Best Actor 2001

[ksrymy]

In The Bedroom lost me when it devolved into a vigilante revenge piece.

You lost me when you called In the Bedroom a vigilante revenge piece. This movie deals with the hardships of the grief process and a man and woman's struggle to cope with the loss of a child which is, psychologically, the hardest thing to cope with (directly after losing a spouse or partner). Your statement makes it sound like you are putting In the Bedroom in the same league as I Spit on Your Grave or Last House of the Left or Taken, etc. There is only one person Wilkinson goes after in the film so it's not a typical revenge piece at that. Also, the whole vigilante part only takes place in maybe fifteen minutes of screen time. Your estimation of the film is entirely off. I am not insulting you for your disliking the film. I just believe you see the film in a light it was never meant to be seen in and find it bizarre.

[mlrg]

Tom Wilkinson - In the Bedroom

[Reza]

Wilkinson towers above the competition. Crowe is good but I still don't understand how and why his film won those four Oscars. I'm probably in the minority for liking Penn's performance. To me it doesn't seem like the ''stunt'' Hoffman was in Rainman. Smith is ok, nothing outstanding at all. Washington is a hoot but awarding him the Oscar was absurd, although we know it was the Academy making a ''statement'' that year.

My picks for 2001:

Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Aamir Khan, Lagaan
Jack Nicholson, The Pledge
Sean Penn, I Am Sam

The 6th Spot: Guy Pearce, Memento

[Damien]

Sean Penn is a great actor, but his work in I Am Sam is cringe-inducing. I have no idea what he was thinking with this shamelessly sentimental schmaltzy performance.

Will Smith gives a reasonable impersonation of Muhammad Ali, but his acting doesn't go beyond that level. Let me also say, I've always been mystified by the deification of Ali. Yes, his stance against the Vietnam War at great personal loss was admirable (although if you read news items and opinion pieces from that period, a lot of people thought he refused to be drafted because -- unlike Pvt. First Class Joe Louis -- he thought he was too special to be consigned to the military. But a self-aggrandizing, obnoxious braggart was exactly the opposite of what I was told to be when I was growing up. I much preferred Joe Frazier.

Russell Crowe is technically proficient in A Beautiful Mind, but within the context of that dreadful movie, his character makes no sense.

In The Bedroom lost me when it devolved into a vigilante revenge piece. Tom Wilkinson is very good, but he can't make the actions of his characters in the second half of the picture believable.

I've railed against Denzel Washington in these threads on several occasions, and I think for the most part his on-screen arrogance and coldness sabotage the characters he is playing. However, in Training Day, he is perfectly cast and he has a field dat. The problem is that Ethan Hawke is the lead in the film (and he gives a great performance -- his about-to-die-in-the-bathtub scene should be shown in acting classes) and Washington is Supporting. But still, given the choices here, Washington's performance is the best.

My Own Top 5:

1. Ethan Hawke in Tape and Training Day
2. Enrico Lo Verso in The Way We Laughed
3. Paul Dano in L.I.E.
4. Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast
5. John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

[MovieFan]

Tom Wilkinson- In the Bedroom

[The Original BJ]

This was an amazing year for performances, which unfortunately meant that a lot of the best were omitted in most of the acting categories. Early in the season, it looked like Billy Bob Thornton’s haunting noir anti-hero in The Man Who Wasn’t There and Gene Hackman’s lovable patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums would both be headed to nominations, but alas, they faltered near the finish line. Guy Pearce, though, couldn’t get any traction for his impressive contribution to Memento. And Haley Joel Osment proved The Sixth Sense was no fluke with his inventive A.I. work, but he was even further out on the margins.

These omissions make it all the more revolting that a film as godawful as I Am Sam scored a nomination in this category. And I’m not letting Sean Penn off the hook just cause his film was bad; I thought his performance was a disgrace. Penn just begs for sympathy throughout the whole movie; god forbid the audience actually side with Richard Schiff’s character, who doesn’t remotely think this man is capable of caring for a child. And Penn's loud, over-the-top performance is like a parody of an actor going, for lack of a better phrase, “full retard.” Overall, I think Sean Penn is a treasure, but this performance might display one of the greatest discrepancies between quality of actor and quality of nomination ever.

I don’t deeply dislike any of the other nominees. But I’m only crazy about one.

I think Will Smith captures Muhammad Ali fairly well, in both his charisma and, especially, his vocal cadence. Ali is a fairly bloated movie, but it has its moments of exciting filmmaking, and Smith certainly proved more capable than I anticipated in solidly anchoring this project. But I can’t say that I think the performance really transcends mimicry. (Isn’t that the most debated subject w/r/t biopic performances? If they TRANSCEND mimicry or if they’re JUST mimicry?) Smith just isn’t a deep enough actor to go that extra mile.

Denzel Washington is a kick in a role that was a real change of pace for him. His Alonzo Harris is frightening but also very funny, and the film is a great showcase for Washington’s old-fashioned movie star charisma. (“King Kong ain’t got nothin’ on me!”) But Training Day isn’t exactly art, and I’d rather reward something more serious. For comparison’s sake, I think this was a far better place to honor him as Best Actor than The Hurricane, but not nearly as good an opportunity as Malcolm X. I voted for him in '92, and that's enough.

In the Washington vs. Crowe battle, I preferred Crowe, but I found myself rooting against him on Oscar night because I stupidly thought that if Crowe lost, it meant A Beautiful Mind HAD to lose Best Picture. It just didn’t make sense to me that Howard’s movie could win all those top trophies, but not win a prize for its strongest element of distinction, like The King’s Speech winning but not Colin Firth. Which is not to say that I thought Crowe’s performance was at the level of The Insider. But it was certainly WAY above Gladiator, for me. Crowe has quite a thorny persona, and I thought that worked against the general schmaltz of A Beautiful Mind. His work here was technically efficient, but he didn’t lose sight of the beating heart beneath the outward mental illness tics. I think his performance is admirable here, but it’s hard to get enthusiastic about voting for anything connected to A Beautiful Mind, and yeah, by the end of the movie, even he struggles with some of the film’s cheesiest dialogue.

So…Tom Wilkinson wins, easily. I think In the Bedroom is a pretty phenomenally acted movie, not just from the nominated women (both of whom I voted for in their races), but also the strong supporting cast (especially Celia Weston and William Wise). But Wilkinson was best of all, completely shedding his very British Full Monty/Shakespeare in Love persona to create, at first glance, a charming New England professional…and then, a devastating portrait of a father suffering unimaginable grief. In its restraint, Wilkinson’s performance is deeply human and incredibly powerful. And, yes, I don’t blame you if you never wanted to see that plate-smashing scene after Oscar season ever again…but Wilkinson’s explosion during that moment was a knockout, the perfect release of everything his character had held in up to that point. And he commands the film’s final act with chilling calm. If anything, he’s the character who most guides the audience through this film's emotional ups and downs, and he deserves Best Actor all the way.

[Big Magilla]

A very weak year with only Tom Wilkinson and Russell Crowe among the nominees giving Oscar worthy performances. I'd replace Will Smith and Sean Penn with Guy Pearce (Memento) and Haley Joel Osment (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) and give the fifth slot to Denzel Washington by a hair over Billy Bob Thornton and Gene Hackman only because I remember his performance a little more vividly.

In teh end, though, I have to vote for Wilkinson over Crowe becuase his is the better film.

[ksrymy]

"I'M DENZEL WASHINGTON AND I YELL A LOT AND AM PLAYING A ROLE VERY AGAINST TYPE!!!" That's Training Day in a nutshell. I did not like this film at all and was too constantly aware of Denzel's against-type character. I am, however, happy with Ethan Hawke's nomination. But seriously, I usually dismiss Washington as playing the same role in every film but this is just an abomination.

Ever against handicapped performances, I will quickly dismiss Penn. I remember watching this film for extra credit in my high-school psych class and thinking it was alright but was nothing too special.

Will Smith was great as Muhammad Ali and I think it really takes a charismatic (on and off-screen) actor to play this role. I don't have anything against Smith and am glad he got a nomination but Wilkinson and Crowe are far superior.

I feel like it will essentially be a race between Crowe and Wilkinson. Both actors are very good in their dramatic roles. The problems with both: I do not like A Beautiful Mind very much. I really enjoy In the Bedroom. I believe the supporting cast is much stronger than Crowe is (with the exception of Connelly). Wilkinson is only upstaged by Spacek's extremely-nuanced (minus plate-smashings) performance. With Crowe, I could actually feel Nash's struggle and pain and that does not usually happen to me with male roles; however, I felt Wilkinson's as well. I did not vote for Crowe in The Insider or in Gladiator. I don't plan on voting for Wilkinson's turn in Michael Clayton.

Ultimately, I decide to cast my vote for Tom Wilkinson. His Matt Fowler is magnificent. It is subtle throughout and very effective. He captures the grief process so well that I am blown away every time.

My nominees would be:
________________________
1. Tom Wilkinson - In the Bedroom
2. Billy Bob Thornton - The Man Who Wasn't There
3. Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind
4. Gene Hackman - The Royal Tenenbaums
5. Benoît Magimel - The Piano Teacher