2016 Oscar Preview: Best Actor

THE NOMINEES:

- Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)
- Matt Damon (The Martian)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
- Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
- Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Johnny Depp (Black Mass)

If Creed had campaign properly then Michael B. Jordan would be here as well, but I want to spend this section discussing Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Whitey Bulger in Black Mass. Despite the film being a huge disappointed and a wasted opportunity, Depp does a phenomenal job playing the menace that Whitey Bulger was.  Bulger terrorized Boston, and basically under the FBI’s blessing as well, and Depp just oozed evil. He was able to be charming when he needed to be, but Whitey Bulger ran Boston with an Iron First, and the guy who previously was nominated for an Oscar while dressing up like a flamboyant Keith Richards was able to effective turn around and be the bad guy.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

Leonardo DiCaprio and the Extremely Weak Best Actor Oscar Race

Back in October I wrote about Leonardo DiCaprio's career failing to play the Oscar game and how he wasn't going to win an Academy Award for his work in The Revenant. Since the writing of that post, Leo won the Golden Globe and the SAG Award for Best Actor, and it would be nothing short of a colossal upset if he didn't win the Academy Award for Best Actor as well. I am glad to be proven wrong, and nothing would make me happier than to have one of my favorite actors finally earn an Academy Award. At the same time, it sucks that Leo will finally earn his first award for one of his worst roles. DiCaprio was in The Revenant because as Chris Connolly once said in a Grantland video, "Leo makes your dreams come true". He helps difficult projects like The Revenant get made, but I didn't think he was terribly good in it. That's why it will be bittersweet when he finally wins the Academy Award in a few weeks. At least when Martin Scorsese won his first Academy Award it was still for one of his best films (The Departed), but when Leo wins his first Oscar, it will be for a performance that probably doesn't make his career Top 10.

Extremely Well Made and Incredibly Boring: My Review of The Revenant

I struggle with The Revenant. Not in the sense that it was a purposefully tough movie to watch, but I struggle with it in the sense of trying to respect it on a rational level while despising it on an emotional level. Now I fully admit that I wanted to dislike the movie coming into it, but there are plenty of movies that I’ve only watched solely because they were nominated for Oscars and the quality of the film made me change my mind. Unfortunately, The Revenant was not one of those films. 

But that being said, my feeling of the film and your feeling of this film from watching the trailers won’t be changed by seeing the film. To me, the film looked like a journey that I did not want to experience, and I was correct in my assumption. I know people who couldn’t wait to see this film, and it’s one of their all-time favorites. Ultimately, it will not matter what I write in the rest of this review, because how you feel going into the film based upon the trailers and TV spots you’ve seen is basically how you will feel coming out.

Nonetheless, you cannot deny the masterful and technical achievement it took to get this picture made despite what your opinions of the film are. I do not think that having an arduous shoot is a good enough reason to give a film Academy Awards, but there are a plethora of aspects to this film that are technical masterpieces and worth studying in film classrooms for decades to come. Yet it is extremely difficult to respect something you dislike so much.

#PoorLeo: Leonardo DiCaprio's Failure Playing The Oscar Game

On January 16, 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for his 4th acting Academy Award for his performance as Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. On March 2, 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio lost his 4th acting Academy Award as Matthew McConaughey beat DiCaprio for his work in Dallas Buyers Club. The Internet exploded after this loss. There was no shortage of memes, .gifs, and tweets surrounding the subject. My personal favorite comment of the night was this comment. After nearly spending his entire life in show business and having zero Academy Awards to show for it, it certainly appears as if The Academy hates Leo. While that's obviously not true as no man with five total Oscar nominations can ever truly say The Academy dislikes him, it does seem that after Leo has tried so hard to win and has come up short every single time that Leo will never win that Golden Statute.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a new movie coming out this Oscar season called The Revenant. It's made by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu- the man who just won two Academy Awards for directing and producing Birdman a few months ago- and the Oscar hype train for Leo has already started. Leo has already stated how grueling and agonizing the filming conditions were, how he ate raw bison meat, and how he actually slept in an animal carcass. He is certainly setting the stage early and creating a narrative for himself in hopes in endear himself to other Oscar voters. Yet the mood that I am sensing from people not in the industry is the same one my wife had after she saw a trailer to The Revenant, "Well, that's another film Leo isn't going to win an Oscar for."

I am not suggesting that Leo will not win an Academy Award for The Revenant just because he hasn't won one before, I am saying that he will not win one for his role in the film because Leo has a fundamental misunderstanding of how The Game is played. I have no idea if Leo will or won't get nominated for his work in Inarritu's latest, but I do know that he will not win.

You can claim talent and performance all you want until you're blue in the face, but talent and quality is not indicative of Oscar success. It's why Dances With Wolves can defeat Goodfellas for Best Picture, why The Social Network can get screwed by The King's Speech, and why Leo won't win for his work in The Revenant. The Academy Awards are not an objective opinion of who or what is best, it's an opinion by a very small, non-diverse, closed-minded group of what they collectively think is best. To The Academy's credit (detriment?), they are consistent on what they determine is best, and for some reason, Leo hasn't figured this out yet.

6 Brilliant Acting Performances That Were Almost Nominated For An Academy Award

There is a really funny film by Christopher Guest called For Your Consideration about a small-budget movie that happens to get Oscar buzz early on in its production. The movie follows its producers as they attempt to change the movie to gear up towards Awards Season and how even a whiff of potentially being nominated for an Oscar affects the actors. It's very enjoyable if you like dry humor or if you're an Oscar nut like myself. In the end, nobody who expected to get an Academy Award nomination ends up getting one. It's unfortunate, but that's the way the world works sometimes. Look how upset the director of Force Majeure was when he found out he was snubbed. Jake Gyllenhaal gave an all-time great acting performance in Nightcrawler this year and his performance was nominated by the SAG, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, yet the Oscars screwed him over. Sometimes greatness gets passed over. even performances that garnered Oscar buzz. These 6 Brilliant Acting Performances That Were Almost Nominated For An Academy Award are the perfect examples of that.

Jeff Daniels (The Squid and The Whale) BEST ACTOR
78th Annual Academy Awards (2006)

The 12^th annual Screen Actors Guild nominated Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Joaquin Phoenix (Walk The Line), David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck), and Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man) as their five nominees for Best Male Actor. Before Awards Season began, these five men seemed like the five front runners to earn an Oscar nomination, so the SAG awards did not seem all that surprising. However, as the Season dragged on, Russell Crowe started losing steam. The BAFTA’s nominated Hoffman, Ledger, Phoenix, and Strathairn but they also nominated Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardner) instead of Crowe. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that Crowe wasn’t going to get an Oscar nomination. Maybe it was because people started realizing that Cinderella Man was generic garbage, maybe people were getting sick of Russell Crowe’s shit, or maybe James Braddock wasn’t a good enough boxer in real life. However, if Crowe wasn’t going to get a nomination, then who would?

Leonardo DiCaprio Shows Off His Dance Moves in The Wolf of Wall Street

_____________________________________
If you would like to comment on this post, please visit our Facebook page

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Winners

1) Gravity was the big winner at last night's Academy Awards. It walked away with the most awards- seven, including: Best Director (Alfonso Cuarson). The vast majority of the Oscars are technical awards; it's why The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Titanic were able to walk away with a bajillion awards. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the biggest technical achievement of the year took home so many Golden Statutes. As a good friend of mine stated for his Oscar pool, "when it doubt, just pick Gravity" It also won Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Score.

2) 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture (thus giving director Steve McQueen and Brad Pitt Oscar wins). The film won 2 other awards including Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) and Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o) I don't have an inherent problem with the latter two, but I strongly disliked the movie 12 Years A Slave as a whole. Just from a film making perspective, it was just "eh". If you didn't fall asleep in the middle of the film and constantly look at your phone, then you're lying. If it was truly between Gravity and 12 Years A Slave, it's Gravity for the win for me.

The Best and Worst of the 2014 Academy Awards

I love the Academy Awards. For any bitching and moaning that I do, I do it because I love this award show so much. The winners of each Oscar category gets their name etched in stone forever, and I just want that etching to be correct. Oh yeah, and the award ceremony itself can be fun as well. Here are my brief thoughts:

WINNER: Gravity

Gravity walked away with 7 total Oscars, the most out of any movie of the night, including Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, and Best Score. Plus, Alfonso Cuaron's acceptance speech was just fabulous, funny, and heartfelt. Oh, and bringing in a bajillion dollars in box office sales doesn't hurt either. 

LOSER: John Travolta

Say it with me Johnny, "Eye-Dee-Na Man-Zell". You had one job! If Jennifer Lawrence could learn to properly pronounce "Chiwetel Ejiofor" along with four other names, then you can learn to pronounce the wonderful singer you're introducing. 

13 Best Oscar Nominated Performances of 2014

...

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Actor

NOMINEES:
- Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
- Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave)
- Christian Bale (American Hustle)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
- Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

SHOULD BE HERE: Joaquin Phoenix (Her)

The hipster in me wants to say Michael B. Jordan for his work in Fruitvale Station, but Phoenix was just too good to ignore (unless you're the Academy of course!). Phoenix has been doing such outstanding work recently, that he's bordering Daniel Day-Lewis status for excellence.

Trailer Recap: The Wolf Of Wall Street

SONG CHOICE: Kanye West's "Black Skinhead"

Django Unchained had "The Payback" by James Brown. Six months later, Baz Luhrmann tops that by using Jay-Z's section of "No Church In The Wild". A few months later we get Yeezus' himself and his new song "Black Skinhead". Nothing like having Kanye West to hype up your trailer.

The song works perfectly. The tone sets the movie up for an over the top, slightly comically "Goodfellas". The choppiness of the songs works perfectly with the choppiness of the trailer. Plus, nothing like Matthew McConaughey and DiCaprio beating their chests to send the mood off right.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLOT: Horrible

I have absolutely no idea what this movie is about. But do I care? Absolutely not. I get that Leo loves to throw things, and that's pretty much it. I guess DiCaprio is Henry Hill and Jay Gatsby rolled into one. And that's fine by me.

EXCITEMENT LEVEL: Through the roof

DiCaprio + Scorsese + rap music = solid gold.

Even with Shutter Island and The Aviator fresh in my mind, I still wholeheartedly believe that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio can do no wrong. I have no idea what The Wolf of Wall Street is actually about, but the Kanye song plus this title card:

And this title card:

Mean's I'm all in. 

Are you excited to see The Wolf Of Wall Street?

___________________

If you would like to comment on this post, please visit our facebook page