Sulmoney’s Oscar Predictions – Best Actor

Hans got a compliment from his training teacher; he was commended on his ability to read. High five!

From a two woman race in the Best Actress category, we move on to a two man race for Best Actor. From a career resurrection, to another fine performance in his resume, the other nominees need not come Sunday night. The nominees include Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk),  Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). (Full disclosure: I still need to see The Visitor, don’t judge me!)

Who Will Win

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Hollywood loves a redemption story, and there is none hotter right now than Mickey Rourke’s. Poised to be the biggest Hollywood star of the 80s and 90s, Rourke took a well documented detour and became Hollywood poison. Slowly working his way back into everyone’s good graces, Rourke completed his comeback with perhaps his finest and most authentic performance to date as a broken down, aging wrestler out for one last hurrah, a role that critics point out was not hard for him to pull off as it is his story. Nonetheless, it was the best performance of the year by anyone, and one that will studied for years.

Who Should Win

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Mickey has this on lock. I hope. If it is not going to be Mickey Rourke though, it will be this guy…

Sean Penn in Milk

Sean Penn gives another amazing performance as Harvey Milk, and is just as deserving as Mickey Rourke for the grand prize. As awful as it may sound to say it, I feel that there may be some sort of homophobic backlash against Penn’s performance, and it may have rubbed some of the voters the wrong way, similar to how Brokeback Mountain and Heath Ledger were seemingly locks a few years back but came away empty handed, save for Ang Lee’s win. Penn is deserving of it, and becomes Harvey Milk, and it is another iconic performance.

Who Was Snubbed

Colin Farrell in In Bruges

Anybody who has followed this blog knows my love and admiration for In Bruges, and at the core of this great picture is a performance from Colin Farrell that will change his career. He earned a Golden Globe for it, and he was an outside shot at getting the nomination, but fans of the film will be rooting for Martin McDonagh in the Original Screenplay category. If you still have not seen this gem, definitely make the effort to see it, and treasure the performance by not only Colin Farrell, but also Bredan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes.

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Hans’s #3 – Doubt

Well unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s much to bash in Sulmoney’s #4 pick of The Dark Knight. What can I say? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

…Sulmoney is the broken clock. Here, finally, is my #3.

Doubt

In Doubt, a curmedgeonly nun and Catholic school principal (Meryl Streep) works tirelessly to expel the progressive and popular priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who may or may not have molested a young boy, but let’s clear up one misconception right off the bat: this is not a movie about a Catholic priest molesting a young boy. In a way, that hot-button issue is simply what Hitchcock would call the “MacGuffin.” It’s only a device that motivates the characters and inspires the real meat of this film, which essentially boils down to 5 or 6 long, drawn-out scenes of brutally uncomfortable verbal conflicts riddled with subtext and unspoken implications. Much like Frost/Nixon, Doubt is a film about argumentation and ideological clash. Incidentally, both films draw on source material from the theater, but while Frost/Nixon adapted the subject matter with a familiar underdog structure, Doubt moves in an entirely different direction and delivers a moviegoing experience unlike any other.

Ah, child molestation. It warms the heart.

Doubt is an indictment of certainty, which seems a little obvious to say the least, so let me redo that: Doubt is an indictment of certainty. With this film, writer-director John Patrick Shanley (who also penned the play on which the film is based) has crafted a Rorschach test so ambiguous that it’s really a test of the viewer’s own biases. The film never even comes close to presenting the audience with enough evidence to make a valid assessment of guilt, but every viewer will likely come out of it with their own reasons for leaning one way or the other. It’s the ultimate form of audience participation, but anybody foolish enough to believe they’ve really “solved” the mystery has likely missed the point of the film entirely.

The scene where Father Flynn mistakes Amy Adams for a young boy.

And then there’s the cast. The film relies hugely on individual performances, so it’s very fortunate that the screen is populated with some of the best actors to ever grace the big screen.  As much as I liked watching Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio rip into each other for 2 hours in Revolutionary Road, the two of them got nothing on Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, though the Golden Globe voters would have you believe otherwise. In Doubt, these screen legends imbue every line with an intensity that’s just uncanny, and they do it all without shouting at the top of their lungs, growling all their lines, or smacking their lips while changing voices.

I haven’t even mentioned the supporting work of Viola Davis in one of the film’s most shocking reveals, the fantastic subtleties of the dialogue, or the pitch-perfect cinematography by Roger Deakins, who has made a career out of finding beauty in the mundane, but they’re all part of the laundry list of reasons why it’s a shame this film won’t receive the attention it deserves come Oscar time.

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