Another Sporklie

The juiciest category in any Oscar season is Best Supporting Actress, where the Academy awards the actress who dismisses "supporting" status and instead steals the show.

The list of winners comprises an Olympus-worthy assortment of Elite Aesthetes, from Meryl Streep to Mo'Nique, who expertly concluded that smaller parts require bigger acting (and a cigarette).

Sittin' Pissed n' Smokin' in the Kitchen: The Production Still Secret to Winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar

Jo Van Fleet, in East of Eden (1956)

Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon (1974)

Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted (2000)

Marcia Gay Harden, in Pollock (2001)

Mo'Nique in Precious (2010)

 Does this mean Oscar destiny for Melissa Leo?

The 2011 Oscar list includes five such Oscar-baiting performances. There's Melissa Leo and Jacki Weaver as scary middle aged blonde tiger moms, Hailee Steinfeld as the precocious Lady Justice of the Wild West, Amy Adams as some guy's girlfriend, and Helena Bonham Carter as the fag-hag Queen Mum. But we at Film Spork, and admittedly much of the critical establishment (we can't help being imitated, it's flattering), believed someone was missing. And the Sporklie Spork goes to...




...Lesley Manville, as Mary in Another Year.

Mike Leigh's latest highly acclaimed and under-nominated meditation on the unequal distribution of happiness stars a fairly happy middle aged couple and their assortment of needy friends they keep to feel even better about themselves.  Lesley Manville's character is lovely but lonely, a desperate drinker who clings to males like a gecko to glass, and employs a lizard-laser, searching gaze that reminds one, perhaps strangely, of Heath Ledger's antics as The Joker from The Dark Knight. But while the Joker organized chaos, Mary makes chaotic stumbles toward stability.  Some say investing so much of himself in the sociopathic Joker led to Heath's demise. Lesley Manville so fully inhabits a character of such cringe-worthy sadness, I would call the achievement no less skilled -- or dangerous. She deserved a nod.

Justice is Served.

Fatal Flaw: Lesley replaced the cigarette with a wine glass. And look - no Oscar!

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