OVP: Supporting Actor (2015)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2015)

The Nominees Were...

Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

My Thoughts: After over a year profiling this (I say this every time, but I mean it this time-we are not taking as long when we do the next year which I plan on starting in July), we are now arriving in the Top 6 of 2015, the big, iconic races that even lax Oscar fans might remember.  The Best Supporting Actor race of 2015, I'm going to admit right now, was never going to be a great race.  Unlike the female acting contests, which featured some of the best work Oscar had seen in a while, the male races were pretty underwhelming, and even if I was to replace it with my own choices, I wouldn't do that much better as it just wasn't an amazing year for supporting actors.

The best way to indicate that is to look at the actual winner of the Oscar race, Mark Rylance.  Rylance IS one of the great actors of his generation if you count his stage work.  I saw him in Jerusalem in 2011, and I still talk about the performance-it might be the single greatest performance I've ever seen on Broadway.  That said, this performance is fine.  It's admittedly pretty subdued, and he finds the quieter moments in Rudolf Abel, particularly the scene by his desk before he's eventually arrested, but there's not a lot there, particularly when he treads familiar territory with Hanks (and certainly for Spielberg) in the bonding period in the back half of the film.  It's the sort of performance that people applaud Oscar for recognizing since it rarely goes for introverts, but it feels like the sort of win that only happened because there wasn't an obvious, showy piece-of-work to go after.

Then again, there probably was a showy performance of sorts that Oscar could have gone for, but thankfully they didn't.  Mark Ruffalo has been on the outside-looking in with three Oscar races now, but he should have just been watching at home for his work in Spotlight.  Arguably giving the worst performance in the Best Picture winner (and I love Mark Ruffalo usually, so don't come after me in the comments), Ruffalo plays for the rafters with Michael Rezendes.  The giant speech "it could have been any of us" is meant to be a big coming-together moment, trying to unite the journalists with the victims of abuse, but Ruffalo goes so large, and is so bombastic it almost ruins the movie.  It's easy to see why this performance was nominated, but considering that Michael Keaton is nailing his role in the film and easily could have been cited instead, I don't think the "why" is forgivable with actually going through with nominating Ruffalo for one of his lesser efforts.

Tom Hardy is easier to forgive since this is his first time to the dance (I always struggle going too hard after a first-time nominee), and is considerably better than Ruffalo.  That's not to say that Hardy is doing something remarkable here, but there's more nuance in his performance than Leo is giving to his role, giving him more layers and a better trajectory for his character, relying on actual acting and the work of his eyes more than sheer physicality.  That said, he's stuck in a bad movie, and he's not given enough to be able to save it fully.  There's no actual interest in character development from the director, so Hardy's touches don't create something fully-fledged, just a more interesting personage than you'd expect given what the rest of the actors are doing.

Bale has a director who does care about his characters, albeit one whose idea of character development is simply stating "and now the character is like this" rather than growing the story through subtle changes in direction (Adam McKay is many things, not all of them bad, but he is decidedly not subtle).  Bale is also not a subtle actor, and while he is impressive in his ability to inhabit characters, he rarely finds time to grow them without big jerks, going in heavy on the tics that Michael Burry brings to The Big Short, but never finding reasons as to why he eventually has a change-of-heart about the corruption he's profited from.  Bale is hindered by McKay not really understanding the ramifications of the movie he's made (he is also a millionaire who might not be the best representative of the common man's struggles), but you can't blame the scenery-chewing on McKay-that's this actor's constant handicap.

Our final nomination is an actor that almost no one would put in the same thespian league as Bale, mostly because he's played the same character over-and-over for 40+ years, but Sylvester Stallone in Creed is proof that you can find new ways to reinvent a character you know by heart.  Stallone's performance gets the unfair advantage of nostalgia, something no other actor on this list has; there's a lifetime's worth of screen memories in his worn face, his expressions, the way that he has almost a boxer's beaten tenor to his voice at this point.  But there's also a knowledge here in the way he pushes out sentences that would be a struggle for a boxer in his twilight years (knowing what we know about the impact of concussions) and he brings such calm as he hands his baton to the next generation of fighters.  This is an actor who might have only had one truly great character in him, but he plays the part with such care you can't claim he's an actor of limited scope even if you might claim he's of limited range.

Other Precursor Contenders: This category actually had more room in the precursors than I remembered.  Stallone took the Globe, besting Rylance but also Oscar-skipped Paul Dano (Love & Mercy), Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), and Michael Shannon (99 Homes).  SAG, in what should have been an ominous sign dropped the Globe-winning Stallone, but stuck to Oscar's Bale & Rylance, also favoring Elba, Shannon, and Room's Jacob Tremblay, with Elba winning despite eventually missing with Oscar.  BAFTA skipped Stallone & Hardy, favoring Elba and Benicio del Toro (Sicario) for the nominations instead, and gave it to a third winner, Rylance.  In terms of sixth place, Elba has the most action headed into Oscar, but his nomination was clearly more of a "screw Netflix" rather than a "screw Elba" so I kind of want to guess Michael Shannon was sixth...Oscar seems to only like him when he comes out of nowhere.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: I'd probably throw out all but my winner here.  Sam Elliott was doing a better performance in Grandma than he would a few years later when he was cited for A Star is Born, while Michael Keaton definitely outdid Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight (plus, Oscar owed Keaton for skipping him in the obviously finest performance in Best Actor the previous year).  Oscar Isaac continues to be one of the best non-nominated actors currently working in the jaw-dropping Ex Machina (perhaps they felt that they had already cited Steve Jobs with Michael Fassbender, but they're both so good it's worth mentioning twice).  And lastly, Jason Statham is not a great actor.  He might not even be a good actor.  But if you're going to throw your persona for a loop in a comedy, I don't know that you could do it better than what he brings to his hilarious work in Spy.

Oscar’s Choice: Sentiment did not command the day with Oscar, as in an echo of Alan Arkin/Eddie Murphy a decade earlier, a quiet character actor in a Best Picture nominee took out an 80's icon who was trying to get an award he'd spent most of his career uninterested in winning.

My Choice: This feels so weird to say, but Sly Stallone totally deserved this Oscar.  He's so much better than the rest and had such a good narrative (and is reportedly a nice guy) I'm still flummoxed as to why he missed this trophy.  I'd follow with Rylance, Hardy, Bale, and Ruffalo.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you with me that Stallone missed a perfect (and probably his only) opportunity to take a trophy, or are you with the more traditional choice of Rylance?  Is Mark Ruffalo ever going to win an Oscar?  And who was sixth place-Shannon or Elba?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

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

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

OVP: Dunkirk (2017)

Film: Dunkirk (2017)
Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Director: Christopher Nolan
Oscar History: 8 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Director, Film Editing*, Cinematography, Score, Production Design, Sound Mixing*, Sound Editing*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I’m still stuck in that airport when this is being penned (I’m hoping that I get a lot of articles at least out of this attempt to ward off sleep), so we’ll continue on into what was one of the best moments I had in a movie theater this year, even if I still find the pictures of Christopher Nolan to have their own set of problems.  Thankfully Dunkirk didn’t have the irrational fanboy nature of his past pictures (or perhaps I just missed it), so I don’t go into this with the same sort of need-to-make-a-point that I did for something like Interstellar.  Dunkirk, Nolan’s attempt to go into more grownup affairs (you can see the way that he mimics Spielberg in this regard, trying desperately to get the Oscar that he clearly wants but so far hasn’t been able to land with his genre work), succeeds as an expansive look at war, even if it occasionally falters in his quest to make it an anonymous series of moments, making war an entirely universal experience.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around the actions on the beach at Dunkirk, when during World War II over the series of a scant few days hundreds of thousands of soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk at great peril (they were essentially sitting ducks at the time for the Germans, and with them was the last hope of the British people and all of Europe).  Despite being one of the most storied moments of World War II (a favorite cinematic subject), it’s never really been done in a “definitive” way until now, so Nolan has chosen well, and uses a triptych of land, sea, and air stories to tell the story, frequently mixing virtual unknowns (like Fionn Whitehead) alongside more famous figures such as Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, and in his film debut, Harry Styles.

The movie’s most unique attribute, and the one that really sells it as an atypical war movie, is the way that it uses very little dialogue or even much identity to establish these plotlines.  Very few characters have openly-stated names in the movie, and we don’t get any really strong character growth.  Normally this would be a fault, but it’s the picture’s secret weapon.  Nolan makes his steady direction, the hyper-realistic cinematography (I saw this on 70mm, and genuinely felt like I could become seasick during select scenes, where the claustrophobia of war’s physical spaces are filmed in staggering realism).  Nolan gains from making his shots expansive and wide-you get a sense of the scale of such an evacuation, with tens of thousands of men littered like sitting ducks along the shores, their only hope of home waiting in a line, or taking matters into their own hands.

The movie, when it veers away from this anonymity, doesn’t succeed.  Scenes late in the film, particularly the way that Harry Styles’ character is treated as a xenophobe when the bullets fly, ring false (it’s worth noting that Styles is actually quite good in the movie, even if he’s saddled with a character that the script can’t handle-I hope he continues acting as he has a naturalism that his boy band brother Justin Timberlake couldn’t remotely approach).  I also felt like the climax of the picture doesn’t succeed, as we’re meant to underline Tom Hardy’s silent flight to the beach, likely to be captured, but the emotional ring of this moment is hollow as we don’t know anything about him other than he’s Tom Hardy (and in yet another role where his gorgeous face is covered by a mask), and I feel like Nolan had a deeper connection with this character when he was writing the script than came across in the picture.

Still, these are small quibbles over one of the better films I’ve caught this year.  Nolan’s script continues to be his weakness (I wish that he’d just storyboard and leave the actual writing to someone else), but his direction remains as capable as sure as ever, even without Science Fiction or comic books as source material.  Dunkirk is movie magic that feels like it’s of a bygone era, something we’d expect more in Thanksgiving than ever in the Summer.  Note to Spielberg, Scott, or Cameron-please when you go “serious” continue to challenge yourself creatively like Nolan does here.

OVP: The Revenant (2015)

Film: The Revenant (2015)
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Oscar History: 12 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Director*, Actor-Leonardo DiCaprio*, Supporting Actor-Tom Hardy, Cinematography*, Costume Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Film Editing, Production Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Prior to Birdman, I had never loved or even liked the films of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.  I admittedly haven't seen all of them (Amores Perros in particular stands out to me as a film that I need to see, and with the OVP I almost certainly will), but his films felt like they were grounded in an oddly grim position.  They usually portrayed suffering, which is true of almost all dramatic film, but the suffering felt pointless and like a black hole on the screen, constantly sucking the joy out of the lives of anyone on screen and making it seem closer to torture for the audience than anything else.  Birdman was a wonderful respite from that.  Yes, we saw people with broken, battered lives and existences, but there was an artistry in the way his camera moved and the depression felt like it was for something other than just sadness.  It made me hopeful for what would happen next in AGI's career, and considering both Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy have been two of my favorites over the past decade, I was cautiously optimistic and in love with the trailer for The Revenant.

(Spoilers Ahead) Sadly, though, we are back to the AGI that creates tortured souls and pointless violence, as The Revenant was a failure in my opinion.  I know that the film has been gripped tightly by fanboys across the country and everyone is ecstatic that Leo is finally going to win his Oscar, but for me the film left more than a lot to be desired.  For starters, the character development in the film is bad.  Not poor, not missing, but bad, as we see little of our main character Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) and what drives him other than a primal instinct to avenge his own flesh-and-blood, as he seems to care little for his boy when he is living.

The film can try to cover under the blanket of hyper-masculinity and claim that we don't hear much from Glass because he's "not that kind of guy" but that seems like a bit of a cop-out, particularly since his visions are narrating the film and AGI/Leo want him to be the sort of man who will seek out revenge against the traitor who wronged his son, and who continually is haunted by visions of his wife in his dreams.  It's more a tactic that the filmmaker doesn't want to take away from the brutality of what is being seen onscreen, and that is indeed horrifying.  We frequently have heard (ad nauseam, in my opinion) about the rigors of the shoot, and while I'm sure it was tough, I'm from Minnesota and we sort of raise eyebrows at someone, especially a giant movie star, getting lavished with praise for enduring hours of bitter cold as we call such an experience 'January.'  The film is constantly trying to make us look at what may be the most disgusting, vile things a person will have to do to stay alive alone and broken in the wilderness (the scene with Hugh Glass gutting a horse so he can sleep in it Tauntaun-style in particular stands out), but it doesn't really make for great cinema or great artistry or great acting.  It just looks like something that an actor had to endure under a director.  And let's face it-qualitatively, The Revenant is hardly Apocalypse Now.

This devotion to accuracy occasionally pays off (the camerawork from Emmanuel Lubezki is impressive and, particularly at dusk, staggeringly beautiful), but it feels more Man vs. Nature without any sort of emotional grounding in it.  This is why the best scene of the film is the sequence where Leo is literally forced to deal with nature in the form of a gigantic grizzly bear, as this is unavoidable and does get to the primal fear thing that AGI is trying to get across the entire film (it's easily the scariest scene I saw all year on a movie screen, not least of which because I used to regularly walk through woods that had bears in them as a child and this was kind of my worst nightmare).  The rest of the movie we never get an answer to the question of "Why?"  Not why he would survive, but what was the tug that was so intense that he was willing to throw his life in danger a thousand times in pursuit of a man who killed a son that he seemed to give little thought toward up until that point.  I just am not buying it, and I don't like it when filmmakers cut corners by assuming we will get the "because he's a man and he's his son" angle even if it runs counter to the actual character we're seeing onscreen.  DiCaprio will surely win an Oscar for this performance, but it's a sad day that he's going to take it, after wonderful work in pictures like Titanic and The Aviator and Catch Me If You Can, for something that spends so much time covering his vulnerability and emotional yearning, the two things that set DiCaprio apart in a major way as a great actor of his generation.  However, the internet has demanded it, and he's going to get his reward.  I just wish I could say the same as someone who had hoped that we'd see something great continue to churn out from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Those are my thoughts on the film-how about yours (I know I'm in the minority here, so feel free to defend or commiserate in the comments)?  I didn't talk about Tom Hardy here (I think he's better than Leo, but still not Oscar-worthy)-anyone want to chime in on him?  Let's hear it!

No Globe, No SAG...No Problem?

Last year it was Bradley Cooper-who can get in
without the love in 2015?

This article has become a bit of an annual tradition here at The Many Rantings of John, and since I'm still relatively new compared to some other decade-old blogs on the internet, I feel like I have to carry out the few traditions that I have going.  Every year in the past ten, seemingly without fail with the strange exception of 2006 (which was largely due to the bizarrely robust nature of the Supporting Actor race that year where nine different actors were cited by the Globes and SAG Awards), at least one actor has managed to be nominated for an Academy Award without having previously been cited by the Globes or the SAG Awards for the same performance.  Take a look below:

2014: Bradley Cooper, Marion Cotillard, and Laura Dern

2013: Jonah Hill

2012: Quvenzhane Wallis, Emannuelle Riva, and Jacki Weaver

2011: Gary Oldman and Max von Sydow

2010: Javier Bardem

2009: Maggie Gyllenhaal

2008: Michael Shannon

2007: Laura Linney and Tommy Lee Jones

2006: Zero (let's pay attention people-we've already been over this)

2005: William Hurt

As is evidenced here, when you've missed at both awards it helps a ton to be in a film that people are actually watching.  Of these fifteen actors, six of them were in films that would also be nominated for Best Picture, and all but Jones and Cotillard had their films nominated in other categories.  It also helps to be a major player at the Academy Awards-only Wallis and Riva had never been nominated before, and they were nominated for leading a Best Picture, so it's quite unlikely at this point in the race for a nominee to pop up out-of-nowhere for a film people aren't discussing elsewhere.  With that being said, I've gone through and looked at the ten actors who haven't received any of the major precursor love yet, and ranked them by who is the most likely to be nominated for an Oscar anyway.  This year was particularly hard because of the erratic nature of the race, especially when you consider so many unexpected names like Bryan Cranston and Sarah Silverman ended up showing up at the awards prior to nominations, leaving a few contenders that were widely expected in the dust to new theoretical nominees.  Share your thoughts on this list and who was left out (and especially who you think will be left in) below in the comments!

Honorable Mention: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the likes of Tom Hanks, Blythe Danner, Ian McKellen, Kristen Stewart, and Benicio del Toro would have normally made the cutoff, but I decided to go with ten per tradition-usually I'm scrounging for contenders, but this year it was a plethora of near-misses so hopefully we get some genuine surprises come Oscar morning.

10. Elizabeth Banks (Love and Mercy)

For Her: It's hard to deny Banks made a huge splash this year onscreen.  After all, her directorial debut in Pitch Perfect 2 went off extremely well, making a mountain of cash (even if the film itself was never quite as beloved as the fans of the first were hoping), while also getting rave reviews for her work in Love and Mercy.  With Paul Dano scooping up a number of awards, it's not like the screener isn't available to Academy members, and though she's never been nominated before you can sort of get the sense that she's about ready for some sort of industry acknowledgement.

Against Her: If they're seeing the movie and voting for Dano, why isn't she scoring at the Globes in particular?  Dano made it, and she's a big enough celebrity for HFPA, so where's the love for her?  Is it simply that they're responding to Dano rather than Banks, in which case she's a have-not in this situation?  The film is really only gunning for Supporting Actor based on precursors, and that's somewhat tenuous as can be evidenced by a film like Rush (where the Academy skips out if you aren't a player elsewhere).

9. Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)

For Her: She's a former nominee who spent most of the year at the top of Oscar prediction charts.  Suffragette is a movie that is clearly relevant and I suspect it's one the Academy would like to put a "me too!" on agreeing with at this point.  Period dramas are catnip for the Best Actress category, and she has to do a lot of deglam.  Plus, doesn't it feel like Carey Mulligan should have a second Oscar nomination by now?

Against Her: No one is talking about this film anymore, and it's mostly out of "really, she's not gaining traction?!?" that I kept this on here as it makes so much sense on paper, even though in reality Mulligan's opportunity seems to have all-but-disappeared.  That being said, I thought the same thing about Tommy Lee Jones in 2007 and he still won a nod so it's not totally out-of-the-question.

8. Michael Caine (Youth)

For Him: He's Michael Caine, beloved actor and Academy Award favorite.  Were he to be nominated, he would become the first actor ever to be nominated in six different decades, and he's a major movie star that has long been hungry for a lead Oscar and is willing to schmooze for it.  Caine's also in a movie that, if they see it, seems like the older Academy members would love as it's about, well, older artists and entertainers.  I suspect that those completely downgrading Caine in their predictions are missing what could be a great surprise opportunity.

Against Him: Since the Globes clearly saw the film (they voted for Fonda in the same movie), why not Caine?  They even went with him for The Quiet American, so you know they're fans.  Youth itself has gained almost no traction this season and may be too out-there for the voting community's tastes.  I think this could happen, but I have no evidence of it so one wonders if Caine will continue to have to find a shot at that sixth decade.

7. Michael B. Jordan (Creed)

For Him: He's a young up-and-coming actor, arguably the best American male actor under thirty in my opinion, and Creed continues to be a great word-of-mouth hit that could score with the Academy as it feels in their wheelhouse.  Let's not forget Bradley Cooper in American Sniper in all of this, as Clint Eastwood's picture went from being a non-entity in most of the precursor awards to being a huge deal at the Oscars, which could well be what's about to happen to Creed (though Stallone did score at the Globes).

Against Him: Jordan's not Bradley Cooper (who had two previous Oscar citations to rely upon), and this film isn't directed by Clint Eastwood-it's a boxing sequel.  Perhaps the Academy can't quite get over that hump (or they just don't love it) and are content to go with Stallone as their way of giving the film recognition.

6. Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

For Her: This is my annual, one-time-only mention of the BFCA Awards, as one might question why I don't include them on this list since they are a televised precursor and of course Theron got nominated there.  I don't mention them for two reasons: one, they have six nominees and that's cheating, and two (and much more importantly) they are far more intent on predicting the Oscars than actually rewarding what they like (compare Rotten Tomatoes scores with who actually gets nominated for a reference point), and that's not an awards show, it's just a Vegas betting board so I shall not mention them again for a year until I write this article again.  That being said, the nomination for Theron has to indicate something, and she's an Oscar-winning lead in a film that increasingly looks likely to be a Best Picture nominee-that's usually a recipe for a surprise nomination.

Against Her: It'd be a nearly unprecedented nomination (with the very glaring exception of Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), and can Theron actually do this without being a huge presence on the campaign trail?  It seems a bit telling that the Globes didn't go for this at all as it seems more in their recent wheelhouse (think Uma Thurman in Kill Bill) but there's clearly at least one very open slot in Best Actress so I wouldn't totally eye-roll here.

4 & 5. Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton (Spotlight)

For Them: I combined these two for two reasons, one of which is that they are both obvious contenders on-paper.  Both men are recent (like, last year recent) nominees who didn't win, which the Academy sometimes feels the urge to correct if you make enough good movies back-to-back, and they are headlining a major Best Picture contender, the only film to score nominations for Best Cast AND Best Drama Picture at the Globes.  That has to matter, and you can imagine these two being on a lot of ballots.

Against Them: The second reason I put them together, though is that they're clearly costing the other one their nomination.  With Keaton going supporting instead of lead (not the worst decision, but potentially costly for Ruffalo who has the more "big moment" role) that means that two men whom the Academy feel are "due" are competing for the same turf.  No film has been nominated for two supporting actors since 1991's Bugsy for a reason-it's because Academy members don't like voting for the same film twice for two male actors.  That's clearly causing some issues for these two as they are competing in a race that is starting to coalesce around other individuals.

3. Tom Hardy (The Revenant)

For Him: He's had an amazing year.  With dual roles in Legend, a title role in Mad Max, and now a significant role opposite the film that's probably going to win Leo his Oscar in The Revenant, Hardy has to be considered for this performance, which also is clear Oscar bait from the trailers (he plays the chief antagonist, a classic Supporting Actor part).  Hardy's been a rising star for years now, and if a year like this doesn't bring him into the fold, I don't know what will.

Against Him: "Why didn't he score at the Globes" is a recurring phrase this year (mostly because I have no idea WHAT was happening at the SAG Awards), but Hardy is hot and could have been an easy arm-candy presenter to Jennifer Lopez at the ceremony so one wonders what the hold-up was there.  Is it a case where he's just not compelling in "the Leo Show?"  He might also be too pretty for Oscar (they like to make the sexy guys wait until the wrinkles come).

2. Joan Allen (Room)

For Her: On-paper, almost everything.  If I was looking at the recipe above, I'd need someone headlining a likely Best Picture nominee (check), someone in a supporting role when everyone is gushing about a lead performance (check and check), and someone whom the Academy has shown a fondness for before but hasn't really been nominated in a little while (and three times-nominated check).  Allen is the sort of performer like Tommy Lee Jones or William Hurt whom the Academy might just want to say "we remember you!" to and her role in Room, while not particularly meaty, isn't without its big moments, and seems more Oscar-friendly than Globes or SAG Awards.

Against Her: It's not a particularly meaty role.  That hasn't stopped people in the past (hello, Jacki Weaver), but with so many lead performers making a play for this category it's difficult to tell whether or not there will be a room for a performance the size of Allen's against the likes of Mara and Vikander.

1. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)

For Her: She's an acting god who did score a few critical citations so far, and it's worth noting scored a BFCA nomination when Theron was clearly the sixth place finisher in that list.  45 Years has gotten rave reviews, and screeners are a pretty good answer to people saying she won't make it because the film is small (which becomes less of an argument as years go by and the Academy doesn't reflect the Box Office like it used to do).  Rampling feels like she should get a nomination at least once in her career-this could be the moment.

Against Her: She's the exact opposite of Allen in predictive ways, though, and a nomination would be kind of unprecedented in recent memory as she's not in a film that will be nominated somewhere else, she's not a former nominee or winner, and no one thinks of this as a Best Picture contender.  Even Marion Cotillard, who seems most indicative for Rampling, was an Oscar winner when she came out of the blue for Two Days, One Night last year.  Still, records break every year, and I think Rampling is probably the one to do it in 2015.

Legend (2015)

Film: Legend (2015)
Stars: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton, Chazz Palminteri
Director: Brian Helgeland
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

At some point during Tom Hardy's recent film Legend, and I'm not entirely sure when, you start to have a moment where you forget that the actor is, in fact, playing two different parts onscreen.  It's a weird moment that doesn't really hit you until you get home and digest the movie.  Usually when an actor is doing two different parts, it's meant to be an inside joke with the viewer, and there's far too much winking at the audience for my taste (just look at something like a Peter Pan, where Mr. Darling is always, inevitably, Captain Hook).  Here, though, Hardy manages to pull off the trick of two very distinct, complete human beings that somehow look identical and yet are so different you hardly believe it's the same actor, much less in the same movie that he's doing this part.  The film itself is hardly worth the price of admission, but Hardy's trick is too cool not to behold, even if the film falters badly in cliches.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Francis (Browning) as she romances Reggie Cray (Hardy), a London gangster with an incredible ease and almost celebrity-like charm, who is consistently hampered by his love for his certifiable (no, seriously) brother Ronny (also Hardy), whom he has to free from a mental hospital early in the film by way of coercion, and spends the rest of the film completely disregarding pragmatism and even sanity as they inexplicably become the lords of London's seedier neighborhoods, all to falter when Reggie foolishly chooses his brother and life of crime over his beloved wife.

The film itself sounds like you've seen it a thousand times before, and quite frankly you have.  The story of the hotheaded guy who brings apart his more upstanding brother is a tale about as old as the movies themselves, and we don't really see anything new here in that regard.  Ronny is meant to be a weird juxtaposition, a man who seems at times quite naive who nonetheless is a sadistic murder and also a homosexual, as he points out regularly and with great relish (Taron Egerton, the guy you thought was cute in the Kingsman trailer before you inevitably didn't go to it because the reviews were atrocious, plays his boyfriend), but if you take out the gay card there's really no difference between him and, say, Joe Pesci in GoodFellas.  Worse still than the screenplay is pretty much everyone other than Hardy in the film-people like Paul Bettany and Chazz Palminteri come in and do exactly what you'd expect of them, and even the royally-underused David Thewlis hardly has much to do except loathe Ronny for ruining his perfectly respectable criminal organization.  At the center is our narrator, all-grown-up Emily Browning who certainly looks the part of a beautiful Dusty Springfield-like 60's cover girl, but can't really act or sell her scenes in the way that I would have expected.  I've heard good things about Browning as an adult actress (I loved her in Lemony Snickett so many moons ago), but I don't see anything particularly compelling or special here except the way she clearly lusts after Reggie, but that's Tom Hardy in a suit so that's evolution, not thespian intuition, causing such a reaction.  Browning herself at least pulls off the quite nasty role late in the film of a misleading narrator, as we learn late in the film that Francis doesn't survive the movie.  In a film that is largely just a trick of the light with Tom Hardy's performance, it's probably the coolest jaw-dropper.

That said, Hardy is so good I almost want to give this film three stars from the get-go just so you can see what he does.  His performance as Ronny is, of course, the big-ticket acting moment but really it's both characters that sort of sell this-we forget that these are two men, essentially playing off of each other, which is an enormous feat and one that becomes all the more impressive as we watch them begin to despise each other, and yet weirdly mirror the other's behaviors.  It's a performance that will be remembered long after the film is lining the rubbish bins.

Those were my thoughts, at least-let's hear some of yours.  Are you as surprised at how compelling Tom Hardy is in this picture, and why don't you think that he has gained the sort of roles that a Michael Fassbender has since clearly he has the talent for it?  What are your thoughts about Emily Browning's film career as an adult?  And did anyone else realize the lounge singer in the film was Duffy?  I want to hear from you below!

OVP: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Film: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz
Director: George Miller
Oscar History: 10 nominations/6 wins (Best Picture, Director, Sound Mixing*, Sound Editing*, Production Design*, Costume*, Cinematography, Visual Effects, Makeup*, Editing*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I have never seen the original Mad Max films starring Mel Gibson, but they've always been close to my "To Do" list.  The films of George Miller in general have alluded me-I think this is the second of his films I've seen (after Babe: Pig in the City) and I have to say I'm onboard.  After I saw this, I moved all three of the Mad Max pictures up a bit on my Netflix queue as well as both of the Happy Feet movies.  This action hero film is stylish, interesting, fascinating in a way that we genuinely have no idea who will live or die (we're pretty confident that Max will make it, but everyone else seems to be fair game, kind of like an episode of Game of Thrones).  In the end, the movie ends up being always wildly beautiful, occasionally infuriating but typically exhausting and addictive, a well-crafted look at the end of the world.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Max (Hardy), a survivor of nuclear war who wanders the desert wasteland, a shell of a man who is captured by a group of War Boys, the military arm of a grotesque tyrant named Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), and he is used as a "blood bag" by an ailing War Boy named Nux (Hoult).  The film progresses with Imperator Furiosa (Theron) going out into the world and trying to save five of Immortan Joe's wives (an array of Victoria's Secret-style supermodels...in fact I think some of them actually were Victoria's Secret models), all-the-while being pursued by Immortan Joe and his band of crazy characters.  Furiosa thinks that they can make it to the Green Place, but soon learn that like most things in this world, it no longer exists.  Still, she teams with a band of badass older women out on the road and take back the Citadel, where there is water and greenery, and find a potential new world, just as Max fades out of it.

The film's best elements, and there are a lot of them, surround mostly Miller's ability to build a world onto its own.  The interesting thing about the movie, which in many ways feels like a remake more than sequel (I suspect-honestly, I haven't seen the earlier films) is the way that he doesn't need much exposition to create a fantastical world here that feels authentic onto itself.  I talked about this a bit in Hellboy II, but world-building needs to feel real and not something where you needed to read the book or even see the previous film, and that's the case here-this world, desolate and alone in the bleakness of-we don't even know where, but somewhere horrible, seems totally believable and despite the crazy cast of characters (ranging from a mad-man guitar player to a baby-like humanoid that peers from atop Immortan Joe's tower) all seem roughly believable within this world.  This is clearly Earth, but it's not so much of a break from Earth to not be completely real  Helping the believability is a series of action scenes that are not only exhilarating, but also realistic-frequently we see in a movie that someone approaching from a mile out is there instantaneously, but that's not actually the case considering the speed of these desert buggies, and the fact that they will soon get there but we get a more real-time reaction just adds suspense.

Miller broke the piggybank with the crew, but man did it pay off.  Junkie XL provides an offbeat score for the film that combines classical elements of music with metal rock.  Perhaps best for us all, the director pulled Oscar-winner John Seale out of retirement to film the movie.  Seale, best known for his sensual desert vistas in The English Patient, is so fine at framing up nature and knows how to play with saturated color, making the sun-sweltering oranges and blues of the sky pierce the screen.  When we get a respite from these colors (which is rare-Miller knows how to make you feel the heat), he amps up the inventiveness, giving us some of the coolest blue-black night scenes I have seen in ages.  This is one of those movies that would have been fantastic in gigantic Cinemascope, as Seale is using that camera.

Overall the production values are routinely good.  I still think it's odd that the orgasmic appeal of Tom Hardy's face (seriously-he looks like the sort of guy that could convince literally any human being to sleep with him) keeps getting covered by masks, but other than that there's not really a loose end in the crew.  The film's script occasionally veers into the too-predictable (we know the entire film that Nux is going to be sacrificing himself for the greater good), and the performances run the gamut (from the brilliantly effective Theron to the hammier Hoult), but overall there's little to argue with in this movie.  I left wanting more, which is always a good thing, and confident that what I got next would be equally inventive, which is a great thing.

Those are my thoughts on Mad Max: Fury Road.  I'm confident you saw it, so since you did, what'd you think?  Do you also find yourself mesmerized by the production values?  Where do you sit on the performances?  And does it have a shot to get the first Mad Max Oscar nominations?  Share your thoughts in the comments!