2015 Oscar Preview: Best Supporting Actor

THE NOMINEES:

- Robert Duvall (The Judge)
- Ethan Hawke (Boyhood)
- Edward Norton (Birdman)
- Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher)
- J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)

It's absolutely insane the snobbery The Academy has for actors who don't appear on screen. The Academy declared a film like The Adventures of Tintin was not eligible for the Best Animated Picture category because there was too much motion capture to the animation, yet those actors aren't deemed to be good enough to be eligible in the acting categories. Good acting is good acting no matter what medium you're using. Andy Serkis not only deserved to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor back in 2011 for his work as Caeser in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but he deserved to win. The depth to that performance was incredible. Scarlett Johansson was so fantastic in Her that you actually believed the relationship the characters Theordore and Samantha had that she also deserved an Academy Award nomination. Johansson's performance also proved that not everyone can do great voice acting as she famously replaced Samantha Morton in the film.

The work that Toby Kebbell did this year and what Andy Serkis did prior is just so insanely good. These actors did more than just sit in a booth and record lines; these actors were doing the grunt work having those white bubbles taped to themselves while they actually acted their asses off. Just because VFX was used later to scrub out the actors doesn't lessen the emotional connection they forced you to have with these characters. Kebbell played Koba in the film and was the defacto bad guy. However, Koba was more than just evil, he was a character who felt genuine and passionately about how the leadership should be run and did what he had to do to advance his goals. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes isn't the critical and commercial success that it was without the acting of Toby Kebbell.

An Everyman's Movie Review: Foxcatcher

When I first saw the trailer of Foxcatcher I was instantly hooked. After Moneyball, I was in on director Bennett Miller, I was in on Steve Carell doing his best to win an Oscar, I was in on Channing Tatum trying to expand his range, and I was in on a stylish, creepy movie about a creepy fucking dude. I was so excited about this film, that I ranked it as my #2 most anticipated film of this fall season. In that column I wrote, "I actually can't imagine a scenario where Foxcatcher is bad 'per se' but I can envision a scenario where the film is just not as good as I am hyping it up to be."

As it turns out, Foxcatcher is bad. I mean really bad. It's not Troll 2 or Saving Christmas bad, but it is not a good movie. I could take a movie with great performances that's not very engaging or a movie in which I am self-aware enough to know that I don't like it because my expectations were set way too high (because at least then I can re-watch the film), but neither is the case with Foxcatcher. The film's main problem (among many) is that there is no conflict. For the vast majority of this movie, these characters just exist. They're there, and that's it. I could actually take that if Bennett Miller was properly setting mood and tone to help the audience feel uncomfortable surrounding a creepy situation, but that doesn't happen either. What's most infuriating about the story that's been chosen to be told is that natural conflict should arise. The whole reason this story deserves to be made into a movie is rife with conflict, yet that barely shines through.