15 Actors Most Overdue for Oscar

1. Ralph Fiennes — Longtime cinephile's favorite online publication The Film Experience often refers to him as the best actor of his generation not to win. In addition to his two nominations in the 90s, he also was a great lead in another Best Picture nominee in Quiz Show. In the 00s, he garnered buzz in Constant Gardener, and the trifecta of Reader/In Bruges/Duchess (which might have split votes) in 2008, in addition to infusing one of the decade’s big franchises with Voldemort. He also got in on the Hannibal action in Red Dragon. In the 2010s, his output lessened. He likely was the most inventive Wes Anderson protagonist ever put to film in Grand Budapest Hotel (sorry Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore) and was quietly brilliant in The Dig a bit more recently.

2. Bradley Cooper -- While finishing a distant third in this past year's Oscar race, Cooper is well-known to have education bona fides (he went to an elite school) and to be a serious actor with a capital S. His streak of 3 straight nominations from 2012-2014 shows and 5 total shows that he's managed to break through at the top of wish lists by now. He’s getting so immersive (and possibly desperate) that he might pull a more extreme stunt like Revenant and get himself eaten by a bear.

3.  Paul Giamatti — I think the voters and media got a taste of how good the possibility of “And the Oscar Goes to Paul Giamatti” would have sounded. That he does not like a conventional leading man has worked in his favor as he is very much an ordinary man in the same way that Dustin Hoffman and Ernest Borgnine captured our imaginations.

4. Harvey Keitel — With luminaries like James Caan, Ned Beatty, and Danny Aiello tragically gone, he might be the last of the greatest generation of character actors who changed acting in the 1970s. Like Bill Nighy or Bruce Dern with recent norms, it might never be too late

5. Daniel Craig — Sean Connery won an Oscar for James Bond, but Craig had a far wider range and showed before and after Bond that he was willing to take risky roles, like Truman Capote’s lover in Infamous or a detective whose idiosyncrasies seemingly are modeled after Foghorn Leghorn. There are a ton of great roles in between in Craig’s filmography and his turns as Bond and LeBlanc make him a more marketable figure than, say, Colin Firth.

6. Johnny Depp — I’m not sure I’d cast him on a film because his drunken and difficult on-set behavior has become quite legendary (exacerbated through accounts at the Amber Heard trial), but to the degree that he would get cast, he’s never less than brilliant and superbly inventive. That can’t be denied.

7. Hugh Jackman — A convincing musical lead is hard to deny like his work in Les Miserables or Greatest Showman (a fan favorite, didn’t go so well with critics on the left). With his popularity with the Wolverine roles, and his range of work like The Front Runner or The Fountain, it’s not far-fetched at all that in a given year, he might have the best performance of the year. If it’s close, I have faith that the extremely amicable Jackman could get the award by doing well on the awards circuit

8. Benedict Cumberbatch — I tend to think best actors should be a little on the older side, and after Casey Affleck and Rami Malek, I’m happiest with actors winning the lead award over, say, 40, which is why Adam Driver seems a bit young for me (he’s 39, and nowhere near due). Cumberbatch might be there at 48. Damn, how the time has flown. He’s been superb in movies dating quite a while, and even if he doesn’t have a gazillion nominations, he does have an Emmy, and he’s the kind of guy you know could nail any future challenging role. He has been in 5 Best Picture nominees (War Horse, Imitation Game, 12 Years a Slave, Atonement, 1917), so his filmography is solid, even if his roles in a couple of his pictures were small.

9. Ed Norton — An actor’s actor, Norton has had some great break-out roles in the 90s, and has acted in a wide range (he even directed a romantic comedy). Motherless Brooklyn (his second directorial film) and his role in the Glass Onion show he’s still pretty ambitious.

10. Liam Neeson — His batting average of noticeable performance to regular performance is low considering how prolific he is, but he’s pretty beloved, and he has an excuse for acting in so many movies (it helps him get over his wife’s death). The probability that he has another brilliant performance like Kinsey or Schindler’s List shouldn’t be that far out of reach.

11. Eddie Murphy — The degree to which he held up SNL and the film industry in the 1980s can’t be underestimated. If you want to give a comic star an award, Murphy would be a good choice. The problem is that there isn’t that often a role like Dolemite is My Name or Dreamgirls.

12. Michael Fassbender — In 2011, he broke out with simultaneous plaudits for Shame, Dangerous Method, X-Men, and Jane Eyre all at once. He got two nominations in the next four years and I think he’s still growing strong. He’d be on the newer end of nominees.

13. Jon Hamm — The leading man on Mad Men fits the mold of a leading man very easily and I’m often thinking he’d be a good lead whenever I armchair cast a film idea I think of in my head.

14. Steve Martin — Hard to think of a more beloved legend in comedy. Roles like 2005’s Shopgirl show he can do something big if he gets the right role. He’s retiring soon, so he can market such a win as his swan song.

15. Richard Gere — This 75-year-old actor has had roles in key films in the 1970s (Days of Heaven), 1980s (Officer and a Gentleman), 1990s (Pretty Woman, Primal Fear), 2000s (Unfaithful, Chicago, Amelia), and 2010s (Arbitrage). He’s never been the preeminent of his generation and he’s never had the hot streak of a lot of great movies in a row, but his filmography stretches back a ways. With a good role, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be cheered as a consummate screen icon.

25 Best Acting Performances of 2014

1. Ralph Fiennes, Grand Budapest Hotel: The centerpiece of Wes Anderson’s best received film to date is a sublime comic creation and one of those unique characters whose iconic stature should be remembered for years if there’s any justice. He’s unapologetically shameless in the lengths he’ll go to to please a client and his emotional core develops as the film goes on through his relationship with Zero. It’s a high-water mark for Fiennes as well who, just the other day, The Film Experience was asking to resounding choruses how it could possible be that 20 years have passed with an Oscar nomination for this uber-talented actor.  .
2. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl: Pike reconciles both ends of the dichotomy of a woman in love by playing the extremes-- sugary/sweet and vengeful/bitter- with delicious wickedness. Just like Fiennes’ performance, Pike’s work here is indisputably a game changer.
3. Julianne Moore, Still Alice: While Moore’s Oscar win is a recognition of her great career as well, there’s little doubt that she at least deserved to be in the conversation for her thoroughly researched role of a woman in Alzheimer’s. Without Moore making the character so engaging, this film would have been a snoozefest designed to win someone an Oscar. With Moore at center, her acutely-felt awareness of her degradation gives the movie the feel of a psychological thriller.
4. Benedict Cumberbatch, Imitation Game: In his portrayal of severely anti-social mathematician Alan Turing, Cumberbatch allows us to empathize with someone who is nearly devoid of feelings. And he was a lot of fun to watch on the awards circuit.
5. Reese Witherspoon, Wild: It would be dismissive of the last decade to call this film Witherspoon’s graduation from a rom-com-centered ingenue to a grown-up, but it’s fair to say she has never had a role so demanding and the way she makes so many solo scenes engaging says a lot about her capabilities.
6. Brendan Gleeson, Calvary:Gleeson stars as a priest in a small Irish town, whose congregation has regressed so far morally that when he receives a death threat, he has no idea who it’s from. His pensiveness and jaded interaction with the townsfolk carries the movie’s somber aura.
7. JK Simmons, Whiplash: Simmons deservedly won a best supporting actor here for his intensity and the sheer uniqueness of his creation. The “what makes this character tick” question is just enigmatic enough that the film’s twists have enough room to surprise us.
8. Miles Teller, Whiplash: By contrast, Simmons owes plenty of his Oscar to the quality of his scene partner. Andrew’s descent into artistic obsession is filtered through a timid teenager wrestling with being comfortable in his own skin. Teller portrays both parts of the character with the adeptness of someone twice his age.
9. Ed Norton,Birdman: Looking back nearly two years after seeing the film, I can barely remember any of the performances. It was such an ensemble film that none of the  performances really were able to escape the conformity of the group effort and the acting felt oversahdowed by the razzle of the camera tricks anyway. The sole exceptions were Norton and the one-scene wonder of the critic (was it Lindsey Duncan? I’ll have to double check the credits). The temperamental actor is a standard but not one who would initially turn down sex with Emma Stone or punch someone else in his underwear. There were a lot of odd specificities that powered this film.
10. Keira Knightley, Imitation Game: I know it would be reductive to call a brilliant thinker like Joan Clark “plucky,” but that really is the first word to come to mind when thinking of Knightley’s portrayal. It’s why you can understand how Clark could deftly navigate her way through a boy’s club or convince a gay man to abandon his better judgement and propose to her. It’s been a great year for Knightley and she got her long-overdue second nomination here.
11. Christoph Waltz, Big Eyes: As I started watching this film, I was thinking of how refreshing it would be to see Waltz play someone other than a maniacal villain. Boy, was I wrong….
12. Carrie Coon, Gone Girl: Coon and Affleck nail down the easygoing ebb and flow of siblings so well that they seem more natural together than Casey and Ben did on the press tour for “Gone Baby Gone.” Coon also nails certain moments of revulsion, whether at her brother or his wife.
13. Alec Baldwin, Still Alice: Playing the significant other or other loved one trying to maintain steadiness while a loved one suffers is not always easy to do. It has won Alicia Vikander, Jennifer Connelly, Brenda Fricker and countless other women Oscars or nominations. It has been rare, however, to see a man go through a caretaker role like this. Baldwin’s approach from a masculine perspective was an interesting take: It was more externally quiet.
14. Mark Ruffalo, Begin Again: At this point, Ruffalo has three Oscar nominations which is quite a lot for an actor who squints his way through some of his most difficult scenes. This performance, however, really hits home. Ruffalo’s character here is a wide-eyed (a character with less squinting is good news for this guy!)  dreamer inside a jaded record executive and, in this fairy-tale-like story, we are sure invested in seeing that wide-eyed dreamer reemerge. When he smiles or jaunts around the city with Keira Knightley, or figures out the logistics of a musical number, it’s electric.
15. Chris Dowd, Calvary: This isn’t the baby-faced dreamboat from “Bridesamaids” you’ve grown to love. In a short amount of screen time, Dowd stands out among the cast of lowlives in the “Who wants to murder the priest” sweepstakes.
16. Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer: I not only love the uniquely enthusiastic regime enforcer Swinton creates here. I also love how a non-traditional-Oscar-bait role from an even less traditional film made so many dents in the Awards season.
17. David Oyelowo, Selma-Sorry #Oscarssowhite protesters, I have to agree with the Academy. This performance had a good gravity to it, but wasn’t up there with the best of the year. I'm sure this guy will make it sooner or later though.
18. Ben Affleck, Gone Girl: It takes two to tango and Affleck is particularly eclectic when Nick starts figuring out Amy’s game and playing by her rules.
19. Channing Tatum, Foxcatcher: To be clear, I found this movie excruciatingly boring. Frankly, I would have been more surprised by a revelation that a multi-millionaire  volunteering to let a bunch of Olympic athletes wrestle in his house wasn’t doing it for inappropriate reasons. Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that amid all this Oscar bait, the actors are doing what they’re supposed to pretty well. In particular, Tatum blew me away as a sensitive brute enamored with darker secrets.
20. Keira Knightley, Begin Again-I might have moved her up a couple spots if she wasn’t so overly flowery in moments. Her relationship chemistry with Adam Levine didn’t seem entirely convincing either but she more than made up for it as one half of the cinematic year’s best platonic friendship with Mark Ruffalo. Her instant girl-bonding with Ruffalo’s daughter (played by Hailee Steinfeld) was particularly adorable as well. An additional paragraph can be written about Knightley’s musical performance here.
21. Emily Blunt, Into the Woods-Emily Blunt had a somewhat bizarre part here with her loyalty to her husband so well established in the first half and the second half being marked by---well, no spoilers. Blunt maintains the comic and fantasical tones of the film very nicely. Blunt is well-known but I think it’s still possible to call her underrated
22. Paddy Considine, Pride-Like “Into the Woods,” this film was a big ensemble effort. There were a lot of great performances in this film, so it’s hard to single one out. Considine, though, has one of the biggest presences in the film as Dai, one of the more elderly Welsh miners facing the cultural shock of an alliance with London’s gay community. One morning, he casually announces over breakfast to his wife that he’s not just comfortable with gays but also gay, and it’s one of the film’s most out-of-nowhere moments. It’s also, in the hands of Considine (and scene partner Imelda Staunton), one of the film's most beautiful moments. 
23. Matthew Goode, Imitation Game-The straight man to Benedict Cumberbatch’s erratic character.
24. Anna Kendrick, Into the Woods-Kendrick sings and dances and dresses like Cinderella! What more can you want?
25. Matthew McConaughey, Interstellar-McConaughey convincingly playing a man who’s future Earth’s smartest scientist and best pilot might be a stretch. However, he makes the list for two moments: 1) The tear-ridden scene in which he learns his daughter grows up and 2) His endearing banter with a sarcastic robot.

The one I just realized I forgot to put in: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Frank

Films I did not see that might have affected my judgment: Nightcrawler, Boyhood, American Sniper, Mr Turner, A Most Violent Year, Inherent Vice, 2 Days One Night

Every Film I've Seen in 2014: Ranked 1-29

1. Gone Girl-Everything I look for in a great film: David Fincher's latest work is challenging, thought-provoking, engaging and novel. It asked profound questions about our presumptions and biases in the media age with one of the most gut-wrenching twists in moviedom and a wonderful coming out performance for frosty Bond Girl Rosamund Pike. Ben Affleck, Casey Wilson, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Neil Patrick Harris, and *gasp* even Tyler Perry deliver great supporting performances for one of the year's most unlikely ensembles.

2. Grand Budapest Hotel-Wes Anderson never fails to deliver on his quirky style but this was one of his more translatable and universally profound films. The comical performance by Ralph Fiennes and the relationship between Gustav and Tony were two things that made the film timeless outside of the Wes Anderson fan contingent. On top of that, the picturesque setting of a posh hotel in bizarro Central Europe lends itself well to some of Anderson's best visuals.

3. Interstellar-To call this film ambitious is an understatement. To translate a realistic look at space travel with black holes and relativistic jumps in time is a tall order but Christopher Nolan's up for the challenge and did not hold back on his intricately crafted style of storytelling. Some found the story ridiculous with "love" saving the day but I went along for the ride.  

4. Whiplash-Like the first three entries on this list, this film is thought-provoking and novel. It's kinetic, it takes you deep into a world you never knew existed before, and it has some of the most memorable scenes of the year. A fully-realized film thematically, no scene is really wasted here.

5. Wild-A masterful adventure film based on the true-life story of a woman's journey along the Pacific Coast Trail. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee of "Dallas Buyer's Club," the film enables the viewer to really experience the physical strife and isolation of Cheryl Strayed's journey. It's like "Cast Away" or "127 Hours" but it also works well when it features the protagonist making connections with other people.

6. Calvary-The film is an exploration of grief, sin, unhappiness, faith, and the emptiness that comes with wealth. In spite of all that, the journey of the priest (played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson) is one of hope despite the fact that this could possibly be his last week on Earth.

7. Pride-A feel-good film that balances a large ensemble incredibly well. It's a little sugary but it's based on a sugary historical moment, so oh well. 

8. Birdman-Films about actors and filmmakers can become a little vain. This is the third time in four years that a film about making a film (or a play) won Best Picture and that's slightly problematic. Alejandro Inarritu unapolagetically wears his heart on his sleeve when he makes pictures and that human touch ties so many disparate projects of his. In this case, the performances are great and the merging of story, technological innovation (which some might call trickery), and a wicked score merge to make something that's awards worthy on some level.

9. Into the Woods-The film is adapted from a Stephen Sondheim play which presents some near-impossible challenges when it comes to deciding how to intermingle the light-hearted humor and Gothic angles. It's hard to say whether director Rob Marshall nailed the transitions. On top of that, the film's tone is incredibly jarring as "Happy Ever After" turns into six different levels of weird in the second half. In spite of all that, the film was really memorable in a twisted way. Moreover, the musical element adds something: The song's aren't particularly hummable but the cast displays their theatricality with the numbers. 

10. A Million Ways to Die in the West-With the exception of one scene (Neil Patrick Harris's shoot-off) Seth McFarlane stays clear of overly crass and low ball humor in this extremely hilarious parody that makes great use of McFarlane's hyper familiarity with pop culture. Although it's definitely a popcorn film more than an ambitious comedy (by Jason Reitman, Edgar Wright or Christopher Guest), few comedies can deliver such a strong rhythm of laughs like this and that deserves credit. The film's also better looking than a comedy has any right to be.

11. Still Alice-Better known as the film that won Julianne Moore an Oscar but no one saw (this happens nearly every year in the Best Actress category and occasionally the Best Actor category too). The film is a bit devoid of momentum at times but the film is visceral and Julianne Moore's performance is a great example of an actress winning an Oscar for the right role. Alec Baldwin is great here as well.

12. Imitation Game-The way this biopic screams out for Oscar is mildly off putting if you're conscious of Oscarbait. The the story's insistence on cutting back to Turing's childhood is unnecessary, but the historic personalities portrayed here are very strong and memorable. Math isn't a very sexy topic and this film doesn't make it wholly interesting but it comes close.

13. Chef-Not a particularly ambitious film but a thematically coherent and well-paced one with a clear passion for its subject. 

14. X-Men Days of Future Past-The first couple X-Mens would probably have made my top 10 of their respective years and this one doesn't provoke that level of amazement from me but it's not really a flawed film either (except for the fact that actors like Anna Paquin, Halle Berry and the rest of the older X-Men are pretty much wasted in cameos). The film could have used some more focus on some of the other characters but the small scale focus on Beast-Wolverine-Magneto-X-Mystique is an interesting change and I like that it transitions decades rather seemleesly.

15. Begin Again-The narrative didn't really have that high of a high (Knightley's character anticlimactically decides to release the music herself anyway and the marriage reconciliation is equally forgettable) but it has some memorable moments and is made with a certain amount of passion for its subject. As a mood piece, it's very inviting and a worthy follow-up for Jay Carney for Once.

16. The Judge-Hank (Robert Downey Jr.) is such a dislikeable character that he turns this film into a downer pretty quickly. The argument scenes are almost like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for example. At the same time, there's a lot to respect the film's ambition and there are a lot of thought-provoking moments here and there. Certain characters like Dax Shepherd's dim-witted lawyer and Vera Farmiga's Sam shine. The courtroom drama underneath it all is pretty decent too.

17. Boxtrolls-The only animated film I saw this year. It was interesting visually and I admired it's slightly darker themes. 

18. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit-This film certainly came in under the radar (I didn't hear about it until I took a chance on it at the Redbox) but I liked the idea of a hero who was essentially an analyst ("Get Smart" tried this on a comic level) with brains. Even his fighting style (I'd go so far as to say my two my favorite action scenes of the year were in this film) were fought using not just Jack Ryan's reflexes but his smarts. The score and visual look were also somewhat inviting.

19. Horrible Bosses 2-This is not a film with anything original to offer as a sequel. It's last act is too confusing to follow and I get the sense I'm not supposed to care. That said, it was more or less what I paid for: The familiar rapport between three solid comic actors with winning chemistry and some memorable set pieces. The addition of  Chris Pine and Christophe Waltz into the cast didn't hurt. Besides, the part of me that quit "House of Cards" because Frank Underwood never got his comeuppance, enjoyed seeing him in the slammer here.

20. Top Five-I love Chris Rock as a stand-up and I applaud him for making a personal film but I don't know if he's actually saying anything here. When given the opportunity to create, Rock's messages are somewhat pessimistic and a downer (His conception of Everybody Hates Chris is a loving family that's always threatening disciplinary measures on him). While the film worked thematically, I didn't feel like even the allure of Rosario Dawson could fill the holes of emptiness created by the protagonist's wealth. 

21. Long Way Down-Pretty much a by-the-book adaptation of a pretty unique story. A couple of the changes worked (making Toni Collette's character's son slighty able, softening Pierce Brosnan's character) while others didn't (shipping the two younger characters, the lack of resolution from the journalist spy/lover incident).

22. Cantinflas-A middling biopic with a few bright spots. It's specific to a setting but I was a little disappoint by how Mexican it felt beyond the subtitles.  The best part perhaps was seeing the guy's creative process in a trial-and-error kind of way.

23. Bad Words-Like "The Judge," it's main character was too dark to be uplifting or rootable. At the same time, I admire Bateman's decision to try something a little darker (whereas for Downey Jr., it's just routine). The movie would have been better if it had some interest in recapturing the spelling bee and recreating that drama. This could have been an opportunity to go specific. .

24. Snowpiercer-The premise for the film is novel and sets up some cool visuals and could go deeper into some sort of mythology if it held up under any level of scrutiny. Why are humanity's last survivors convinced that cramming into close quarters with people who want to oppress/murder them on a never-ending train is a good idea? The steps in the plot (someone dies, someone else gets shot in revenge) were repetitive and the ending was muddled.

25. Lucy-The film set up some cool action scenes and special effects. Moments like Lucy ignoring flight safety or chatting with her roommate while using 20,000 times more brainpower had a funny catharsis. I got behind the story of the character (and like what ScarJo did with Lucy) but a cool concept became more and more outlandish to the point of stupidity. The Morgan Freeman narration trope is getting strained at this point.

26. Foxcatcher-I'm sure I'm in the minority here but this film was as dull and as a Hallmark movie-of-the-week. So the creepy-acting guy with an inordinate amount of time to pursue his interest of a sport where young males touch and tumble with each other and barely acceptable ways, turns out to be a pedophile. That's a surprise? The film's scarce musical score is also annoying.

27. Captain America 2-A couple of the action scenes were great but I found myself caring so little about these characters that it felt like I was dropped into a long-running procedural midway through the season. Why do I care about Captain America as someone who didn't see the Avengers or the first Captain America film? Maybe I wasn't the target audience?

28. Mazerunner-I thought this was going to be about people trapped in a maze like what Ariadne would have designed in "Inception." And maybe they would have been running instead of walking. So much for reading too much into the title. It turns out they were trapped in a village without adults like "Kid Nation" with a more dramatic score and desperate ambitions to be a tentpole film. But, hey it was nice to see Patricia Clarkson for a few minutes.

29. Camp Takota-I was intrigued by the backstory of three YouTube stars crowdfunding their way to a film, but if this is what new media has to offer, I'm fine with the old studio system. This had no edge and barely even had a grasp of what summer camp is like. I wouldn't say Hannah Hart, Mamrie Hart and Grace Helbig are necessarily bad actors or that there personalities didn't shine through but it was a lazy attempt to fit their comic persona into a story. 

Acting Oscars in an alternate universe

Acting Oscars in an alternate universe:
I'm just sort of reimagining the Oscars here dating back to 1989. I tried to keep myself to a certain number of rules in limiting what I wanted and what was realistic. One rule was that the number of Oscar winners in the alternate version must equal the number of Oscar winners in history. For example, if I penciled in Russell Crowe for a second Oscar, that would make it one less Oscar winner total. It was a matter of balancing multiple Oscar winners with single Oscar winners.
Secondary rules were to balance dues, be realistic in who would win, and make sure that as many of the deserving actors, if I deprived them an award somewhere, I'd give it back to them later.
By dues, I mean the dues that go into whether an actor wins an Oscar is dependent on whether they've won one before and if so, how recently that would be.

Without further ado, let's start:
89:
Best Actor: Tom Cruise, Born on the Fourth of July*
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau, Crimes and Misdemeanors*
Best Actress: Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
Best Supporting Actress: Brenda Fricker, My Left Foot
I was originally planning to just do the 20-year period of the 90's and 00's but I needed to strip Denzel Washington of his 89 supporting Oscar to even things out so I went back a year.

In this year, I decided to give the Oscar to Tom Cruise becasue as I wrote in a seperate post, Cruise really needs an Oscar somewhere for the good of Hollywood. I picked Cruise to get the Oscar for 4th of July because I realized when I replaced Day-Lewis for Brody in 2002, I deprived history of its first and only Best Actor winner under 30-years old. To take his place, I thought, I could either give it to Tom Cruise for Born on the 4th or snub Ryan Gosling for Lars and the Real Girl and I chose the former being that the latter wasn't particularly likely.

90:Best Actor: Jeremy Irons, Reversal of Fortune
Best Supporting Actor: Joe Pesci, Goodfellas
Best Actress: Kathy Bates, Misery
Best Supporting Actress: Anjelica Huston, Grifters*
Everything here is kept as is. Kathy Bates performance in Misery was iconic and Joe Pesci gave one of the best supporting roles ever so there's no need to change either of them. Jeremy Irons is a well-respected theater veteran who deserves nothing less than an Oscar. I was considering keeping Whoopi Goldberg because she couldn't guest-star on 30 Rock as an INGOT winner without this award.


91:
Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs
Supporting Actor: Harvey Keitel, Bugsy*
Actress: Laura Dern, Rambling Rose*
Supporting Actress: Amanda Plummer, Fisher King**
In 1991, I wanted to take the opportunity to reward either Bugsy and JFK with an acting Oscar and I ended up going with Harvey Keitel. Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Kingsley both deserve Oscars elsewhere and being that I found room for that, I thought I'd reward Harvey Keitel for his fairly distinguished career as mobster Mickey Cohen in Bugsy.
I decree Jodie Foster needn't have two Oscars so I took her Silence of the Lambs win away. This prevents Silence of the Lambs from being just the third film to win actor, actress, director, screenplay, and picture, but it's just a horror film anyway. Laura Dern is also Hollywood royalty and has had a relatively respectable career. Shy paramour Amanda Plummer stuck out more in The Fisher King than nagging girlfriend Mercedes Ruehl in my opinion.

92:
Best Actor: Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman
Supporting Actor: Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
Best Actress: Susan Sarandan, Lorenzo's Oil*
Best Supporting Actress: Greta Sacchi, Player**
I initially had thoughts of rewarding "The Player"'s Tim Robbins for his role as a creepy Hollywood executive a little too willing to get away with cold-blooded manslaughter. It would have compensated for my not awarding Robbins in 2003 and I still wanted to give him an Oscar (his acting wins me over, his politics don't). I was considering bumping Pacino down to supporting for Glengarry Glenn Ross but after 7 failed noms, Pacino deserves better than supporting actor. I could have even awarded Pacino a second supporting nom and a 9th nomination with the Insider in 1999 but I decided that Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman is one of my favorite performances and one that I needed to defend against the detractors and I feel equally highly of Eastwood in Unforgiven. I wanted to give Susan Sorandon something. 

A chance to void Marissa Thomei's controversial win, fortunately, gave me the opportunity to award Altman's film with a win for unnominated Greta Scacchi, who played the "Ice Queen"-Robbins' equally dark lover whom he meets in the most immoral of circumstances.


93:
Best Actor: Tom Hanks, Philadelphia
Supporting Actor: Ralph Feinnes, Schindler's List*
Best Actress: Holly Hunter, Piano
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Paquin, Piano

As a fan of Anna Paquin and Holly Hunter, I didn't want to mess with their Oscar wins and the back-to-back wins that defined Hanks career (as well as cinema in the 90's) didn't need tampering either. Tommy Lee Jones gets his own down the road, and Ralph Feinnes one of the UK's finest, gets his for Schindler's List.


94:
Best Actor: Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau, Ed Wood
Best Actress: Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Tilly, Bullets over Broadway*
94 was such a great cinematic year and I didn't really want to mess with anything here. I like that also-rans Ed Wood and Bullets Over Broadway got love in the acting categories and I think Jessica Lange (in a bizarre win) deserves a second Oscar. I switched Dianne Weist for Jennifer Tilly, however. This avoided a double win for Weist, who's career has been unremarkable.

95:
Best Actor: Sean Penn, Dead Man Walking
Best Supporting Actor: Ed Harris, Apollo 13*
Best Actress: Elizabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas
Best Supporting Actress: Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
Apollo 13 is my favorite film of the 90's and wanted to award Ed Harris for it, who conveys all the tension and drama of the space race with his frenetic pacing as mission director Gene Kranz. Presidential portraits seem award-worthy enough and giving Hopkins a second Oscar ensures that he won't be remembered just for his performance as a serial killer. Let's switch up Dead

96:
Best Actor: Ralph Feinnes, English Patient
Best Supporting Actor: Armin Muehler-Stahl, Shine*
Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Fargo
Best Supporting Actress Juliette Binoche, The English Patient
James Woods for Ghosts of Mississippi and Tom Cruise were under consideration here. I wasn't particularly impressed with Rush in Shine but I felt Rush deserved an Oscar and couldn't give it to him in 2000 or 1998. Gooding Jr. who has single-handedly diminished the value of the award with poor post-Oscar career choices, gets to be erased and a man with a mesmerizing performances gets in instead.


97:
Best Actor: Rob Duvall, The Apostle*
Best Supporting Actor: Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting
Best Actress: Helena Bohman Carter, Wings of the Dove*
Best Supporting Actress: Kim Bassinger, LA Confidential

98:
Best Actor: Joseph Feinnes, Shakespeare in Love**
Best Supporting Actor: James Coburn, Affliction
Best Actress: Fernando Montonegro, Central Station*
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Griffith, Hillary and Jackie*

99:
Best Actor: Matt Damon, Talented Mr. Ripley**
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Clarke Duncan, Green Mie*
Best Actress: Annette Benning, American Beauty*
Best Supporting Actress: Chloe Seveigny, Boys Don't Cry*

00:
Best Actor: Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Best Supporting Actor: Benicio del Toro, Traffic
Best Actress: Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovitch
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Hudson, Almost Famous*

01:
Best Actor: Russell Crowe, Beautiful Mind*
Best Supporting Actor:Jon Voight,Ali*
Best Actress: Halle Berry, Monster's Ball
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly, Beautiful Mind

02:
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
Best Supporting Actor: Dennis Quaid, Far From Heaven**
Best Actress: Rene Zellweger, Chicago*
Best Supporting Actress: Meryl Streep, Adaptation*

03:
Best Actor: Ben Kinglsey, House of Sand and Fog*
Best Supporting Actor: Jonny Depp, Pirates of the Carribean**
Best Actress: Charlize Theron, Monster
Best Supporting Actress: Scarlett Johannsen, Lost in Translation**

04:
Best Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray
Best Supporting Actor: Alec Baldwin, Aviator**
Best Actress: Hillary Swank,, Million Dollar Baby
Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways*

05:
Best Actor: Joaquin Pheonix, Walk the Line*
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney, Syriana
Best Actress: Reese Whitherspoon, Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weicz, Constant Gardener

06:
Best Actor: Ken Wattanabe, Letters from Iwo Jima**
Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Best Actress: Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal*
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

07:
Best Actor: Virgo Mortgensen, Eastern Promises*
Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men**
Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away from Her*
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There*

08:
Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, Dark Knight
Best Actress: Kate Winselt, Reader
Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Milk

09:
Best Actor: Morgan Freeman, Invictus*
Best Supporting Actor: Christophe Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, Last Station*
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air*

Stats:
Existing multiple oscar winners who have lost Oscars (unless otherwise noted, they've gone from 2 oscars to 1 oscar) in my multiple reality: Jodie Foster, Michael Caine, Jack Nicholson (3 Oscars to 2 Oscars), Hillary Swank, Kevin Spacey (2 to 0), Denzel Washington
Existing Oscar-winners who have gained an Oscar in this alternate timeline: People who have gone from 1 oscar to 2 oscars (or 2 to 3): Meryl Streep, Rob Duvall, Ben Kingsley, Martin Landau, Julie Christie, Russell Crowe, Anjelica Huston, Jon Voight

People who no longer have Oscars: Mo'nique, Jeff Bridges, Jim Broadbent, Gwenyth Paltrow, Cuba Gooding Jr., Maria Thomei, Chris Cooper, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nicole Kidman, Adrian Brody, Roberto Begnini, Whoopi Goldberg, Sandra Bullock, Helen Hunt, Marion Cotillard

People who are now suddenly very much due an Oscar: Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kevin Spacey

Long due people who now finally have an Oscar in this alternate timeline: Ed Harris, Annette Benning, Ralph Feinnes, Tom Cruise, Lynn Redgrave, Harvey Keitel


.

My Best Supporting Actor

The two guys that are definitely in already that I agree with:

Josh Brolin, Milk:
My favorite supporting actor performance. I think he's pretty set for a nomination considering he's suddenly risen as a Hollywood name with his last 3 movies.

Heath Ledger, Dark Knight:
Ledger is my 2nd favorite and will easily get a nomination. I thought the film was disturbing but it's fun to see a pop culture comic book character that's been played so many times finally get a nom.

3 guys I'd like to see:
James Franco, Milk-I want Franco in because more than Emile Hirsch or Jake Gyllenhall or Peter Sargasaard or John Rhys-Meyers, I like him the best of all the up-and-comers. He's humble, he's clearly hard working (he's going for a master's degree, how admirable is that), he has a great sense of humor, he paid his dues by playing a supporting role in Spiderman, and he said all the right things wehn people kept probing him about how disgusting it must have been to kiss Penn. He also made an additional supporting turn in Pineapple Express which was the only good thing about the movie.

Ralph Feinnes, The Reader-He should just get a 3rd Oscar nom already. I haven't seen the Reader yet, but I just saw him in In Bruges and he was great in that, and he's consistently good, so why wouldn't I expect the best of him from In Bruges. He's overshadowed by Gleason and Farrell in In Bruges and he doesn't have a lot of screen time in In Bruges so I hope people don't vote for that and I worry voters will split too many Ralph Feinnes votes if they split The Reader with In Bruges and The Duchess. The Reader has a far more visible profile than The Duchess which only grossed $13 million domestically.

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road-I primarily want to see Shannon in this film because I love Sam Mendes' work and I want to see it get as many accolades as possible. The more I think about it, the more I want Shannon to get a nom.

Someone who I'm not rooting for but who will probably get a nom:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman-Doubt
He is probably in, but I'd like to see Feinnes, Shannon, and Franco get nominated first. I'm indifferent to Phillip Seymour Hoffman but he just got two nominations in the last three years and that's enough for now.


People who I'm rooting against:
Eddie Marsden, Happy-Go-Lucky-Never gotten any sort of buzz before. He's been in a lot of movies and in 21 Grams he was slightly memorable, but definitely needs to earn his dues. Besides, I already have my 5.

People who I'm rooting against with a passion:
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
-Dev Patel isn't awful by any stretch of the imagination. He makes the far-fetched love story work, but at the same time, outside of his chemistry to Freida Pinto, he's not particularly memorable. Besides, this is the most blatant case of category fraud I've seen. It stretches the definition of supporting actor to the point where it's a meaningless category designed as a consolation prize for those who couldn't compete with Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Frank Langella, Mickey, and Clint Eastwood. Award the supporting actors to people who played supporting roles.

Rob Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder-Since it's just a popcorn comedy and the Academy has their unconventional film bases covered with Dark Knight, leave him behind. I have two main issues with Rob Downey Jrs' nom. First, the Academy sometimes awards an Oscar nom to make up for a past mistake but this is the first known instance in which we're giving him an unnecessary nomination to make up for a FUTURE PERFORMANCE in The Soloist. Oscar buzzers and the academy basically all decided Downey Jr. deserved a nod this year for his great year in The Soloist, Iron Man, and Tropic Thunder BEFORE the Soloist got pushed back to 2009. That's probably going to be his best of the three, so reward him then. The second reason I'm against rewarding Downey Jr. is we already have a number of actors this year joining the two-nomination club: Amy Adams (possibly), Brad Pitt (definitely), Angelina Jolie (probably), and Penelope Cruz (definitely). This is a big milestone because it means you weren't a one-hit wonder. Let's not overdo it.

Reason #3? I'm tired of hearing about how great of a year Rob Downey Jr. has like this was all highly improbably. The pundits are acting like Downey was unemployable before now, when in fact he was recently in Good Night and Good Luck and starred in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's irrelevant if Hollywood selects you for a $50 million dollar film or a mega blockbuster, the fact is you've already been let back in. Mega blockbusters don't rest as much on star power as they do special effects, the cast, and the quality of the story. One would be misguided to tell me that Tobey Maguire was a bankable star anytime he steps outside of spandex. When was the last time he did that and had a success? A supporting role in The Good German was his last non-Spiderman film. That didn't do very well at the box office and it doesn't speak well for him that he got relegated to a supporting part. Similarly, does anyone even know the name of the actors who play Dr. Richard Reed or Ben Strom in the respectably grossing Fantastic Four or Hellboy in the Hellboy film and is anyone putting money on them in non-superhero films? Besides, lots of Hollywood stars have been to prison and in rehab and have emerged to do fine.


Please let me know your thoughts!