Courage Under Fire (1996)

Film: Courage Under Fire (1996)

Stars: Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Moriarty, Matt Damon

Director: Edward Zwick

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Meg Ryan: click here to learn more about Ms. Ryan (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Meg Ryan's pretty intense breakout fame for When Harry Met Sally... came with something of a price.  Unlike other "America's Sweethearts" actresses like Audrey Hepburn & Julia Roberts who got box office receipts AND the ultimate stamp-of-acclaim from the industry (a Best Actress Oscar nomination) early on in her career, Ryan was left off of the list by the Academy in 1989 (I suspect she was in the conversation, and one wonders if she would've had a different career if she'd gotten that sort of credibility at some point during her peak movie star years).  The early 1990's had Ryan alternating between rom-com hits like Sleepless in Seattle and French Kiss with edgier fare, meant to expand Ryan beyond her cutesy "girl next door" routine which had made America fall in love with her.  By-and-large, this was not successful.  She worked with Oliver Stone in The Doors (which bombed), starred in the Oscar-winning period drama Restoration (which also bombed), and played opposite her husband Dennis Quaid in the thriller Flesh and Bone (which, you guessed it, bombed).  Ryan's two successes getting out of the romantic-comedy trope were When a Man Loves a Woman (which won her a SAG Award nomination, though that didn't mean she was "close to Oscar" in the way it would now...SAG used to be WAY more individualistic with their choices) and today's film Courage Under Fire, the first major movie to talk about the Gulf War in Hollywood, and would pair her opposite one of the biggest leading men of the era, though like several of her outings with Tom Hanks...that didn't mean they would share much screen time.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows Lt. Col. Nathaniel Serling (Washington), an alcoholic who is getting past a mistake he made during the war where he (accidentally) shot friendly fire on his fellow soldiers during an intense battle.  This was covered up by the American military, with him instead getting an award for bravery.  He is now on desk duty, though, and is investigating whether Captain Karen Walden (Ryan) has earned the distinction of being the first woman to win the Medal of Honor for combat.  His investigation, held alongside his doubts about the military & medals in general given he has won one that he feels he has not earned, turns up several inconsistencies, as the men who served with her, particularly Staff Sergeant John Monfriez (Phillips) & Specialist Andrew Ilario (Damon) have such varied opinions on Walden, and her actions in battle.  As the film progresses (recalling Rashomon) we learn that Walden's actions, like Serling's, are grey, as is much of battle, and those haunted by it.

Courage Under Fire is the kind of movie that doesn't really exist anymore-a star-driven drama, released in the summer almost exclusively as a box office play.  Today, the only angle the studios would have for a picture like this would be "Oscar bait"...even though the Academy in 1996, a year when they were pretty allergic to major studio flicks like this, wouldn't have touched it (it's worth noting it was in enough of the conversation circa 1996, though, that Entertainment Weekly predicted Washington would be cited for Best Actor).  That's a pity, because there's something here.  The storytelling is easy, but riveting, and the way that it handles the unusual twists in the plot recall some of the best John Grisham adaptations of the era.  I liked it, and was also impressed by Lou Diamond Phillips & a young Matt Damon (looking gaunt in a role where he lost over 30 pounds, and was so impressive he'd eventually get his roles in The Rainmaker and Saving Private Ryan from directors admiring this turn) in diametrically-opposed roles in the investigation (yet both men that are haunted by their actions in wartime in different ways).

Ryan, though, is not very good.  I feel this needs to be said at this point (especially because I don't get much kinder the further I go)-I love Meg Ryan.  Her work in Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail is hallowed ground in my house, and I do like her in literally everything I've seen her in in the sense that I like spending time with Meg Ryan.  But in the most dramatic and heaviest lifting of her career, I don't think she's able to get this part across-the-finish line.  It doesn't help that she's not actually sharing any screen-time with Washington (I think they would've paired well, but she's dead the entire time that Washington's character is aware of her), but she also can't land her southern accent properly, and the film's views on feminism (insisting that she's the one who cries on the mission) are pretty lazy.  As we'll talk about over the next couple of weeks, Ryan, an actress who once turned down the lead in The Silence of the Lambs because it was "too violent" would never get another role this traditionally meaty again in a prominent studio film; she'd star in dramas, but never of this pedigree.  You have to wonder if part of the reason she didn't get it was because people saw this, and wondered if she could carry a film like that without someone more "actorly" like Washington helping her.

The Pelican Brief (1993)

Film: The Pelican Brief (1993)

Stars: Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, John Heard, Tony Goldwyn, Stanley Tucci, Hume Cronyn, John Lithgow

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Julia Roberts: click here to learn more about Ms. Roberts (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

In the wake of her double Oscar nominations, and the unprecedented box office success of Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts embarked on a two-pronged road as a movie star.  From 1991-93, Roberts headlined four films (Sleeping with the Enemy, Hook, Dying Young, and today's picture, The Pelican Brief) that had two things in common.  The first was that they were all hits-Roberts, whose acting price was skyrocketing, was the last of a breed of movie stars who could get audiences to go into theaters for genres as diverse as thrillers, romantic dramas, and family-friendly fantasy pictures based on her name alone.  Pretty much everything she touched turned to gold, to the point where there's a scene in The Player (in which she makes a small cameo) where during a casting meeting everyone just keeps pitching Julia Roberts for all of their movies, the only actress that anyone cares about at the moment).  But in a moment of caution for Roberts that she should've heeded (it might have saved her some hurt), none of these movies were well-received by critics.  Unlike Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, she received no Oscar nominations for these pictures, and critics disliked the films.  This would set up a moment (which we'll discuss next week) where the public would prove that all stars can only ascend so high before they are taken down.  But first, let's talk The Pelican Brief.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Pelican Brief, based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham, is about two people associated with two dead Supreme Court justices (both assassinated in plain sight early on in the picture): Darby Shaw (Roberts), a young law student having an affair with her well-regarded professor Thomas Callahan (Shepard), and Gray Grantham (Washington) a reporter who clerked for one of the justices (Cronyn).  Shaw, through her own ingenuity (and luck) comes up with a theory as to why the two justices were killed, nicknamed the "pelican brief" about how an oil magnate killed the two justices so that his friend the president could appoint two justices willing to disregard the endangered species act, thus allowing him drilling rights in waters that are protected due to them being the habitat of an endangered breed of brown pelican.  As it turns out this is right, and after Callahan is killed in a car explosion that was meant to kill both of them, Darby reaches out to Gray (weirdly, Washington & Roberts do not appear onscreen together until over an hour into this picture), she goes on the run, trying to help Gray prove that her theory is right as everyone around her starts to die.

In the 1990's to early 2000's, John Grisham novels were insanely hot properties for Hollywood.  It wasn't just Denzel Washington & Julia Roberts getting in on the action.  Some of the biggest stars of the era (Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, Sandra Bullock, Gene Hackman, Matt Damon, John Cusack, & Tim Allen) all appeared in movies adapted from his work, and pretty much every book release was an event in a way that, quite frankly, adult dramatic novels simply don't have anymore in an era where most literary bestsellers are adults reading books meant for teenagers.  So this was a story that many people already knew going into it, which is good as The Pelican Brief is kind of nonsense.  The movie is at once deeply telegraphed and contains very little logic.  It's clear early on in the picture that there are very few twists (every time there's new information, it's 100% accurate, no misdirects), and everyone dies in roughly the order you'd expect.

The one thing that's good about this is Roberts & Washington.  There's a lot that's been said about their pairing onscreen, with Washington famously refusing to kiss Roberts onscreen (Roberts has said in subsequent interviews that she thought a kiss made sense), because he thought it would upset his fanbase (the core of which, according to Washington, was Black women)...something that's been largely the case in the years since (think about how rarely Denzel Washington, People's "Sexiest Man Alive" at one point, has done love scenes compared with contemporaries like Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson).  This makes the film about platonic friends (though it hosted a lot of think pieces at the time about how the studio was trying to avoid an interracial kiss that likely would've taken place if the lead had been Cruise or Gibson), ones who flirt a bit but largely avoid romantic entanglements, which is a nice change-of-pace for a movie that initially has its beautiful young lead sleeping with her professor as if it's acceptable.  Their movie star charisma is rolling off of the screen-him suave & savvy, her steely & glowing, enough so that you might be convinced this is a good movie when it's just them...but anytime it cuts away you learn the truth.

OVP: Actor (1999)

OVP: Best Actor (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, The Insider

Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story

Sean Penn, Sweet & Lowdown

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Denzel Washington, The Hurricane

My Thoughts: The Oscars are an unusual beast.  There are years where a lineup is considered "indisputably great," and others where it's definitely one that AMPAS phoned in...and then there are years like 1999 Best Actor where I honestly feel like your mileage may vary.  The big thing about this lineup is that it features a lot of really good actors.  Four of these men would eventually win Best Actor, only one never getting the trophy (though he had gotten a now-forgotten Supporting Actor nod in 1978), so they're generally considered to be "good" actors, but with maybe 1-2 exceptions, I'd argue none of these actors are giving all-time great performances.

Case in point, we have Denzel Washington, who was nearing the end of his "Denzel Washington should really have an Oscar" years with The Hurricane.  The movie is not good, in my opinion.  This is a paint-by-numbers biopic, a type that has gone out of fashion (now it's more the subject, not the movie star at the center, that is the big focus).  Washington is good (when is he not?), but it's not easy to elevate a movie this hokey, and I don't know that I can give him much credit beyond being good, as the movie isn't capable of a great performance, and is really just trying to acclimate to the cheesy plot and score.

Richard Farnsworth's nomination is so lovable it's hard to begrudge him his first nomination in 20 years, but I'll be real-like The Hurricane, The Straight Story is not a good movie.  It has some Lynchian touches (there's a cameo near the end of the picture by a Lynch staple), but it's generally just a nice Iowa senior citizen driving around in a tractor.  There's not enough beyond Farnsworth's expressive eyes here for me to grade.  Farnsworth is capable of solid acting (look at him in the Anne of Green Gables miniseries a few years before this), but this is just kind of blasé.

Sean Penn is hardly blasé (and a weird anomaly...Allen's films almost always got supporting nominations-other than Woody himself in Annie Hall, this is the only Lead Actor nomination he ever directed), but he might be a bit too committed to the bit in Sweet & Lowdown.  He's acting with ticks, at this point both trying desperately not to care about winning an Oscar, as well as clearly needing it to cement his legacy.  He'd thankfully win for a much better performance four years later...this is honestly one of those performances that end up nominated for a famous actor in the heat of their fame that no one remembers getting into the field after that moment has passed.

The same cannot be said for Russell Crowe's first nomination for The Insider.  Crowe was, like Penn a few years earlier, such an electric new screen presence that every performance felt like an event at this time.  He crafts maybe my favorite piece-of-work from him as an actor here.  He's transformational (this is not the sexy movie star Crowe would be in Gladiator), but his depth doesn't disappear behind the makeup.  There's a haunted quality to this man who keeps getting gutted as he tries to share the truth, and I think Crowe adds that well-the blend of honor, fear, and exhaustion you need to be this type of a whistleblower.

Which brings us to Kevin Spacey.  Spacey's performance in American Beauty is not the best of his career (that would be The Usual Suspects), but it's mesmerizing, and because of his offscreen troubles, undoubtedly the role he'll be most-remembered for at the movies.  I think what he brings to Lester that's really smart is an adolescent attitude.  Look at the fights he picks with his wife, the ones that feel so petty-he wants her to be his girlfriend again, or his mother...he doesn't care that she's become her own woman.  I think Mendes' film would've aged a little bit better if it was clear that Bening wasn't supposed to be the villain, but Spacey's performance is channeling that.  We understand that he is perpetually going to fail, that even in his final moments he's clinging to things that aren't real.  It's one of his better pieces-of-work, and one that makes American Beauty a great picture.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 10 nominees to mention from the HFPA.  Drama went to Washington, besting Crowe, Farnsworth, Spacey, and Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), while Comedy/Musical went to Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon) beating Oscar nominee Sean Penn, as well as Robert de Niro (Analyze This), Rupert Everett (An Ideal Husband), & Hugh Grant (Notting Hill).  SAG kind of got creative, giving the statue to Spacey against Crowe, Carrey, Washington, & Philip Seymour Hoffman (Flawless), while BAFTA also went with Spacey, besting Crowe, Jim Broadbent (Topsy-Turvy), Om Puri (East is East...which I've never seen-is it good?), and Ralph Fiennes (The End of the Affair).  In sixth place, I think you've got three options.  First is Damon, and my theory for sixth because it's that sweet spot of "out of character" and "prestige drama" (plus Oscar loves a killer).  I would also entertain Carrey, but if he wasn't going to get in for The Truman Show, do we really think this was happening?  And third is the precursor-less Tom Hanks for The Green Mile, who was largely counted out at the time because he'd been so well-rewarded, but the Best Picture nomination makes me think it was closer than you'd guess.  Hanks does have a weird history of being in films nominated for Best Supporting Actor where he missed; it's happened eight times (Apollo 13, The Green Mile, Catch Me If You Can, Road to Perdition, Charlie Wilson's War, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Captain Phillips, & Bridge of Spies) while only one of his Best Actor nominations (Forrest Gump) got a supporting player in-it's one or the other with Hanks.  The trend has continued in reverse in his supporting actor years (Hanks lands but Matthew Rhys doesn't for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hanks misses but Austin Butler scores for Elvis).  A bit of Oscar trivia for you there.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Damon for sure-this is the best performance of his career, it's silly that he didn't get a nomination for his hypnotic Tom Ripley.

Oscar’s Choice: The Academy went with Spacey, probably more so over Crowe than over Washington despite what some will protest given Oscar doesn't like giving films Best Actor on their sole nomination.

My Choice: This is a good reminder that we always pick OVP winners in a vacuum.  Usually when I say that, I am referring to we're just picking based on the five performances in front of us (not the actor's larger body of work or considering they might already have a statue), but in this case we don't consider their off-screen behavior.  Given what we now know about Kevin Spacey, I morally couldn't have voted for him in a real world example, and would've instead picked my second place choice Crowe, but for the record I think Spacey is the best performance of the five, and we're giving him the OVP title.  Washington, Farnsworth, and then Penn follow them (in order).

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone think (based solely on performance) that the finest of these five is Kevin Spacey, and if not-who is?  Is Denzel Washington the last time we'll see a real push for "they have to have a win in lead" working as an Oscar momentum situation?  And was it Hanks, Carrey, or Damon in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 1999: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Actor Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Actor (2001)

OVP: Best Actor (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind

Sean Penn, I Am Sam

Will Smith, Ali

Denzel Washington, Training Day

Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom

My Thoughts: Outside factors oftentimes come into play when you talk about the Oscars.  As much as it shouldn't be, it is rarely just about the performance; instead, it is oftentimes about the politics.  For those who didn't live through it, Russell Crowe in 2001 was a whirlwind of a celebrity.  After Gladiator, he was an incredibly bankable name in Hollywood, and A Beautiful Mind clearing $300 million at the worldwide box office cemented that.  He was also persona non grata in the tabloids.  He had broken up the marriage of America's Sweetheart Meg Ryan on the set of Proof of Life, and was known as something of a bad boy offscreen, including getting into a fight at that year's BAFTA Awards, with producer Malcolm Gerrie after Gerrie cut off Crowe's speech.  All of this is to say-in 2001, the only thing that people were focusing on talking about this category was the personal life of Crowe, then one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and whether that would hurt him in getting a second consecutive Oscar.

Crowe's performance, it should be noted, is definitely worthy of an Oscar (or at least a nomination).  Of all of the elements of A Beautiful Mind, he's the best (after the score), and delivers as John Nash.  This is not a Forrest Gump situation, where he is playing a man with mental health issues as comedic or a punchline.  Instead, he's played as someone wrestling with his own personal demons.  Most actors would've felt the need to skip some of the charisma & sexuality of the leading man (Crowe at this point of his career was, indeed, quite sexy & charming when he wanted to be), but that isn't stolen from Nash-instead it serves as a cover for why so many people struggled to see what he was compensating for underneath.  Crowe was on a role in 2001, and this is fine stuff.

His chief competition for the Oscar was Denzel Washington, who at this point it'd become something of a common refrain of "when is he going to win Best Actor?" (Julia Roberts spent months personally campaigning for him in a way that apparently is only a problem if you're cheering on Andrea Riseborough).  Washington is sensational in Training Day, giving us a charismatic villain that you almost find yourself rooting for despite him being increasingly violent the further you get into the movie.  Training Day isn't a great movie, but it's a good movie with a great performance, which used to be called a "star vehicle" and that's what happens here-Washington nails the lived-in pathology of a unique character, and definitely came to play against Crowe.

None of the other actors were really in the hunt for a nomination in 2001.  Will Smith was just starting what would be his own quest for a statue with Ali.  Smith, like Crowe, was a new A-list star in 2001 after a bunch of action blockbusters, and his nomination for Ali was a "welcome to the club" moment.  Unfortunately, it's not very good acting.  Smith looks the part (he is, as Ali might say "so pretty"), but doesn't give the role enough depth.  Ali was still alive in 2001, which is always a dangerous place to come from with a biopic, and that might be why we aren't seeing some of the downsides of Ali's personal journey, just the road blocks in his way.  This means Smith doesn't get to play with the most compelling aspects of the role, and we get a limited performance.

If Smith was being welcomed to the club, in 2001 Sean Penn was getting another down payment on his inevitable Oscar.  Unlike Crowe's Nash, Penn's role in I Am Sam is played for laughs, and is insensitive (to the point it would become a running joke in the movie Tropic Thunder seven years later).  It was criticized at the time (though not crucified the way Penn would be today), but even putting aside the inappropriateness of how Penn handles this role, it also isn't a good performance.  It's over-the-top, poorly-modulated, and inconsistent.  I wish Oscar had just skipped this entirely...it wasn't like we weren't aware Sean Penn needed an Oscar by 2001 without them nominating him for I Am Sam.

Our final nominee is Tom Wilkinson, getting the one "he's a character actor we'll nominate once" citation (though Wilkinson would go on to a second nomination six years later for Michael Clayton, proving that adage wrong).  Wilkinson is so good here though.  Sissy Spacek gets to play maternal grief, but he gets an even more difficult role-playing the father who encouraged his son, wanting to live vicariously through him as he pursued a woman that would've been out of his league.  The ending, where he has to come to terms with his own actions, and what it will be like after (spoiler alert!) his son has died & he will forever feel the pull of how his encouragement might've led to it is heartbreaking, and gives us a fulfilling, ambiguous close to the movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Crowe, beating Smith, Washington, Kevin Spacey (The Shipping News), & Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn't There), while Comedy/Musical went to Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums) against Hugh Jackman (Kate & Leopold), Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), & Billy Bob Thornton (Bandits).  SAG went to Crowe as well, beating Penn, Washington, Wilkinson, & Kevin Kline (Life as a House), and BAFTA (as already mentioned) went with Crowe as well, here atop Wilkinson, Spacey, and two actors who were cited for supporting with Oscar: Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).  In sixth place, I think it was probably Gene Hackman.  I want to say there was some slight confusion over category placement for him at the time (I can't find evidence of this online, but it is in my head which means I don't think it's entirely made up), which may have hurt him, but this was considered a bit of a comeback for the actor and could've been the spot Penn got.  Kevin Spacey or Kevin Kline both had heat as well headed into the Oscars, but their films got totally ignored by AMPAS so I'll guess Hackman.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Sexy men and male leads in musicals both struggle when it comes to the Oscars, but given he was the lead in a Best Picture nominee and also given he has never been close to a nomination in the years since, Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge! was such a missed opportunity to come in instead of Sean Penn.

Oscar’s Choice: Had it not been for the Meg Ryan affair or the fight at the BAFTA Awards, I think Russell Crowe takes this-it was that close, and it was that big of a deal at the time.  But with those in place, Washington barely won his Best Actor Oscar.  It's worth noting Washington would be cited four more times to date after this, while Crowe has never been invited back to the Oscars.

My Choice: I'm going to split the difference and go with Tom Wilkinson, who gives the most well-paced performance of the three, and also gets the biggest payoff in the end.  Behind him (in order) would be Washington, Crowe, Smith, & Penn.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does King Kong have nothing on you & Denzel, or do you want to go for a car ride with Tom Wilkinson & I?  Do you also think that Russell Crowe's offscreen behavior cost him a second Oscar?  And was it Hackman, Spacey, or Kline that nearly knocked out Sean Penn?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2001: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Actor Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

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: Actor (2017)

OVP: Best Actor (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

My Thoughts: We are going to, after a week off from the blog, hit the Big 4 categories at the Oscars & finish it off with a My Ballot look at 2017 this week.  The 2017 acting races were largely focused on Best Picture, like so many fields for Best Actor recently (only one of these nominees doesn't show up again in our remaining categories), but I will admit out-front that unlike many fields for Best Actor, this one has some differentiation even if it's only Best Picture citations, and is one of the better fields in recent memory.

For starters, only one of these five figures is playing someone in real life, Gary Oldman.  Oldman's performance in Darkest Hour for reasons that are both obvious & a little bit undeserved has not aged well.  Placed against young performers who have delivered on that promise & an acting icon who has (so far) stuck with his plan to not come back from a second retirement, Oldman's prosthetics-driven work as Winston Churchill is generally name-checked as a "bad" acting win, but I'll be honest-I don't see it.  Oldman takes on the guise of a character actor, becoming near unrecognizable as Churchill in appearance and manner, but still having the measured energy that makes an Oldman performance so special.  I loved the way that he plays Churchill as a man-of-history, but also a man who understands politics (Churchill enjoyed winning in all aspects of life), and I think this is a good performance that doesn't get all of its grace from simply "looking like" Churchill.

Based on the title you'd assume that Roman J. Israel might actually be a real person, but he's not.  Instead, he's from the creative mind of Denzel Washington, and more of our real-life people should be based on Denzel if this is the case.  Despite its unusual (SNL-mocked) title and a plot that doesn't really work, Washington plays the twists in Dan Gilroy's story excellently.  This might have read like a filler nomination when it came out, but it's very good work from the two-time Oscar winner.  He finds so many layers into the loneliness that Roman experiences, and makes the greed he feels authentic as he finds success after a lifetime of failure.  It's hard to have the center of a movie realize a new facet of their life and not also totally upend the character, but the Roman we meet at the beginning of the movie is the same man throughout, a testament to Washington's investment into small character details.

I have in the years since found Daniel Kaluuya performances (specifically Judas) that I can sign onto, so I am going to admit (and bury in the center of this article) that I didn't really get the hype around his work in Get Out.  I liked this movie, and the script was very good (though, as I said two weeks ago, Us is much better & more fully-formed), but I think that Kaluuya's very reactive performance in this film never takes off for me.  For me it's because he's not really asked to undergo a traditional narrative arc in terms of "learn what he's like, then we see how he handles the main problem of the story."  Instead, all of his performance is trying to reflect how uncomfortable he is with the story.  He's good at this, but it feels limiting to my understanding of this character-I feel like he's the one character not given enough room to breathe, which serves the narrative, but also makes this feel like a weird performance to cite.

There are moments initially where this feels like it might be the case for Timothee Chalamet.  After all, so much of the first thirty minutes of this movie is him reacting to the world around him, including his new crush Oliver.  However, as the film goes, we get a sense of not only young love, but young love that doesn't know that there's a ticking clock on this relationship (and how special it is).  Chalamet goes full throttle, making his Elio impetuous, reckless, protective...every emotion feels like it's being felt through-and-through even if it's not entirely understood.  Wonderfully, sometimes prickly chemistry with Armie Hammer helps a lot, but Chalamet takes this film to another level with his best work.  He hasn't been as good since, but honestly-how many actors top work like this even if they get fifty years of career?

Our final nomination is for Daniel Day-Lewis, who in Phantom Thread gives us a potential sendoff to a storied career.  Day-Lewis is always marvelous, even if you just observe him from a technical aspect (no actor does the kind of character legwork the extreme method actor puts into his creations).  His Reynolds Woodcock is an angry man, clearly starved as much for perfection (which he's able to make with his creations) as he is for something to disrupt his world...a challenge the actor can't entirely overcome.  The movie takes some weird detours with Alma, and I wouldn't say even DDL can pull off some of the twists late in the game, but that's a ridiculously high bar to ask an actor to achieve, and overall the performance here is a grand testament to a great performer.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went with Oldman (who, like Janney & Rockwell before him swept the precursors), besting Chalamet, Day-Lewis, Washington, and Tom Hanks (The Post) while Comedy/Musical went to James Franco (The Disaster Artist) against Kaluuya, Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes), Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver), and Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman).  SAG went with Oldman atop Chalamet, Franco, Kaluuya, & Washington while BAFTA favored Oldman against Day-Lewis, Kaluuya, Chalamet, & Jamie Bell (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool).  In terms of sixth place, it was Franco, who had a late-breaking scandal that derailed his nomination, and as it would turn out, his entire career.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I try not to use an actor's personal life in picking who should win or be nominated for these awards, so I definitely would've found room for Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name.  Like Chalamet, he has never been as good before-or-since, but he finds a strange amount of sadness in his Oliver, a man who will never experience the world he's briefly being given insight into during a summer in Italy.

Oscar’s Choice: Some will frame this in years since as a closer race between Chalamet & Oldman, but the latter was so far in front that it's probable he won a majority rather than a plurality.

My Choice: Chalamet, hands down.  My favorite performance of 2017, possibly my favorite performance of the 2010's.  Just superb work.  Behind him I'll go Oldman, Day-Lewis, Washington, & Kaluuya.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you want to stick with Timmy & I, or do you think Oscar got it right with Winston Churchill?  I'm the only person who has actually seen Roman J. Israel, as it feels like more a poster than a movie at this point?  And who would Franco have ejected if his scandal hadn't broken (I know most would say Washington, but I kind of think it was Kaluuya in fifth)?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2017: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017

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

The Little Things (2021)

Film: The Little Things (2021)

Stars: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto

Director: John Lee Hancock

Oscar History: Leto made it with both the Globes & SAG, but thankfully missed when Oscar came a-calling.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

The Oscar Viewing Project usually gives me joy.  Rediscovering films that I otherwise wouldn't have encountered is a blessing, something I relish doing & nearly every year there are 8-10 movies that I had barely heard of that suddenly become a part of me, they're so special.  But there are also movies that come with this project that, well, make me reconsider why I'm doing this.  In the run-up to the Oscars, I usually have a few films that are right on the cusp of a nomination that I would only see if they were Oscar-blessed...I have no urge to watch the movies.  In a normal year I'd wait to see if they were cited & then head to a movie theater, but in 2021, when you have to navigate streaming platforms, when a movie is free but only viewable for a short window, you take advantage, and with The Little Things recently on HBO Max, I had to take my chances.  So thanks to the bizarre inclusion of Jared Leto at both the Globes & SAG Awards, I caught the meandering, critically-reviled Little Things.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with a story that has almost no connection to the rest of the movie, so we'll skip it (like much of the film, it feels superfluous).  Instead we'll move into the present, where Deke (Washington), a tired cop who has a reputation for working outside-the-bounds, is put on a case with Jim Baxter (Malek), a more modern detective who wants to move up through the ranks by finding the culprit in a string of serial murders.  The two butt heads, but start to form a bond (even though Jim is warned about Deke's unorthodox reputation), and eventually they meet someone who fits the bill for the crime-a kooky man named Albert Sparma (Leto), who is obsessed with the crimes & with the police officers solving them.  Neither cop can pin the crimes on Sparma, but they become obsessed with the idea that he did it, particularly Jim, and one night Sparma takes Jim to the place he supposedly buried his latest, missing victim.  While there, Sparma states, after Jim has been digging for hours, that he isn't the killer, but Jim in a fit of rage hits him with a shovel, killing him.  Deke comes across the scene, and helps cover up the crime, as we learn through flashback that Deke once accidentally killed a survivor in his last murder case, and that's why he's haunted.  The film ends with Jim thinking that Sparma did it (due to evidence that Deke gives him that we learn before the credits he purchased rather than found at Sparma's apartment), and both men trying to move on from the death.

The Little Things wants to be a profound version of Se7en, but it lacks all of the visual cues, acting flare, & talent of what makes David Fincher's films work.  I wasn't sad that it was missing some of the violence (I live alone & it's the middle of a pandemic where I can barely see anyone...I don't need that energy these days), but there needed to be some energy, and there really isn't any.

The ending was lazy, with us to believe that Denzel takes on all of the weight of a very loose lie?  We're meant to believe that Leto's character was just strange, not a murderer (in which case Rami Malek's character killed an innocent, albeit bizarre, man), but that lie will unravel quickly.  The odds are not strong that the serial killer is going to stop, in which case Malek's character will know what happens the second he returns to work or reads a newspaper.  It's a stupid ending without any sense of logic behind it unless we assume that Leto's character is the killer...which none of the evidence points toward.

The performances are pretty uniformly bad.  Washington is the best (duh), but he brings little of his great character work to this worn, poorly-scripted part.  Leto is next of the bunch, and is genuinely awful.  This man doesn't exist-there's nothing in this performance that points to someone that happens before the screen began, and he just plays him as a "weird dude"...Leto, one of the least-deserving recent actors to win an Oscar, is joined by the other least-deserving recent winner Rami Malek, who plays this part like he's on novocaine.  There's NOTHING in this work-he's a blank vessel of human being as played...how do these men have an award that Ralph Fiennes & Glenn Close don't?  That's the real mystery of The Little Things.

OVP: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

Film: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

Stars: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo

Director: George C. Wolfe

Oscar History: 5 nominations/2 wins (Best Actor-Chadwick Boseman, Actress-Viola Davis, Costume*, Production Design, Makeup & Hairstyling*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

August Wilson is one of the towering figures of the American stage, a brilliant playwright who only four years ago (posthumously) was able to translate one of his titanic works to the screen, with 2016's Fences.  Denzel Washington has stated he intends to produce every one of Wilson's ten "Pittsburgh Cycle" films to the screen in the coming years, with Ma Rainey being the second one.  With Fences, I felt it was a gorgeous screenplay, but one that didn't translate properly to the movies, frequently feeling like a screened play rather than one that was authentic to the cinema itself, and in the process parts of it felt too loud & lost (even with solid actors & writing).  Ma Rainey adds new complications to this problem by occasionally feeling like it's letting the air out of the story's claustrophobia, even if (once again) the writing is of another realm.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in Chicago in the 1920's.  Ma Rainey (Davis) is the "Mother of the Blues," the biggest African-American music act in the country, and she knows that she has this little perch of power even if she is unable to enjoy the same luxuries & treatment a white woman in her position would achieve.  The film alternates between Ma's moments of reflection & "star" behavior, and counters it with her band, principally her trumpet player Levee (Boseman), who has a new musical style & wants to find his own voice & success, rather than staying in Ma's shadow.  As the film wears on, the two characters are given more backstory to the audience, with Ma showing the struggles she has with the white men in her life, knowing she's only worth anything to them because of her voice (and the money that it brings), while Levee cannot escape the trauma of his childhood (when white men gang-raped his mother).  The other bandmates watch as Ma, who has survived & will continue to be the exception, gets to continue her success even though it's one that isn't commensurate to the money & success it affords her label, but knowing that Levee will meet his doom with his youthful impetuousness.  In the film's closing moments, Levee is fired by Ma, and it turns out that the songs that he was going to record for the label, the ones he'd been promised to record, will be sold for a mere pittance to the label instead.  In a blind rage, after one of the other bandmates accidentally scuffs the shoes Levee bought in the opening scene (and can no longer afford), he kills him, the violence of his childhood continuing on into his adulthood, finally consuming his hope & promise.

The movie has a heavy conversation about the value of black artistry & its exploitation by white capitalists, a conversation that has never really been settled, and one that sadly even in 2020 is worth having.  The movie's juxtaposition of Ma, who is the rare black woman of the era who can demand more (but knows that she can't demand what she's truly worth) with Levee (whose talent is apparent in the end when his song is recorded lifelessly by an all-white orchestra, depriving him of his chance at Ma's success) is heartbreaking.  Wilson shows the ways that for centuries black talent has been stolen with little profit to the creators, and frequently the artists who created it were barely given credit, much less its monetary value, for their workm.  Wilson's rapid-fire dialogue & insightful speeches create a well-rounded story, one that deserved to be committed to the screen.

But the film struggles once again to find its footing within the confines of the screen.  I know some enjoy the concept of a filmed play (there are times this is successful onscreen), but Ma Rainey can't find a balancing act here.  The play appears to take place entirely in the recording studio, giving a heightened tension that would work so well on the stage, and I suspect would've been a better choice for the film (the scenes shot outside almost never work as well).  This expansion gives the viewer too much exposition toward Ma's character, a problem that feels necessary because while Davis is good in this part, she doesn't bring enough backstory to her Ma.  Ma feels like she's meant to have some enigma at first, this sort of unicorn siren who is able to defy the world around her despite her race & sexuality being at odds with the moneyed culture she's surrounded by, but as the movie moves on we need to gain an understanding of Ma, and it doesn't quite click for me as Davis goes.  It doesn't help that Davis doesn't sing the part, and her lip syncing feels hollow during the moments where we need to understand Ma the most.  She's too good of an actress to totally miss this, but the connection to Ma just isn't there the way it's supposed to be.

Or perhaps Viola Davis just gets upstaged, as Chadwick Boseman (despite the title) ensures that he is the star of this production.  The late Boseman has some of the same problems that come to Davis (his monologues feel like they're pitched to a giant live audience rather than someone sitting on their couch...this movie definitely misses in moving out of theaters), but he lands some of his biggest moments.  The final scenes, where Levee understands that the vengeance he's idolized for his father, and told in his head was worth it, was in fact just the same white men who he sought revenge on stealing his father's future the way they did his mother, that this vengeance was just another robbery of his childhood & a cycle he can't escape...it's gut-wrenching stuff.  It's impossible to escape the real-life fact that this will be Boseman's swan song after his shocking death from cancer earlier this year, and this informs some of his monologues about death & "the future" in ways that feel so cruel as we understand what Levee's fate will be, his artistry never getting the chance to fully blossom.  I get the reason to add on an additional scene (with the white men singing in a chorus of Levee's song, showing that the profiting still continues), but it feels like a cheap way to take away from the best parts of Boseman's work, and give the audience some reprieve from the harrowing robbery of one man's spirit that has taken place under their noses for 90 minutes prior.