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Renee Zellweger: "Judy"

*Renee Zellweger will win the Oscar for playing Judy Garland, and this is another case of a movie star playing a (different) movie star. (Think of Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, ScarJo as Janet Leigh, Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly, Robert Downey, Jr. as Chaplin.)

What IS rare is when a star-impersonates-older-star performance wins an Oscar. This happened for a supporting role in "Ed Wood"; it happened for "The Aviator." (Something in the same ballpark happened with "Ray," but Ray wasn't a movie star; Ray was a musician. Same for Witherspoon in "Walk the Line." And Spacek as Loretta Lynn.)

*No one thinks that Ms. Zellweger really should get an Oscar this time around. The buzz is that the year's best performance came from Alfre Woodard, in "Clemency"; Ms. Woodard wasn't nominated.

*Each year, the Times critics list their ideal nominees for the performance awards. It's striking that, in three of four cases, the people who are going to win the Oscar for a performance this year weren't even designated as ideal nominees. Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix, Zellweger: These folks didn't earn any love from Dargis or A.O. Scott. But Mr. Scott DID think that Brad Pitt deserves an acting nomination. (Dargis didn't agree.)

*It helps to: play an actual real-world person, play a person with a disability, play a person with an addiction, play a person who screams and rips things but who also has tender, quiet moments with suffering, oppressed bystanders. We all know this. And, so, Ms. Zellweger: Check, check, check. But it seems to me the main value of a movie is its chance to show us new things about human relationships. To give us two or more interesting characters relating to one another in unusual ways. "Judy" doesn't have two characters; I'm not even sure it has *one* character. So the hoopla is unfortunate. My two cents.

More soon.....

P.S. Remember Tammy Blanchard has gold for a Judy performance. Blanchard won an Emmy for being Judy Garland in a TV affair.
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