Best of 2012: Supporting Actress

I know, I'm terrible at keeping up with these, but this just hasn't been my week, okay? I'm back now, though, with the latest addition to my 2012 personal ballots. This time with the next acting category.

Best Supporting Actress

• Gina Gershon for Killer Joe - For absolutely giving herself over to the degrading and woozily foreboding mess that is Killer Joe with brittle, unflinching desperation.

• Louise Harris for The Snowtown Murders - For shading this devastated mother with gravel-coated bitterness and a sense of life-stricken weariness without wallowing in miserabilism.

• Nicole Kidman  for The Paperboy - Because she fearlessly tackles the film's disarmingly vulgar form of veracity and lustful tones with deliciously grimy, yet human detail.

• Diane Kruger for Farewell, My Queen - For exquisitely furnishing Marie Antoinette with delicate vulnerability, narcissism and heartbreaking flourishes of longing.

• Elena Lyadova for Elena - For breaking through her character's cracked shell with such rich, thematically perceptive wit, and shaping sharp, resentful and reluctant edges while doing so. 

Honorable Mentions: My sincerest apologies for not getting around to Middle of Nowhere beforehand, which Lorraine Toussaint is supposedly sublime in. I promise to rectify the situation as soon as it releases on DVD (seriously, DVD people, any day now).

Now that that's out of the way, both Macy Gray and Isabelle Huppert (two names you always knew you'd see mentioned together) both craft thematically vital and emotionally stingy miniature portraits in The Paperboy and Amour, respectively, and are my very honorable mentions.

Megalyn Echikunwoke broadcasts hilarious impatience and insightful navel-gazing, while nailing Damsels in Distress' very bleak comic tone; Olivia Munn gracefully ignites her character with a winning combination of personality, nuance, intelligence and sultriness in ways that may not have clicked as well with other actresses in Magic Mike; Emily Blunt continues to prove her unique simpatico relationship with her characters, showing layers of flaw and regret in Looper; I wish Kathryn Hahn had been able to earn the uncommon deftness of humor and character she possesses in Wanderlust with a little more to do, but she's a no-bullshit comic delight, regardless; Eva Green has the misfortune of being in a movie that doesn't entirely deserve her (though, I was more forgiving of this film than others), she's still so cheekily game, sexually vivacious and in tune of the tongue-in-cheek goofiness of Dark Shadows; Jennifer Ehle exudes personable fatigue in Zero Dark Thirty and brings out Chastain's best moments with gal pal jovialness; and Emma Watson channels her inner-Molly Ringwald in The Perks of Being a Wallflower coloring a surprisingly complex and warm spin on teenage angst.

I can't say I'd readily include Amy Adams  for The Master (who, becoming especially apparent on a second viewing, isn't given much of a character), Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables (who, to me, does the exact opposite of what Louise Harris does in Snowtown), Sally Field  for Lincoln (who I actually like as Mary Todd Lincoln, but wasn't quite Honorable Mention material), or Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook. Though, they all have their moments, if we're being generous to Jacki Weaver, an actress I love, but is offensively underutilized in her film. I really don't get what people saw in that performance. It's all especially befuddling when you consider how well David O. Russell has captured family discord in the past through his lively ensembles. Anyway, as for Helen Hunt, well, just wait until I announce my Lead Actress nominees. Since it's a LEAD performance.

I believe I've covered all of my bases. Can't promise this week will be as productive (tests and whatnot), but the benefit of being your own audience is that you don't have to worry about the impatience of your readership. Have a lovely rest of the weekend!