Categories One-by-One: Actor

[Sonic Youth]

Mickey Rourke: Fashion Icon

He's the sexiest subway busker I've ever seen.

[criddic3]

Murray was such a sore loser and an all-around jerk at that ceremony, I'm actually glad he didn't win.

It should be about the performance.

[rolotomasi99]

to me rourke, langella, and penn all gave top-tier performances. in a less competitive year they would all easily win the oscar, but unfortunately they are all going up against each other.
i have not seen THE VISITOR, but i love richard jenkins so i trust all the accolades he has received are well-deserved.
pitt is the only unworthy nominee in this category. as i have said before, i only enjoy pitt's comedic performances. whenever he tries to do drama he is either ridiculous (SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET) or boring (MEET JOE BLACK). to me his performance in THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON was ridiculously boring. the most boring lead male performance since johnny depp in FINDING NEVERLAND.
i would have much rather seen leo dicaprio nominated for REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. both lead actors in that film gave the best performances of their careers, yet they were either ignored or nominated for another performance.

as for winning, i honestly would not be upset with anyone winning except brad pitt. that would piss me off.
i will be rooting for sean penn, though. sean penn is an amazing actor, one of the best of his generation. what is so amazing about his performance in MILK is how completely different he is from any other performance he has ever given, and so authentic to the person he is playing.

as for who is going to win, i would say it is all sean penn. from his many nominations, i would say it is clear he is well loved by his fellow actors. also, his film his clearly well loved as a whole this year, garnering more nominations than most had expected. along with what others have said about the timeliness of the film and prop 8, and the academy wanting to show it is not as homophobic as they have been charged after 2005.

all that being said, i still think the oscar could/will go to rourke simply because penn already has an oscar. i know multiple oscars are not unheard of, but the academy may not feel like awarding penn again after such a recent win. then again, hilary swank had no problem winning two oscars with a span of about five years, so it would not be outrageous for penn to pull off the same trick. i still think rourke's performance and the backstory of his life coupled with penn's previous win could give the oscar to rourke. either way, i will be happy with the choice.

[Penelope]

Rourke was very good in The Wrestler, but it was not any kind of revelatory performance. Both Penn and Langella were vastly superior, with Penn in particular giving a one-of-a-kind breathtaking performance.

[HarryGoldfarb]

Having recently seen The Wrestler I can agree with a los of what has been said in here. His performance is nothing short from amazing, the man was born to play the part. While I was discouraged by the awkward directing wrk at the beginning of the film (the unsufferable following camera) Rourke managed to kept me interesting, then amazed, then moved, then sick and then proud of a statement. He did so much out of an archetypical role.

On the other hand, Penn was insanely perfect in Milk. A performance I truly admire for what it is, an actor's job. While Rourke seemed like a natural choice for his part, Penn was almost the opposite for this one and that's the magic, that's his unique magic. Haven't seen Langella, but I'm planning to do so this night and tomorrow I'm going to see Buton in its opening night here in Venezuela.

But so far I can see the race like this. Rourke might be seen by a large number of voters as the best performance of the year, specially considering a role that represents a triumph/big come back or revelation, pretty much like Travolta, Murray or Peter Fonda. But in the end, the more "in", "like us" or respected-by-the-acting-comunity actor, the one with the better trajectory eventually will win, for a deserving performance specially if it is different enough from his previous efforts. Penn, by this math will easily win. Rourke is too much an outsider for the voters.

[rolotomasi99]

Rourke might have had sentiment on his side, especially after playing homage to his dogs at the SAG awards, but his constant acting the fool like challenging that wrestling champion and then backing off pretty much kills that. He's still a possibility, but looks less and less so as the days go on.

What an ass....to ruin his chances for a win.

on a related note:

http://defamer.com/5147404....e-oscar

[OscarGuy]

I am absolutely torn as to who gave the better performance. While I love what Penn does with Harvey Milk, I think Mickey Rourke is sensational in The Wrestler. The more I think back to his performance, the more I like what he did. Talk about stripping away the tough guy exterior and revealing a deep vulnerability. Rourke does that so exceedingly well. It's a rough year...especially considering I think both are superior to, but no less accomplished than Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon.

[mashari]

Haven't caught The Wrestler, but Penn was outstanding in Milk. It was really interesting to see him strip away the womanizing, tough-guy exterior and reveal a tender side.

[Big Magilla]

2003 was not a great year for lead actors. Murray was a marginal choice for me over Paddy Considine (In America), Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) and Paul Giamatti (AMerican Spendor). I didn't much care for the over-long and all-over-the-place Cold Mountain and somewhere around here is my post about all the things that were wrong with House of Sand and Fog in which Shoreh Aghdashloo was the only one that should have been nominated for anything.

[dws1982]

As long as I live, I'll never understand the adoration that people have towards Bill Murray and his performance in Lost in Translation.

I liked Ben Kingsley and Jude Law the best out of that lineup.

[flipp525]

Murray was such a sore loser and an all-around jerk at that ceremony, I'm actually glad he didn't win.

[Big Magilla]

Add me to the list of those who thought Penn's first Oscar should have been for Dead Man Walking, and that Bill Murray should have won the year he finally did.

[Bog]

I won't begrudge Penn his second Oscar, but damned if it won't be the second time he won it away from a performance that I liked way better - first Bill Murray, now Mickey Rourke. I still think Penn's histrionics winning over Murray's understated befuddlement and charm is the most egregious Actor win of this decade. What Penn really deserved his first Oscar for was mentioned here: Dead Man Walking. He was fantastic in Milk, utterly captivating, but Rourke...just that much more so. It'll be a shame.

I agree with most everything you wrote...until the end. I say I will have no problem with either actor winning the trophy this year, but Penn's performance can't come along but once in a great while. Rourke and Penn on a level playing field in which both have had a career for the last 20 years and Penn wouldn't even need to sweat.

It almost feels like Nic Cage has tried to be useless since his award, so that didn't do any good.

The main problems I had with Penn winning over Murray (one of my favorite performances in the last 10 years) is that others in the cast were better, and Penn had been better. I disagree that it was histrionics though that pushed him over the edge...but it's possible that "Is that my daughter in there?" is what people remembered most from the film.

[Okri]

For all the talk of Rourke being due, I ask myself: what of Jenkins? No actor in the lineup has toiled more in film than Jenkins

I know a great deal about movies but before The Visitor was released, I had never heard of Richard Jenkins. And not having seen The Visitor, I still have no idea who he is. But the fact that he was in an Allan Ball TV show indicates that he's of no interest to me, and gives me no reason to watch his movie.

He was in I Heart Huckabees (the angry dad during the dinner sequence) as well.

[Big Magilla]

Maybe you don't now who he is but I'm sure you've seen one or two of the 83 films he's made in the last 35 years.

The first film in which he stood out was probably 1996's Flirting With Disaster in which he and Josh Brolin were married to each other gay FBI agents. The film ended with them in bed together kissing, the brief scene notoriously snipped from Maramax/Disney's initial DVD release of the film. The DVD was reissued with the scene restored after massive complaints from audiences crying foul.