Mister Tee wrote: I'm afraid I don't share the wild enthusiasm here for Ben Kingsley's performance. I've remained mostly immune to his charms throughout his career (I actively dislike him in Sexy Beast). I find him a cold, purely technical actor, and it somehow doesn't surprise me he's pretentious enough to demand people call him Sir (just try that with me sometime).
At the 2008 Oscars -- the show I worked on -- it was hilarious during rehearsals when the state manager, over an open mike, was giving directions/suggestions to the 5 former winners who were presenting Best Actor. Michael Douglas was called "Michael," De Niro was "Robert," etc. But his Kingsley-ship was referred to as "Sir Ben." What a pompous fool.
Anthony Hopkins was also a member of this quintet. When they first met, the stage manager asked him, "Would you like to be referred to as Sir Anthony?" Hopkins burst out laughing, waved his hand in protest and said, "I'm Tony."
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
1. Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
2. Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent
3. Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
4. Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
5. Sean Penn, Mystic River and 21 Grams
ACTOR
Paddy Considine, In America
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Paul Giamatti, American Splendor
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
**Sean Penn, Mystic River**
For the life of me I couldn't remember who my alternates this year were. When I checked old notes, I found they were precisely the three Magilla (and some others) cited: Peter Dinklage, Paddy Considine, and the gloriously dyspeptic Paul Giamatti.
I'm afraid I don't share the wild enthusiasm here for Ben Kingsley's performance. I've remained mostly immune to his charms throughout his career (I actively dislike him in Sexy Beast). I find him a cold, purely technical actor, and it somehow doesn't surprise me he's pretentious enough to demand people call him Sir (just try that with me sometime). I think House of Sand and Fog is an interesting but not quite all there effort, and I very much like Jennifer Connelly and Shohreh Aghdashloo...but Kingsley simply fails to move me.
To be contrary again, I can see why Jude Law was nominated -- his role isn't showy, but he's the center of a big movie that needs a focus, and he conveys the longing of a simple man very well. It's a shame that his career -- which seemed on a permanent upward path at the time of the film -- has dwindled away to so little.
It's certainly true that the succeeding Pirates movies -- well, the one I saw fully, and the snatches I've caught of others -- are pretty dismal, and diminish one's pleasure in the first. But we should remember that this initial movie became a hit for the old-fashioned reason: because people genuinely enjoyed it. Johnny Depp's working-without-a-net performance was a significant part of why this was so. I'm enough of a traditionalist to resist the idea of such a trivial performance taking up a spot on the Oscar ballot...but I'd certainly rather see something this creative there than some of the pure seat-fillers we've dealth with throughout the past decade.
But, for me, the race came down to the two critical favorites, Bill Murray and Sean Penn (who finished 1-2 at NY, LA and National that year). I found Lost in Translation a bit wispy even at the time -- I liked it, but felt people were over-praising it and setting Sofia up for later backlash. But Bill Murray's work at the center is quite wonderful -- full of his trademark detached humor, but also showing a notable tenderness. Were Sean Penn not on the ballot, he'd get my vote.
But Penn was on the ballot, and for a performance I think has now become bizarrely under-rated. I thought he commanded the screen, in ways ranging from under-stated to ferocious, from the start of the film to the finish. TV replays have made it easy to remember his operatic reaction to the park discovery...but I remember even more vividly small moments -- like when the police question him about his petty crime background, and he can barely summon up contempt for the time they're wasting. It's certainly true that Penn was overdue at the time this award was voted on, and it's probably also true that he was even better in his Oscar follow-up Milk. But he's an actor who certainly rates two Oscars, and for the two peformances for which he was actually cited. An enthusiastic vote for Sean Penn.
Going into Oscar season, I thought he was a very safe bet for a nomination. It was somewhat surprising that he failed to register even slightly, not to mention Jennifer Connelly for House of Sand and Fog, Paul Bettany for Master and Commander, or Paddy Considine for In America (let alone, Jim Sheridan).
The most galling omission for me was Paul Giamatti's wonderful comic work in American Splendor. Good thing the Academy had the perfect opportunity to make it up to him...and blew it again.
Jude Law's nomination is curious. Had Cold Mountain been a Best Picture nominee, I imagine most of the comments here would suggest that Law was merely swept along by the success of his film; I doubt too many predicted that he would be his picture's most high-profile nominee. I think Law has some affecting moments in a film I like more than its reputation, but I never really bought him as Southern, and his romance with Kidman falls fairly flat. I much prefer his first nomination.
I will say this about Johnny Depp: while many an actor has scored an Oscar nomination solely based on the award-bait nature of his role (Depp himself received a nod like this the year following), few have taken a part that couldn't seem further from the Oscar field and turned it into a contender simply because of the inspiration that went into the performance. Depp's Jack Sparrow was a consistently amusing, highly original creation -- how often is a PERFORMANCE the chief talking point of a summer action blockbuster? I don't mind him on the Oscar list for the character that, decades hence, the world will still remember fondly. But, Pirates of the Caribbean, however fun the first one might be, is still Theme Park Cinema, and I look for quite a bit more in the year's Best Actor than what Depp does here.
Bill Murray gives a lovely performance in Lost in Translation that is equal parts witty and sad. He (and Sofia Coppola) do a superb job of capturing both the intrigue and loneliness of traveling by oneself, in a foreign place. Murray's relationship with Scarlett Johansson is incredibly tender, and his evocation of Bob's mid-life crisis pleasingly low-key. It's a performance full of many wonderful, small moments, that create a very human portrait of his character's soul search. But...much as I admire many things about Lost in Translation and Murray's performance in it, I never quite understood the levels of adoration heaped on either. To me, the work feels like a memorable little gem rather than something truly major.
Ben Kingsley actually would have been my runner-up, and I'm pleased he has received a good amount of support here. Quality-wise, this always struck me as a performance that deserved to be in the conversation for the win rather than a no-hope also-ran. Kingsley is immensely powerful in House of Sand and Fog. We don't actually know all that much about his character's past, but Kingsley's presence throughout the film suggests so much about his backstory. Here is a man who has been stripped of his dignity, who struggles to hold on to his traditions and patriarchal control while trying to support his family in their new homeland. The great strength of House of Sand and Fog is its even-handedness, and Kingsley, with his controlled demeanor, makes his character's behavior seem both responsible and stubborn. Kingsley is a very fine actor overall, and I will likely vote for at least one of his supporting nominations.
But even if I didn't have other chances to honor Kingsley, there is no way I could vote against a performance as impressive as Sean Penn's in Mystic River. From "Is that my daughter in there?!" to the "I couldn't even cry for her" speech, from the searing porch scene with Marcia Gay Harden to his final look toward Kevin Bacon during the parade, Penn gives us one outstanding moment of acting after the other. No, the tough-guy persona isn't so far from Penn's own, but the incredible pain Penn injects into his character, and the nagging conscience that rears its head during even his character's most morally troubling moments, gives this performance immense depth that goes far beyond its surface intensity. I'd vote for Penn on the basis of Mystic River alone, but I also think his sensitive 21 Grams performance would have been nomination-level this year too. Add to that the fact that he lost out on my vote by a hair for Dead Man Walking, and I can only conclude that this year was just simply Sean Penn's turn. His oft-predicted but not-certain victory was the most exciting moment for me during that year's Oscar telecast.
1. Sean Penn – 21 Grams
2. Ben Kingsley – House of Sand and Fog
3. Jude Law - Cold Mountain
4. Daniel Bruhl - Goodbye Lenin!
5. Paddy Considine – In America
6. Bill Murray - Lost In Translation
It's not a very good year when the three best performances in the category are left off the list of nominees.
Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent; Paddy Considine in In America and Paul Giamtti in American Splendor were so much better than any of the nominees that it's impossible to get excited about any of them.
I liked the young Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street and most of his 90s work, but I find all three of his Oscar nominated performances to be real head-scratchers. Pirates is amusing, but tiresome.
I loathed House of Sand and Fog and everything about it except Shoreh Aghdashloo, who should have won the supporting actress Oscar and Jonathan Adout who played her son, the only characters in the film who resemble real human beings. Ben Knigsley and Jennifer Connelly, whose characters would fit more approriately into in an early 1900s silent melodrama, were ciphers who propelled the ridiculous story along.
Renee Zellweger is really the only one I remember from Cold Mountain even though I vaguely recall Jude Law being in most scenes in the film. He's simply forgettable.
That leaves the two front-runners at the time, both of whom are deserving, if only by default.
There have been better suspense films than Mystic River. There have been better suspense films with Boston as a locale than Mystic River. And, yes, Tim Robbins is the stand-out performer in the film, but Sean Penn does a good job playing a not so likeable character. Still, I can't help but feel his Oscar was for many things other than his performance - his by then more than twenty year career; his failure to win for the Robbins directed Dead Man walking; his off-screen benevolence and maybe even the fact that he was nominated three times before even though two of those nominations were for highly questionable performances.
Lost in Translation was a sweet little movie that showed Sophia Coppola had promise. Little did we know that the style over substance she showed here was all she had as subsequent films have proven her to be as undisciplined a director as she was an actress. In retrospect we can see that there was no "there" there, but at the time the film and Bill Murray's performance seemed fresh and intriguing. So without Dinklage, Considine or Giamatti to give an enthusiastic vote to, I give my vote to him.
Sir Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog
Sean Penn, Mystic River
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Carribbean
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Paddy Considine, In America
I could never figure out the acclaim for Lost In Transaction, a mean-spirited, dreary drag of a film or for Bill Murray's performance. He's badly miscast. Not just because it's absurd to picture him as an action star, but because he wears his jadedness on his sleeve -- jadedness IS his persona. And so the character offers the audience nothing unexpected. (How much more effective it would have been to cast an actor who conveys an easy, superficial charm, which would have served as a cover for the character's cynical nature. Then the film would have been able to convey a real sense of sorrow. One can only assume that the various critics group felt they were being cool by giving awards to this outstandingly unimpressive performance by Murray (who deserved all sorts of accolades for his wonderful work in Rushmore).
Johnny Depp -- superficially amusing in a completely disposable movie.
Jude Law is fine in Cold Mountain, a film to which I seem to be more favorably disposed than most people. The primary problem with the picture is that it's a romance in which the two lovers are apart for most of the running time, and then when they are together, there are no magical movie sparks. But I blame the disastrous frigid performance of Nicole Kidman for that, and not Jude Law.
Sean Penn is excellent in Mystic River, although this was one of the few times he seemed to be visibly acting (admittedly extremely well) rather than imbuing a character.
I had never been overly impressed by Ben Kingsley before. He seemed at best dully competent (although he's quite, unexpectedly, funny in Maurice). Even in his Oscar-winning performance it was, okay this guy is impersonating Gandhi. Fine. Next. (And his off-screen instance on being called "Sir Ben" -- even by his wives -- did not help create an appealing screen presence.)
But in House of Sand and Fog, he is simply superb at expressing controlled rage and a vulnerable dignity. Watching the film, something happened to me I never thought could happen -- I was mesmerized by Ben Kingsley. (And Jennifer Connelly should have been nominated -- she is so much better in this picture than in A Beautiful Mind.)
Kingsley easily receives my vote.
My Own Top 5:
1. Ben Kingsley in The House Of Sand And Fog
2. Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later
3. Ewan McGregor in Down With Love
4. Campbell Scott in The Secret Lives Of Dentists
5. Martin Compston in Sweet Sixteen
Last edited by Damien on Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
I think I predicted that Peter Dinklage would get in for The Station Agent. It's a good performance. Russell Crowe gives a performance I enjoyed more than his previous two nominations in a film that is one of his most underrated. He wouldn't be a bad choice either. I think Cold Mountain is a bit underrated. Jude Law is a very talented actor, but Cold Mountain is not even close to his finest hour and it represents a shift towards a more boring point in his career.
First off though is Sean Penn for Mystic River, a ridiculous film that has aged terribly. There are leaps in logic in Mystic River that are inexcusable. Chalk it up to a moribund year for adult cinema and festival circuit rumors of the second coming of L.A. Confidential or something. There is good stuff in the film, but everybody is Capital-A Acting! Kevin Bacon warrants a nomination for giving the most personable performance of the ensemble, as does Tom Guiry. I remember being blown away by Tim Robbins at the time, but it's a stunt performance done no favors by Clint Eastwood's approach which required Robbins to show something beneath the surface. Mystic River is a movie at all points nearing greatness but ultimately becomes operatic and insufferable. And at the center of it all is Sean Penn as Jimmy Markum. Watching Mystic River again, Penn is all technique. He's not bad by any means, but this is the kind of role that is tailor made for an actor to bite the scenery. And he does.
I should watch House of Sand and Fog again. I didn't much care for it the first time. I remember thinking that Kingsley was trying too hard, but it's likely just how he was filmed by Vadim Perelman. I'll concede this one as not sure.
I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and felt nauseated. It's one of the most wretched moviegoing experiences of my life. Naturally, it's one of the highest grossing films ever. I didn't even bother with At World's End or On Stranger Tides. And then I watched The Curse of the Black Pearl again, and it's pretty darn good. In typical Bruckheimer fashion, the film is overlong and overly complicated but it's a good time full of fun moments and characters. At the center of it, is this strange movie turn that (in this installment!) hasn't gotten old, and it's a credit to Depp's performance that he still feels fresh in this chapter of the ill-gotten saga. He's very funny, and likely deserves some kind of award for taking an utterly anonymous genre film and creating something truly unique against everybody's better wishes and becoming subsequently immortalized for it.
But I'm in the Bill Murray camp. This may not be his best role, but Murray is a great actor and I'm unabashedly a fan of Sofia Coppola's marriage of Wong Kar-wai with daddy issues. It's a film I enjoy going back into time and again, and it allows for a great distillation of his persona which is also granted a romanticism that we haven't seen elsewhere. Watching Bill Murray lose the Oscar was an incredible bummer! The Academy couldn't have known that Milk was around the corner, but what a shame it is that Sean Penn won for something anybody could have done and Bill Murray lost for a performance only he could have given!
My Picks
1. Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
2. Campbell Scott, The Secret Lives of Dentists
3. Olivier Gourmet, The Son
4. Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
5. Victor Rasuk, Raising Victor Vargas
The absence of Peter Dinklage is the only real missing link here...I would probably rank him second on this list.
Sean Penn is the first person I am removing. Penn can be shockingly good a lot of the time, but when left to his own devices (and Eastwood is a pretty hands-off director) can also push way too much and go way too heavy. He does both here, and it leads to a performance that tries too much and really brings down the film.
Jude Law is boring in a very long, boring film.
Johnny Depp is a lot of fun, and I certainly don't begrudge his nomination, but it is hard to vote for it in hindsight: it has spawned not only a lot of worn sequels where his performance becomes a parody of itself, but this marks the turn from Johnny Depp, exciting and unpredictable actor, to Johnny Depp, weird voices and hollow caricatures.
In the end, this is between Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley. Murray is in the better film, Kingsley gets the showier role. In the end, I will go towards Bill Murray...both for this perfectly calculated performance and as a tribute to the kind of geniuses Hollywood produces but rarely awards.
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
It's very exciting to have two very good races in a row.
Jude Law is first off my list. It's a good movie star performance but he could easily be replaced by Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent or Paul Giamatti in American Splendor or Paul Bettany in Master and Commander.
However, Johnny Depp gives both a good movie star performance and a great performance overall. Depp manages to make a complex character out of someone in a Disney movie which has rarely been done. His wit, charisma, and body language make Jack Sparrow a lasting character in cinema history. I expect him to get at least a few votes here.
I despise Lost in Translation and still maintain that it is the most overrated movie in history. I most watchable thing about it was Scarlett Johansson's see-through panties during the opening credits. I think Murray had a very original role and was alright with it. But just alright. I'd actually rank him behind Depp but, for the sake of good movie star performances, I led from Law into Depp. The only time I'd consider Murray for a win would be for his un-nominated performance in Rushmore. I expect Murray to win here though.
And, as always, it's been between Penn and Kingsley for me. I actually rewatched House of Sand and Fog tonight to give Kingsley a fair chance again since I pretty much have Mystic River memorized. I think both movies have supporting stars who do better jobs than the leads (Aghdashloo and Robbins) and, usually, I would disqualify these performances for such an event, but there performances are able to stand on their own. Jimmy Markum seems a very unchallenging role for Penn on paper. He's a bad boy who wants revenge which Penn has been known to be in real life. Penn, however, shows a great range of emotion and plays it properly. The scene that I most remember is the "I can't cry for my daughter" scene with Robbins on the porch. It almost seems like bad acting but it's very effective. Kingsley, the opposite of Penn, plays a quiet man who just wants to make it in America. His cold stares are effective and subtle. Kingsley's role is very original and he commands attention very well (especially away from the miscast Jennifer Connelly (although it's better than her A Beautiful Mind role)).
Ultimately, I'll pick Penn.
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
