Hammond on Best Actress

Pete Hammond continues his Notes on a Season by reporting on the Best Actress race:

Certainly Mulligan isn’t the only best actress contender whose work will be on display this weekend at this kickoff film festival for the “serious season.” Abbie Cornish’s performance in Jane Campion’s ¬†”Bright Star” is being talked about, and “An Education’s” distributor Sony Pictures Classics has also brought along “Coco Before Chanel,” which boasts a superb Audrey Tautou turn as the legendary designer.

I talked to Sony Pictures Classics co-President Michael Barker about his Oscar chances with several movies this year (he has four at this festival alone), and he backed off, saying he doesn’t want to be jinxed this early, particularly by bloggers already predicting a potential win by Mulligan, whose film doesn’t even hit theaters until Oct. 9. He had no comment when I predicted¬†a¬†Golden Globe¬†drama win for Mulligan and a comedy win for Meryl Streep in “Julie and Julia,” setting up an Oscar smackdown between newcomer and veteran. Barker did say he totally approved of the academy’s move from five to 10 best picture¬†nominations and has made that point to several entertainment writers he says don’t want to hear the positive opinion of Oscar’s new rule because it doesn’t fit in with their (negative) spin.

That’s an interesting take on it. We here at AD have been positive on it from the beginning, and I’d also like to state, for the record, that I am not predicting Mulligan to win Best Actress. As far as I can tell, there are no clear winners for anything visible right now.