OVP: Actor (2021)

OVP: Best Actor (2021)

The Nominees Were...

Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog

Andrew Garfield, tick, tick...BOOM!

Will Smith, King Richard

Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

My Thoughts: We have not yet gotten to an Oscars year where I didn't watch the actual ceremony live with the Oscar Viewing Project.  By the end of the year, that will not be the case; I started watching the Oscars in 1994/1995, and I've already finished watching a full OVP year from before then that we'll write about later this year, hopefully this summer at my current pace.  But as a result, it's sometimes impossible to separate the category from what I felt at the time, and when it's a category as infamous as this one, it's worth reminding people: we base who wins here solely on the performance at hand, not whether or not someone may have, say, ruined one of the most successful movie star careers of the past three decades with one simple slap.

We'll get Will Smith out of the way, and to this day I'm still not entirely sure what he was thinking.  But I do get what the Academy was thinking.  Smith is one of the last big movie stars of the 1990's (possibly the last) to not have a competitive Oscar who ended up getting one, and he's good here.  Richard Williams isn't a role that he'd be naturally the right choice for, but he does a strong job of combining the cool, assured persona that has made him a household name with against-type frustration on Williams' part as he tries to break down the barriers of the very segregated world of professional tennis.  Like his costar Aunjanue Ellis whom we talked about yesterday (links to all past contests at the bottom of the page), he is hurt by the screenwriters unwillingness to write Williams as a complicated, three-dimensional man rather than an always-right hero, and so it never feels like a complete performance, but he does well with what he has.

One could hardly say that Denzel Washington was handed a bad script, given that Joel Coen's adaptation of Macbeth is almost verbatim the original text from Shakespeare.  But he is aided in this version of the classic play by the cool, eerie ambience of this performance.  Even better for Washington are his scene partners (specifically Kathryn Hunter) who complement Washington's take on Macbeth quite well.  Washington plays the ill-guided king as a fool, but one who clearly has a confidence that is stripped by madness as the film goes.  It's a smart look at (honestly) the third most interesting character in a play despite him being the title character, and as a result, he outshines Frances McDormand, who has the better role.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a weird conundrum for me in that, before Power of the Dog, I'd never gravitated toward him.  I didn't like his oftentimes modernist takes on classic characters, and his screen persona was always a bit smarmy or (in his other Oscar-nominated film) scenery-chewing.  But this...this is fantastic.  His affected accent (not really western, clearly struggling behind his natural posh London accent) works really well for a character who is so much pretense, and he plays Phil as a dangerous character you can't help but stare at, and not just because Cumberbatch has never been so sexy onscreen.  There's a raw magnetism there, one that you can't deny as you're watching, and one that you're worried Smit-McPhee will fall into because, quite honestly, Cumberbatch is so good the audience is definitely headed that direction.

Andrew Garfield has been sexy (quite frequently) onscreen, but is looking more along the lines of "affably dorky" in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tick Tick Boom.  Garfield's got a better script than his competitor Smith, in part because the script isn't shy about Jonathan Larson's faults as a self-involved genius, one incapable of the romance he wants to bring to his plays.  Garfield isn't a natural singer, but he holds his own, and puts so much assured personality into his vocals that what read as out-of-the-box casting before the film feels like inevitability when you're watching it onscreen.

Our final nominee is Javier Bardem, and for me, it's the one dud in an otherwise good lineup.  Bardem was also out-of-the-box casting in a film brimming with it, and he's the one actor that doesn't work.  His Desi Arnez isn't charming enough, doesn't have enough chemistry with Kidman's Lucille Ball, and his character spouting the type of hyper-expositional dialogue that Sorkin is drowning his actors in here is the one least-equipped to make it believable given Arnez is meant to be more opaque about his feelings.  Sometimes casting a star for a role they aren't a good fit for works (Cumberbatch, Garfield, & Smith all did it), but Bardem is proof not every casting director is infallible.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went with Smith as the winner atop Bardem, Cumberbatch, Washington, & Mahershala Ali (Swan Song) while Musical/Comedy went to Garfield against Leonardo DiCaprio (Don't Look Up), Peter Dinklage (Cyrano), Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza), & Anthony Ramos (In the Heights).  SAG went verbatim with Oscar's lineup (winner included), and BAFTA also picked Smith, though they went for a totally different Best Actor roster, with Cumberbatch, DiCaprio, Ali, Stephen Graham (Breaking Point), and Adeel Akhtar (Ali & Ava) the other nominees.  For sixth place, at the time I predicted Nicolas Cage for Pig (which, honestly, still feels plausible...precursors ain't everything), though if you wanted to think DiCaprio was in sixth you'd likely have more company than me on the Cage ledge.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Overall, Oscar did well here and there's a lot of overlap with my personal list which we'll get to in the next few days.  But for sure I'd want at least one of these guys out, and the easy answer of who to throw in would be Dev Patel, who is (for me) finally fulfilling the promise of a swaggering, handsome movie star with his electric performance in The Green Knight.

Oscar’s Choice: Had they voted during the ceremony, I think Garfield or Washington might've gotten the statue, but with all ballots delivered pre-slap, this was Smith in a walk.

My Choice: Cumberbatch, by a healthy margin...in my opinion the least of these actors given the rest of their collective body of work, this is proof that you have to just give it by the performances at hand, as he's marvelous here.  Garfield, Washington, Smith, & Bardem follow (in that order).

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you going to go with the default coronation of Smith or do you want to join me in crowning the unlikely Cumberbatch?  Do we think that anyone will win an Oscar for Shakespeare again?  And am I crazy for still thinking it was Cage who was in sixth (rather than the more traditional DiCaprio)?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2021: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2021

Past Best Actor Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

OVP: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Film: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: Jane Campion

Oscar History: 12 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Benedict Cumberbatch, Supporting Actress-Kirsten Dunst, Supporting Actor-Jesse Plemons, Supporting Actor-Kodi Smit-McPhee, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Sound, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The western is possibly my favorite genre (give or take film noir, though that's so much a time-and-place genre that it feels like a cheat) not because I enjoy John Wayne proclaiming "pilgrim" repetitively (though, it's worth noting, the film that inspired that Wayne joke on Family Guy is a marvelous western), but because it's such a claustrophobic genre.  The best westerns aren't about taming the land or driving cattle, they're about fighting against the loneliness of the prairie, the reality that the time of the cowboy comes-and-goes, making way for a different, more permanent way of life.  I wouldn't have name-checked Jane Campion, the New Zealand directing icon, as someone who would have one of the most compelling recent installments in this constantly down (but never out) genre, but I should've known Campion, a master of the human experience (and bringing it to to the screen) would have something as sharp as The Power of the Dog up her sleeve.

(Spoilers Ahead-and I mean it, so stop & bookmark if you haven't watched yet as we're discussing the whole movie) The movie takes place in five acts, focusing principally on four characters.  The first are Phil (Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Plemons), two brothers with an uneasy relationship with each other.  Phil appears to be the alpha of the two, to the point that when George falls madly in love with the recently-widowed Rose Gordon (Dunst), he has to marry her in secret for fear that Phil might find a way to stop it.  This makes sense, because in the opening scenes we see Phil make Rose cry, not because of how he treats her, but how he treats her son Peter (Smit-McPhee).  Peter is "different," preferring books and making his own paper roses to the rough-and-tumble life of the Burbank brothers.  He is meant to read to modern audiences as gay, but as the film goes it's clear that Phil is the one who is attracted to men.  His obsession with the deceased Bronco Henry, another cowboy who took hold of Phil when he was young, becomes a driving conversation for him, something he won't stop talking about (it's clear from the opening scenes that an uneasy George knew of the relationship, but has said nothing through the years due to the strange grasp his brother has on him).

The film's second half, though, doesn't take the twists you'd think.  Rose, at one point a teetotaler (we learn late in the film that her husband was a drunk who killed himself), becomes an alcoholic under the weight of Phil's constant pressure, tormenting her & making her feel less than while her son is away at school.  George doesn't know how to fix this, but strangely Peter does, though we don't know it right away.  When he returns from school, he understands that his mother whom he adores has become ill, but instead of confronting Phil, he starts to meticulously seduce him.  He emulates the likely behavior that a curious young Phil experienced with Bronco Henry, sending off signals that Phil might finally be able to express himself once more.  What we find later, though, was that Peter was using his sexuality to seduce a tempted Phil (it's never actually confirmed if Peter is gay or not), only to kill him.  Peter convinces Phil to use rawhide and water that he provided, and with that, we get a callback to an earlier scene where Peter carefully skinned a diseased cow.  Phil, always careful in other moments, with his libido up and his guard down, uses the skin and dies from anthrax poisoning, thus freeing Peter's mother from Phil's bind.

The story is perfectly executed.  Much of The Power of the Dog is about an impending crescendo, which lesser writers might falter under-there's intense amounts of buildup to the climax, to the moments where we will see what happens to these four intertwined figures.  I called pretty quickly that we were leaving a lot of enigma around Peter, that much of what Campion's screenplay was providing on him was the impressions of him that others were providing, not any sort of data we got from the character himself, but Smit-McPhee plays him well enough that even as he unfolds his plan, we still don't know what happened, and that works here (ambiguity is this story's friend).  We don't know if Peter is gay, or if he on some level found Phil's offer attractive (Benedict Cumberbatch has never been hotter, the camera lingering over his chiseled frame & unkempt beard almost as if it wants us to get caught staring)...Peter remains a mystery even as everyone else's motives become clear.  The only hint we have in those final moments is that we know he knew what he was doing, a telling pair of gloves being worn as he handles the rope that Phil made for him, something he pushes underneath his bed for unknown futures.

Power of the Dog, helped by this script, is a universal triumph.  The cinematography is spectacular, with Ari Wegner understanding the beauty of a longshot; frequently there are two different things happening onscreen in the same shot, something you rarely see in movies today but it works because it's indicating to the audience that there are multiple wheels going on in this story.  The Jonny Greenwood score is yet another marvel from one of the most distinctive composers in movies today, and the editing is judicious and riveting.  

Of course, the acting needs mention as well.  Benedict Cumberbatch is not an actor whom I love, and he feels on-paper to be an ill-fit for this story (that posh London accent doesn't feel at-home on a Montana ranch).  But the actor totally uses that to his advantage, foraging a specific, unique figure that defies all convention & feels so uneasy with his own world that a British accent would be the least peculiar aspect of his Phil Burbank.  Kirsten Dunst is appropriately tragic; you can practically see the happiness drain from her body the further into the movie we get, the life force aching for someone to help her.  And Kodi Smit-McPhee gets the movie's toughest part but keeps it appropriately chilling...only in the lit cigarettes do we finally understand the grandness of his long con, and after that it vanishes, potentially never to be seen again.  All of these actors combine to a spellbinding good time, one I hope you see in theaters, as all westerns are better on the big-screen.

The Mauritanian (2021)

Film: The Mauritanian (2021)

Stars: Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Levi

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Oscar History: Despite Jodie Foster winning a Golden Globe, the film received no Oscar nominations. This is the first time the Globe winner in this category didn't get in with AMPAS since 1976.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We are one week away from the Oscar nominations FINALLY being announced.  This is a blog that devotes an inordinate amount of time not just to the Oscars, but to the individual films that are nominated at the Oscars (we're less concerned about following the minutia of the actual race as other sites with access to publicists cover that well, hence no Globes article this week, but I will be publishing my final predictions at some point in the next seven days).  Inevitably there will be OVP contenders I haven't seen-I know for a fact that I haven't seen enough International Feature Film nominees to come out of this completely done, and I'm currently predicting some films I haven't seen in at least the Original Song & Makeup categories, but I'm goaling myself to watch at least a couple more films that I think are in contention before Monday, and we'll be profiling them throughout this week as I watch my final 2021 screenings before playing "catchup mode."  One of the last films of the race we have to profile is The Mauritanian, a movie that gained much more prominence after the recent Golden Globes with Jodie Foster's surprise victory.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Mauritanian is based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (Rahim), a man captured by the US government & held for 14 years in Guantanamo Bay under initially hazy grounds, with us eventually realizing that he is wrongfully imprisoned.  Despite the fact that "things like that don't happen in America" Salahi is kept in jail without due process for over a decade, and the only people who attempt to help him are Nancy Hollander (Foster) and her assistant Teri (Woodley), not because they believe him at first but because they believe in the rule of law.  As the film unfolds, though, they understand that he is not only innocent, but what is happening in Guantanamo Bay defies every convention of the rule-of-law, and bringing that to light becomes the most important aspect of the case.

The film is a fascinating story, but it's proof that a compelling story doesn't always make for a strong movie.  The movie highlights the national shame that is Guantanamo Bay, which I think will someday rank amongst the truly worst atrocities of not just the Bush, but also the Obama & Trump administrations for letting it stay open (Joe Biden-please close this national stain down)...but it rarely gives us a story with a lot of newness you didn't already know.  The reveals don't read as shock so soon after this happened.

Tahar Rahim is kind of acting in another movie, he's so much better than his costars; he finds a rage & personality in his character that you don't usually see from a movie like this (where we expect him to simply play the frustrated victim); anyone who saw him in A Prophet knew he could do this, but this hopefully will open doors up to American audiences with this.  Foster could play this in her sleep but it's not going to rank amongst her best work (and it'd be weird if she got a third Oscar for this), and Woodley is incredibly dull.  Worst of the bunch is Cumberbatch, sporting a terrible Southern accent, who brings none of the depth to his work that Rahim is doing in every corner of the movie.  Cumberbatch, not my favorite but someone whose natural cadence is musical onscreen, should avoid playing Americans in the future as this is clearly not his strong suit.

Ranking the Marvel Movies

Next week, we will see the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's current chapter (phase-I don't know what we call this).  For roughly 11 years, we've been getting nearly nonstop movies from the studio, every few months yet another massive hit from Disney.  Individually, the series has had ups-and-downs, with no proper, truly terrible films in the bunch but, honestly, no truly unstoppable masterpieces either (I'm decidedly a Marvel fan for comics, and yes, I bought comics religiously as a child, but I still think The Dark Knight is better than any movie on this list, and I'm not even a Nolan fanboy).  I'm not sure if I'll stick around past this collective list of movies for "Phase 4" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe-I think stories have to be able to end to qualify as stories and not just rambling tales, and in a lot of ways Avengers: Endgame feels like a series finale while the next phase of the MCU (whether that be Spider-Man or Black Panther 2) is a spinoff I'm not sure I'll sign up for.  But in honor of this 22nd film and a closing of the Thanos chapter of the series (and likely the departures of actors like Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Robert Downey Jr. from these collective roles), I finally got around to seeing Thor: The Dark World (the only missing piece in this puzzle for me) and instead of writing a traditional review of the picture, I thought I'd buy into the trend over the next two weeks and give my personal rankings of the different films.

21. Iron Man 2 (2010)

By-far the weakest entry in the series, not even Downey's schtick (which even in 2010 was starting to show signs of repetitiveness) could save this boring slog of a movie.  Mickey Rourke was coming off such a high with The Wrestler, it's a pity that his comeback stalled after giving the quintessential "boring villain" performance, something that has plagued most of the series (certainly compared with DC).

20. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

I mean, it feels like a cheat to even include this since the titular role was recast, and let's be real here-this is only included because it technically came after Iron Man, otherwise we'd likely leave it off of the list.  That said, Edward Norton was the least of the three Hulks (I actually didn't mind the strong artistic license Ang Lee took with the 2003 version), and Liv Tyler brings really nothing to the love interest role.

19. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

I'll be honest here-while I'm genuinely a fan of both in real-life as celebrities, and actually think that Hemsworth has done the best work outside of the series, I'm decidedly in the field of Captain America within the confines of the quality of their actual stand-alone films.  This is the least of the Thor outings, with a convoluted villain plot and Natalie Portman basically phoning it in as a love interest she likely had no interest in playing (notice how she has yet to show up again in the series).

18. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 (2017)

Backlash to the first installment always felt a bit extreme to me, with people I think just forgetting that the movies can occasionally be a good time.  That being said, the second film is a bit off-base, with a lot of the same jokes from the first film being repeated, and with no one saying anything new, not even Kurt Russell as a nice-guy villain.

17. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014)

The actual Avengers movies themselves have always felt a bit of a paint-by-numbers approach.  Perhaps most shocking because of the number of stars that they fit into one film (what is the casting budget on this movie-$100 million, $150?) we also see a lot of ego on display as they attempt to shove every character into enough scenes to warrant 7 or 8-digit pay days.  Combined with James Spader as an eye-rolling villain, and you get a bloated picture.

16. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

I was so smitten with the first movie, it was always going to be a letdown when they brought back this character, as how could it possibly be as much fun?  Even by bringing Michelle Pfeiffer on board, we struggle to make this one work, with the Ghost villain story feeling totally ancillary to the plot, and perhaps they'd have been better off just letting the unknown be the villain here, rather than having a traditional comic book plotting.

15. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

This is inarguably the silliest film on this list, somehow even surpassing Guardians of the Galaxy, and is the one I wish I liked more.  The cast is superb, possibly the best of any of the films, but it's too random, sporadic, and ridiculous (the entire Jeff Goldblum subplot seemed only there to create memes).  Us finally getting a proper female villain in the series (and played by Oscar Winner Cate Blanchett, no less) is about the best I can recommend here.

14. The Avengers (2012)

We jump from Thor 3 to Avengers 1 where we now have 3-star movies (ie movies that I'd actually recommend based on the rules of this blog).  This is fun, and cool, but never as fun & cool as it should be.  Loki is a good villain, but there's not the right level of chemistry yet between the six main characters, as Hemsworth & Evans in particular are still finding their bearings as matinee idols against an established star like Downey.

13. Doctor Strange (2016)

I can't really figure out how I feel about Benedict Cumberbatch, who always feels a bit too eager in his cinematic work, and seems intent on mugging in a way that recalls a British Justin Timberlake.  That said, this is a good movie, one that just avoids the cliches of an introduction to a character enough to not feel boring.  Tilda Swinton joins the long pantheon of Oscar-winning actresses who have randomly appeared in MCU movies (Portman, Bening, Blanchett, Tomei...it's a longer list than you'd think).

12. Iron Man 3 (2013)

Much better than the sequel, Iron Man 3 actually challenges Downey a bit as an actor in a way few others in this series have done.  We see him fight a villain that feels worthy of him in a way others in the series haven't (Guy Pearce's creepy Killian), and we get arguably the best work out of Gwyneth Paltrow we've had this decade.

11. Thor (2011)

Chris Hemsworth might be my favorite discovery from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of actors who hadn't already proven to themselves at that point.  He's so debonair, funny, charming, and DAMN sexy, and all of that comes out when he basically brings Thor from the comic book pages to life here.  He's considerably better than the film, but that's true pretty much every time he's onscreen.

10. Captain Marvel (2019)

The first of the movies to be headlined by an Oscar winner, and it shows.  Larson is hamstrung by us spending most of the movie looking for clues to what will happen in Avengers: Endgame, but she actually has a fun popcorn movie here, and though he's hidden behind distracting CGI, Sam Jackson gives his best work in the series here as a young, pre-eyepatch Nick Fury.

9. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Thor is probably my favorite of the actual superheroes in the films, but Captain America is the best leg of the franchise.  Arguably the weakest of the three mostly because of the messy ending to the film, this is still fun and considerably better than the two Avengers films that preceded it (for all intents and purposes, this was the third Avengers movie-look at who it starred in that photo!).

8. Iron Man (2008)

The film that started it all, Robert Downey Jr. going from basically uninsurable to a matinee idol will eventually be one of the great Hollywood comeback stories.  He's great in this movie, a role he was born to play, and the lack of over-confidence in his work (though thankfully not in his character) is spectacular movie star fun.

7. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

It is literally impossible to gage this film without seeing the sequel (increasingly, it's hard to gage this entire series without seeing the rest of the series) since they are so interconnected, but most of the film gets it right.  The film is grand in scale, there are some strong performances (particularly Tom Holland), and Thanos is a well-executed villain.  It all depends on what the nexy film does, though, over whether this movie stays on its perch considering the cliffhanger.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

This movie works really well on its own, and arguably doesn't need the rest of the series to elevate it at all.  Fun, with a great motif & scheme for the characters (I loved the pre-war scenes and the ridiculousness of Captain America's new body), Chris Evans nails this part & sets up a complicated character that in the comic books was always underwritten.

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

I didn't want this movie, and I distinctly remember at the time of its announcement saying "I'm not going to see it" after the terrible reboot with Andrew Garfield proved to be such a disappointment.  However, Tom Holland is the best of the three live-action Peter Parkers, playing with a lack of confidence that is endearing and works so well it's impossible to deny him his place in the Top 5.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

I don't care that you don't like it anymore, or that Chris Pratt has become problematic in the years since (I actually do care about that one, but as a classic film historian, I have dealt with problematic film stars for decades so my tolerance level is high).  This is the first of the quartet of films I gave 4-stars to, and it earns it with great humor, unlikely heroes, and a new swagger to the MCU.

3. Ant-Man (2015)

By far the most visually innovative of all of the movies, and perhaps the funniest, everything about this movie works.  Paul Rudd is great as the unlikely hero, Michael Douglas hasn't been this good in 15 years, and what could have been a joke of a movie ends up being one of the best installments in the series without ever being too silly.

2. Black Panther (2018)

Marvel goes prestige with this movie, the first superhero movie to ever compete for the Best Picture Oscar.  Armed with the series best villain (Michael B. Jordan is sexy & dangerous as Killmonger), we see an expanded universe that shows that the MCU might just be able to survive after the first class of superheroes (Evans, Downey, ScarJo) hang up their capes.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

The best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, and next to The Dark Knight, the best comic book movie of this century, period.  Johansson was on a creative high at the time, and you can see that in her work here, and Robert Redford's warm, movie star charisma (very similar, in fact, to Chris Evans') is eerie because he's so nasty as an Edward Snowden-style figure, a villain whose point you can kind of see even if it's totally evil.  Add in Toby Jones' Arnim Zola making a freaky cameo (still my favorite scene in literally any Marvel movie), and you have arguably the best picture in the series (to date).

OVP: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Film: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elisabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Peter Dinklage, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt (okay, seriously-what was the actor budget like on this film-this cast easily could have cost $200 million by itself)
Director: Anthony and Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (read the review though, as it's really more a 2-4 star range based on the sequel)

Movies and television have started to collide in being the same mediums, something that I have never been okay with but apparently everyone else is so I've learned to deal.  The reality is that in a world where we simply rely upon "awesome franchises" for so much of our entertainment, and everything old is, well, not necessarily new but more a shattered shell of its former self (but comfortable so "who cares!"), it makes sense that a multi-billion dollar asset like the Avengers series would become essentially a multi-film TV series.  This picture, the 19th in the franchise (I believe I've seen all but two of these movies, though I'd have to double-check) is about as certain of a blockbuster hit as one can get, and because we live in an era where we need to suck up even if we aren't impressed (see also the White House Correspondents' Dinner), it's surely going to be a critical smash.  But I have been hit-or-miss with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I was genuinely curious if I was going to leave The Avengers duly-impressed or finding the film lacking.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the aftermath of our last few installments of Captain America, Thor, and Black Panther, and most-importantly finally puts Thanos (Brolin) front-and-center as our villain, as he's been whom we've been building toward for nearly a decade now as our ultimate baddie who will take over the world.  Played in dull purple by Brolin, Thanos is an all-powerful villain that never quite feels as interesting as he should; one of the cardinal sins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they never approach the intrigue or a Joker or Lex Luthor when it comes to their bad guys.  Thanos could be more interesting if we let him breath a bit more on his personal philosophy, as in many ways he resembles Bane in his battle for a better humanity through brutal results (he essentially wants to wipe out half of the population of the universe in order to reduce hunger and resource-deprivation).  It's entirely possible they're saving that for the sequel, but that points to perhaps the greatest problem with this movie: it needs a sequel to function, and it needs to be television to work.

Film functioning as television has always had one major flaw: TV shows end, and film franchises frequently do not, at least not while there's serious money on the table.  The best television series allow you to love characters, but also occasionally give you consequences or events that can never be undone.  Look at, say, Lost or Game of Thrones or Mad Men, and how these shows would occasionally kill off characters or end romances or have betrayals that shape the course of the series, never to be entirely glossed over.  As a result, there was genuine risk in what the series was bringing to the viewers, knowing that season finales could shape your viewpoint entirely of what might come next in the franchise.

Here, though, we watch as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Star-Lord, roughly a dozen major characters in the franchise vanish with a literal snap of the fingers in the film's final moments, as Thanos vision for a universe where half of the citizens die suddenly becomes reality.  It's a staggering sequence, with fine work from Danai Gurira (watching her invincible king evaporate in her hands), and especially a squeaky-voiced Tom Holland pleading with Iron Man to save him, the scared teenager behind the superhero emerging as he realizes the consequences of fighting for good.  In a television series, particularly one where I assumed there is only one film left, I would have thought this was a jaw-dropping moment.  Holland's fine protestations would have brought me to tears, realizing that he would leave us too quickly, and I would have been shocked that it hadn't been the actors whose contracts were about to expire (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) who left us but the theoretical future of the series.  But I'm smart enough to realize that these characters already have films lined up (Spider-Man, in particular, is going to have to start airing trailers before Avengers is seen next year, so I'm not sure how that will even work).  Theoretically, of course, we could see the roles in these films recast, but that seems preposterous-Holland, Boseman, Pratt, these are major stars now that the public wants to see play these roles.  They aren't going to quickly disappear from the franchises, and Disney has too much money on the line to let them go.

As a result, we get a cheap ending to the film.  It's probable that we'll see them brought back next time, and then watch as the expected characters go into the sunset, with a new series of Avengers ready to take the stage, perhaps with Downey, Hemsworth, or Evans a possibility to return in 5-7 years if their careers are suffering.  But it doesn't make this film particularly interesting, and it proves that perpetual stories are too lazy.  There's a lot to like in The Avengers, even if I feel it fails on the most important element (plotting).  The victor of the movies has always truly been the casting directors, finding relative unknowns who ooze movie star charisma to play larger-than-life characters.  There is so much plot, but it's relatively brisk all-things-considered, and were it not for the inevitable deletion of the ending, it would surely stand apart as a great action film.  The movie's performances are uniformly good, with Holland, Cumberbatch, & Saldana being the standouts, and they take the time to give us fun pairings (Rocket & Thor being an obvious highlight, though I also particularly liked Spidey & Doctor Strange).

Were it not for the film's ending inevitably being deleted for something more conventional and keeping the story going perpetually (until we eventually tire of comic book heroes, which may be never), I'd give this a higher ranking, perhaps even a four-star.  But it doesn't work like that.  I know how this game plays out, and I'm not stupid enough to think that the shocking, arguably quite smart, ending to this picture won't be erased for something less intriguing.  As a result, I'm going to go with three stars, though in my head it's more like 2.5  If they keep most of the characters dead in the next film, I'll vote for a 4 star change at that time, but until then they've removed any element of surprise or sacrifice by giving us this ending, and as a result I can't applaud this picture, even if I see its value.

OVP: Doctor Strange (2016)

Film: Doctor Strange (2016)
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton
Director: Scott Derrickson
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Well, I guess Marvel got another hit.  That was the first thing that crossed my mind recently as I headed into yet another installment of their expansive universe.  Honestly-it's staggering to me how blindingly successful the franchises of Disney's Marvel universe are-even the films that under-perform (think of something like Ant-Man) crossed $500 million internationally, and Doctor Strange, despite being arguably the most cerebral comic book headliner in the Marvel universe, has continued that streak.  Like most of the films, I caught this one in theaters, likely surrounded by comic book fans who have never actually, well, read a comic book, and unfortunately I stayed roughly in the center of where I am with these movies-fair, but not excellent.

(Spoilers Ahead) There's really no need for a spoiler here, as this film has been done repeatedly with the same results.  This is the introduction of yet another character, so you know that Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) will, through some act of god, be forced from his high pedestal as a world famous surgeon and instead forced to avenge those around him for the greater good.  Indeed, an accident in one of the sexiest cars I've seen in movies in a while (it's a Lamborghini, for the curious), leads him off the cliff and eventually he must head to Nepal to try and find some way to get his hands and abilities back.  While there, he meets the Ancient One (Swinton), a creature that has lived for hundreds of years and teaches him how to cross into other dimensions and fight using the mythic arts.  As is the wont of such a film, the Ancient One eventually dies, and Dr. Strange, now armed with a sense of right-and-wrong and a set of powers, sets off to make the world a safer place, and indeed, during a post-credits sequence comes across Thor himself, implying he'll be back to fight with the Avengers in the near future.

The film is fun.  Let's not mistake my antipathy to the end product with the film not being any good.  There are lovely moments of levity; Cumberbatch and McAdams have good chemistry and can land their one-liners, and Swinton is a movie acting goddess, even if there's not a lot of obvious "acting" opportunities.  Like most Marvel films, the villain is less than impressive (Mads Mikkelsen is an actor I've grown weary of after playing the same bad guy so often), but the visual effects are a kaleidoscope without ever quite hitting the ludicrous places of something like Speed Racer (what's Emile Hirsch up to these days?).  Perhaps because Captain America and X-Men have now gotten there, maybe superhero films are trying harder to get into those tech categories at the Oscars, but it shows.

My problem with the film isn't that I would recommend it, but that there's nothing special here that hasn't already been seen in Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers, etc-all of these are essentially the same movie, particularly the first installment.  All have an unlikely protagonist who is led into extraordinary circumstances, questions his abilities, and then finds a hero comes along (with the strength to carry on).  One could claim this is true of the Marvel comics, but these characters don't constantly focus on origin stories, but instead have had the same characters go through multiple iterations, breathing new life into different situations.  The comic books themselves evolve enough to be the final seasons in television series-Marvel is stuck on the same, repetitive first season.  Only Captain America has properly risen above it, particularly with the frightening and effective Winter Soldier.  Here they have a character who isn't just reestablishing what we know about him over-and-over, but dealing with an inner-struggle.  Given the box office, I suspect Dr. Strange will return.  Let's hope that he finds his own Winter Soldier so this doesn't become another stale franchise being held up by a multi-billion dollar brand.

Those are my thoughts on Dr. Strange, a fine if predictable installment in the Marvel Universe.  Are you with me that you want something different (perhaps Captain Marvel or Black Panther can get there?) or am I being too picky?  Share your thoughts below!

OVP: Actor (2014)

OVP: Best Actor (2014)

The Nominees Were...

Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

My Thoughts: I told you we'd be tackling these at a clip (it seems people are enjoying the OVP write-ups, for which I am most grateful and happy).  We now move into the Best Actor category, the one where generally you're tackling titans of acting, and where the nominations are relatively clubby, but in a weird twist only one of these men, the one who arguably had the toughest time actually getting his nomination, is a previous nominee.  Otherwise we have two relative British newcomers, a former movie star best known for donning a leather suit, and a comedian most famed for his work on a British import.  All-in-all, this is, even if most of these nominations were predicted, on paper one of the stranger slates of nominees I've encountered in the usually very traditional Best Actor field.

We'll start with the youngster of the bunch, Eddie Redmayne, who was only the eighth youngest man ever to pick up an Academy Award in this category (ahead of him are such luminaries as Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Jimmy Stewart, so there's a lot to live up to in order to not be, say, Adrien Brody, who has the all-time record).  Redmayne's work here is pretty much the stuff that Oscar bait dreams are made of, as he's playing a real-life figure with an inspiring story who also has a severe disability that he overcomes.  He technically also has an accent, though as it's the same one that Redmayne has in real life I don't know that we should count that in terms of AMPAS points.  Redmayne is quite good early on in the film, as his natural charm (he was born to play a Jane Austen love interest-why has no one done that yet?) flits through, but as the film progresses putting him into the realm of mostly physical acting he loses a lot of that ability.  Honestly, I've never been as wowed by something that is mostly technical and checking boxes, as this looks difficult to do, but we don't give out Oscars for athletic achievement (otherwise Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone would have more of them).  Redmayne's beginning is a delight, and he manages to have sparkling chemistry in his romantic run-ups with Jones, but overall the second half loses a lot of that spark and the script isn't giving enough to let Redmayne really shine.

Redmayne's chief rival for the Oscar was one of those guys that frequently finds himself an Oscar nominee late in his career, but never seems to be able to pull off the win.  Michael Keaton joined Peter Fonda and Mickey Rooney as a former matinee idol with a bit of a reputation who shows that he still has the goods to be able to deliver a knockout performance.  His Riggan is about as brave as a movie star can get onscreen, eschewing vanity (though for a man in his sixties Keaton is in pretty good shape to be running through Time Square in his underwear), and lambasting his own persona, both in that his core fame is from wearing a mask to his famously difficult offscreen persona during the Batman 3 years.  Keaton makes Riggan insane enough to clearly be deranged, but a good enough actor to maintain believability that people wouldn't notice he's completely off-his-rocker (or don't want to because he's a star that can't be challenged).  It's a wonderful performance, really something that I never would have expected from Keaton, and lands a difficult, complicated, but ultimately terrific picture.

Steve Carell is also an actor that defied expectations in 2014, getting his first Academy Award nomination for a very hard-nosed drama after a career that has focused almost exclusively on comedy.  Carell was never one of those comedic actors, however, who I didn't think would excel at drama-quite frankly it felt like it would be his forte.  Michael Scott on The Office was a humorous creation, but frequently (in the first couple of seasons) a vindictive one and (in later seasons) a tragic one, so Carell's abilities were never in doubt.  What was, and is an unfortunate side effect of Foxcatcher is his inability to take his comedian's pizzazz and timing and infuse it into this piece of work.  Instead, what we get here is a serious case of tic-acting, with Carell relying too heavily on his prosthetic nose and not actually giving us anything within this character.  Even when he's alone, when we should be able to see something, Carell is just performing, never really inhabiting the character, which is a shame as this feels like the sort of creation that could have been an all-time great persona for the actor.

This is exactly the same trap that Benedict Cumberbatch falls into with The Imitation Game.  Cumberbatch, unlike Carell, has never turned in a performance that has wowed me, but I do get the appeal.  He's intensely charming off-screen, and he tends to be a lovely human being who winks hard at his rabid fanbase, but his acting choices (and his agent's choices for his career) are so boring.  The script is not helping him in any capacity, of course, but it's worth noting that his choices to fill in the holes in the script aren't great.  He frequently reacts to every scene as yet another one to moan or have a prissy rejoinder (underlining the HOMOSEXUAL aspect of the script without, you know, actually having any moments where he believably is attracted to a man, just to a computer).  Cumberbatch's big scenes, the ones where he's crying or trying to take on Joan he fails miserably-the overacting doesn't quite match the film he's in, which is trying to be a straight, serious biopic, and he's too busy feasting on the scenery.

The final nomination is a quandary for me, as it's from one of the least of these films, and yet the performance, the central performance (no side ones) has grown considerably in my estimation in the years since, to the point where I think it might be Bradley Cooper's finest work so far.  Cooper is an actor I think we all underestimated initially since he was starring in buddy comedies and looks like a male model you put on your vision board.  But his acting prowess and trio of Oscar nominations were relatively well-earned, and I love the way that he projects in American Sniper.  So much of his performance is informed by a man who wants to be at war, who sees the world in black-and-white and who is also haunted by demons he doesn't understand and frequently doesn't wish to acknowledge.  Clint Eastwood doesn't give us enough interesting things to do with Cooper, which hurts the performance slightly, but I am mesmerized by the things that Cooper is able to bring to a relatively stock character that, say, Mark Wahlberg didn't a year earlier in the (better film) Lone Survivor.  His Chris Kyle is someone very human, but believably from Middle America and with a conservative viewpoint, and not just a liberal in red clothes as so frequently happens in films depicting conservative viewpoints.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy" (a term that gets looser and looser every year), so in the dramatic lineup, which usually is the one that gets us our nominations, we have Redmayne, Carell, and Cumberbatch alongside David Oyelowo (Selma) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), with Redmayne winning, while Michael Keaton in Comedy triumphed over Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Bill Murray (St. Vincent), Christoph Waltz (Big Eyes), and Joaquin Phoenix (Inherent Vice).  The SAG Awards doubled-down on Oscars' winner, but excused Bradley Cooper in favor of Jake Gyllenhaal, while the BAFTA Awards also went with Redmayne as their victor but cut both Cooper and Carell (who was nominated in supporting) for Gyllenhaal and Fiennes.  For all of the comments afterwards about David Oyelowo not getting nominated, it's fairly clear that it was Jake Gyllenhaal who was most upset and the likely sixth place when Bradley Cooper came to town.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: For starters, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is giving what I'd call the performance of a lifetime in Nightcrawler, but honestly Gyllenhaal is so consistent (and even better in Brokeback Mountain) that his wait for a second nomination has gotten laughable at this point and performance of a lifetime isn't quite accurate.  I'd also throw in Fiennes, doing his best comedic bit since In Bruges, along with Oscar Isaac's introverted mobster in A Most Violent Year and the best actor in Foxcatcher who for some reason (perhaps his beauty, which scares off people in this category) never got cited by a major awards body: Channing Tatum.  Tatum's work in that film is still staggering, breathing life into a lumbering brute of a character.

Oscar’s Choice: While at times it felt like Michael Keaton would take this trophy, in the end the Academy couldn't deny newcomer Eddie Redmayne over the comeback kid.

My Choice: An easy choice for Keaton, hands-down the best of this five.  I'd honestly follow him with Cooper, Redmayne and then...ugh, maybe Cumberbatch and finally Carell.  Those last two are really digging the bottom of the barrel.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you side with the awards consensus of Eddie Redmayne, or do you think that the Birdman should have flown here?  Why do you think Jake Gyllenhaal couldn't seal the deal here?  And what am I missing in the Cumberbatch love-is there a performance I have to catch to get the devotion?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2014: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Documentary Short, Live Action Short, Animated Short, Previously in 2014

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