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| Robert Pattison in Good Time |
Brian: I, too, really enjoyed Meryl Streep's performance in The Post. It felt raw in a way a lot of her recent work hasn't felt.
As we move from, quite possibly, the least surprising group of nominations, to a category with a couple question marks in it. Not necessarily that these performances didn't warrant a nomination, but rather that there were some others that could have a legitimate gripe. We also have a major point of #MeToo controversy with Casey Affleck not appearing at this year's event to present the Best Actress category. Plus, we have a real head scratcher in this category. I'll get into that with my picks.
Let's dive right in to the nominations.
Lead Actor:
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Will Win: Gary Oldman. I feel like that if Oldman wins for this performance, it will almost be a lifetime achievement award. I'm sure he gives a fine performance here, but it feels similar to DiCaprio winning for The Revenant, or Martin Scorsese winning for The Departed. Not necessarily the best of their respective years, but it just happened to be their time.
Should Win: I feel like there are three performances that I feel are more deserving than Gary Oldman's. His role just screams "Oscar fodder" to me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like Chalamet, Day-Lewis (in his supposed last film role) and especially Kaluuya all give more ground breaking performances in their films. I'm just sadly convinced that they will just have to settle for being nominated.
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| Tom Hanks in The Post |
Snub/Surprise: As I mentioned earlier, the biggest head scratcher is Denzel Washington's nomination. I think he's one of, if not the best actor of all-time, but this one felt like he was getting nominated on his name alone. The movie was ravaged by critics, and his nomination screams Golden Globe-nominating the stars to me.
This leads to my snub... James Franco for The Disaster Artist. The recent allegations of sexual impropriety against Franco derailed his Oscar campaign, and Denzel was thrown in to fill the void. If this was the case, there were better performances that could have been rewarded... namely Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049 and Tom Hanks in The Post. Heck, if they want to really go out there... I'd say that Hugh Jackman deserves a nod for his wonderful work in Logan.
What do you think?
Adam: It is weird that Best Actor is usually one of the most stacked races, but this year it may be the biggest forgone conclusion of the night, for better or worse. Perhaps no nomination made me happier than Daniel Kaluuya's for Best Actor (other than probably Jordan Peele's nomination for Best Director) and yeah there's no question the shadow of #MeToo will loom largely over this one, probably just for the better.
As someone who feels pretty strongly that Denzel Washington was robbed last year in his neck-and-neck competition with Casey Affleck, that Oscar winner's self-excommunication this year feels like karma.
Will win: Gary Oldman. This is the forgone conclusion I'm referring to. Almost from the moment it was revealed that he was playing historic icon Winston Churchill under heavy prosthetics, it was pretty much guaranteed he would be nominated and probably win. I haven't seen the film so I can't say if it's one of those transcendent transformations like Ben Kingsley in Gandhi where the actor 'becomes' the person they're playing.
But clearly Oldman has been one of the premiere actors of his generation and it's sort of shocking that he's never one or only been nominated once previously. The one knock against him is some pretty tone deaf interviews he's given recently on the subject of political correctness (yes, he defended Mel Gibson) and long dormant allegations of domestic abuse about his ex have resurfaced. But none of his controversies seem to have gotten enough traction to derail him at this point, as they appeared to derail James Franco.
Should win: This is a really tough one. I loved Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in Phantom Thread -- but the man has three Best Actor awards, THREE. And two of those wins came in the last decade. So while this is his last performance (supposedly) and a terrific one, I would personally pick Daniel Kaluuya who brought depth and emotion to what could have been an intellectual, genre exercise. His performance isn't showy at all and asks him to be almost frustratingly passive at times, but Kaluuya owns his character's indecisiveness and justifies it with a harrowing backstory from his youth.
I wouldn't be the least upset if Timothee Chalamet won either, he was incredible in Call Me By Your Name, giving a very smart and sophisticated performance even though he's only 22. My love for Denzel Washington is well-documented, and as it has been widely reported his performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq is far better than the film it's in. God I wish that character could be featured in a less cliched, more focused movie, but unfortunately, I think you're right, that it's here because James Franco isn't.
Snub/Surprise: Speaking of James Franco, he was truly brilliant in The Disaster Artist, a terrific film that will probably be relegated to a cult curiosity in part because of Franco's transgressions with women over the years. He will not be the first or the last actor who's problematic personal life will raise questions about whether or not to embrace their work. It's going to present a lot of challenges in the short and long term. I am not surprised Franco paid a price here, and I'm not sad he did. But it raises questions going forward about how much the world outside the movies should influence who we choose to recognize for their achievements.
I agree that I would have really loved to see Tom Hanks in here for his richly deserved work in The Post, I was not a Sully fan, but he was great in this, Bridge of Spies and Captain Phillips, and yet has managed to be snubbed for them all, I remember when people used to roll their eyes about Hanks being nominated all the time, now he's not nominated enough. THANKS TRUMP!
I also loved Gosling's work in Blade Runner 2049 and Jackman's in Logan, but my biggest hoped for--never-was-gonna-be nomination was Robert Pattinson for Good Time. I know haters of the Twilight movies (which i have never seen) might think this is absurd, but he was as good as a young Robert DeNiro in Good Time, a riveting crime drama that deserved far more recognition than it got.
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