons and theme park rides aren’t generally recognized at the Academy Awards (save for the transcendent performance of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, of course). Penn rightly won the Oscar that year for Mystic River.

Every other year, the Guild has been spot on in this category.

The trend will hold this year.

Penn’s portrayal of Harvey Milk has been universally praised by critics and industry insiders alike. He is a powerhouse film performer. And he’s consistent. He’s been nominated for the Academy Award five times, each time for a leading role. Dead Man Walking. Sweet and Lowdown. I Am Sam. Mystic River. Milk.

With some exception, the Academy seems to expect more than mere transformation from its leading men. It wants a mature body of work, reason to believe the actor receiving the award is more than a flash-in-the-pan, that the performance isn’t a fluke or simply the result of skillful directing and editing. It’s an acknowledgment of skillful craft. Sometimes, a young actor makes his case. Take Adrian Brody in The Pianist or Jamie Foxx in Ray. Those performances were, without question, groundbreaking and deeply felt. Has Rourke shown himself to be that kind of actor?

How hard is it for Rourke to play a down-and-out wrestler (he’s done the boxing thing, right?) with a messed-up face (compare Rourke in 9 ½ Weeks to the man today)? Is he simply playing himself with a Macho Man Randy Savage hairdo and tights? Or is he breaking new ground, moving beyond himself?

Mr. Penn, I say make room on the mantel for that second Oscar.