It's not the screentime alone that matters, it is also how integral the character is to the plot. I do't know about Amy Adams in Doubt, but the trailer definitely made Streep seem like the film's main focus.

wow. you guys are really heated over this

I think what would bother me most about her winning Supporting Actress and not Lead Actress is because I actually think she deserves the Lead Actress award. I think she was better than Streep frankly.

If she won both... I wouldn't be too sour about it (though I'm rooting for Penelope) but the Globes sorta stole the thunder for that.

As far as the category fraud comments... it's really not that clear cut after watching the film to tell you the truth. Pople could argue either way in my opinion. I'd be inclined to put her in the lead actress category.

Penelope Cruz is fantastic in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It would be a shame for her to lose it.

Streep is the main focus, but the entire plot of the movie is set in motion by Amy Adams' character, so going by similar reasoning, you could argue Amy should be in Lead Actress. Which, after seeing the film, she should not be.

Maybe she'll lose S.A. and win Best Actress...

I don't doubt Kate will be very happy. This thread is supposed to represent MY OWN perspective on things.

And Michael (David Kross, Ralph Fiennes) is the main focus of The Reader, not Hanna (Kate Winslet).

Sure, Hanna is integral to the storyline (as is Amy Adams in Doubt), but it ultimately is Michael's story (as Doubt is ultimately Meryl Streep's).

Kate Winslet in The Reader is probably the best performance of the year...it's a very thin line between Supporting & Lead, and were it not for RevoRoad it surely would be campaigned as lead. Compared to her role in RevoRoad it is certainly not as central. I've seen both, btw.

If both of her films were campaigned with her as lead (or neither, leading the voters to category confusion) she would probably cancel herself out and end up with not even a single nomination this year. I.e. Scarlett Johansson in '03, who a few predicted to get a double nom, while many predicted at least one, and she got zilch. Double acclaim + category confusion killed her.

I think Kate not even being nominated would be a bigger shame than this very arguable category confusion.

Saw the Reader...there's no way in hell that was supporting. Like, the movie is her. That's it.

I kinda don't want her to win either, to be completely honest.

It's nothing against Kate, or her performances. She is amazing. But she's had an incredible career so far and doesn't really need an Oscar to prove that. If anything I feel that recent female Oscar winners were hurt more by their wins than anything else, no one more so than Nicole Kidman. She already has enough recognition as it is, and 7 nominations at her age is pretty amazing in itself. I feel that if she won there would be some sort of backlash. There always seems to be with female celebrities when they reach a certain amount of success (the one exception recently I guess would be Cate Blanchett). I've already read some negative reaction to Winslet's two wins at the Globes, which makes me think she would not be an exception. So, meh. Oscar is not the ultimate measure of what is good anyway.

I can't see her career going downhill. I have yet to come across a bad role she has picked.

Her role in this is a bad role. She performs it very well, but it was a very bad choice on her part.

I want her to win one just so she takes on a few more um... less baity roles. Seems like her career for the last while has been centered around "give me a motherfuckin Oscar already!".

There's a good chance she's winning an Oscar for it, so I wouldn't call it a "bad choice" on her part.

she seemed pretty embarrassed by it actually. I saw her speak several weeks ago and she didn't particularly want to talk about it. She even preferred answering the 47 questions about Titanic.

It's a good performance, but not the movie for which Winslet should win her first Oscar, and not in the supporting category when it's clearly a lead performance.

I think among other things Winslet will win an Oscar this year because she has been VERY vocal about wanting to win one.

I predict Winslet will now win the lead after all. It's the best of the both worlds, I think, winning Actress and for her better performance of the year.

With The Reader doing as well as it did, and this is such an obvious category for it to not go empty handed, I can't see Winslet losing.

Yeah, she's totally gonna win, and I think it's hilarious since she's been so outspoken about preferring Rev Road.

yes, she's winning Best Actress.

Yup. guaranteed.

Uhh, I am now reversing my stance on this. Looks like the AMPAS is not that stupid afterall.

Same. The Reader's totally unexpected dominance in Picture/Director/Screenplay shows it has a lot of support.