Best Actor 1999

[Uri]

Since Crow is the only one of these I'd nominate, he's my pick. Spacey's and Penn's nominations are also acceptable and probably Fransworth too, even though I didn't buy his film. Washington deserves all the scolding he's getting here. An alternative list containing Jim Broadbent (my favorite performance of the year in my favorite film), Damon, Fines, Norton and Stamp seems to be a far more reasonable one.

[Mister Tee]

So, BJ, we find out what your From Here to Eternity was. Wouldn't have guessed it.

I'm the slacker getting to this year; real life is just too busy for me right now.

Of the substitutes people have suggested, I'm very ambivalent about Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Though I love the film, I found Damon's performance somewhat uncertain. This worked for the story, given Ripley's uneasiness about working his way into the upper class, but it was hard for me to tell if the uncertainty I saw was calculated or Damon not quite being sure of himself as an actor. Perhaps if I look at it again, knowing Damon's work so much better after all this time, I'd have a different sense.

But my candidate for joining the group would be Edward Norton for Fight Club -- perhaps the last performance that really made him seem ready to join the acting pantheon. (Not that we wouldn't welcome a comeback today)

Of the nominees: I think The Hurricane is a close to abyssmal movie -- corny, manipulative, on a phoniness par with stuff like Ghosts of Mississippi. Denzel Washington has moments in it, but not remotely enough to offset his surroundings. I found it unfathomable that he was a co-favorite for the win, and I was thrilled voters turned on him in the end.

Surprise nominee Sean Penn is OK in Sweet and Lowdown, but I agree with Damien, his character is so loathsome it's hard to get excited about the performance.

The other three are all worthy. I can see why alot of people are lining up behind Richard Farnsworth. He's a wonderful, traditional kind of Hollywood face who got to his greatest fame quite late in life. My problem is, I find The Straight Story, while perfectly honorable work, a bit on the dull side. And I find the other two nominess considerably more exciting.

I'm with Italiano, that this is the only time when I could in conscience vote for Russell Crowe. It's hard to even remember how interesting an actor he seemed then, following LA Confidential, and this movie The Insider, which he stole from accomplished Hollyywood names. He creates a Jeffrey Wigand -- a tortured, often tongue-tied man put into an impossible situtaion -- filled with pathos. It's sad that he's followed it up with performances as stupes in such as American Gangster, which actively diminish the memory of this fine work. But he's a close runner-up here.

However, I'm another Kevin Spacey guy. It's true American Beauty's reputation has declined over the decade, but, as I've said elsewhere, I've never viewed declines or appreciations for films as necessarily the result of people reversing opinions, but more a case of those who originally held contrary opinions (yea or nay) taking hold of the megaphone and not letting go. I still like the film. And I think it's Spacey's finest hour. Like other Spacey supporters, I totally disagree that he's miscast or doesn't have the range for the role. For me, Lester Burnham begins at a point where he's touched bottom -- "This will be the high point of my day" is his line from the opening scene. It makes perfect sense for Spacey to play him full of snark, and, certainly, scenes like telling off his boss or his dinner table tantrum are vintage Spacey. But I think he also has scenes that take him far past that familiar persona. I absolutely love the scene where he's caught smoking dope, tries to hide it, and bursts into uncontrollable laughter when the smoke escapes. And his final scene with Mena Suvari -- when he discovers she's far more vulnerable than he'd imagined -- is about the tenderest moment he's ever had on-screen.

Given that Spacey's cinema career has hit something of a tailspin since, I guess Okri is correct that he doesn't make sense as a two-Oscar actor. But, based on performance, I'd vote him both times, emphatically including here.

[dws1982]

As an added bonus, one of the characters was a high schooler who carried a video camera around, as I often did at the time, who happened to be played by an actor who could be my doppelganger.

If you had been born just eight or so years later you would have instead carried around a video cell phone and would not have stood out at all in a suburban high school.

You'd get it confiscated at the one I work at.

[Greg]

As an added bonus, one of the characters was a high schooler who carried a video camera around, as I often did at the time, who happened to be played by an actor who could be my doppelganger.

If you had been born just eight or so years later you would have instead carried around a video cell phone and would not have stood out at all in a suburban high school.

[Sabin]

The Original BJ wrote
And little Haley Joel is a lead, no?

Yes.

[ITALIANO]

There are certainly better movies than American Beauty, but if it works - and it definitely worked back then for many viewers - it's at least partly because of Kevin Spacey's performance. If it's acting we must consider here - rather than the movie it belongs to - then Spacey deserves to win. I picked him.

It took me some time, actually, because there are other good performances here, and I knew that this was the only chance I had to vote for Russel Crowe - in by far his best nominated performance. Farnsworth is also memorable, of course. But in the end I have to be objective, and yes, Kevin Spacey's turn in American Beauty is the best of these five.

[The Original BJ]

This is one of the most difficult years for me to decide on a choice, because 1) I would be happy to cheer for no less than three of these nominees, and 2) I can’t claim any kind of objectivity with respect to one of these films. So, if you bother to keep reading, just know this post is going to be LONG.

I’d predicted Jim Carrey in Penn’s spot, but his omission this year didn’t bother me. I thought The Truman Show pushed the Carrey persona into emotionally affecting places, but Man on the Moon seemed pretty much just Carrey’s typical shtick in an atypical (for him) movie.

I was far more disappointed that The Talented Mr. Damon was excluded, for his intelligent, disturbing, sexually ambiguous Tom Ripley, still my favorite performance of his.

And little Haley Joel is a lead, no?

One of the big problems I have with Sweet and Lowdown is that Sean Penn’s character is just so mean, it’s hard to really root for him, or even find him all that funny. Penn brings a certain base level of inspiration to the character—it’s certainly better than his next nomination—but you get the sense voters just wanted to keep giving him placeholder nominations until he finally found that great role for which he could win.

The Hurricane is pretty much the epitome of a cheese-tastic liberal guilt movie -- my favorite part is the fact that Carter’s team of saviors just KNOW he’s innocent, before they even start looking at the facts. Cause, you know, RACISM! And yet…Denzel Washington’s performance is just about the only thing in the movie that has some kick to it. He refuses to sanctify the character, and in fact, makes him arrogant enough so that it’s perfectly understandable why white cops with an axe to grind would have wanted to put Carter in his place. But he isn’t special enough to be in the conversation this year, and seeing as how he was probably the runner-up for the prize, I’m glad he didn’t win.

Now it gets tricky. I’d be happy to declare a three-way tie between the remaining nominees, and call it a day. But to play by the rules…

What’s most amazing about Russell Crowe’s performance in The Insider is just how different he LOOKS. I don’t mean just the weight gain. I mean that Crowe CARRIES himself as Jeffrey Wigand in such a way as to seem like an entirely different actor from the one many of us met in L.A. Confidential, and who we would continue to get to know in many Oscar-bait roles over the next few years. Crowe’s performance here is the most technically accomplished on the ballot, full of fascinating bits of business and character details. I don’t think he’s given anywhere near as full-bodied a performance since, completely transforming into this frustrated, worn-down, angry character and commanding the screen with power and intelligence.

And then there’s Richard Farnsworth, who certainly gives the most emotionally overwhelming performance on the ballot. I take one look at Alvin Straight’s face and want to burst into tears, so delicate and human is Farnsworth’s take on this character. From telling a young girl round the campfire about the importance of family, to reminiscing at the bar about his war days, to, above all, reuniting with his brother at the film’s finale, Farnsworth creates a portrait of a man who has lived a deep, full life, and his sensitive performance is about as touching as they come.

Which brings me to Kevin Spacey, and, more importantly, American Beauty. At thirteen years of age, I saw this movie and was convinced it was the greatest I had ever seen. For the first time, I saw a movie that put my life on screen: here was the American suburbs, full of unhappiness and nastiness everywhere from families to neighbors to classmates, and yet somehow, despite satirizing its characters, the film had deep empathy for them as well. (I know, if you hate the movie, I’ve already lost you.) As an added bonus, one of the characters was a high schooler who carried a video camera around, as I often did at the time, who happened to be played by an actor who could be my doppelganger. To put it mildly, I related to this thing more than I had ever felt a connection to any other movie in my life until that point. I saw it multiple times in theaters. I taped it the first time it aired on cable, and watched that VHS over and over. It was even the first DVD I ever owned. I have probably seen it more times than any other movie…

…but after that initial flurry of obsession, I didn’t watch it for about a decade. I probably figured, post-film school, post-teenage years, I should give it another whirl. So, a couple years ago I sat down to watch it again, assuming I would downgrade my opinion severely. And a funny thing happened: I found that I could still practically recite the damn thing. And I realized it’s pretty hard to try to objectively evaluate a movie you know like the back of your hand. All I could do was sit back, laugh at my favorite jokes, widen my eyes at my favorite compositions, and swallow the lump in my throat at the film’s finale. I certainly DON’T think American Beauty is the greatest movie ever anymore -- I know now it’s not even close -- but it’s hard to really divorce myself from my thirteen year-old infatuation with the movie.

And so much of the success of American Beauty in my eyes rested with Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham. Here was a character who was funny in a manner I had never seen before, who used snark and sarcasm as a way to cope with life’s frustrations. As I said, I could give you Lester Burnham lines until the cows come home, so indelible were the actor’s deliveries in my mind. And in the film’s more dramatic final act, Spacey plumbs the human depths of this character. When Mena Suvari asks him how he is, the expression on Spacey’s face is extraordinary, suggesting a bundle of conflicting feelings as he responds, “It’s been a long time since anybody asked me that…I’m great.” Of all the nominees, I think Spacey’s comedic to tragic performance shows the most range.

So…who do I choose in the end? By this point, it’s probably no surprise that I’m picking Kevin Spacey. American Beauty made too strong an impression on my young self for me to shift allegiance, even after all these years. But, I pick him with the knowledge that, if I saw all these films for the first time today, it’s very possible I’d go with someone else. Crowe and Farnsworth are tremendous, and it pains me to vote against them, but life’s full of tough choices, isn’t it?

[bizarre]

My Picks:

1. Sol Kyung-gu / Peppermint Candy
2. Emmanuel Schotté / Humanité
3. Kevin Spacey / American Beauty
4. Edward Norton / Fight Club
5. Sergi López / An Affair of Love

Damien is completely right about Washington's performance. I don't like him as an actor at all - he did his best work early in his career, where he had a charisma forceful enough to masquerade as depth in emotional scenes. But since he rose to fame I get the impression of an actor, not that good to begin with, phoning it in, fully aware that everyone else on set is in awe of him. He bellows, coasts on presence alone but look at the eyes - nothing.

[Reza]

My picks for 1999:

Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
Terence Stamp, The Limey
Ralph Fiennes, The End of the Affair
Om Puri, East is East
Russell Crowe, The Insider

The 6th Spot: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

[Damien]

1999 was a great year cinematically, with many wonderful films and performances. You wouldn't know it from this slate, however.

Because I cherish underplaying that gets under the skin of a character and makes one essentially unaware to the fact that there's actual "acting" going on, I feel that Richard Farnsworth is far and away the best of this year's nominees. What a lovely, moving and completely convening performance.

I said it at the time, and I think it's more obvious to more people now that American Beauty is recognized as the shallow nonsense it always was: Kvein Spacey was egregiously miscast. He has such a snarky, cynical persona that his revolt against conformity seems so obvious that it has no effect at all -- other than wondering what took him so long. For the character to have worked at all -- and I'm not sure i could at all, given how facile the writing and directing are -- you needed someone who could play strait-laced. I remember thinking at the time that Jeff Bridges would have been ideal. Maybe Kven Costner . . .

The other three aren't terribly interesting. Denzel Washington typically gives a big, technically adeptt performance which, because of his singular lack of warmth and empathy and charisma, is of no interest at all.

Russell Crowe is fine but his character seems only to be a pawn in a schematic film, and not a character at all.

And as gifted as Sean Penn is, who could care about his character in Sweet And Lowdown?

My Own Top 5
1. Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story
2. Ralph Fiennes in The End Of The Affair
3. Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley
4. Peter Mullen in My Name Is Joe
5. Christian Bale in Metroland/Ethan Hawke in Snow Falling On Cedars

[Okri]

For me, the performance that should've been included was Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a wonder that his two oscar nominations (for acting) come from his least interesting performances, but his work in the Minghella film was beyond reproach (indeed, the drubbing that the film took on nominations day was an unwelcome surprise).

I don't like The Insider very much. It's so fucking long and overblown. I didn't get the acclaim for Christopher Plummer (full disclosure: I have not seen an episode of 60 Minutes), and thought that Michael Mann really really overdirected it (as usual). The upside: Crowe's performance. I disagree with Sabin that he became a star when stars were irrelevant. I think he had the misfortune of becoming uninteresting as soon as he became a star, though. Anyway, it's a terrific performance and he's one I'd definitely consider.

I'd also consider Kevin Spacey. I've seen American Beauty four or five times, but not since I was a teenager (I think). Having soured on Alan Ball via Six Feet Under and True Blood, I wonder if I'd find his limited worldview rather noxious. I doubt my frustration would shift to the performances. I can still remember his line readings quite vividly (and I think he was well cast, to launch a pre-emptive strike) and had no problems with his win (except he's a really odd two-time oscar winner - his career barely merits one).

Don't mind Denzel Washington. Don't care for Penn.

But it comes down to Farnsworth. At the time, I'd rank him third. But he's grown in my mind as I've grown. The world in his face. The weight of everything. And plus I can say I'm recognizing Angelo Badalamenti's stirring score as well.

[Big Magilla]

I'm glad to see Richard Farnsworth is getting his due here.

The actor's performance towers over the competition. It's a fully lived in work. You can tell he feels his character's pain, underscored as we know now, by his own ailments. He was already suffering from the prostate cancer that led to his suicide shortly after the Oscars.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

Kevin Spacey is capable of being a very good actor, but he's emphatically not a "chameleon," and American Beauty asks us to believe in him as an everyman of limited intelligence and ambition, who has failed to rise above the unfulfilling middle-class existence that American Beauty caricatures with such graceless inhumanity, and such a character is simply outside his wheelhouse. He delivers his post-"enlightenment" lines with the requisite withering sarcasm, but there's a lot more to the character than that, and Kevin Spacey is the wrong actor to portray it.

Sean Penn is terrific in Sweet and Lowdown, and his nomination was one of the most pleasant Oscar surprises I can remember (especially coming as it did at the expense of Jim Carrey's bafflingly overpraised Andy Kaufman impression). But within the overall context of the year, he doesn't quite make my personal lineup, and runs a distant fourth of the nominees.

The Hurricane doesn't work very well as a whole on any level, but I think Denzel Washington's performance holds up pretty well by itself. If it doesn't have the breadth of his Malcolm X performance, it's still a compelling, nicely wrought piece of work. If it was in a better movie, I'd say it was highly worthy of a nomination, and maybe even a win; as it is, I won't begrudge that it got one.

Like in the last poll, this one comes down to two more than worthy performances. Russell Crowe and Richard Farnsworth are definitely my own personal #1 and #2 picks for the year, and both are outstanding in different ways. Farnsworth delivers a beautiful, dignified, and perfectly-rendered performance in a lovely little film, and it's great that he got in this last great role before he died. The performance is so good that it negates all the usual questions of "sympathy votes" that always accompany nominations for older actors. (It doesn't hurt that Farnsworth's fairly under-the-radar career isn't exactly the sort that was crying out for Lifetime Achievement recognition.)

But ultimately, it's Crowe's performance in The Insider that I haven't been able to shake since I was checking out the nominated movies. It's every bit as quiet, as free of obvious technique or ostentatious flexing of "master thespian" muscles as Farnsworth's, despite the fact that it's an incredibly technique-heavy performance; it never feels like a stunt, or even makes a show of its technique, and in fact what Crowe achieves here is closer to an exquisitely-rendered minimalism. He creates a character who's never really likable, even as it's impossible not to be on his side, which is an achievement in itself. And while Farnsworth pretty much is The Straight Story, Crowe is probably the most compelling aspect of The Insider, which for my money is a better movie. He gets my vote.


My top 5:
1. Russell Crowe, The Insider
2. Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
3. Matt Damon, The Talented Mr. Ripley
4. Jim Broadbent, Topsy-Turvy
5. Edward Norton, Fight Club

[Sabin]

I remember this year!

This Oscars marked my first real year of being on this board. I don't remember too much about prognosticating for the 1998 race here. But I was in Tucson, Arizona for my first tumultuous year at the University of Arizona. I took 17 credits, was in the play, and my roommate got arrested for illegal possession of a gun show magnum before taking off. It was a terrible autumn for me. I wish I hadn't gone, and just stayed in Phoenix, gotten a job, and did what would end up giving me the most pleasure anyway...going to the movies! My God, there were movies in the autumn of 1999! Can you blame me for failing when this was going on? Not at all!

I remember hearing that it was a threeway race between Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington, but I don't buy it. Russell Crowe may have grabbed his first nomination, but it's nowhere near the kind of role that wins you an Oscar, too quiet, frustrated, and dick-ish. The Insider was destined to go 0/7 the minute Christopher Plummer was snubbed, a performance I didn't think was ever going to register either. It's a shame though, because it's far and away his best nominated performance. He had the misfortune of becoming a big star around the time that movie stars were becoming irrelevant..."Attachments".

Sean Penn was the big surprise come Oscar morning, and Jim Carrey had every right to take it personally. Here was an even pricklier personality in an ever less seen film, just as comedic and less sentimental. It would have been nicer to see Jim Broadbent get in for Topsy-Turvy or Edward Norton for Fight Club, but I think Sean Penn's nomination was a nice surprise. A very amusing performance in one of Woody Allen's most underrated films.

The Hurricane became the center of a shit-storm that was not undeserving. It's not that biopics need to be accurate, it's that nobody in their right mind would think that the events in The Hurricane happened anything like they do in this film. It's lifeless bologna from the get-go. Those who say that the Spike Lee version of Malcolm X is too close to the Norman Jewison coulda-been, I say ye nay! The Hurricane is a pretty terrible film that makes very simplistic use of Denzel Washington. He makes for a very boring saint. I wouldn't say his win for Training Day was very deserved but it certainly does start a more pleasing trend for him in taking more morally ambiguous roles. I love him in The Manchurian Candidate. All things considered, it would probably be preferable to see him on stage winning for The Hurricane than for as dubious a distinction as winning over Russell Crowe two years later. His work in Training Day is certainly more deserving than Russell Crowe's in A Beautiful Mind, but it wasn't even a makeup award, but rather an Anybody But Him Award.

On the other hand, they clearly were won over by Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham and there's something to be said for the Academy giving the award to a performance they genuinely do like just that much. I've seen American Beauty countless times over the years. It's easy to hate on. It's not a very good movie, but it is sold with such conviction (especially Thomas Newman's fantastic score, the one Oscar it should have won) that I still enjoy it enough. This role marks the end of Watchable Kevin Spacey for me. He won't do anything good ever again, I'm convinced. I heard that Steve Martin received the script at one point, and he would have been imminently preferable. I don't buy Kevin Spacey as ever being married to Annette Bening nor as a heterosexual in any capacity. The only role I have bought him as straight is L.A. Confidential. Still, it's not a travesty of a win.

For me it's between Crowe and Richard Farnsworth, whom I will give my award to in the end. It's just a beautiful, effortless portrait of old age that one could very easily carp as "An Old Man Playing An Old Man", but that's so gauche! The Straight Story is a lovely film and Richard Farnsworth's eyes and voice are haunting like no other performance in the lineup. I'm glad that he got one more spin in the limelight before he went.

My Choices:
1. Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense
2. Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story
3. Jim Broadbent, Topsy-Turvy
4. Russell Crowe, The Insider
5. Edward Norton, Fight Club

[MovieFan]

Richard Farnsworth- The Straight Story

Spacey's American Beauty performance and the film itself did absolutely nothing for me