|
By David Fear
Special to MSN Movies
Normally, the question on everybody's lips after the Academy Award
nominations are announced in January is: What will win the Best Picture Oscar?
This year, pundits and performers were left pondering a rather different query:
Er, are there actually going to be any Academy Awards?
No need to worry, folks: The show will go on. A big deal was recently made
ending the months-long Writers Guild walkout, thus allowing writers to provide
Jon Stewart with witty bon mots about teenage
pregnancy, mop-topped assassins and why you should never go bowling with Daniel Day-Lewis.
With that in mind, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and get back to more
important inquiries. For example, will Anton Chigurh get his butt kicked by the
guy who plays Mark Twain onstage? Do people prefer Cate Blanchett as a regal master of war or tangled up
in blue? And our favorite: Juno ... huh?
Once again, we bring out the tea leaves and tarot cards to boldly predict
who'll be leaving a winner and who'll be left whining in the parking lot. Let
the guesstimating begin!
Best Supporting Actor
It's no secret this category has
always had a soft spot for actors playing extroverts, eccentrics and
psychopaths; if you're one of the lucky few actors who gets handed an
extroverted, eccentric psychopath (see Joe Pesci, Kevin Spacey, Kevin Kline), you'd better start
clearing some space on your awards shelf now. Before people place their bets in
the office pool, they best not forget this is also a category that's never shied
away from recognizing the work of veteran performers in their autumn years (see
Don Ameche, Martin Landau, Alan Arkin). And wouldn't you know
it? The top two contenders fit those descriptions to a tee.
Who Will Win: Because Javier Bardem has swept most of the
major critics' association awards, nabbed a Screen Actors Guild trophy and took
home a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the oddly coiffed hit man Anton Chigurh
in "No Country for Old Men," we're guessing he's good to go for
the gold here. Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that voters may
reward Hal Holbrook for both his emotionally devastating
performance in "Into the Wild" and for his decades-long career. However,
something tells us that when ballots were handed out, academy members were
subliminally quaking over the thought of someone with a cattle stun gun showing
up at their doorstep if they didn't check Bardem's name. Count on the Spanish
actor to walk away with it.
Who Should Win: We're OK with either Bardem or Holbrook,
because both did stunning work that still gives us goose bumps months after
seeing the films for the first time. Still, we're hoping Bardem's name gets
called; he deserves it for turning Cormac McCarthy's baroque angel of death into
a memorable cold-blooded killer for the ages. You got a problem with that ...
friendo?
Best Supporting Actress
Again, we've got a situation
where nostalgia could be a factor and the possibility of an upset lends the
category an air of unpredictability. If you'd asked most people a few months ago
which female performers would go head to head here, they would have guessed a
Queens-bred performer playing Beantown working-class or an Aussie hottie playing
Bob Dylan. Then out of nowhere, an elderly legend of stage
and screen elbowed her way into the pack, and by gum, we got ourselves a
horserace!
Who Will Win: This is a tough-ish call. Cate Blanchett's
Golden Globe for her "Don't Look Now"-era Dylan in "I'm Not There" and the surprise nomination of the well-loved
Ruby Dee for "American Gangster," however, cast doubt on the
certainty of the situation. But Blanchett is nominated for both a Supporting
Actress and Best Actress award (for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"), which usually cancel
each other out, and though Dee's matron is the moral center of "Gangster," the
shout-out feels like more of a tip of the industry hat rather than the
coronation of a serious contender. And Amy Ryan's turn as Boston's worst
mother in "Gone Baby Gone" has helped her claim the almost unanimous
blessings of critics' associations, so another statuette for her seems
inevitable. This is Ryan's year.
Who Should Win: We've been fans of Ryan's work on HBO's "The Wire" for years and really
love the way she makes the screw-up of "Gone" both pathetic and sympathetic ("I
feel like 9/11 right now!"), so we hope she gets her moment in the spotlight.
Yet Blanchett's version of Bob the Bard in his wild, mercurial phase is such a
stunner that we wish she would be gracing the stage; the way the actress nails
the musician's snakelike movements and edgy attitude is remarkable on every
level. In a perfect world, she would be the night's award-winning lady of the
lowlands.
Best Actor
Technically, this category should be a
toss-up. There is so much talent fighting it out for the honor, and in our
humble opinion, this is one of the few times the academy has picked five
extraordinary performances that all deserve to win. In almost any other year, Johnny Depp's vengeful barber in "Sweeney Todd," George Clooney's conflicted corporate clean-up man in
"Michael Clayton," Viggo Mortensen's roughneck Russian
gangster in "Eastern Promises" and Tommy Lee Jones mourning ex-military man in "In the Valley of Elah" would probably have guaranteed the
actors a victory. But there's one nominee who stands head and shoulders above
the rest, and come Oscar night, he will most assuredly drink all of their
milkshakes.
Who Will Win: Whether you love or loathe "There Will Be Blood," you have to admit Daniel Day-Lewis's
portrayal of a take-no-prisoners oil baron is a sight to behold. The lanky
British actor has cleaned up on the awards circuit -- you name it, he's nabbed
it -- and the deafening buzz around his monstrous man of industry has only
gained momentum as the ceremony draws nearer. His win is the closest thing to a
sure thing on Oscar night, and we're willing to stake our first-born child on
the fact that, when the envelope is torn open, Day-Lewis will be the one
striding stiff-legged up to the podium. (Story Continues On Next Page...) |
Hotmail
