Best Actress, like Best Actor, is a category where our staff is asked to make a determination about whether a performance is the lead or a supporting role. We make no such request of you and are in fact oftentimes curious to see what the overall opinion is of some such offerings. We were surprised that you agreed that Meryl Streep offered the best role of the year. She bordered on being a compromise candidate in our vote, which may have also happened here.

BOP's staff was completely divided on which of the female performances in Up in the Air was better. We eventually settled upon Vera Farmiga's voice of experience and sporadic immaturity. You disagreed in naming Anna Kendrick the second best actress of the year, edging out Farmiga by percentage points. You believed that Kendrick's ability to develop a relatively one-note character, the neurotic brainiac, into a winning character was the more impressive demonstration of acting. Alternately, you punished Farmiga for some of the actions of her character. Whatever the rationale, you liked the kid better.





Similarly, our staff was torn in choosing the better offering from Inglourious Basterds. We vacillated between Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger for the body of the voting period. You had no such confusion on the matter. Laurent made an appearance in your top five while Kruger barely held a spot in the top ten. Also, you liked the two primarily lauded performances in Precious, those by Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, as well as Carey Mulligan's impossibly winning role in An Education. You also liked Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, albeit not quite as much as we did, and held Zoe Saldana in equally high esteem for her motion capture work in Avatar.

The place where we did not line up at all was the portrayal of Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Apparently, you people did not see Evanna Lynch in the lion hat. There is no other logical explanation for the divide between our estimation of her performance and yours. We selected her as the sixth nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category. You people held her in lower esteem than a porn star. I'm not even joking. Sasha Grey's outing in The Girlfriend Experience garnered more votes than Lynch was given for her adorable turn as Luna Lovegood. I hate when you, the reader, and I fight, but this is the equivalent of your slapping me in the face with a glove and challenging me to a duel. I'm going to have to ask you to step outside. Luna Lovegood's hat's honor must be defended.

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