So my wife has put Dreamgirls on, and though I still think the soundtrack is excellent, watching the 2006 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Hudson, I'm finally able to say what many others have felt: not the best supporting female performance of 2006. I'm still willing to give Ms. Hudson the benefit of the doubt--her tiny role in the Sex and the City was awful and mildly racist for many reasons, and it was poorly acted. However, since the film is such a cesspool, I'm not going to make a judgment on her acting abilities.
But watching her performance in the splashy musical makes me think about another victim of diminishing returns, last year's little film that could, Juno. Watching it in the theater, I had a smile on my face throughout the entire film. Beginning to end, I was hooked; it was one of my favorite films of the year, though nowhere near as masterful as No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood; I knew that before I realized it was a film with a quick shelf life. That awareness came when my wife and I watched it on our new Blu-ray player (and if ever a movie did not demand hi-def, this is that movie); sure, the movie was funny, but the dialogue took longer to work. Even though I loved the film, the opening scene with Ellen Page and Rainn Wilson working with the quirky rat-a-tat dialogue falls even flatter, and things don't pick up until the scene where Juno tells her parents she's pregnant. Even then, the movie never works here as well as it did originally.
Of course, there's no why or how, no way to tell what film from this year, for example, will be championed on Day 1 and forgotten a year later. Movies gain and lose resonance frequently, but every year, one Oscar hopeful gets boosted up for no good reason. Was it hype that now somewhat ruins Juno or Jennifer Hudson for me? Maybe, but the only thing that's certain is that these two haven't picked up overall. Like most awarded movies, they're not being sufficiently remembered, but unlike some unfortunate cases when this happens for the wrong reasons, I think these problems aren't manufactured, and aren't wrong.
Eddie Murphy, though...he still deserved an Oscar for Dreamgirls. Shame he had to put the fat suit on so soon after.
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