A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Stars: John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Lagenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund

Director: Wes Craven

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

We are getting toward the end of our month, with just three films left after this, so it's worth noting that while the 1980's were dominated by slasher/horror films, the apparent bonanza of films were based off of 3-4 movie monsters getting endless sequels.  One of these figures, of course, is Freddy Krueger, who is the titular villain in Wes Craven's original horror show, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and our villain today.  The late Craven was one of the grandmasters of horror, making not just Nightmare in the 1980's, but eventually he would revive the slasher genre in the 1990's with the Scream films.  Nightmare is honestly one of the films on this list that I was most scared to visit, at least before I started.  It's genuinely a terrifying concept-a serial killer who can kill you in your sleep, so no one can remain safe forever-but while my fears were allayed (it was scary, but I wasn't petrified throughout it), it's a good movie, one that uses its concept to the fullest effect & it's easy to see why this spawned a cavalcade of sequels.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie initially starts with Tina Gray (Wyss) having a very vivid dream about a burned man in a knit sweater & fedora trying to claw at her, attempting to kill her.  The film is so real, in fact, that she wakes up with her nightgown slashed, assuming she must have torn it in her dream.  The film continues, though, with Tina realizing that all of her friends have also been having dreams about this guy.  We realize that this man is in fact harming people when Tina dies after he kills her in a dream, her blood splattered in all directions, and eventually our protagonist Nancy (Lagenkamp) finds out from her alcoholic mother Marge (Blakley) that this man is named Fred Krueger (Englund), a child murderer who was let off on a technicality...so the parents of the city decided to burn him alive in a form of vigilante justice.  After all of Nancy's friends die, we learn that Freddy is after her mother, and nearly kills her, until Nancy finds a way to stop him, understanding that he is driven by his victim's fear...which works until the last scene, where an idyllic scene turns out to be just a dream, and Marge is lunged at from a window while Nancy is driven away in a locked car.

The movie doesn't always make sense.  The adults are, even for a horror movie, mind-numbingly stupid, to the point where Blakley (who gave a performance for the ages in Nashville) has been mercilessly mocked for this work at midnight movie screenings ever since.  I get that Gen X was a very different time, but come on-a police officer hears a young girl screaming from a window and doesn't even care?  It feels far-fetched, and the ending also feels a bit silly, as there's no indication until Nancy's last moments with him that Freddy is fueled by fear, but instead seems just like a byproduct of revenge.

But taking aside the silliness of the plot, the film works.  Freddy is genuinely terrifying, and as played by Englund, largely unknowable while still eliciting frights, which is how the best slasher villains come to life.  The sound, visual effects, & makeup work are iconic-at one point one of the characters has a bed violently erupt in blood, and while it's not exactly high-tech in the year of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it's very effective work.  Plus, Englund's look cannot be denied-there's a reason that Freddy is still a Halloween costume mainstay nearly 40 years later.  The film also introduced the world to Johnny Depp in his film debut (I'm not getting into it-let's just say it's undeniable he's been a pretty big movie star so I can't mention his debut without saying something).  Depp got the part thanks to his buddy Nicolas Cage helping him get the audition, but you don't see the future marquee star much here.  He's hot (the men in this film are far more sexualized than the women which is a nice change of pace, the most pressing example being Depp in a crop-top jersey that surely was noticed by every closeted gay teenager watching this film behind cupped hands), but nothing particularly special here like what fellow superstar Jamie Lee Curtis would clearly demonstrated in Halloween.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead, Poltergeist

OVP: Actor (2003)

OVP: Best Actor (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Ben Kingsley, House of Sand and Fog

Jude Law, Cold Mountain

Bill Murray, Lost in Translation

Sean Penn, Mystic River

My Thoughts: All right now we're talking.  After two relatively lackluster acting nominations, we get into the 2003 Best Actor field, which might be pound-for-pound, one of the best lineups in the history of the Oscars for this field; there are some lineups in the 1970's that could likely take it, but in the 2000's you'd be hard-pressed to find a better Best Actor field.  With one exception, and we'll get him out of the way first, I adored all of these men's performances and all will be repeating on My Oscar Ballot next week.  It is honestly odd, because in order to get here Oscar had to go pretty atypical-there are two comedic performances here, as well as a romantic lead from a devastatingly sexy man (neither of these are great hooks for Best Actor where Oscar wants you grizzled and over 40).  But going outside of his comfort zone got AMPAS some rich rewards.

The one performance I wasn't feeling is from Ben Kingsley.  Kingsley is an interesting film performer for me in that he reads a bit like Laurence Olivier, someone who would be dynamite onstage (I'd assume), but who plays to the back of the room in most of his screen performances.  I have yet to see a couple of his more celebrated works, but I like him better when he's cold-and-calculating in a popcorn flick like Sneakers than most of his 21st Century work where he's given roles that demand scenery-chewing.  He's surprisingly subdued, and much better, in the first hour of this picture, but in the last 20  minutes (when the entire movie goes down the toilet), he can't handle it & becomes far too hammy.  I get why this was nominated (Kingsley is an Oscar favorite, and overacting is something AMPAS goes for), but it's still a blemish on an otherwise unimpeachable list.

After all, Sean Penn manages to keep it reeled in for most of his picture, always a risky game with one of the better actors of his generation.  Penn had been marching toward an Oscar for years when Mystic River came along, and this has every bait-y hook that you can imagine: a crime lord trying to avenge his daughter...how are they going to turn that down?  But Penn also keeps his character the right modulation, never too laid back but never too much.  It's a delicate balancing act, playing a live wire so well, but that's kind of how Penn became one of his generation's great actors-when he's playing it right, there's few that can strike that balance so perfectly.  This is one of his best performances (maybe my favorite of his ever?).

Bill Murray is also giving his career-best performance with Lost in Translation.  This is one of my favorite movies partially because Murray was born to play this part.  He totally brings a world-weariness to Bob Harris that feels so informed.  Think of the scene where he's singing karaoke, and you can tell (without him ever breaking focus on the song) that he's trying to tell Scarlett Johansson that there is so much truth in the song's lyrics...that life is made up of these beautiful little connections, and they're the best part of it.  Playing someone who is having a midlife crisis without it feeling self-indulgent or too expositional is a challenge, but Murray knows how to do that-how he knows the best parts of his life are likely behind him, but that he still wants to ensure he goes on having a life of value...it's a tough part, free of a lot of Murray's more sarcastic tricks, and I loved it.

Unlike Penn or Murray, I wouldn't say that this is Jude Law's best performance (that's probably either Ripley or AI), but we're not judging on a curve here, and Cold Mountain is a marvelous piece from the actor.  His Southern accent is strong (stronger than Zellweger's, and she's the only American in the main trio), and he plays his slowly broken-down deserter who is fleeing for the woman he abandoned for the war.  It's hard to play a man with a modern sensitivity without it feeling inauthentic, but Law captures that through his short, clipped reading of the dialogue & the way he uses his beauty to tell a story that the script occasionally wants to gloss past.  Perfect casting, a wonderful performance, and the heart-and-soul of Cold Mountain.

It's hard to remember right now his career has had so many chapters, but Johnny Depp was once not just not a proper blockbuster movie star, but also he wasn't an Academy favorite.  Both those things changed with Captain Jack Sparrow.  This film didn't need to be as good as it was, and Depp didn't need to give the performance that would define his career...but he did.  Jack Sparrow arrives fully-fleshed, and stays that way, with the confidence of creating an iconic character that would redefine much of how we think of the summer movie for the next twenty years.  I have no notes here, other than I am still shocked the Academy was willing to take a chance by giving a Best Actor citation to a man they'd ignored up until then for a summer pirate movie based on a ride at Disneyland.  Few Oscar nominations have been so weird (and few so richly deserved).

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went to Sean Penn against Law, Kingsley, Tom Cruise (The Last Samurai), & Russell Crowe (Master and Commander), while Comedy/Musical favored Murray against Depp, Jack Black (School of Rock), Jack Nicholson (Something's Gotta Give), & Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa).  The SAG Awards went with Depp, besting the Oscar lineup except that Law was replaced by Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent), while BAFTA went with Murray against Depp, Law, Penn (for both Mystic River and 21 Grams), & Benicio del Toro (21 Grams).  I think Law was probably the most vulnerable, and based on its award count I have to assume that Russell Crowe was probably in sixth place (which was also a good performance-well done Oscar).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I don't entirely know how you judge the work of Elijah Wood & Viggo Mortensen, both of whom were only giving a third of a performance in The Return of the King rather than a completed body-of-work, but it seems a damned shame that neither of them ever got a nomination for Frodo & Aragorn, and given the opportunity I would've rectified that for at least one of them.

Oscar’s Choice: A true threeway race between Penn, Depp, & Murray ended with the more traditional of the three winning.  It's a pity that they didn't get more adventurous by giving it to one of the other two, considering that Penn would win five years later and both Depp & Murray will likely go Oscar-less.

My Choice: Depp.  I've thought about this a lot, and even rewatched Lost in Translation to confirm, but what Depp does in Pirates (and throughout the whole franchise) is honestly one of those things that define the movies for me, and I can't pick anyone else.  Murray, Penn, Law, & Kingsley follow.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you want to stick with Oscar & Sean Penn (I won't blame you) or will you ride the Seven Seas alongside me & Captain Jack?  Do you think Law, Depp, or Murray will ever win an Oscar or was this their shot that got away?  And how would you have handled the Return of the King lead actor quandary?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2003: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, 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 Actor Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Actor (2004)

OVP: Best Actor (2004)

The Nominees Were...

Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda

Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator

Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby

Jamie Foxx, Ray

My Thoughts: All right, we are in the final four now as we hit the closing stretch of our 2004 write-ups.  This week, we'll be tackling both lead categories with the Oscars, and we'll be starting with the gents.  The 2004 Oscars featured a record number of black actors nominated (at the time), including two in this field.  We also had the return of Leonardo DiCaprio, back a decade after his last nomination and commencing what would be a march to inevitability with an Oscar win.  We'll start there, because Leo's end result (winning an Oscar for one of his least performances in The Revenant) actually began in a much stronger position, and one wonders what might have happened had he just won during his pretty boy phase.

DiCaprio's second outing with Martin Scorsese is perhaps his best (though they've made magic a few times, so I put an asterisk next to this statement).  DiCaprio has such a buoyancy in his acting style (he's so much better at lighter comedy or romance than heavy drama) that lends itself well to Howard Hughes as a young man, when his intense promise & massive privilege afforded him the luxury of pursuing his adolescent fantasies (planes, movies, & beautiful women).  DiCaprio uses that memory of a young Howard as the film progresses, making him fall apart and lose his sense of balance in the film's final third.  This is not the best part of the movie, and it's where most actors would've leant in the hardest (and DiCaprio does, occasionally showing some strain), but he's laid such groundwork in the previous chapters that it has a different aura than an actor who would've solely approached Hughes through his own disabilities.

Jamie Foxx is also playing an iconic 20th Century figure in his film, but he does so with less internal dialogue.  Foxx's work is all about mimicry, playing Ray Charles with the same sort of body language & intonation as the legendary singer.  This is skillful, and it's a talent that Foxx has shown off in countless talk show appearances (he's a very good impressionist), but it's not really acting in the sense of what DiCaprio is doing.  Foxx doesn't give us enough of the character Ray Charles, and of course he's not doing his own singing in the movie, so much of the majesty in some of the film's musical numbers aren't something that you can attribute to him.  This isn't a complete whiff (after all, film history is littered with people lip-syncing & giving us great work), but without some sort of depth in the actual performance he's giving offscreen, there's not much there in his work-this is showy surface-level stuff, not anything of note, and the kind of performance that feels like the makeup team deserved the Oscar more than the actor.

Johnny Depp is playing a famous person as well, but unlike DiCaprio & Foxx, he doesn't need to really look or sound like him-JM Barrie is not well-known to the mass audience for anything other than creating Peter Pan.  Despite some of my misgivings about the film as a whole, Depp is good in this movie.  He plays Barrie as a man lost, someone who cannot quite understand where the magic of his life has gone, and finds the ability to recapture it.  However, this isn't Oscar-worthy work, and feels like the kind of afterglow nomination that happens when the Academy finally sits up and notices your talent.  While Jack Sparrow is so good you'd be forgiven for thinking that it deserves two Oscar nominations, that isn't really how the OVP works and so I'd say this is middling in terms of conversations about Depp's career (we'll get to his splendid work in Pirates eventually, possibly as soon as this fall).  

Don Cheadle has shown a knack in recent years for comedy & genre work, which is not where his career initially began.  Hotel Rwanda is his only nomination (to date), but it's also one of my least favorite of his performances.  Cheadle excels at his best when he's given something naturalistic to play onscreen, bringing an ease to his characters.  That's not the case of Hotel Rwanda, where he's asked to essentially just experience tragedy-after-tragedy, but gives us little insight into the man he's playing.  This isn't really his fault.  Unlike Foxx or Depp, the script doesn't give him a lot to do other than be miserable for two hours & heroic in the face of increasingly long odds, but it's also not a particularly strong performance that elevates its unimpressive source material.

The final nominee is Clint Eastwood, playing the only fictional character in this entire bunch in Million Dollar Baby.  Eastwood's politics and recent spell of movies (which have had increasingly poor results), sometimes negate the fact that he can act, and is actually quite a good actor with the right role.  That's what happens in Million Dollar Baby, where he gives (by my estimate) the best performance in the picture, imbuing his boxing coach with a sense of not only lost opportunity (getting the relationship with Hilary Swank's Maggie that he could never have with his own daughter), but also a sense of the passage of time.  Life is not fair, and Eastwood's Frankie Dunn knows this.  Eastwood isn't stretching his acting muscles too hard here (this is right in his wheelhouse), but a good director & movie star knows to pick scripts that play to their talents, and Eastwood certainly does that here.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes of course break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  Drama went to DiCaprio, over Cheadle, Deep, Liam Neeson (Kinsey), & Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside), while Comedy/Musical gave their trophy to Foxx over Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Kevin Spacey (Beyond the Sea), Kevin Kline (De-Lovely), and Paul Giamatti (Sideways).  The SAG Awards gave their trophy to Foxx as well, with the entire Oscar lineup (save Eastwood) showing up, along with Paul Giamatti.  BAFTA also gave the trophy to Foxx, here skipping both Eastwood & Cheadle in favor of Carrey and Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries).  In terms of sixth place, I have to assume it's Paul Giamatti, though the case could be made that Neeson or Bardem was in the hunt as well (though their films weren't nearly as successful with Oscar as Sideways was)-Eastwood's nomination was an indication that Million Dollar Baby was about to win a lot of Oscars.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: When people talk about how Jim Carrey deserves an Oscar nomination, this is surely where he deserved it the most.  His work in Eternal Sunshine is the rare case of a comedian playing a straight role but losing none of his natural charisma-truly bravura work.  I also would have included Bruno Ganz for Downfall-if they're going to cite it for Foreign Language Film, there's no reason we aren't also getting his seismic work a trophy for this performance.

Oscar’s Choice: Revisionist history might make you think DiCaprio was close, but he wasn't.  Jamie Foxx was a landslide all season long.

My Choice: I'd give it to Leo-his work is the most complete, and uses his natural gifts the best.  Following him (in order) would be Eastwood, Depp, Cheadle, & Foxx.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Is everyone still on Team Jamie or are some of you willing to join me over on the Leo side of things?  Do we think Clint Eastwood will ever win an acting prize for the Academy or will he join the likes of Orson Welles & Woody Allen with only behind-the-scenes trophies?  And how exactly did Sideways score so big but not get an acting nomination for Paul Giamatti?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2004: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2004

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

Oscar's Long-Suffering Gentlemen

As you may have guessed due to the massive increase in articles on this blog in the past two weeks, I'm in a bit of a house-cleaning mode for the blog, getting all of the articles I meant to write in 2018 but never had time to, out the door for your enjoyment before we dive into some of the new series/articles of 2019.  While doing so, I was looking through my drafts folder and realized that I owe you a sequel to an article about Oscar bridesmaids that I wrote in December.  There I took a look at the living actresses who have been nominated 3+ times but never won a competitive Academy Award.  At the time, it seemed possible that both Glenn Close & Amy Adams could be removed from such a list, but instead they just moved further into the front, both still waiting for an Oscar that might never come (but don't tell them that).

Today we're going to look at the 12 men who are living and don't have an Oscar, but have lost at least three times.  Despite the focus on Close & Adams, there are actually three men on this list who moved up thanks to this past year's ceremony, and we actually had a tragic change in this list from what it would have been had I finished it in December, as the man who would have been our #1, Albert Finney, passed away last month.  Since I didn't have time to write him an obituary at the time, consider this a bit of a memorial post to the fine actor.

Finney was very rare when he died.  I wrote in my December article that only 11 women have died with 3+ Oscar nominations and never winning a competitive one, but for men it's nearly as rare, with 13 such men who have died without a competitive Oscar.  This list includes such icons as Mickey Rooney, Peter O'Toole, and Charles Boyer, all of whom won Honorary Oscars, as well as noted character actors such as Clifton Webb and Charles Bickford.  Below you will find an additional dozen that are waiting for that competitive Oscar-speculate in the comments which ones you think have the best shot at actually taking a trophy home before their final curtain call.

Honorable Mention: Warren Beatty, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt have 3+ acting nominations without ever taking a trophy for their thespian abilities (and are still with us), but they all have competitive Oscars of their own.  Beatty won Best Director for 1981's Reds, Pitt won Best Picture in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave, and Damon won Best Original Screenplay for 1997's Good Will Hunting.  As a result, I kept them off of the list even though technically they'd qualify.

Note: These are ranked by how many nominations an actress made, then by who got their most recent nomination the latest, and then by who got their first nomination first.

12. Viggo Mortensen

Nominations: Eastern Promises (Actor in 2007), Captain Fantastic (Actor in 2016), & Green Book (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Casey Affleck, & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: It would have been 2018 had awards bodies not A) fallen weirdly in love with Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody and B) Green Book hadn't gotten a significant amount of flack for its treatment of black characters, though that latter hardly stopped it in the Best Picture & Screenplay categories so maybe it was just the former.  You could make an argument that Mortensen may have been a more palatable choice than, say, Christian Bale had Malek not been on a missile trajectory to winning his Oscar.
Well, He Still Won...: Mortensen hasn't been very lucky with awards bodies.  About the most notable trophy he's picked up would be for Best SAG Ensemble for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but he's never won a significant award for his solo acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't know.  Aside from Green Book, Mortensen's past nominations were genuine surprises, and ones that had no chance of actually winning.  If he continues to make populist films like Green Book this could theoretically happen, but he's not the type of actor who seems comfortable with campaigning, and as a result I'd wager he won't take this, unless he gets the right biopic.

11. Woody Harrelson

Nominations: The People vs. Larry Flynt (Actor in 1996), The Messenger (Supporting Actor in 2009), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Supporting Actor in 2017)
He Lost to: Geoffrey Rush, Christoph Waltz, & Sam Rockwell
Closest to the Win: The Messenger?  1996 he was in fourth or fifth place, and Three Billboards was a near-miss for a nomination, so The Messenger you could quite plausibly state that he was second place, though a distant second place to Waltz.
Well, He Still Won...: Harrelson has never won a major trophy for film, but he did take an Emmy for his time in Cheers.
Is This Happening Someday?: I think so.  Harrelson is the sort of actor who demands respect at this point, and appears in prestige films regularly (he works regularly, period).  Give him the right supporting part in a film, and it feels like he'd be able to sneak in as a career-capper sort of trophy.

10. Mark Ruffalo

Nominations: The Kids are All Right (Supporting Actor in 2010), Foxcatcher (Supporting Actor in 2013), & Spotlight (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Christian Bale, JK Simmons, & Mark Rylance
Closest to the Win: None of these movies.  I honestly can't even wager-he was at least in third for all of them, perhaps no higher than fourth.  Ruffalo's nominations are weird because all of these felt like citations you could predict, but also are for work that was never going to come close to an actual win.
Well, He Still Won...: Ruffalo took the Emmy for Best TV Movie for his work as a producer on The Normal Heart but he hasn't picked up a major trophy yet for acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: Yes, it is.  Ruffalo just turned fifty, is well-liked (all of his costars seem to adore him), and now that he's not under contractual obligation to Marvel, he's got more time to make arthouse films, which feels like where he's at home.  He just needs to get in on a Best Picture nominee, and he could win...I honestly think he's famous enough he could win lead.

9. Edward Norton

Nominations: Primal Fear (Supporting Actor in 1996), American History X (Actor in 1998), & Birdman (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Roberto Benigni, & JK Simmons
Closest to the Win: Call me crazy, but maybe 1996?  The Academy was feeling frisky that year (just ask Lauren Bacall), and he had just won a Golden Globe.  Most pundits, if you look back, thought it was a battle between Gooding and William H. Macy for Fargo, but I wonder if Norton (who also appeared in Everyone Says I Love You and The People vs. Larry Flynt) was more in the thick of the wins than people gave him credit for at the time.
Well, He Still Won...: Norton lost the Oscar to Gooding, but managed to pick up a Golden Globe in 1996 for Primal Fear.
Is This Happening Someday?: I'm going to guess no.  Norton has had a lot more pits than valleys in a career where he's never really stopped working.  I think he's the definition of an actor who starts out strong (surely everyone assumed he was the next big thing by 1999), but Birdman feels more the exception than the rule, and he's not the type that will go after the (quality) Oscar-bait projects.  They'll need to come to him.

8. Joaquin Phoenix

Nominations: Gladiator (Supporting Actor in 2000), Walk the Line (Actor in 2005), & The Master (Actor in 2012)
He Lost to: Benicio del Toro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: None of these are close wins.  Walk the Line couldn't even get a Best Picture nomination, and that's the one that makes the most sense when you compare it to its competition (and he's at best in third behind Hoffman & Heath Ledger).
Well, He Still Won...: It always feels weird to say this, but the only major trophy that the deeply method & dark Phoenix has ever won was for the Comedy Golden Globe (for Walk the Line).
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't think so.  If anyone on this list is the modern successor to Albert Finney, it's Phoenix, who is an actor that is too good not to occasionally be nominated for awards, but also clearly hates them and I doubt the Academy would ever want to give him a microphone.

7. Nick Nolte

Nominations: The Prince of Tides (Actor in 1991), Affliction (Actor in 1998), & Warrior (Supporting Actor in 2011)
He Lost to: Anthony Hopkins, Roberto Benigni, & Christopher Plummer
Closest to the Win: You could make a sincere argument that he was the frontrunner in 1991, with tough competition from Hopkins and Warren Beatty (Hopkins victory has aged very well, to the point where we feel like it was inevitable but that was not what people thought at the time).  However, he was also in the thick of things in 1998, when James Coburn stunned for a victory in Supporting Actor, so there was clearly a lot of support for Affliction (considering how Benigni's career aged, the Academy probably wishes they had given it to Nolte).
Well, He Still Won...: Nolte nabbed the Golden Globe for his work in The Prince of Tides (hard to believe in this era of uniform awards seasons, but Nolte managed to win Drama Actor over the man who'd eventually take the Oscar)...please take note AMPAS-creativity is a good thing.
Is This Happening Someday?: No.  Nolte's shot at ever winning this Oscar died the day that infamous mugshot was taken.  He's nearly 80 years old, and he wouldn't be an awful choice for an Honorary Oscar if it would occur to anyone, but a competitive trophy ain't going to happen-the Warrior nomination was probably the closest he was ever going to get to a career honor.

6. Johnny Depp

Nominations: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Actor in 2003), Finding Neverland (Actor in 2004), & Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Actor in 2007)
He Lost to: Sean Penn, Jamie Foxx, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: Pirates, for sure.  The 2003 Best Actor race was a genuinely close affair, with Penn, Depp, and Bill Murray all in a threeway locked race.  I remember at the time some people even speculated that it could end in a tie of sorts.  Can you imagine a year where the Globes and SAG honored three different lead performers in this era?
Well, He Still Won...: Depp is beloved by the Golden Globes (he's been nominated ten times, including multiple citations before Oscar gave him the time of day), but only won once, for Sweeney Todd (the year of the strike, so we've never seen a major Johnny Depp speech)
Is This Happening Someday?: Probably not.  Depp has become something of a pariah, a sellout on-par with Nic Cage at this point, and the abuse allegations against him will age more poorly as time goes by.  I honestly don't think he'll even get an Honorary Oscar considering how much of his once darling arthouse reputation has been drowned in a series of big-budget schlock.

5. Tom Cruise

Nominations: Born on the Fourth of July (Actor in 1989), Jerry Maguire (Actor in 1996), & Magnolia (Supporting Actor in 1999)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, & Michael Caine
Closest to the Win: Cruise has genuinely been close to winning all three times he's been nominated.  Day-Lewis won in 1989 because Cruise was too young and too new to prestige, Jerry Maguire was a loss because Cruise, like his idol Paul Newman, probably was still too rich & famous to need an Oscar to complete the ensemble, and Magnolia would have happened had Miramax not been shoving caviar down the entire Academy's throat (also, everyone's worked with Mike Caine, and seems to love him, so him being thirsty for the thing probably helped).
Well, He Still Won...: Proving you learn something new every time you research an article, Cruise won the Golden Globe every single time he was nominated for the Oscar for the same film.  Oscar just never bit compared to the starstruck HFPA.
Is This Happening Someday?: I can't tell.  Cruise is still famous enough that he could make this work if he really wanted to, and I think (unlike Depp) he'd be forgiven his baggage.  I just don't think he wants to make the types of pictures that would allow him into an awards season, and honestly-can he still pull off such a character?  He hasn't done something like Magnolia or even Jerry Maguire in so long I honestly don't know if he still can, well, act.  An Honorary Oscar could be in the cards though, especially if they set precedence with Harrison Ford or Sly Stallone.  A lot of Academy members paid their mortgages thanks to Cruise's star power.

4. Kirk Douglas

Nominations: Champion (Actor in 1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (Actor in 1952), & Lust for Life (Actor in 1956)
He Lost to: Broderick Crawford, Gary Cooper, & Yul Brynner
Closest to the Win: At the time, most people assumed that Kirk Douglas, then one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was a shoo-in for a trophy for Lust for Life.  The Academy, though, seemed to like Oscar-lookalike Yul Brynner more in the crowd-pleasing The King & I and so Douglas went empty-handed.  One has to assume if they had known at the time that he'd never get another nomination that he might have won, but who knows what the Academy would do, even with hindsight.
Well, He Still Won...: Douglas deservedly won the Honorary Award at the 1995 Oscars, back when they still broadcast the Honorary winners at the ceremony, so the world was treated to his emotional tribute to his son.  In addition to a slew of Honorary trophies (everything from the DeMille to the Kennedy Center Honors to the AFI Life Achievement Award), he picked up the Golden Globe in 1956 for Lust for Life.
Is This Happening Someday?: No, obviously not.  Douglas is retired and 102.  He got his Honorary Award, and basically every other lifetime achievement award the industry could throw at him, and he'll die a legend.  Kirk Douglas will still be one of the iconic movie stars of all time even without a competitive Oscar, which is surely better than a statue.

3. Bradley Cooper

Nominations: Silver Linings Playbook (Actor in 2012), American Hustle (Supporting Actor in 2013), American Sniper (Actor in 2014), & A Star is Born (Actor in 2018)...he also was nominated for Best Picture for American Sniper & for Picture/Adapted Screenplay for A Star is Born
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: American Sniper felt at the time like it was on the rise, and honestly I wonder if with two more weeks of gargantuan box office if Cooper could have bested Eddie Redmayne.  Also, still not sure what happened this year with the similarly-gargantuan box office for A Star is Born...though at least there Malek came with his own pile of gold.
Well, He Still Won...: Cooper has competed at the Golden Globes, BAFTA's, and Tonys in addition to the Oscars, but like Dafoe, he's never picked up a major trophy.
Is This Happening Someday?: We enter a trio of actors who have been nominated four times without a victory (with Finney's death, no living male actor has received five nominations without winning at least one of them).  Cooper arguably should be first on this list since he has more losses than anyone, but I'm only counting acting trophies.  Also, he's going to win someday unless we're witnessing a Kirk Douglas situation.  Cooper surely has the respect of the industry, and has a hunger for that trophy, which they usually award (especially in men), though he may have to be a little less pretty to finally get there.

2. Willem Dafoe

Nominations: Platoon (Supporting Actor in 1986), Shadow of the Vampire (Supporting Actor in 2000), The Florida Project (Supporting Actor in 2017), & At Eternity's Gate (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Michael Caine, Benicio del Toro, Sam Rockwell & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: I would guess that last year Dafoe was in second place, and I still think it's a bummer that he didn't gain more traction for a clearly better role than Rockwell's, but he hasn't really been close for any of his other work, so I'd go with that film.
Well, He Still Won...: Dafoe has won a mountain of critics' prizes, but never picked up one of the major televised awards.
Is This Happening Someday?: I would assume not, but honestly that fourth nomination threw me a bit.  There were other more obvious contenders (John David Washington, for example) that could have easily snuck in and taken the fifth slot for Best Actor, and Dafoe doing so indicates that there's some appetite to get him an Oscar...but if there was a proper appetite, wouldn't he have won for Florida?  He works with high-profile auteurs, so if one of them gets a film with a little more traction/nominations it could happen, but it'd help if it was in the next couple of years since he's got some recent losses under his belt.

1. Ed Harris

Nominations: Apollo 13 (Supporting Actor in 1995), The Truman Show (Supporting Actor in 1998), Pollock (Actor in 2000), and The Hours (Supporting Actor in 2002)
He Lost to: Kevin Spacey, James Coburn, Russell Crowe, & Chris Cooper
Closest to the Win: Other than The Hours, Harris was close on all three of the other films.  It was down to he & Kevin Spacey in 1995.  In 1998, it was down to he and Robert Duvall (and then in a huge upset James Coburn won, proving that this "closest to the win" is very much a guessing game).  And in 2000, he was surging at the last minute enough to get his costar Marcia Gay Harden across the finish line, but he wasn't able to invade the Crowe/Hanks battle.
Well, He Still Won...: Harris grabbed Golden Globe awards for The Truman Show and Game Change (the HBO TV movie).
Is This Happening Someday?: I doubt it.  Harris still works (Westworld), but he refuses to campaign, and honestly has gotten to the point where I don't even think he'd show up to accept it (he didn't for Game Change), and unless you're Maggie Smith, you don't win if you don't show up.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Film: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miler, Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, Jude Law, Johnny Depp
Director: David Yates
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I didn't grow up with Harry Potter in the sense that many of my younger Millennial friends did.  While Harry Potter was something I was obsessed with as a youth, it was as a late youth-I think I read the first Harry Potter book when I was fifteen or sixteen (I can't remember if Goblet of Fire was out yet).  But, and I cannot impress this enough-I loved it.  It's become a boring cliche for someone to claim their adoration for the works of JK Rowling, but those seven books were full of imagination, wonder, and genuine intrigue.  Though it's been over ten years since the final book and nearly as long since the final of the eight original movies, that love is still there, and I still feel my stomach drop out when I hear the opening music of Fantastic Beasts, with James Newton Howard riffing on John Williams classic score.  But a lot has changed since I first stood on the literary steps of 4 Privet Drive.  Rowling has expanded her empire, but in doing so has created a world that feels a tad bit more generic, less specific than the creation she crafted so exquisitely over seven books.  While her politics occasionally feel a bit problematic (you can take her on from either the right or the left), it's the way that she's in many ways emerged as the Millennial George Lucas that is most troubling.  This is on full-display in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which is brimming with enough Hogwarts wonder that it's hard for me to dislike it, but even the most ardent of fans would have to admit that Rowling has taken a detour into uncharted territory: a decidedly muggle affair.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place relatively soon after the last movie left off, with Grindelwald (Depp) being transported to a different prison while Newt Scamander (Redmayne) faces a potential ban on travel after the events in New York City.  As you might expect, neither of these go as planned with Grindelwald escaping (with a good deal of ease), while Newt is banned but ends up ignoring the ban with little consequence.  He is joined by his brother Theseus (Turner, who is about as ruggedly handsome as you get in the Harry Potter universe), who is the by-the-books sibling to Newt's nerdy rebel.  Newt is quickly joined by his New York City friends Queenie (Sudol), Jacob (Folger), and love interest Tina (Waterston), who initially dislikes Newt when she thinks that he's engaged to Leta Lestrange (Kravitz), who clearly has a thing for Newt but is with Theseus (can't blame a girl).

The picture unfolds in a weird way after this.  Rowling's penchant for thick plot is evidenced here as we get a lot of characters and information, including a few winks to Harry Potter readers (Nicolas Flamel finally shows his face to the delight of readers, while Minerva McGonagall gets a cameo despite being decades to young for this movie), but nothing really happens.  This isn't always a bad thing if you're looking at this as a miniseries-there needs to be down time to lay some foundation-but it feels cheap when you're shelling out $15 to see the movie that you get so little actual progress (just set-up) & that the film cannot stand on its own.  I complained about this with the last Fantastic Beasts, but the cast being all over the place in levels of intrigue certainly hurts the film.  Forget for a second the problematic aspects of hiring Johnny Depp (or the foolishness of putting him in place of Colin Farrell)-the real problem here is that Redmayne & Waterston are so blah as leading characters.  Even Ezra Miller fails to properly intrigue (what a waste!) and Jude Law, while charming and aware of the importance of filling such an iconic character's shoes, doesn't give us much in terms of Dumbledore other than pensive stares and mischievous smiles.  For the second film in a row, it feels like Alison Sudol's Queenie is in a completely different movie, she's so much better than the rest of the cast.  Watching her become disillusioned with a prejudiced government (that won't let her marry a muggle) and thus join Grindelwald is the best part of the movie, and also makes her the only character that would feel at-home in Rowling's original world.

But while the film itself is hardly impressive, I can't say I didn't enjoy it.  Your worst day in Rowling's world is still more fun that pretty much any other franchise out there, and it felt like going home watching Hogwarts emerge on the big-screen.  I let out a squeal the first time Flamel showed up, and was grinning ear-to-ear when I heard McGonagall proclaim "10 points from Slytherin!"  In many ways I wonder if this is how people feel about the worst installments of the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings franchises; you simply don't care because you got another shot of the drug, even if it's not as potent as it once was.  As a result, I can't go below three stars because I genuinely liked it and will watch it again in the context of the series.  My patience with Rowling's storytelling may be waning, but it's not gone yet and I'll be around for another go...though she perhaps needs to hire an editor who is willing to tell her "no" at this point.

OVP: Actor (2007)

OVP: Best Actor (2007)

The Nominees Were...

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

My Thoughts: We continue on our newly brisk pace with 2007's OVP with a deep dive into the Best Actor field, one that features one first-time nominee, one man that for a brief moment there seemed destined to win a trophy, and three men who had already won a statue in their careers at this point.  It's strange to look at 2007's list in part because there are no newly-discovered talents here or character actors finally getting their due, as has been the case so often in recent years.  These are all five major leading men, though not necessarily at this point in their careers (looking at you, Tommy), who managed to make up yet another strong lineup in a great cinematic year.

Since I mentioned him and since he's the sore thumb in this lineup of movies that were otherwise huge in 2007, let's begin with Tommy Lee Jones.  Jones was that annual Oscar acting nominee that came out of virtually nowhere.  We'll get into some of the also-rans in a second, but pretty much no one had predicted Jones nomination when it was announced.  While Paul Haggis isn't my favorite director, I did like Elah, and I thought Jones did a fine if not-groundbreaking job in the movie.  I liked his quiet demeanor, and he underplays scenes that could have been a lot hammier for the actor (father looking for the man who killed his son is not a part that is lacking in dramatic opportunities).  There are moments where he feels like he's underacting, and Jones' style occasionally uses his own many movie memories as a crutch for the character, but I loved particularly his scenes toward the end of the picture, and overall this was a relatively pleasant surprise inclusion, even if I don't know if it deserved to be there.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Daniel Day-Lewis, who was assured this nomination perhaps the moment he signed the dotted line with Paul Thomas Anderson.  While Day-Lewis has played many iconic characters in his career, none have stuck in the pop culture subconscious quite the same as Daniel Plainview, and there's a reason for that: he's superb.  Day-Lewis dominates the screen as this larger-than-life character, a Mount Rushmore of acting.  The way that he makes Daniel both completely plain-spoken, obvious, and yet unknowable is a triumph.  He's addicting to watch, even if we're terrified and occasionally just want the character to be done.  Combined with great chemistry with Paul Dano's fascinating (and usually successful) take as Eli Sunday, he sinks his teeth into Anderson's raw script, and manages to create a truly haunting villain.  In my personal opinion, it's his best performance, and considering it's Day-Lewis, that's saying something.

Viggo Mortensen was the only first-time nominee at the time (though he would eventually get out of the one-and-done club this past year), and his Eastern Promises is a bit of an odd-duck in terms of nominations, as outside the 70's criminals don't typically get nominated for Best Actor, but instead stick to the supporting categories.  The performance is solid, if reminiscent of most of Mortensen's work.  His Nikolai is an unknowable creature, occasionally too much so as Mortensen doesn't quite mask the violent history of his character, of his own ambitions.  Mortensen probably won this nomination due to the iconic "naked bathhouse" fight scene, and while I'm not a huge sucker for physical acting the way AMPAS can be, this is an accomplishment in direction/acting, a groundbreaking sort of scene that has been mirrored everywhere in years since, and still is thrilling and frightening to watch.

I wrote in 2009 that I wasn't sure whether Clooney's best, most iconic role was Michael Clayton or Up in the Air, but upon re-watch I think it may well be his work in 2007.  Michael Clayton is the movie of 2007 that I really changed my first opinion on when prepping for this OVP series, initially writing it off as a Law & Order at the cinema, but then seeing all of the great ideas and acting behind it.  Clooney's Michael wouldn't work if he was a saint, and he wouldn't work if he was only in his dire situation with no other solutions.  I love the way that Clooney, playing a character that feels at-home in his movie star persona, still finds new facets in Michael, constantly reevaluating his situation and moving the character's confidence and demeanor around.  Later work from Clooney has veered into mugging, and it's hard to imagine him pulling off Michael today with the same sort of boldness and lack of scenery-chewing, but it's a pitch perfect star turn, something that's very hard to pull off.  I do in fact feel it's his best work because it's the performance that best melds that Grade-A movie star charisma he oozes with his fine, if usually underused acting chops.

Johnny Depp is our final nominee, and I have to admit that it's bizarre to me at this point to think of Depp as a serious actor who gets nominated for Oscars rather than a hackneyed over-actor who is intent on just getting a paycheck (I suspect this is what it'll be like when we start to revisit Jon Voight's pictures as well).  Depp's acting style meshes well with Sweeney, and I will admit up-front that I quite liked him in this role.  He has solid chemistry with Carter, and her choice of how to play Mrs. Lovett (a very different interpretation from either Angela Lansbury or Patti LuPone).  I love how even from the beginning he plays Sweeney as doomed, as someone simply on the borrowed time of revenge without any hope for a brighter future with his daughter Joanna; it's a smart decision considering a musical that is heavy on foreshadowing.  That being said, he does not remotely have the vocal pipes of Len Cariou or Michael Cerveris, and it strains in Sondheim's soaring score.  It's impossible not to think of what a better actor would have done, as Burton's rock interpretation of a thickly Broadway-musical doesn't always work, even if it looks great.  Putting in an actor who could belt may well have made the movie itself better, but considering he's not a good musical-singer, Depp still holds his own otherwise.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy/Musical," and of course musical is a key word this year with Depp in contention.  As I've mentioned before Jones was a huge surprise, so he's out here while the other four show up: in Drama, Clooney/Mortensen/Day-Lewis are joined by James McAvoy (Atonement) and Denzel Washington (American Gangster), with Day-Lewis winning, while Depp triumphed over Ryan Gosling (Lars and the Real Girl), Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson's War), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Savages), and John C. Reilly (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story).  The SAG Awards found room for Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Ryan Gosling over Jones & Depp, while the BAFTA's also skipped Jones/Depp in favor of McAvoy and Ulrich Muhe in The Lives of Others (which wasn't eligible for the Oscar that year as it had won the trophy the previous year for Foreign Language Film...so we'll get there eventually).  Day-Lewis won both trophies, but the real question here is who gets sixth place.  My gut says that Hirsch and McAvoy were both too young and pretty, and that instead the Academy would have gone with Gosling who had dominated precursors and had just been nominated.  However, considering that Oscar went with the more traditional work of Jones for the fifth slot, it's also possible that Washington or Russell Crowe may have been lurking behind the scenes for American Gangster, as both are major Oscar favorites.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Oscar has a weird obsession with ignoring the pretty boys, but Emile Hirsch and James McAvoy were both stupendous in the best work of their careers in Into the Wild and Atonement, respectively, and it's a shame Oscar didn't find room for at least one of them.  More glaring, though, is that Brad Pitt is giving a triumphant performance in The Assassination of Jesse James, truly one of the most iconic in his long career and the kickoff to a huge string of successful roles for the actor, and no one seemed to notice.  His dangerous, fascinating relationship to himself, Casey Affleck, and literally everyone in that movie is dynamite, and it's a pity that in a year where Clooney and Day-Lewis were both shooting for the stars Oscar didn't latch onto the third iconic performance on its plate.

Oscar’s Choice: There was never anyone that could beat Daniel Day-Lewis, a performance that arguably could have won in any year of this millennium.

My Choice: Day-Lewis has to win it, it's too good to deny.  Behind him is Clooney, followed by Depp, Jones, and Mortensen.  All-in-all, though, not the lineup I would have picked but there's no stinker in this bunch.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you agree with the awards consensus of Day-Lewis, or is there someone out there who wants to side with one of the other actors?  Why do you think that McAvoy and Hirsch never seemed to make it into major contention again (and quite frankly-what is Emile Hirsch even up to these days)?  And who would you have cast in Sweeney Todd if they'd have gone with a more musically-inclined take on the Sondheim masterpiece?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2007: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2007

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