86th Academy Awards Analysis and Predictions: Best Actor and Best Actress

Andrew: Hello readers! Day Three of our coverage leading up to this Sunday's 86th Academy Awards is here. Yesterday we discussed the categories for Best Animated Feature, Best Song, Best Score and Best Visual Effects (which you can read HERE if you want to give those a gander), and today we'll be delving into the two big acting categories - Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress. 

Sarah, because of the film we just watched last night in our attempts to get caught up on Oscar films, let's kick things off with the Best Lead Actress category shall we?

Best Lead Actress

The nominees for Best Lead Actress are:

- Amy Adams, American Hustle

- Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

- Sandra Bullock, Gravity

- Judi Dench, Philomena

- Meryl Streep, August: Osage County

For a while now the consensus has been that Cate Blanchett is the easy front-runner in this category, Sarah. Last night we were finally able to see her performance as a woman having a bit of a mental breakdown following the arrest and death of her Bernie Madoff-like husband. After watching Blue Jasmine do you think she's the easy call here or does she have some true competition?

Fox Strikes Gold with Their Bullock/McCarthy Buddy-Cop Comedy: Our Review of "The Heat" (2013)

Directed By: Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) 

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy

Rating: R for pervasive language, strong crude content and some violence

Run Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

Synopsis: Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) has high aspirations in the FBI and wants to impress her boss, so she reluctantly takes a drug ring case in Boston that forces her to team up with a brash police detective named Shannon Mullins (McCarthy). With styles and personalities that clash, they struggle to find a way to work with each other in bringing down the drug kingpin...and maybe even become friends in the process. 

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Today sees the release of one of the bigger name comedies of the year, The Heat, starring Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) and Melissa McCarthy (Identity Thief) as an FBI agent and a Boston police detective forced to work together to bring down a drug ring. It’s a R-rated comedy brought to us by Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids, the film that McCarthy was a supporting role in and was her breakout role.

Sarah and I were fortunate enough to see a screening of The Heat weeks ago, and

this was a movie that was originally slated to come out last April but it was pushed back to its current release date at the end of June by 20^th Century Fox. I originally wasn’t quite sure why they pushed it back, but now after seeing it, I think we can assume it’s because they knew what kind of film they had and wanted to get big summer dollars

Sarah: I would agree with you on that one. There would really be no other reason I could see other than to get it into the summer blockbuster series.

Going into this film…Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, done by the same guy who did Bridesmaids…what did you feel Feig followed up his 2011 hit with this new buddy-cop flick?