Best Acting, Male Division: Personal Ballots & Oscar Charts
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 at 11:11AM In the war of scene-stealing antagonists this year, Oscar Isaac's Nathan (Ex Machina) > Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald (The Revenant). We love both actors here at TFE and loved them before the rest of the web did (brag brag) but when it comes down to awards season you have to make tough choices.
That's just a handy way of saying Oscar and I go our separate ways more often than not in the acting categories but now both lists are available for your (hopeful) entertainment...
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
On the subject of category placement antagonists are often tricky. They definitely move the plot -- neither The Revenant or Ex Machina can function without these devious men, but often you can see either argument for lead or supporting. While Ex Machina arguably has three leads being such a chamber drama I occasionally relax the soapbox for performances that straddle the divide. A recent rewatch of Ex Machina confirmed that Oscar Isaac would make whichever shortlist we put him in (and I'd switched him back and forth during the year in drafts). It's such an inventive approach to a thoroughly imagined character so I tossed the dice and supporting he went. Now watch him tear up this fucking dance floor...
Only one of Oscar's men makes my own personal ballot (just posted) with apologies to Mark Rylance who I thought would place but he fell in the dread sixth spot! It happens. I've completed the Oscar chart as well and included trivia for this golden sausage party. Speaking of sausage parties... I think this is the first male Oscar lineup ever in which ALL the men have gone full frontal in other movies. Weird, right? It's an exhibitionist group this year. This only occurred to me to check because I was a big fan of Intimacy (2001) back in the day which starred Mark Rylance and everyone knows that Sly starred in a porno before Rocky (1976)
The charts also include our "How'd they get nominated" fun. So here's a sample -- the Tom Hardy in The Revenant edition:
25% Leo's bro power pulls his main men in w/ him
21% Spicy Bait: Villains prioritized in this category
20% Timing. 'The Revenant' was the shiniest new toy
15% Everyone wishes they could have punched Iñárritu in the face
10% Performance - they like 'em BIG to shake up slow epics (see also: The Zeéeeee in 'Cold Mountain')
9% 'Mad Max Fury Rd'
P.S. I should not that though Hardy didn't make my top 12 in supporting I appreciate his go for broke attempts to save The Revenant from its own grandiose self-importance with a little cured ham.
Matt Damon a nominee at both the Oscars & the Film Bitch AwardsBEST LEADING ACTOR
Given the weirdly unanimous "meh" factor that Oscar's shortlist has produced in audiences, at least on the web, it's hard to imagine it coming to be at all. But then you remember the media complicity in producing these sorts of safe groupings of all-stars whether or not people were actually hugely impressed with their work. Oscar produced a list of five major players who unfortunately could have been nominated based on the roles themselves before anyone saw the work (always a problem!). You've got your reigning Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne), your mega stars (Leonardo DiCaprio & Matt Damon), and your highly-revered thespians (Bryan Cranston & Michael Fassbender) with all but one of them (Damon) playing real life people. That's the baitiest of bait to awards types -- not just Oscar! -- though after 15 years of covering movies and awards seasons I still can't fathom why playing someone who really exists/existed is so much more likely to be lauded than creating a character from scratch with only the screenplay, director and your imagination to guide you.
But anyway that's Oscar's list. Only two of them survive to make my personal ballot and I had to correct some category campaign problems too to put Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Paul Dano (Love & Mercy) where they belonged. Since DiCaprio's fans can be quite touchy I should note that he's solid, as ever, in The Revenant. He's locked up to win the Oscar finally but sadly the film just isn't asking very much of him, emotionally, beyond grief and anguish which he's been playing with minor variations for at a dozen years now. Sorry Oscar campaign narrative but tough physical working conditions and weird diets ≠ acting triumph.
Reader Comments (56)
I'm late to this, it's a very fine line-up, but you haven't found a place for Jason Statham.
Discrimination against comic performances is just Wrong!
Statham is brilliant and several times more memorable than several that have been named for best supporting actor.
LadyEdith: James Ransone isn't in his top 12, either, and he's probably closer than Statham.
Paul and Nathaniel
Linda Hunt won for playing a biological man. She was not trans. Everyone else won or was nominated for trans. She was literally a man.
I always so love reading your reasoning behind your ballot choices. They're so succinct but capture the essence of each performance so beautifully.
I'm in no position to make my own ballots yet, since I've missed so much and am furiously trying to catch up.
That said, I think that Matt Damon (and The Martian in general) are the year's most overrated. I totally get what you say about him carrying the film with humour and making it look easy, but to me, he's coasting on his movie-star charisma but not actually creating a character. I don't have any sense of who Mark Watney is, or what kind of person he is when not stranded on Mars -- beyond just "has a great sense of humour". Essentially, I don't see much depth in that character or performance.
One performance that really got under my skin this year was Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw. It's such a different side of him, so primal and broken, and I'm in total awe. It's one of Gyllenhaal's very best performances (can you believe that he gave the performances he did Southpaw, Nightcrawler, and Enemy all within a year of each other?) I'm actually shocked that no one has really been talking about him this year. The movie isn't great, but Gyllenhaal is masterful in it.
/3rtful -- i'm confused why you're stating this. Nothing on my chart says anything different about Linda Hunt's performance.
Nicholas -- he's really been on a roll! he's great in DEMOLITION too.
So enthusiastically onboard with your choice of Nicholas Hoult! I'll never understand, considering the massive critical acclaim for "Mad Max", why Hoult's name never seemed to be in the supporting conversation. He'd be my 2015 winner.
My Nominees:
Supporting Actor:
Tom Hardy "The Revenant "
Nicholas Hoult "Mad Max: Fury Road"
James Marsden "the D Train"
Jason Segel "The End of the Road'
Peter Serafinovizc "Spy"
Actor:
Leonardo DiCaprio "The Revenant"
Michael Fassbender "Steve Jobs"(winner)
Irfan Khan "Jazbaa"
Frederick Lau "Victoria"
Ian McKellen "Mr. Holmes"
Irfan Khan is extraordinary in an ordinary thriller. But, as is standard with Bollywood titles, "Jazbaa" wasn't submitted for eligibility. An even more striking Bollywood omission from Oscar's eligibility list was the historical spectacle "Bajirao Mastani". Had voters seen it, I suspect it would have been a strong player in a lot of categories (costumes, art direction, even acting (Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra are both marvelous in it). Certainly a couple of the movie's songs are infinitely better than most of the drek nominated.
Sticking strictly to the Academy's eligibility list, I'd consider Michael Caine ("Youth") and Domnhall Gleeson("Ex Machina" for that fifth actor slot, probably picking Caine, though Gleeson's also superb. For me he's "Ex Machina" 's MVP, though Vikander and Isaac monopolized all the attention.