Oscar pick-a-palooza: Who should win Best Supporting Actor?

Mahershala Ali in Moonlight

This is part two of an ongoing series of posts (featuring myself and TooFat4SkinnyJeans' Brian Wezowicz) about the 2017 Academy Awards, honoring the best of Hollywood from last year. 

Check out our previous post on the Best Supporting Actress race here. And stay tuned for our takes on all the other major categories.

Awww, man. I love Braveheart, but more so on a nostalgia level at this point.  I first saw it in the theater at a time when I was just getting in to "real" movies and away from my strict diet of popcorn flicks (the fact that it had blockbuster elements to it probably helped).  I remember staying up for the first time to see if it would win Best Picture.  It'll always hold a special place in my heart (even if it hasn't aged as well as I remember it).  Additionally, I've seen The Passion of the Christ and can tell you that you're better off skipping it.

It looks like we're both in agreement in supporting actress, with Viola Davis being a lock.  I, too, was peeved that she fell into this category, but I've also stopped trying to figure out the lead/supporting dynamic in recent years.  I've always thought that if someone was the female or male lead in a film they would fall into that category (whether or not its technically their character's movie).  I guess that Fences is technically Denzel's character's story with Viola Davis providing support. Who knows?

Let's move on to the next category before my head hurts, shall we? Best Supporting Actor.  I'm ashamed to say that I have only seen one of these performances.  This might be my least knowledgeable category of the night.  It's good to see some great actors getting rewarded for their work, particularly Mahershala Ali for his excellent work in Moonlight.  It's great to see Jeff Bridges nominated again, but while I really enjoyed Hell or High Water, I feel like I've seen that performance before from Bridges.  Michael Shannon's nomination is interesting given that his co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson pulled off the upset at the Golden Globes (and wasn't even nominated this time).

And the nominees are:

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Will Win:  Mahershala Ali. With Casey Affleck being the heavy front-runner for Best Actor, will the Academy award Ali in the supporting category? My guess is, yes they will.

Should Win:  Ali.  Again, a great performance from the best reviewed movie of the year.

Dark Horse:  Michael Shannon or Dev Patel.  I think this might be one of the more open categories of the night, without a surefire front-runner. Had Ali picked up the Golden Globe, I'd be a little more certain in my pick.  I can smell an upset in this category.

Who ya got?

Patrick Stewart in Green Room

Yeah I didn't see Braveheart until long after its first run -- and well, I had problems with it. But I digress. I think in Supporting we have a solid five although I am mystified that great, scary turns from Patrick Stewart in Green Room and John Goodman in 10 Cloverfield Lane were never even remotely in contention.I get that both films came out much earlier in the year, so perhaps the studios didn't think their performances would remain fresh in voters' minds -- but the politics of this stuff is always lost on me.

I have seen three of the performances that made the cut in this category: Jeff Bridges in Hell or High Water (which I loved and thought was a real standout in a terrific ensemble), Lucas Hedges (who provided some of the much-needed comic relief and pathos in Manchester By the Sea) and Mahershala Ali, who gave one of my favorite performances of the year in my favorite movie of the year -- Moonlight.

I guess I need to see Lion, I know very little about it or its reputation, but clearly its showing at the Oscars suggest its formidable. Reportedly Dev Patel may be another beneficiary of category fraud, since he is nominally the lead of Lion, although he shares his much of screen-time with an actor who plays a younger version of his character. Michael Shannon is one of my favorite character actors working right now and I've heard he was the highlight of Nocturnal Animals, a movie I've heard is very divisive. Shannon is almost always excellent (see 99 Homes in particular) and I imagine he will win won of these trophies eventually, clearly he is an actor's actor.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester By the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Will win: Mahershala Ali. I hope to God he gets it. Not only because he is the most deserving, but I fear it may be the only major award this beautiful masterpiece gets, especially since La La Land has become such a juggernaut and appears poised to swamp it in most of the other major categories (but more on that later). Although he's only (SPOILER ALERT) in about a third of this movie, his presence, his heart come across and his is the performance that sticks with you the longest from this haunting movie. He'd taken most of the precursor honors until the Globes decided to get all bonkers and award Aaron Taylor Johnson (who isn't even nominated here) but I suspect the Oscars will get this one right.

Should Win: Mahershala Ali. With Moonlight and Hidden Figures too, Ali is on a roll. He's also terrific as the villain on Netflix's Luke Cage. Hollywood has long been on a hunt for "the new Denzel" (essentially they have also been seeking a "new Tom Hanks" for years too, remember when that was going to be Shia LeBeouf?) -- now there are several contenders, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba, Chadwick Boseman and yes, Mahershala Ali. Even though his name may be a mouthful, I suspect it will become a household name soon enough.

Dark Horse: Lucas Hedges. Manchester By the Sea had a lot of very ardent, passionate fans (I appreciated the film a lot, but there were movies that moved me more this year) and I could see if there is enough of backlash to La La Land and Moonlight is too out there for some Oscar voters, I could see Manchester By the Sea becoming a fashionable choice to sweep the major awards, and Hedges, who is very good and naturalistic in this movie, could be the beneficiary of that.