OVP: Actor (2015)

OVP: Best Actor (2015)

The Nominees Were...

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

My Thoughts: Frequently you think of a specific year’s Oscars in relation to the Best Picture winner.  1953 is the “From Here to Eternity Oscars” or 1976 is the “Rocky Oscars,” (for example).  However, that’s occasionally not the case, and I think the most recent example of this is the 2015 Oscars, which few people seem to remember as the SpotlightOscars, but instead the ceremony where Leo “finally” won his statue.  The collective internet seemed to think that DiCaprio’s lack of a trophy was approaching Susan Lucci at the Emmys territory, and as a result he seemed to have won by collective acclimation for The Revenant.  I’ve been a Leo fan for years, someone who has proclaimed he’s earned an Oscar more than once (including in this Oscar Viewing Project-check out 2013 below in the links), but that he won what will likely be his only trophy for a movie like The Revenant seems like a gigantic miss.

Leo’s work in The Revenant, is, at best, a physical achievement. It’s certainly a transformative experience, and in the one truly great scene in the movie (the fight with the bear), he is able to create a sense of fear that is lacking (but desperately needed) in the rest of the movie.  But Leo’s Hugh Glass is nothing more than that.  He’s not a man, he doesn’t have any character growth, he’s just someone enduring the constancy of the elements.  This might be filmmaking, but it certainly isn’t acting.  Leo does nothing to ground the character he’s bringing to the screen, and in my opinion gives his worst performance in The Revenant because there’s nothing there.  It’s hard to even judge it-it feels more like you’re judging a reality TV star for acting, because it’s just a series of stunts and grunts, nothing special & certainly not leaning into the great talents (charm, wit, vulnerability) that made him a star in the first place.

I’ll be real, though-if Leo was going to win over a field for an “it’s about time” Oscar, he picked the right lineup to conquer as 2015’s Best Actor race isn’t that impressive.  Matt Damon, who I always associate with Leo (even though DiCpario had won critical and awards success several years before Damon’s breakout performance in Good Will Hunting), is good in The Martian, a solid action-adventure that doesn’t feel the need to bring depth to its work but instead just let a good story keep the tale going.  The parts where he’s amusing himself to fight the mind-boggling loneliness of being the only man on a planet are quite fun (Damon, like DiCaprio, is probably best at light drama or comedy), but the second half isn’t as impressive when he flexes the acting muscle rather than the movie star muscle, though it’s still game and one of the better performances in this lineup.

Bryan Cranston is probably wishing he was in a film as good as The Martian, as he’s clearly trying to pull a similar trick of a capable actor attempting to substitute star charisma for acting.  Unfortunately, Trumbois not The Martian, and Cranston isn’t doing enough work here to save the film from itself.  His Trumbo is unknowable, though unlike Leo he is definitely a character, just a one-dimensional one.  I left thinking that he must have been just a lovable scamp, but I also don’t think that Cranston grounded enough of the actual actions of his character with the words-why was it that his Trumbo was willing to give up a career that he obviously loved to stand for a principle that doesn’t feel particularly engrained in his day-to-day life?  That there’s not an answer to this question is a fatal flaw not only in the movie, but in Cranston’s performance itself.

Michael Fassbender is also tasked with playing a larger-than-life character, but here he manages to find the sole of the man he’s portraying.  It’s rough playing one of the most famous figures on earth just a few short years after he passed away, but Fassy brings an incredible amount of depth to his creation, not mimicking Jobs but instead making a megalomaniacal genius that recalls his visage (Fassbender is also considerably more attractive than Jobs, so trying to just have him look like him would have been a failure).  Fassy understands the rat-a-tat of Sorkin’s screenplay, which is good but suffers from all of his indulgences (and inability to write particularly compelling women that don’t revolve around a man’s achievements), and is the only person in this lineup who is giving a performance we should still be talking about some four years later.

Cause that sure ain’t the case for Eddie Redmayne.  Redmayne, an actor & celebrity who seemed to have a moment a few years ago and then disappeared into a boring franchise, has never really equaled the talent I saw in him with Les Miserables seven years ago, despite a pair of Oscar nominations since.  His Einar/Lili has a grace that he can’t lose, and that’s necessary in handling such a role, but he’s too calculating and timid in his work, even when Lili is supposed to feel free.  You can almost see him thinking “I need to be angry” or “I need to be scared” rather than let it come organically, and you leave having spent so many intimate moments with this character but knowing little about what she wanted to bring to the world, other than herself.  It’s hard to judge this film already because the politics of it feel dated, but Redmayne’s work is not up to the same caliber of some of what we’d come to expect from him, and certainly not equal to what Vikander is doing as his leading woman.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy/Musical," and as a result have ten men to contend with.  The Drama category saw nearly an exact replica of this field, with the only one missing being Damon (instead going with Will Smith in Concussion…Leo won), while Comedy had Damon beat Christian Bale (The Big Short), Steve Carell (also The Big Short), Al Pacino (Danny Collins), and Mark Ruffalo (Infinitely Polar Bear).  Damon won, despite the fact that he was in a drama.  SAG threw out Damon for leading actor, instead picking Johnny Depp (Black Mass), and went with Leo as their winner as well, while BAFTA went for an exact replica of the Oscar race, and Leo was again victorious.  In picking a sixth place, I suspect it was Smith, but honestly looking at this race I am guessing that it was a very distant sixth place.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I would almost completely re-haul this category.  For starters, I’d keep Michael Caine’s quiet, dignified work in Youth as he tries to overcome the grief of a dead wife whom he neglected.  Jacob Tremblay certainly deserved to be included (even though he was campaigned as supporting) for his breathtaking work in Room, and one wonders if they’d gone all-in as a lead actor if they’d managed to have gotten him the nomination as Cranston & Damon were vulnerable.  I’d throw in Tom Hardy’s double-duty in Legend, which was a dismissible film but one where he’s having a blast (and I did too). And for the final spot, why not Michael B. Jordan, who unlike Leo has a physical transformation AND achieves a complicated performance?

Oscar’s Choice: The internet literally would have revolted if Leo hadn’t won, and Oscar wasn’t going to deprive the people of their big speech.  In a world where he wasn’t here, I suspect Redmayne getting a back-to-back Oscar could have been in the cards (or honestly Will Smith might have gotten a similar sort of Leo Push).

My Choice: Fassbender is head-and-shoulders above the rest of these guys.  Follow him with Damon, Redmayne, Cranston, and DiCaprio.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree that this was Leo’s time, or are you with me that Fassbender had this coming?  Won’t it be strange if Trumbo (of all things) ends up being Bryan Cranston’s only Oscar nomination?  And has anyone actually seen Danny Collins orInfinitely Polar Bear…should I?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2015: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2015

Past Best Actor Contests: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014