Oscar pick-a-palooza year three: Who is the Best Actor?

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant

This is the fifth in a series of of annual Oscar predictions posts featuring myself and my friend Brian Wezowicz of Too Fat 4 Skinny Jeans. 

Check out his blog and give it some love and in the meantime, read our take on this year's Academy Award nominees.

BRIAN: Ah yes, Best Actor! I completely flaked on this one. Chalk it up to sleep deprivation with the new kiddo. Maybe it's because (in my mind) this category is such a foregone conclusion, that I completely omitted it.

To me, this is a one horse race. It's Leo's year and anything else will completely shock me. The Revenant is getting praised for its harsh shooting conditions (using only natural light and facing the harsh wintry conditions), while Leo seems to be getting the same praise. Is it his best role? Probably not (to me, it's The Wolf Of Wall Street), but the Academy definitely likes to make their stars wait their due course. Like his mentor, Martin Scorsese, Leo probably should have won for his earlier, better work. But here we are and one of America's greatest actors will finally be getting his name called.

There were other great performances (I especially enjoyed Matt Damon's role in The Martian), as well as a few obvious snubs (Michael B. Jordan in Creed comes to mind), but none are strong enough to stop Leo's Titanic (see what I did there?) like momentum. Here are the nominees: 

BEST ACTOR
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo 
Matt Damon, The Martian 
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant 
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs 
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl 

Who Will Win: Leonardo DiCaprio.

He finally gets his name called, and deservedly so.

Who Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio.

While it may not be his best role to date, he still deserves to win.

Dark Horse: Matt Damon.

Matt Damon in The Martian

He's already won the Golden Globe, but I don't think he's got enough momentum. Redmayne won it last year, so he's out. Cranston's reward is the nomination, and Fassbender was criminally overlooked in his refreshing take on Steve Jobs.

It's Leo's night. Everyone else is along for the ride. Who is your best actor?

ADAM: No worries. I'm sleep deprived, too, and I don't even have a good excuse. And yeah I totally agree with you. I am a Leonardo DiCaprio fan and I do think he gives a terrific, committed performance in The Revenant. It's probably not his best, in fact my two favorite DiCaprio performances are films he wasn't even nominated for -- The Departed and Django Unchained. He's been so good for so long and probably deserved to win a couple years where he didn't.

In a year where the competition for Best Actor isn't as stiff as it usually is, it appears that this narrative has taken hold that he HAS to win, which is a little annoying to me. Although I have no problem with it. I would have liked to have seen Michael B. Jordan nominated here too. Creed, and Stallone's supporting performance, work because of Jordan, hopefully he'll get there soon. And I was a big fan of Johnny Depp's work in Black Mass, which I guess just faded away since it came out so early.

Who will win: Leonardo DiCaprio

He gives a memorable, visceral performance in The Revenant. It's not actually the type of role that usually wins Oscars (Robert Redford, for instance, was unjustly snubbed for his similarly rigorous performance in All Is Lost). It's got minimal dialogue (he has one big Oscar type speech) and he spends much of it incapacitated. But he is compelling to watch here and while in a perfect world the best acting should be all that matters, narratives usually matter more when it comes to this type of thing.

Who should win: Leonardo DiCaprio.

That being said -- I do think DiCaprio probably gave the best performance here. I haven't see Trumbo, but I've heard the Bryan Cranston film is merely OK. I really liked Michael Fassbender's performance in Steve Jobs and am happy to see it recognized, but I might put it one notch below. I wasn't as high on The Martian as you were. I though it was a very good mainstream piece of entertainment, and I thought Matt Damon did wonders with a well-crafted movie star role, but I wasn't emotionally affected by it in the same way I was with say Gravity. I have not seen Redmayne's performance either, but I've heard very mixed things about the film and needless to say we're not going to have the third ever back-to-back Best Actor winner on Feb. 28. Spencer Tracy, Tom Hanks and Eddie Redmayne? I don't think so.

Dark Horse: Matt Damon

And I contradict myself within seconds again. I think Damon is also deserving of an Oscar. Even though some of my favorite performances of his -- namely The Talented Mr. Ripley and also The Departed -- were never nominated. He seems like a immensely good guy -- the whitesplanining diversity incident notwithstanding. And his movie was a big fat hit. I think he'll get one eventually, but I think if anyone can upset DiCaprio, it's him. But now that The Revenant has become a big hit in its own right, I don't think it's possible for that to happen.