2025 Oscar Viewing Project

Just in time for Oscar next weekend, I have officially seen all of the Oscar Viewing Project contenders for 2025!  For the second year in a row, I've done this before the ceremony, which feels very in-theme for how we operate.  For those that are new, the Oscar Viewing Project has me watching every single narrative, feature-length nominee at the Academy Awards (i.e. no shorts or documentaries, unless they're in the traditionally feature-length, narrative categories), and rating them in a vacuum, picking my choices based on whom Oscar selected based solely on the quality of the 3-5 nominees in front of me.  If you are truly new, this is the 32nd of the 98 Oscar ceremonies we've done this for, and you can see links at the bottom of this list for past contests.  For the first time since 2001, we have a new category that will be added, and it will be covered (Casting), and I will also be adding it to the My Ballots going forward (though not retroactively).  I have a few more screenings left to finish up the 2025 My Ballot (where I pick the nominees), including one specific animated film that's been annoyingly hard to get ahold of, but in the meantime, we will sort through Oscar.  As a reminder, here was where the domestic box office ranked in 2025:

1. Zootopia 2

2. A Minecraft Movie

3. Lilo & Stitch

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

5. Superman

6. Wicked: For Good

7. Jurassic World: Rebirth

8. Sinners

9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

10. How to Train Your Dragon

(Note: I will point out this is the current lineup as of the last writing.  Avatar: Fire and Ash, specifically, is still making relatively decent domestic money, though likely not enough to outearn Lilo & Stitch and move onto the medal stand)

Of these 10 films, I've seen eight of them, skipping both of the live-action animated remakes because, as a general rule, I think these are terrible.  I think it's notable, looking at this, how we have at least one truly original movie (Sinners becoming the highest-grossing totally original story since Gravity), and that the MCU truly just fell from grace here, with Thunderbolts not even crossing the $200M mark domestically and Captain America: Brave New World making $700M less than the last Captain America movie did at the box office (and only Fantastic Four making the Top 10).  Looking down the box office list, most of the unseen movies that I haven't caught yet are horror movie sequels, though The Housemaid stands out as maybe the movie I should've caught and might try to sneak in before the My Ballot (I will definitely be seeing How to Train Your Dragon given so many people loved the visual effects).

But now, it's time to go back just a few months to a time we all were getting a crush on Zohran Mamdani, watching Taylor & Travis get engaged, and seeing the first American pope.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. The Secret Agent

4. Sinners

5. Sentimental Value

6. Train Dreams

7. F1

8. Bugonia

9. Marty Supreme

10. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: This is a solid list in what was honestly a very good year for movies, maybe the best since 2021 or even 2017.  But there's no competition for Paul Thomas Anderson here-One Battle After Another is a profound, challenging picture with universally good acting and writing.  Hamnet is really special in second place, proving that Chloe Zhao is emerging as one of our most thoughtful and introspective directors, and I have a sincere enjoyment of the craftsmanship of something like The Secret Agent or Sinners, but One Battle is on another level, and as you'll see, is going to be batting really well this write-up.

Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: A second showdown between Anderson & Zhao (both of whom are going to repeat when we get to the 2025 My Ballot), but I won't pretend this is a close race.  I've actually been much kinder to PTA than Oscar has (his films have plenty of My Ballot statues), but I'm glad on some level that Oscar waited for (what I hope) will be a coronation here as this will become the defining work of his career.  Also, I want to say for the record that Josh Safdie's personal troubles are not why he's in last...I just really did not like his movie.

Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

2. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

5. Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: Best Actor remains the best lineup of the 2025 acting races, and I will own that none of these (not even Timmy in a movie I didn't like) is a bad performance.  In terms of a win, though, Leo's best work in years is really going to take it over Michael B. Jordan adding nuance to two different characters and Wagner Moura's steady, marked performance in The Secret Agent.  Leo's so good here-a man that even in his prime was over-his-head but in love with ideals and a woman who wouldn't stay, having to reengage with life to save the only thing he truly cares about...this is the kind of star power electricity that Leo promised when he was in his Chalamet years.

Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

2. Emma Stone (Bugonia)

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

The Lowdown: I will largely skate by the elephant in the room (I love Rose Byrne, I love Kate Hudson, but these performances are not ranked incorrectly...do with that what you will), and instead focus on the real competition: Jessie Buckley's spiritual work as a mother trying to connect with a man she loves but can't understand and a boy she knows but cannot grasp, and Emma Stone's terrifying girlboss incarnate, totally grasping on to Bugonia's bizarre (and oftentimes off-kilter) wavelength.  I'm going with Buckley because I think she is able to connect more to the ending than Stone.

Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value)

4. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

5. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

The Lowdown: I like #3-5 in other things (truth be told, there is no acting performance of the 20 that I truly disliked even if there are movies that were cited that I disliked, which is rare), but for me it's a competition between the two Oscar-winning acting titans in One Battle After Another.  I'm going with Penn not because he's the bigger performance, but because I think that big performances sometimes get a bad rap in modern acting (del Toro is certainly subtle), but you need them when you're playing a big character like he is, and he totally inhabits a unique type of weak toxicity that's rarely seen represented in the movies (but oftentimes on cable news).

Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas (Sentimental Value)

The Lowdown: Madigan gives one of the most unhinged supporting performances in recent years, channeling in many ways actors like Kathy Bates in Misery or Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby to give us something truly terrifying (and speaking of Trump, if you think the red-haired clown terrorizing a group of children isn't an allegory for the guy that has plagued the Epstein list, watch again).  Taylor would be a really worthy winner too, and I love the imprint she made on this movie with only time in the first 40 minutes or so, but this is Madigan by the widest margin of the acting races.

Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: One Battle is not done with its wins yet, and takes another one for PTA.  One Battle is honestly one of the rare one of Anderson's films that is more of a director's achievement than a writing or acting one, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the oomph to best Hamnet, which is also a wonderful and deceptively strong screenplay (the way that it folds ideas of Shakespeare into the film, while also feeling vaguely universal).  The rest of this category I'd probably upend, and will when we get to the My Ballot.

Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Blue Moon

4. It Was Just an Accident

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I'll be honest, the writing categories are where a relatively decent Best Picture lineup (like I said, 2025 is one of the best years for movies so far this decade) shows some chinks in the armor, as you have films like Marty Supreme & Bugonia where I actively disliked the endings and felt they took down chunks of the movie.  There is a touch of that with Sinners, so I will note that it is just barely beating out Sentimental Value (which nails its ending), but the inventive plotting and the way that it unfolds a closed door horror so well means I'm going to slightly favor the vampires over the Swedish introspection.

Animated Feature Film

1. Elio

2. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

3. Zootopia 2

4. Arco

5. KPop Demon Hunters

The Lowdown: In what was otherwise a strong year for cinema, I'll own that animation was terrible.  It's not even a case where we have a bunch of better films sitting around-KPop is good when the music is playing and Zootopia is good if you don't constantly compare it to the original and Arco is good if you pretend the melancholy ending was at all earned by the rest of the picture...but overall this is not an impressive list.  If I have to pick a winner, it'd be Elio, a somewhat forgettable Pixar movie that nonetheless has gorgeous animation, beautiful music, and some really strong emotional plotting, but would stand out more if Pixar hadn't been using the same plot for every non-Toy Story film since Cars 3).

International Feature Film

1. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

2. Sentimental Value (Norway)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirat (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

The Lowdown: The movies of this category used to, on very rare occasion, get nominations in other fields, but this year we have four of them nominated elsewhere and two nominated for Best Picture.  Even with this category, the Academy is becoming entirely focused on the Best Picture field.  Thankfully that's where this should be, as those are the two best movies of the bunch, with weirdly similar plots (both movies are essentially about how you can never know your parents).  I prefer The Secret Agent, a subtler movie with a more sprawling historical look behind it (and the better central performance), but honestly either one here is a winner.

Score

1. Hamnet

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: I am a total sucker for Max Richter, whose soft melodies and gorgeous, romantic use of strings and swelling orchestras is a callback to the man I frequently confuse him with (Max Steiner).  Hamnet earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and I struggle to find a reason not to give him this (the OVP is in a vacuum, as a reminder, so I'm not trying to make up for lost time-just noting that Richter has gotten multiple My Ballot nods at this point, and will get another one in 2025 from me when we get there later this month).  One Battle After Another, by another favorite of mine (Jonny Greenwood) is really aces as well, even if it isn't quite as distinctive as we're used to from Greenwood's collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson.

Original Song

1. "I Lied to You," Sinners

2. "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy," Viva Verdi!

4. "Train Dreams," Train Dreams

5. "Dear Me," Diane Warren: Relentless

The Lowdown: I sometimes struggle with how to grade this category, because I do feel that it should not just be about the quality of the song, but also about how it is incorporated into the movie.  "Golden" is an ear worm that I have not stopped listening to since it came out (there's a reason this became a genuine pop hit), but the "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners is easily one of the best scenes of the year, and in my opinion deserves this statue even if "Golden" might be a better piece of music outside the realm of the movie.  Of the three also-rans (i.e. the songs you don't know), "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is much better than you'd expect, and sadly "Dear Me" is exactly what you'd expect (we really should've just given Diane Warren that Oscar for Burlesque and none of this would've happened).

Sound

1. F1

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. Sirat

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: After watching Sirat, I realized why this was nominated (the sound work is on full-display throughout, and honestly is a supporting actor in how prominent it is), though unlike The Zone of Interest, I wasn't as impressed, and felt it bordered the line between best and most that sometimes tech categories can't distinguish.  I was far more impressed with F1 and Sinners, the former a sea of zooming cars & "you're practically there" race scenes, the latter a wonderfully constructed semi-musical.  I'm going to go with F1, a movie I think did both mixing & effects well (I'm old-school), but either would make a good winner.

Casting

1. Hamnet

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. The Secret Agent

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: The first year of this category, I also kind of need to set my own parameters of how I'm going to grade this, as (like editing) you don't entirely know what was left in the cutting process.  For me, I think it comes down to how well the cast works together, how ingenious/inventive the casting process is (particularly if an actor isn't an obvious choice), and whether there are any clear standout good/bad casting decisions that elevate/demote it.  For me, I have Hamnet over the next two-I don't think there's a bad choice in the casts here, which is saying something as there usually is, but Hamnet had the stunt casting of two actual brothers to underline one character and the character he inspired, and that on top of Mescal & Buckley being perfect for their parts puts it in the lead.

Cinematography

1. Train Dreams

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: Sinners has, for my money, some of the best cinematography of the year.  The Golden Hour shots are honestly breathtaking, but the night scenes suffer (by my personal tastes), with them trying to patch over some of the gaps in the visual effects (I liked the makeup, but the visual effects were more hit-or-miss for me), by making the screen too dark to see properly make it hard to judge overall as a success.  As a result, I am all in on the beautiful Train Dreams, a gorgeous Lubezki-esque take on the passage of time with a camera.  In a year where, in general, Cinematography was lacking (this is somehow going to be the weakest of my My Ballot lists in a few weeks), this is the one film that really embraced looking like a movie you'll remember forever.

Costume Design

1. Sinners

2. Hamnet

3. Marty Supreme

4. Avatar: Fire & Ash

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: It's possible I totally upend this entire list (looking like the only category I'll do that with), but for me it's all about the outfits specifically worn by Michael B. Jordan & Michael B. Jordan in the film.  Part of Sinners ability to inspire is that you kind of need to be horny for the dual MBJ's (this is a very sexy movie, with an early sex scene and Jack O'Connell clearly meant to be both figuratively and literally carnal), and the gorgeous teal-and-red combo that Ruth E. Carter brings here is better than the peasant period fare in Hamnet or the out-of-this-world third spin on Avatar (the craziest nomination of 2025).  I will note that the Mia Goth peacock outfit in this photo is so good it makes me forget that I was largely uninspired by the rest of Frankenstein.

Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. F1

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I mean, sometimes this category gets something a bit out-of-the-box (F1 was probably further along here than in the Best Picture race), but there are days I think "Oscar didn't try to think beyond his five favorite movies in the editing branch...should I even bother?"  I will note that One Battle After Another's win here comes from the way it unfolds tension-the bank robbery scenes, the harrowing conversation late in the film between Sean Penn & Chase Infiniti...it's something to behold.  Sinners might have had a better shot if it had had more consistent cinematography lighting, as well as had the good sense to cut that post-credits ending which feels nonsensical and totally unnecessary (but the building tension there is something else).

Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Kokuho

2. Sinners

3. Frankenstein

4. The Smashing Machine

5. The Ugly Stepsister

The Lowdown: Oscar has historically struggled with horror in his category even though it is very much the bread-and-butter of the genre, so it's weird to see a lineup where the majority of the nominees come from that world.  I am not so apathetic (I nominate horror more regularly for the My Ballot), and while I was impressed with the violent deformity of Sinners and the albino care of Frankenstein, my heart belongs to the remarkable beauty and elegant aging of Kokuho, giving us a first-hand at the look of kabuki theater.

Production Design

1. Sinners

2. Marty Supreme

3. One Battle After Another

4. Hamnet

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: We're going to give Sinners its final trophy here (genuinely curious how this compares to its count with Oscar-it ended up taking three statues from me), with the sets in this feeling so authentically barren.  There's so much personality and touches in the dancehalls and railway stations in Coogler's work, and yet they feel appropriately isolated-there's nowhere to run.  I'll note that most of this lineup is good, and this is Marty Supreme's worthiest nomination (I love the on-a-budget redesign of New York City that never feels like it's on a budget at all), but Sinners feels like it lives in the set the most, and adds the most to the story.

Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire & Ash

2. F1

3. Jurassic World Rebirth

4. Sinners

5. The Lost Bus

The Lowdown: Putting Avatar in a lineup of Visual Effects always feels like you're playing on cheat mode.  The latest round doesn't have the "how the hell did they do that?" impact that its predecessors had, but in an era where visual effects are increasingly sloppy, overdone, and clearly glossed over by darkened cinematography (looking at you, The Lost Bus), it has beauty and looks fantastic, and even against something as impressive as the technical virtuosity of F1, it's unbeatable.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

OVP: Supporting Actor (2000)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Jeff Bridges, The Contender

Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire

Benicio del Toro, Traffic

Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich

Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator

My Thoughts: And we are back again today with 2000, moving into the acting categories today.  At the time in 2000, none of these men had won Academy Awards, but while we're writing it today, three of them have taken Oscars, one sadly died without one (not that he would've shown up for it), and the fifth probably just missed a nomination this year by inches.  All of this is to say, the Oscars are snapshots-in-time, but if you can get in once, you probably have a decent shot of getting in again (they love keeping people in the club).

We rarely start with the winner, so let's start with Benicio del Toro.  Del Toro's career since his Oscar win has been a mixed bag, from critical darlings like Che and Sicario to a mess of paycheck gigs (The Wolfman, whatever he's doing in the MCU), all of which is a bummer when you remember how sensational he is in Traffic.  He brings an unexpected sensitivity to a cop being forced into the world of crime, and not being given a chance to get out (until he forges one).  The monologues about baseball, and wanting a better life for himself...there's a reason a previously unknown character actor bested a screen actor who'd been waiting 40 years for his Academy Award in 2000.

Though Finney is not without points in his direction.  The reviews of Erin Brockovich usually center around Julia Roberts in her dynamic titular role, but she's not the only one doing bravura work here.  The interplay with Finney's good guy lawyer (who still needs to make a buck) is really strong.  I love the way he seems impressed with Erin largely from the start, but he has to temper that and the reveal is him showing he knew there was something there from the beginning.  It's good, earnest work from a man who had at that point been headlining films for decades, but slid perfectly into the number two spot.

The same could be said for Jeff Bridges, another reliable leading man-turned-character actor who in 2000 was still on the hunt for his Oscar.  Bridges' work here is solid.  The way that he plays a laid-back, Clinton-esque president who seems to not be in with the sharks like Gary Oldman, and instead proves to be just as cunning as them, using that guise to his advantage, is really strong stuff (kudos to the casting director here).  I will say that I wanted something more from Bridges, though that might not be fair because he's doing the part, playing well against the more scenery-chewing acting from Gary Oldman, but it doesn't quite feel complete-more a great idea than a great character.  Still good though.

Willem Dafoe is in a similar boat, though in a much lesser film.  Shadow of a Vampire sounds great on paper (an actual vampire cast to play a fictional vampire), but it doesn't deliver.  It's a horror film that plays like a staid drama, and the seams show throughout.  I think Dafoe's work here is good-he owns this part, but it does occasionally feel like his over-the-top attitude looks better because the film around him is such a snooze.  I don't think there's enough of Dafoe's trademark grace (for a man who plays villains a lot, he generally has some sort of decency in his best work like Platoon and The Florida Project), and I suspect he won this nomination because of the makeup design (which I also wasn't super impressed by) and the film's final scene (which I was impressed by).

Our final nominee is Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator.  Phoenix, I'd like to point out, is a very good actor.  I give him back-to-back gold medals in 2012 & 2013 for my My Ballot, the only actor other than Nicole Kidman to have done that to date in our 22 seasons.  I say that because two of his Oscar-cited works left me so cold, Joker and today's film.  His Commodus swings for the rafters in virtually every scene.  There's no baseline here, playing a sniveling, power-hungry figure without any depth.  I know I don't love Gladiator, but there are at least 2-3 better supporting actor performances happening in his movie alone...Phoenix got in because he had the biggest part.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went for exactly the same lineup as Oscar, giving the statue to Benicio del Toro, and del Toro won the SAG Award...but in lead actor (I can't remember if this was a filing error or not...the same thing would happen with Jennifer Connelly the following year, as this was a weird trend with SAG at the time).  Supporting Actor instead went to Albert Finney with SAG, besting the Oscar lineup + Gary Oldman in The Contender.  The BAFTA also went to del Toro, but with a much different lineup as Finney & Phoenix were joined by Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot) and Oliver Reed (Gladiator), which was a posthumous citation for Reed.  In sixth place, I'm guessing it was Gary Oldman or maybe Bruce Greenwood in the now-forgotten Thirteen Days, though there are a lot of supporting actors in the Best Picture lineup (Reed, Richard Harris, Michael Douglas, Johnny Depp) that could've gotten in as well...this being such a set lineup most of the season makes sixth place hard to guess.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: One of the primary reasons that Michael Douglas would become one of my favorite actors in high school was his work in Traffic, some of the best stuff of his career and a grand look at a rich white man who has to solve actual problems, not ones that just present themselves as opportunities.

Oscar’s Choice: Gone were the 1980's, when an aging actor would routinely beat an upstart for a sentimental Oscar win-del Toro bested Finney, and probably by a decent amount.

My Choice: Oscar made the right choice, picking del Toro over Finney (the two best nominated works).  Behind them I'd go Bridges, Dafoe, and then Phoenix.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are we all joining Team Benicio, or do you want someone else?  Should Albert Finney have won an Oscar, or was he correctly a bridesmaid (and if so, what)?  And in a pretty open-and-shut year for the final quintet, who was in sixth place looking in the window?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2000: Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

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

OVP: Supporting Actor (2003)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Alec Baldwin, The Cooler

Benicio del Toro, 21 Grams

Djimon Hounsou, In America

Tim Robbins, Mystic River

Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai

My Thoughts: Okay, we are in the home stretch now with the acting trophies for 2003 being awarded, and as always we will start with Best Supporting Actor.  This is a category that gets a bum rap from Oscar, partially because Oscar's tastes are a bit stodgy (generally awarding men in near-lead performances in their 40's & 50's for mentor roles in biopics), but it's worth noting that while some of these figures are inspired by real-life people, none of them are based on particularly commonplace celebrity names.  So before I get to the bad news, I want to commend Oscar on giving us a lineup that is "biopic" free.

That being said, this is one of the worst lineups in this category, mostly because it's just so damned boring.  A good personification of that is Alec Baldwin's nomination for The Cooler.  Baldwin is a bit of a controversial celebrity, sometimes for reasons outside his control (it seems clear that the Halyna Hutchins death was, at the very least, not his fault since he wasn't the prop-master) and some within it (his famously violent temper), but he has acting chops (his work on 30 Rock being the true highlight of his long career).  The Cooler is his sole Oscar nomination, so I wouldn't normally complain as I tend to not get too mad when longtime actors get their only nod, but this is a dull movie & it's not a knowing performance.  He gets some solid monologues, and it kind of changed the trajectory of Baldwin's career from struggling leading man into successful character actor, but it's blasé.  There's nothing special in this.

The same can be said for Benicio del Toro, who at least is the best in cast of 21 Grams (pity poor Naomi Watts who we'll get to in the next week).  Del Toro's work here as a born-again Christian who accidentally kills two people in a car accident is definitely one that seems the most embedded into a script that feels more focused on depression & histrionics than fleshing out the cast.  But it's more a performance in theory-the writing doesn't allow for you to see much beyond Del Toro's actions, wanting instead to just torture him further as the film progresses.  It becomes, therefore, more promise than delivery and it's hard to give too much credit for something akin to Schrodinger's Performance.

Ken Watanabe does better, mostly because his character is given a proper arch in The Last Samurai.  This is the film that led US audiences to know who Watanabe was, and this is because he generally delivers, going toe-to-toe with Tom Cruise, which at least at this point in his career was something you should brag about, and giving some fantastic monologues.  The Last Samurai is not a great movie, and there are moments where Watanabe can't escape either the cringeworthy imperialism of the script (the white savior angle is inescapable in this movie), nor can he get past some of the hokier moments toward the end.  But this is not a bad performance, even if it's suspect if it should've been nominated for an Oscar.

The same can be said for Tim Robbins, a very fine actor who got his only acting nomination (to date) for Mystic River (he was cited for Best Director in 1995, so we'll eventually discuss him again).  Robbins' work here isn't as subtle or as mesmerizing as some of his costars (either his leading man Penn or his onscreen wife Harden), but it's still sturdy work.  Robbins is given the showiest role (a victim of sexual abuse that is slowly losing his mind), but in some of the later moments of the film, this becomes a bit of his downfall (Robbins as an actor is prone to overdoing it, and can't match Penn's rage with his own blubbering fear).  Still, not a bad performance, and unlike Watanabe, he gets a good movie to cover his tracks.

Which brings us to Djimon Hounsou.  I have yet to see Hounsou's first major role in Amistad, the one prestige Oscar role he didn't get nominated for, but I will admit that he is not an actor I have enjoyed so far in our OVP discussions.  His work as a gay man falls flat, with it frequently feeling like they're playing this dying, eccentric man's pain for laughs or for a way to further normalize the central couple, and it feels icky (even for 2003).  Hounsou, like Robbins, does not handle big moments well, being prone to overacting, and that is a big deal as the movie progresses & his plotline becomes less tethered to reality.  I'm hopeful that we'll end on a high note with Amistad, but so far his Oscar nominated roles were amongst my least favorites Oscar nominated in the Aughts.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Tim Robbins as their winner, beating out Baldwin, Watanabe, Albert Finney (Big Fish), William H. Macy (Seabiscuit), & Peter Sarsgaard (Shattered Glass).  SAG also went for Robbins, besting Baldwin, Cooper (Seabiscuit), del Toro, & Watanabe, while BAFTA went a completely different path choosing Bill Nighy (Love Actually) as their winner against Finney, Robbins, Paul Bettany (Master and Commander), & Ian McKellen (The Return of the King).  If I had to guess (I did live through this Oscar season), I think the Seabiscuit actors split (Jeff Bridges was also an option, and we know Oscar loves Jeff Bridges), so it was probably either Sarsgaard or Bettany, and I think I'd go with the former because Oscar was less averse to nominating a film solely for an acting contender in 2003 than he is now.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: We are probably a little over a week away from the My Ballot, so I'm not going to share too much in the next few articles to save that for a grand finale, but Oscar's genre bias was truly showing in not nominating its Best Picture nominee Return of the King, which is teaming with great supporting work, for anything here.  I mean, come on.

Oscar’s Choice: Robbins, never awarded after a relatively impressive 1990's that featured a few classics, was an easy choice, not only because he was from a major Best Picture contender, but also because at the time the idea of "his-and-hers" Oscars for he & then-partner Susan Sarandon was a cute idea.

My Choice: Only Watanabe & Robbins really work for me in this group, and I think I favor Watanabe ever-so-slightly against Robbins, given he does less with more, and doesn't have the crutch of a good film to get him there.  Following these two I'll do del Toro, Baldwin, & Hounsou.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you join most everyone in going for Robbins or are you willing to stay in my corner with Watanabe?  What is genuinely the best performance of Alec Baldwin's film career (i.e. if you don't like him in The Cooler, is there a point he should've been nominated)?  And which Return of the King role are you most mad didn't get in here?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2003: Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

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

OVP: 21 Grams (2003)

Film: 21 Grams (2003)
Stars: Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston, Melissa Leo
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Naomi Watts, Supporting Actor-Benicio del Toro)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We're continuing on with a throwback to 2003 again (as you might have seen this morning, 2003 is where a lot of my viewing focus is right now in terms of the movies that are coming from Netflix DVD), with 21 Grams, the other Sean Penn movie from 2003.  That year, Penn got all of his movement for Mystic River, and from that movie he finally won an Oscar.  I kind of wondered, though, if it was just the "time" for Penn to win, and if he'd have just as easily been the victor for 21 Grams, which obviously didn't slouch in the acting nominations, scoring for Naomi Watts (in Best Actress), and to fit our theme, Benicio del Toro (in Best Supporting Actor).  Before we discuss the three performances, though, let's go into the movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is, much like AGI's later film Babel, a tale of intersecting stories that eventually start to merge.  Unlike Babel, though, the film is told completely out-of-sequence, so as an audience you come to realize that you're seeing pictures of three central characters lives that will eventually merge together in a distinct order.  You have Paul (Penn), who is dying of a heart condition and is trying to create a child with his wife Mary (Gainsbourg) before he dies, Cristina (Watts), a former drug addict who now lives a suburban life with her husband (Huston) & two children, and Jack (del Toro) a former convict who becomes a born-again Christian and lives with his wife Marianne (Leo).  All of this falls apart when Jack accidentally kills Cristina's husband-and-children in a car accident, a car accident that eventually leads to her husband giving his heart to Paul. All three figures lives fall out-of-control, with Paul having an affair with Cristina, and Jack wanting to turn himself in despite Marianne's protestations.

Things get worse for all three before ultimately two of them (Jack & Cristina) find some redemption while Paul ends up dying (which is what he wants at that point in the film, to be honest), but you get the idea of what we're dealing with here.  AGI is arguably the most "important" modern filmmaker whose work I do not get.  I have liked exactly one of his movies (Birdman), but otherwise it always feels like he's making us watch people be tortured with little narrative payoff.  21 Grams might hit a new low on that front, to be honest.  The movie borders on torture porn the way that it grimly portrays all characters involved, and because of the (nonsensical-I don't understand this creative decision at all) scenes being out-of-sequence, we never get any sense of what these people's lives were like when they were happy.  The only character that gives any sense of normalcy in the film (and is my favorite part of the cast) is Melissa Leo's Marianne, who feels like a real person and not just a vessel for these people's woes to flow through.

Del Toro is the best of the central three figures.  This isn't in the same league as his strong work in Traffic, but it's at least an interesting characterization.  There's something there, even if the script is drowning out the character, and you always feel like given more room to breathe he'd find his way...though it's hard to give too much credit for a performance that is theory rather than practice.  Watts, though, is...bad.  I know that's mean (and I love her in other things like The Painted Veil or King Kong), but I don't get this at all.  This feels like the sort of nomination that happens when an actor has been a big deal for too long and the Academy is starting to look foolish for not nominating them at least once, but there's so little range in her emotions as Cristina.  Watts' portrays her as constantly screaming, constantly angry, as if there's no "formerly at peace" person underneath, despite that being a part of the script.  The movie does her no service, it's true, but I feel both she and Penn are giving in to the anguish of the script without adding any sort of texture to their work.

OVP: Sicario (2015)

Film: Sicario (2015)
Stars: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Cinematography, Sound Editing, Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

If you have read this blog for very long, you know that I have a complicated history with Denis Villeneuve.  I first loved his film Incendies, giving it my OVP in 2010, and followed it with a complicated loathing of the movie Prisoners, and finally was fully back onboard with his cerebral Enemy last year.  Overall, though, he's at that point where I will pay for the ticket pretty much regardless of the reviews as none of his films have been short on fascination, and that's the case with Sicario, which landed somewhere in the middle for me in terms of the Villeneuve filmography.  The film's heavy on atmosphere, but light on character and works as often as it shouldn't.  It's yet another rich movie with some angles that I didn't care for, so let's get started.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Kate Macer (Blunt), an FBI agent who is drawn into the world of the Mexican drug cartel to work with a CIA officer Matt Graver (Brolin), who is unorthodox but appears insistent that Kate be his partner for the mission, dismissing her current partner Reggie (Kaluuya) to the background.  As they proceed, they give Kate little information about what is actually happening, and even when his seemingly more forthcoming partner Alejandro (del Toro) comes into the picture and they are more revealing of their plans (that they are headed to Juarez, Mexico, instead of El Paso), Kate remains lost, though savvy audience members will see that clearly Kate is a bit of a pawn at this point in the plot, a reputable alibi for the seediness that both Matt and Alejandro are doing in Mexico in trying to find some semblance of balance and order regarding the deeply violent Mexican drug cartels.  The film continues along this path, with Kate doing that most classic of cinematic motifs (descent into hell), as she gets further and further outside the law and into the raw danger of this world.

That raw danger is clearly the best asset this movie has going for it  Frequently the film seems to be borrowing from films like No Country for Old Men and The Counselor, as Texas is framed not as a a welcoming desert but instead as something vast and isolated-we get a sense quickly of how the constant quiet sort of mesmerizes you and leaves you wondering what happens next door.  There is also a sense of the violence that happens in the Mexican drug cartels, and why this feels like an unwinnable war, enough so that when you realize that Alejandro is only working with the CIA to avenge his wife and take back control of the drug cartel for himself, you're almost left with a sense of justification (better the enemy we know...), even though he's going to continue to perpetrate violence on people and give people access to dangerous and deadly drugs.

Del Toro has been winning raves for the role, and it is indeed the kind of performance that Oscar notices (though you have to wonder if del Toro is tired of being nominated for playing convicts and criminals at this point in his career), and he's too strong of an actor not to excel in the role, though I do wonder if Villeneuve might have underwritten not his Alejandro (who gains from underwriting) but everything around him so that his showdown is a bit more heightened.  Del Toro is basically the lead, in reality, as Blunt's Kate is at once completely alien to this world and too little is known about her.  Kate is clearly someone who joined the FBI for the right reasons, to make a difference, but the film's interest in her is more to watch her go from naive to worldly, but we never get the sense of why she's so alone, why she's so passive, and she doesn't get Alejandro's intriguing storyline to really drive that home.  Blunt's a good actor (admittedly not as good so far in her career as del Toro), but she doesn't handle underwritten roles quite as well as she should, and I have yet to be really blown away by her as a dramatic actor (I wasn't wild about her in either Edge of Tomorrow or The Young Victoria, her too most lauded serious turns).  Kate is a character that, like Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men, we need to see a little bit more of the turn into the dark side and her descent to get a full picture of the movie, and that is missing in Sicario.

So all-in-all I'd put this more on the Prisoners side of things for Villeneuve in the "some great moments, some frustrating, but not a classic," though I will point out the that the film has yet to infuriate me in the same way that the Hugh Jackman picture did.  What are your thoughts?  Do you feel that Sicario is one of Villeneuve's better pictures?  Do you think it has a chance with Oscar?  Do you think the sequel idea is as stupid as I do since it would give too much information regarding del Toro's Alejandro?  And what role do you think will finally make Emily Blunt live up to the potential she exhibited in The Devil Wears Prada? Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Inherent Vice (2014)

Film: Inherent Vice (2014)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Adapted Screenplay, Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Remember being a kid and seeing certain flavors combined by your favorite candy or cereal company, and you think it'll be brilliant, and it ends up being just, well, different (like S'Mores Pop-Tarts).  Well, Inherent Vice is in fact the S'Mores Pop-Tarts of movies.  It's the sort of film that makes complete sense on-paper, and is occasionally wildly enjoyable, but it never really takes off in the way that you're hoping (here because of the acting, with the Pop-Tart probably because it always tasted a little too manufactured, even for a Pop-Tart), and will almost assuredly stay in the relatively unknown annals of Paul Thomas Anderson's greatest films, never brushing up against Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Doc (Phoenix), a frequently strung-out private investigator convinced by his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Waterston) to undertake a case to prevent her billionaire boyfriend Mickey (Eric Roberts), from being committed by his wife and her lover.  Meanwhile, Doc is hired by other clients to investigate a similar situation related to Mickey (why get paid once when you can get paid multiple times?), and soon he finds himself immersed in the occasionally kooky world of the 1970's Los Angeles drug trade.

The film is not for the faint-of-heart or the sort of people who thought the ending of Lost was a bummer.  This is a film with some answers (it's relatively straight-forward, if you think about it), but it doesn't just go out and state the characters' motives.  There's nothing expositional about Inherent Vice, which seems odd considering that this is a movie with a wealth of dialogue.  The movie instead has people talking like they normally do-much like Wild Tales earlier this week, Inherent Vice has people repeating each other, finding new information through deduction, and occasionally running off on red herring-style tangents (in the end, it doesn't really matter, for example, that Mickey's wife is having an affair, or Benicio del Toro's character despite relatively high billing in trailers, is largely inconsequential).

The movie's at its best when it's relying on the heavy charms of Joaquin Phoenix, who was my favorite part of the film.  He's so unsure, so jonesed out of his mind, that you half expect Tommy Chong to show up with a van, but he's still very good at his job, and the character himself unfolds rather nicely as we learn he's a strong detective behind the ludicrousness, and we learn so much about the case along with him (as I believe he's in every scene of the movie).  The rest of the cast is sporadic, in my opinion.  For every performance like Reese Witherspoon's, who has razor sharp comic instincts and is a jolt throughout, there's something banal and gaudy like Martin Short's coke-snorting dentist.  The film's most noted supporting players (Waterston and Brolin) were a mixed bag for me.  Both are brilliant at times (I loved Waterston's dreamy-eyed entrance into the movie and Brolin's pancake scene is every bit as amusing as the trailer makes out), but in a film where everyone borders reality, they're the only two characters that stretch outside of it; no one is as intoxicating as Shasta or as abrasive as Brolin's Bigfoot.

The film's best friend is the script, which is aided heavily by Thomas Pynchon's penchant for spectacular monikers (my personal favorite: Japonica Fenway, which sounds like a sports car and that totally fits the character).  The lines are irresistible despite not resembling any sort of speaking pattern you would find in real life.  I also loved the way that we don't get the story dumbed-down.  All of the pieces of the film are definitely there, and you can follow everything, but the film meanders, occasionally unsuccessfully, which is likely the reason that some critics haven't embraced this film as warmly as would be expected for a PTA movie.  Still, the patter is exceptional and the comedy usually lands.  It's the sort of movie that you watch and realize that it wasn't really made for its time slot-it was made for midnight movie marathons years from now, where people will dress up in one of Mark Bridges' absurdly stylized costumes and quote lines like "he's technically Jewish but wants to be a Nazi."

Those were my thoughts on this complicated, but not unpleasant film (it's grown on me with two days to mull)-what about yours?  Josh Brolin got mad plaudits for the film-anyone amongst that crowd?  Anyone think it can or should take one of those two Oscars?  Share below!

OVP: The Wolfman (2010)

Film: The Wolfman (2010)
Stars: Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Geraldine Chaplin
Director: Joe Johnston
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Makeup*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Rick Baker has transformed the world of Hollywood Makeup and ranks alongside the Westmores and Dick Smith in his history of creating the masterful images and creatures of the screen.  He has, in the course of his career, received a stunning seven Oscars for Best Makeup, as well as another five nominations.  He is responsible for the spewing vomit of Regan MacNeil, the multi-headed targets of the Men in Black, and a lovable sasquatch named Harry.

So I will admit that, though I was not excited about the prospect of the film, which had received horrible reviews, that Oscar statuette had me at least excited about the technical aspects of this film, and I will admit right now, I wasn't wrong to be disappointed on that front, but let's get into the plot of the film first.

For those familiar with the classic Wolf Man tale, of which I am not (it's scrounging around the Netflix queue, but I will admit right now it's toward the bottom), this may be a repeat of a plot you know well, but for those who aren't, this is the story of a man, Lawrence Talbot (del Toro), who comes home for the funeral of his brother, who has died savagely and unexplainably.  He is intrigued and charmed by his brother's fiance Gwen (Blunt), and put off by his father (Hopkins), who put him into an asylum when he was a mere child, after coming across his dying mother.

(Spoiler alert) You know where this is going, of course-this is a monster tale as old as time, and we learn that, despite him being good-hearted, after the bite of the monster, Lawrence cannot control the evil within him, and he goes out killing and rampaging the English countryside, and eventually the streets of London.  We learn also, of course, that his infection wasn't an accident, and that instead of a random creature of the night, it was his father that infected him with the virus, and that after years of staying in the shadows, Hopkins' werewolf wants to go out into the night.  Of course, this being a movie, this isn't how it goes down, and before the final full moon, both Hopkins and del Toro's werewolves have fallen prey to the silver bullet, and that Weaving's lawman may well be next.

The film is ridiculously formulaic, and poorly acted.  Hopkins, Blunt, and del Toro can all act when given the chance, but here they fall back on their most habitual acting tropes: Hopkins with his creepy cadences, Blunt with her repressed, quiet Brit, and del Toro with his brooding, tortured soul.  The film is almost unnecessarily violent-with pancreases and intestines on full-display.  It's also hopelessly formulaic, and they don't even try to hide the fact that Hopkins is secretly a werewolf.  It's the sort of film that you will instantly forget twenty minutes after seeing it, and that doesn't even attempt to be original or strike up something new in the horror genre.

It's worth noting, though, for the purposes of the OVP that we have to separate out the Makeup work, which is exceptional.  Though Baker is borrowing a bit from his previous, legendary work in Werewolves of London, there's still much to admire here-the growing, decrepit wolves, the golden snake makeup on Blunt, the twisting limbs and body parts are gruesomely real.  Though I still need to see the other two nominees from 2010, this film starts out with a healthy head start in validating its trophy when we do the 83rd Oscar roundup in a few weeks.

And what about you-what are your thoughts on The Wolfman?  Do you have a favorite of Rick Baker's work?  And between del Toro, Blunt, and Hopkins, which do you wish would give another great performance that we know they are capable of doing?