So Jessica did it! She got an Oscar nomination for her outstanding work as Celia Foote in “The Help”!

Other nominees in this category are Bérénice Bejo, Melissa McCarthy, Janet McTeer and, of course, Octavia Spencer.

The Help and Tree of Life were also nominated as Best Picture. The Tree of Life got a Cinematography nomination and Terence Malick was nominated also. The amazing Viola Davis got her “Best Actress” nomination, also.

Congratulations to Jessica! The 84rd Academy Awards will take place on the 26th of February this year.

The National Society of Film Critics has named Jessica Chastain the best supporting actress for Tree of Life, Take Shelter and The Help! Congratulations to her!

The National Society, which is chaired by David Sterritt, consists of 58 critics from around the country. They named Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia the movie of the year, while best director was handled to Terrence Malick for his Tree of Life. Check the whole list here at The Hollywood Reporter

“The Tree of Life,” which already has picked up dozens of 2012 film awards, was named Best Picture Monday night by the Online Film Critics Society.

It was the night’s big winner, also picking up awards for Best Director (Terrence Malick), Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain), Best Editing and Best Cinematography. No other film won more than one award.

The film, centering on a Texas family in the 1950s, has won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Gotham Award for Best Picture, and Best Picture awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, and the Toronto Film Critics Association. It also has won multiple directing awards for Malick, acting awards for Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain and cinematography awards for Emmanuel Lubezki.

Other Online Film Critics awards went to Michael Fassbender, Best Actor for his performance in “Shame”; Tilda Swinton, Best Actress for her work in “We Need to Talk About Kevin”; and Christopher Plummer, Best Supporting Actor prize for his work in “Beginners.” In addition, Chastain received a special award for the breakout performer of the year

Another special award went to director Martin Scorsese, not only for his work, but for his efforts in the field of film preservation.

“Rango” was named Best Animated Feature and Best Screenplay awards went to “Midnight in Paris” (Original) and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (adapted). Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” was named Best Documentary and “A Separation” was named best foreign language film.

The 15-year-old film society, which hands out annual awards, consists of reviewers and journalists from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific Rim region.

 

 
Source

Jessica Chastain has had a remarkably busy 2011.

She has had five breakout performances, playing a maternal goddess, a Southern belle, an Israeli Mossad agent, a wife to a crazy Michael Shannon in “Take Shelter” and a distraught spouse in “Coriolanus.”

Astonishingly, the actress received critical praise from all of her films. But many believe that the sheer number of Chastain’s performances could actually deter her from receiving the Oscar nomination that many believe she is due. (more…)

She will be Princess Diana in a coming film. She has just been named by the New York Film Critics’ Circle as 2011’s Best Supporting Actress for her performances in not one, but three films: “The Help,” “The Tree of Life” and “Take Shelter.” Her name is likely to be heard at nominations announcements during this awards season. The Independent Spirit Award began the momentum by announcing her as a Best Supporting Actress nominee for “Take Shelter.”

Brad Pitt and Sean Penn held her hands on Cannes’ red carpet. She will costar with Tom Cruise in a sci-fi movie. Terrence Malick has cast her again in his next film, and she’ll be seen in several films by interesting directors.

“She” is Jessica Chastain, who gives credit to Al Pacino for all of these projects. Very fair, freckled and blessed with lovely green eyes, the actress has the kind of face that enables her to easily morph into different characters. Jessica as the social-climbing Celia Foote in “The Help” is completely different from her Texan wife and mother, Mrs. O’Brien, in “The Tree of Life,” which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes last May. (more…)

Looking to update the site, I added captures of ‘The Tree of Life’ in our gallery. More updates to come, so do not forget to keep checking us.

When Jessica Chastain left her theater training at Juilliard and started landing movie roles, she got a gift. None of the movies came out right away. It took a while before anyone saw her work in Al Pacino’s Wilde Salome (which finally debuts in Venice), or Terrence Malick’s mystical The Tree of Life (which Fox Searchlight premiered in Cannes before a summer opening), or John Madden’s Mossad thriller The Debt, which post-Disney Miramax finally sold to distributor Focus Features (August 31).

The delayed openings meant that Chastain remained a hot actress—and a blank slate. Nobody projected her last movie onto what they thought she could do. So she was able to be a chameleon, playing a dramatic actress, a sweetly luminous idealized 50s mother, and a tough-as-nails assassin. She also earned raves as brassy southern blonde Celia in summer lit hit The Help, and starred opposite Michael Shannon as his wife in the ominously atmospheric drama Take Shelter, which played Sundance and Cannes, and will show on the fest circuit before Sony Pictures Classics opens it September 30. Ralph Fiennes also cast her as his wife in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, where she stood her ground against both him and the magnificent Vanessa Redgrave as her mother-in-law. Weinstein Co. picked up the film after it earned raves in Berlin; it will play Toronto before its December release. And Chastain also landed a spot in another fall fest film, Texas Killing Fields, as well as TWC’s upcoming period gangster ensemble Wettest County. We talk about all these films below.

In an early alert to retailers FOX has made public plans to bring the 2011 Terrence Malick written & directed film “The Tree of Life” starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain to Blu-ray Disc on October 11th. Tech specs and bonus materials have not yet been officially detailed but stay tuned. The title is already available for PRE-ORDER over at Amazon with a $27.99 price tag.

I have a bunch of Jessica interviews she did while promoting Tree of Life laying here on my computer waiting to be added in our video archive. While I don’t do that, I did some screen captures, and you can find it in our gallery:

Flicks and Bits have posted an interview done with Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt about “The Tree of Life”. Check the Jessica’s excerpts behind the cut:

Working with Terrence Malick must be an extraordinary and unique experience?
For me it was a lot about giving up any idea of what the plan might be on the first scene, or on a day that we were going to film, it was all about capturing an accident. There was a scene where we were shooting a grief section and I remember I was watching Brad, he was so good, then there’s this Woodpecker going and Terry was like, “there’s a Woodpecker somewhere!” And he’d point the camera towards that. But there’s always ways to incorperate it, even in the trailer when you hear the voiceover go “there are two ways through life, the way of nature, and the way of grace,” you hear a bird in the background, that’s actually from the set, when I was doing the voiceover.

(more…)