Best Actor 2004

[ITALIANO]

Now, I know that in America any black actor and any movie dealing with black characters - especially if with a pitiful, pathetic attitude - must be praised at all costs, but as I am (unfortunately, of course) not American, let me say that Jamie Foxx's Oscar is probably the second-worst ever in the Best Actor category. And at least Cliff Robertson had been good in other movies, so I can kind of accept him as an Oscar winner - but Foxx? (Now someone will dutifully mention Dreamgirls...) Let's face it: he's a vague, not very expressive actor.

It was, admittedly, a weak year for Actors, which makes Paul Giamatti's omission even more embarassing. So with Leonardo Di Caprio basically miscast and Johnny Depp giving a so-so performance in a so-so movie, it's definitely between Don Cheadle and Clint Eastwood.

Cheadle is a good actor, good even in Hotel Rwanda where he could have been better had the movie itself been better; the character, as written, doesn't have much depth, so this isn't one of his best performances, though one can certainly understand why it's the one he's been nominated for. So I'll do like the Academy often does and give a sort of "career Oscar" to the veteran in this race - especially considering that Million Dollar Baby is actually one of Eastwood's best turns as an actor ever. (He's even better, in this movie, than Kadyrov's fan, and she's not bad here.) And is there a more "iconic" living actor? Sergio Leone's famous judgement ("he has only two expressions: with hat and without hat") wasn't too unfair back then, but Eastwood has developed into a not only charismatic (which he has always been) but also subtle and intense screen presence.

[mlrg]

Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby

[Sabin]

Ah, the Best Actor lineup from 2004! Home of one of the most glaring snubs of the decade: Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Now that the dust has settled, it's clear that Alexander Payne's Sideways, while by no means a bad film (it's very good), is not the masterpiece critics trumpeted it to be. As evident by the fact that it failed to grab a nomination for Film Editing over Finding Neverland (ick!), the film was never very dear to voters' hearts. And that they failed to nominate Paul Giamatti is especially shocking. I had ranked him 2nd or 3rd likeliest for a nomination in this category. If someone was to fall by the wayside it seemed far more likely to me that it would be Cheadle, Depp, or DiCaprio. Ultimately, they all proved far more sympathetic characters than Paul Giamatti's Miles. He is hilarious in Sideways, and the film is unimaginable without him. Paul Giamatti is turning into a very reliable character actor, but Miles is HIS role and his omission was such a surprise to me that I remember looking at the lineup three or four times, saw Clint Eastwood's name and said "How can there be six nominees?"

This is going to be a landslide for Clint Eastwood, and deservedly so. He's a great movie star in a great role, perhaps his best. Except for Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's best films usually feature his performances at the center because he ballasts his films with a mythic quality that other actors can't help but respond to. The Eastwood role in Mystic River is absolutely Kevin Bacon, but Bacon is no Eastwood. Clint is Million Dollar Baby effortlessly funny, tragic, haunted heart, and while I don't think the film has aged as well as it should have, Clint's performance seems better all the time. There are so many moments to think back on and smile. I wish this was indeed his last performance and not his gross work in Gran Torino.

I certainly understand Jamie Foxx winning. The man owned 2004, and it genuinely did feel like he was going to embark on not just a sterling subsequent career but an intriguing one. Because Jamie Foxx cannot play a serious, sexless lead. He is a charged performer on-screen, and after two nominations and flooding the airwaves in Kanye's "Goldigger", it seemed to me at least that if he had to win it would at least be followed by something interesting. Alas, that's not the case. Jamie Foxx's career hasn't really gone anywhere interesting. Let the record show that his best leading performance in 2004 is easily Collateral. There is nothing wrong with his impersonation in Ray, but the minute he takes his glasses off near the end, the ruse is over. It's a calculated put-on, and certainly more successful than not, but he's undone by a drearily dull film. Taylor Hackford seems to be saying at every turn that Ray Charles' great flaw is that he just loves his music so much…and he refuses to do anything with his womanizing or drug use. Following a string of great supporting roles in Ali and Any Given Sunday, the success of Ray seemed to flood Foxx's ego. I hope he comes back around.

(Wayward Golden Globe remembrance: Jamie Foxx winning Best Comedic/Musical Actor, and stopping to hug fellow In Living Color alum Jim Carrey, as Foxx went up to the first of many podiums. You could just see in Carrey's face this look of confusion as to what on Earth he has to do to get the Academy's respect considering that he himself did a Golden Globe winning impersonation not five years back to as equally glaring a snub as he had the year before. Let it be said that until his great work in I Love You, Philip Morris, 2004 saw the best work of his career in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a truly great film that the Academy did its best to ignore after Focus fucked up in juggling their horses that year. They released The Motorcycle Diaries too long after its Sundance hype and put out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in a dreary spring instead of Oscar season.)

I remember seeing Ray and thought that Foxx had Best Actor locked up and the film would get a few token nods spread out here and there. I also remember seeing a sneak preview of Finding Neverland and thinking "Well, that's it for this one!" Who could be so taken in by Marc Forster's utterly lifeless, unimaginative "genteel" fable? Credit a lovely score, but the film is a snore, and so is Depp. On the other hand, I think I like The Aviator a bit more than most. It's not a great movie by any means and it's not really about anything, but it touches on some very interesting moments w/r/t OCD and large stretches of the film are pretty irresistible. Leonardo DiCaprio certainly tries in this film, but he's never believable as Howard Hughes. You're always watching somebody trying to act. He always seems to get nominated for the wrong roles. The Aviator and not Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond and not The Departed. And somewhere between the ambitious centerlessness of The Aviator and the TV-soft Finding Neverland is Hotel Rwanda and Don Cheadle. Who didn't want this movie to work? But Terry George just is not a very compelling director and Don Cheadle's character is not that compelling either. Still, it's good to see Cheadle nominated even if this doesn't rank anywhere close to his best work.


My Choices
1. Paul Giamatti, Sideways
2. Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
3. Liam Neeson, Kinsey
4. Gael Garcia Bernal, Bad Education
5. Ethan Hawke, Before Sunset

[MovieFan]

Terrible line up considering who they could have nominated such as Neeson in Kinsey, Giamatti in Sideways, Kevin Bacon in The Woodsman, Javier Bardem in The Sea Inside. Of thie group I go with Eastwood, its no where near his Unforgiven performance but it is a much more authentic and heartfelt performance than the other nominees.

[Big Magilla]

Another year in which the best actor, actually two best actors, wasn't/weren't nominated. Where, oh where, were Paul Giammati in Sideways and Liam Neeson in Kinsey?

At the time I really liked Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles, but neither he nor the film are all that memorable in the long run. I'd rather listen to Ray charles' records than watch the film again.

Don Cheadle had been hovering on the brink of a nomination for quite some tiem and I was most happy to see him finally get a nomination for Hotel Rwanda. The film is good, much better than some here would say, but the nomination seemed/seems enough.

Clint Eastwood's direction of Million Dollar Baby is worthy of the Oscar he got for it, but his performance, though good, is not as good as those of the his co-stars and actual Oscar winners, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

Johnny Depp was the weakest of the four main players in Finding Neverland. Kate Winslet, Freddie Highmore and Julie Christie as the inspiration for Captain Hook were all far more memorable.

That leaves Leonardo DiCaprio, seemingly miscast, but actually quite good as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. While Most of the players in the film, including Supporting Actress winner Cate Blanchett, failed to fully capture the essence of their characters, DiCaprio managed to be quite believable, especially in the latter scenes. Without Giamatti or Neeson to root for, he gets my vote.

[rudeboy]

As Okri already mentioned, there were a number of great performances in this category this year, most of them overlooked. How-oh-how could the Academy ignore Liam Neeson's towering work this year?

The pretty boys are first out. Di Caprio, a terrific character actor at his best, is very far from it in The Aviator. He starts the movie looking like a young kid, and barely ages as it progresses. The voice is a distraction, too. It won many people over, but Di Caprio, for me, was hardly less miscast in his second teaming with Scorsese than in his first. Third time would be the charm...

Depp sleepwalks through an alarmingly dull film. A movie about magic and wonder with none of either. It can be argued that it was a nomination based on goodwill from his celebrated Pirates work, but his and the film's omnipresence throughout awards season suggests an awful lot of people loved the work. Not sure I recall anyone ever admitting as such to me.

Ray is, of course, as paint by numbers as musical bios get. That it remains watchable is credit to Jamie Foxx's charismatic centre. I'd put his win on the level of Russell Crowe's - you keep watching him, but not Oscar-worthy.

Its down to Cheadle and Eastwood. Cheadle, an actor I run hot and cold on, overcomes weaknesses in the script with a riveting performance. But I have to give it to Clint, who gets under the skin of his character. Its mesmerising work, perhaps the high water mark of his acting career.

My line-up

1. Liam Neeson, Kinsey
2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin
3. Topher Grace, In Good Company
4. Bruno Ganz, Downfall
5. Sean Penn, The Assassination of Richard Nixon

[Okri]

As far as years go, this isn't a bad one for the leading men. But you wouldn't know it from this line-up.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Sideways, but I don't get how you nominate the film so broadly and ignore Giammati. The two thoughts don't really connect for me. Granted, I think only Masden deserved a nomination from that film. For me, the most annoying snubs were Jim Carrey and Ethan Hawke (ignoring the typical foreign snubs, like the leads from Uzak, Tony Leung for Infernal Affairs, etc). It was wierd watching Before Sunset in the race. It didn't really stand a shot (outside screenplay, and there it had a legendarily weak category to thank), but Julie Delpy really seemed to get a lot more "she should get nominated" than he, and that was wierd, as it was definitely a dance of equals. Jim Carrey was awesome in a way he'd never been, and was my favourite of the year.

From this line-up, Eastwood's the first to go. It takes an extraordinary actor to overcome the obstacle that is Paul Haggis and Eastwood isn't that good. Depp's nomination is so vanilla-expected-Miramax-crap that I can't even work up the ire against it. I'm just glad he didn't win. I cannot be impartial about Hotel Rwanda - hits too close to home for me - but since I wasn't compeltely bowled over by it, I've gotta assume it was nothing special. I'm glad Cheadle has an oscar nomination, but rather indifferent to his performance.

So, somewhat annoyingly, it comes down to the two Globe winners. People have mocked DiCaprio's work in The Aviator for a while - I know the Damien thinks he reads too young (I think he compared it to Birth re: the scenes with Blanchett) but I quite like it (and the film). He carries it a surprisingly long way. If you like Ray, you like Jamie Foxx. I'm all right with it. It's a mediocre TV movie, and he gives a shallow performance. But I'm all right with it.

So, ringing endorsements aside, I've gotta abstain.

[ksrymy]

Jamie Foxx was embarrassing as Ray Charles. Just embarrassing.

I never understood Depp's nomination. It's a cute movie but I never thought Depp was affecting.

DiCaprio was alright in The Aviator but I didn't really like the film all that much. I was scared for Scorsese when The Aviator came out right after Gangs of New York. I thought we were losing a good director.

It's between Cheadle and Eastwood. Cheadle had the flashier role. Eastwood has the more subtle role. Ultimately, I pick Eastwood.

I'd leave Foxx, DiCaprio and Depp out and put Javier Bardem, Paul Giamatti, and Bruno Ganz in with Bardem ultimately winning.