OVP: Supporting Actor (2017)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2017)

The Nominees Were...

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

My Thoughts: We are hitting the final stretch of the 2017 races over the next week-and-a-half, doing our supporting races in the next three days, and then the final four (plus our ballot!) all of next week.  We'll start that out as always with Best Supporting Actor, a field that included a lot of names but that I (looking back on my predictions) got exactly right.  Part of that was correctly calling out an actor who was only in this category accidentally, the late Christopher Plummer.  Plummer had one of the biggest late-staged comebacks in Oscar history, getting three nominations over the age of eighty, an unrivaled situation that no one else will likely ever match.  We'll commence our writeup thus with Plummer as our entry point.

Plummer plays his J. Paul Getty less as a feeble old miser and more as someone who has lost his grip on reality decades earlier, having unlimited wealth in a way no man can have without it warping his mind.  Plummer's performance here is good, particularly his chaotic one-on-one scenes with both Mark Wahlberg & Michelle Williams, where he unfolds what it's like to be a man no one says no to in real time.  The performance feels a little bit half-baked, as Plummer famously only had a few weeks before the movie's release date to replace Kevin Spacey after Spacey became unemployable, and there's a whiff of the industry acknowledging Plummer for doing them a favor by stepping in at the last minute to this nomination...you get the sense that even if he was terrible he'd have gotten this citation as a "thank you."  He's not, he's good, but it's a pity he hadn't been cast at the beginning since I think some more time to parcel through this role might've made this his worthiest of nominations.

Richard Jenkins was cast from the beginning, but I can't help but feeling he also should've been recast in The Shape of Water.  It's refreshing to have an average-looking man play a gay character onscreen (too often we see aging gay men only when they're about to die in the movies), but I couldn't help but feeling there's something authentic lacking here.  Quite frankly Jenkins, who is straight in real life, is not convincing as a gay man, never understanding the tragedy of his sad character and other than one late scene, feeling simply to exist as a "sassy gay friend" for our more fully-drawn main character of Eliza.  The script doesn't care about him, and Jenkins doesn't define the role enough to rise above that castoff.

Willem Dafoe has been on fire in recent years, getting a well-deserved career renaissance that spurred from The Florida Project.  His work as a motel manager, left to deal with people living week-to-week, paycheck-to-paycheck is so well-done because his motives remain unclear.  Whom does he care about other than himself as the movie progresses...how much did he actually help the patrons who are clearly about to have their lives thrown away if they can't stay in this motel (it's literally the only place keeping them out of shelters or the streets)...Dafoe keeps this vested inside, but lets enough out to finally get you to understand his character in the movie's final moments.  It's a master class of understatement from an actor not necessarily known for such restraint.

Our final two nominees are both from Three Billboards, the first time there was a double supporting actor nominee from the same film since 1991's Bugsy.  Of the two, Woody Harrelson is my favorite.  I loved the way that his world-weary cop unfolds against the plot.  Harrelson, like Dafoe, is not known for understatement in his professional work, but here he finds it as a man who is in a new marriage, someone who understands the plight of our main character of Mildred, but also knows the parameters of what the law will allow him to do-he is the center of this film, keeping it tethered to reality, and also bears the weight of all of the unsolved cases that have come before him.  It's a great, small piece of acting in a film that loses its grounding when he disappears from the story.

Which leads us to Sam Rockwell.  Rockwell is not one of my favorite actors...in fact, I've always struggled with him as an onscreen performer, frequently feeling too flashy, too scenery-chewing...in some ways my reaction to him is similar to some of that of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the early Aughts, an actor who could be great but oftentimes gave into his theatrical roots when the character doesn't call for it.  It doesn't help Rockwell that the script doesn't have a clue how to handle his racist cop, but you shouldn't be forgiven & given an Oscar if you get saddled with a bad screenplay and don't make it worse.  Throw in a borderline case of category fraud, and I'm still baffled as to why this was the performance that finally won the long-neglected Rockwell over to the Academy.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Sam Rockwell as their victor against Plummer, Jenkins, Dafoe, & Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name), while SAG chose Rockwell atop Jenkins, Harrelson, Dafoe, & Steve Carell (Battle of the Sexes).  BAFTA completed the set for Rockwell, beating Plummer, Dafoe, Harrelson, & Hugh Grant (Paddington 2), the latter of whom wasn't eligible for Oscar until the following year due to release date timing (he didn't get nominated for the Oscar, but I nominated him in 2018 for My Ballot as he's excellent in this movie).  In terms of sixth place, I called this entire lineup right (as I said above), mostly because I figured that the two actors from Call Me By Your Name (Hammer & Michael Stuhlbarg) would split the vote enough that neither would make it.  My gut says that Stuhlbarg, who has the aura of a "character actor who gets his one Oscar nomination at some point" was in sixth since he was also in Best Picture nominees The Shape of Water and The Post, but Hammer in 2017 had also been itching around an Oscar nomination for a while & that would've been a possible place for him (at this point, of course, Hammer, like the aforementioned Kevin Spacey, is unemployable, but coming off of The Social Network and J. Edgar a nomination felt inevitable).

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Hammer is undoubtedly the lead in his movie, and while I'll try to base that category solely on the performance (so he's a probable nominee for me even with his personal life being a horror show), this is not the place for him.  Stuhlbarg, on the other hand, with his fantastic final monologue...Oscar has no excuse for skipping.

Oscar’s Choice: The Globes had a choice between honoring the long-neglected Rockwell or the long-neglected Dafoe, and they chose the former...to which every other awards body followed suit in the most lock-step acting award season in recent memory.

My Choice: Easily it's Dafoe-this is the performance of his career, and deserved the Oscar, particularly against an otherwise average lineup.  I'd follow with Harrelson, Plummer, Jenkins, & Rockwell in the back.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you go with the entire awards season & the work of Sam Rockwell, or do you want to come over and sun with Willem Dafoe & I in The Florida Project?  Why do you think it's so rare to have double nominees from the same film in supporting categories today (it used to be far more common)?  And which of the Call Me By Your Name men was in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

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

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

OVP: Knives Out (2019)

Film: Knives Out (2019)
Stars: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Christopher Plummer
Director: Rian Johnson
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I love Clue.  I know that like everyone loves Clue, but I LOVE Clue.  I like everything about Clue, and not just the movie (which I've seen more than any other film, once watched with my brother I think every day for a month-for two cinephile brothers, I think that's the only film we ever did something like that with, and that includes Disney films, and have a poster of it in my basement).  I collect Clue board games; I have 20 versions of the game in my hobby room closet, as well as three knockoff mystery games (13 Dead End Drive, I see you), and am hoping to make it 21 this Christmas as I have "Clue Guess Who" prominently featured at the top of my Christmas list.  I've read all of the Clue books, watched the Clue VCR game, have the Clue Christmas ornament, I buy the Clue board game chocolate every year that Target has it...I love Clue.  And as a result, I'm about as good of a candidate for something like Knives Out as you can find-a silly murder mystery with a large, talented ensemble cast is exactly what gets me to a movie theater.  Even with a plethora of more plausible Oscar contenders out (though kudos on the trio of Globe nominations!), I couldn't resist last week when I had a two hour window to go and catch Rian Johnson's latest in theaters.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is not, of course, Clue, but it's obvious that Johnson has had a similar adoration for the franchise.  We start with Harlan Thrombey (Plummer), a wealthy mystery novelist, dying of what appears to be suicide in the opening moments of the film.  He had just finished celebrating his birthday party, one that had quite a bit of calamity with his family, and this opened the door for Benoit Blanc (Craig, sporting a ridiculous Southern accent), a noted detective, to be hired by an anonymous figure to investigate what could be a murder.  The film hosts a variety of suspects, from driven businesswoman Linda (Curtis), Harlan's favorite child, to her husband Richard (Johnson), who is having an affair, to his less successful son Walt (Shannon) who is mad that his father is driving him out of the business.  Add in a failed "Goop"-style guru daughter-in-law Joni (Collette) and a spoiled playboy grandson Ransom (Evans), and about the only person you don't suspect is Marta (de Armas), Harlan's nurse & caretaker.  Which means, of course, that Marta is both guilty and we're about to find out why she's guilty.

The best parts of Knives Out are arguably the parts I liked the least while watching it, because I am a mystery fan at heart, and love figuring out the clues as I'm going along.  We find out about a third of the way through what "actually" happened (it's a mystery-there's going to be a twist eventually) with Marta mixing up the morphine vile with Harlan's medication, thus accidentally killing him, and depriving her of her inheritance (Harlan decided to leave all of the money to his caretaker, cutting his family out of the will as a result).  We then see the steps that Marta will take to keep Benoit from finding out, knowing that if she had anything to do with Harlan's death, she'll lose the fortune which will go to Harlan's greedy & unworthy family.  As a result, this becomes more of a thriller than a mystery, as we're meant to take on the role of Marta as an audience rather than Benoit.

Upon reflection, this change in format generally works.  Johnson upends the mystery genre by giving us what we think is the answer, in the process showing what it's like to be an unreliable narrator, but in doing so the ending and the humor don't really resonate by putting someone as morally upstanding as Marta so central to the story.  The movie's best parts should be Curtis, Stanfield, and Collette, all having a blast with their characters, but they're forced into the sidelines to focus on sweet-as-pie Marta and over-acting Benoit, and since the only character whom we spend enough time with and is dynamic enough to be the eventual culprit is Evans' Ransom, we know eventually that it'll be revealed that he's the killer (by switching the labels on the bottles).

The film is fun, no question, but the entire time I saw it I kept thinking "this should be more fun."  It runs too long, isn't snappy enough outside of the initial interrogation sequences, and because it takes away the enjoyment of solving the mystery, it doesn't make us vested into the stories of the eccentric relatives.  As a result, we get relatively two-dimensional performances from people capable of so much more, and while de Armas has ability, she's kind of boring as Marta when you keep wanting to go back to the fun promised in the trailer & the movie's opening chapters.

OVP: All the Money in the World (2017)

Film: All the Money in the World (2017)
Stars: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Charlie Plummer
Director: Ridley Scott
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actor-Christopher Plummer)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The curiosity factor may have been the biggest draw for me by the time that All the Money in the World finally saw the light of day.  After all, I cannot remember the last time that a movie was able to have quite the hook of watching one Oscar-winning actor being replaced by another Oscar-winning actor mere weeks before the actual film came out.  After watching the film, it does appear that they made the right choice in getting the film out for the Oscar season-Plummer is good (perhaps on course to a third nomination), and other than some unfortunate CGI scenes with Plummer as a middle-aged man (though his age cannot be disguised in these scenes the way they surely would have been able to do with Kevin Spacey), they largely were able to reshoot without too much issue.  The film at the end of this is predictable and occasionally a little washed-out, but still entertaining thanks in large part to Michelle Williams continuing her streak as one of our best introverted actresses.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's plot is largely known to anyone who is a student of history, but for those who aren't, in 1973 the richest man in the world was J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), an oil magnate and a notorious miser.  His grandson "Little Paul" (Charlie Plummer, with whom his closeness is debated (Getty's only real love in life was his money, as is illustrated through his callousness in the film, though Plummer plays him as someone who doesn't like to family mostly because it's "his")), was kidnapped and became a major tabloid sensation.  The kidnapping's most notorious moment happened several months later, when Little Paul had his ear cut off to prove to his grandfather that he meant business.  In the film and in real-life, Little Paul was returned after the elder Getty paid his ransom, but the reputation of Getty as a heartless miser was confirmed for history, and his grandson would be haunted by the moment for decades, dying tragically in 2011 after years of substance abuse and illness.

The film itself pays little attention to the younger Paul, perhaps the picture's most fatal flaw.  In doing so, they sort of commodify Little Paul in the same way that Getty does-the younger Plummer (man it's confusing that they both have the same name/real-life last name when it comes to writing a review!) doesn't add many layers to his relatively brief screen-time, and so the only thing we know is what other people claim to bring to their relationship with Little Paul.  This results in him just being "a blood Getty," in a way that from some angles justifies the elder Getty's attitude toward him.

The film is at its best, therefore, when it's exploring the complicated relationship the elder Getty and his daughter-in-law Gail (Williams) have toward money.  As played by Plummer, Getty's interest in money and procuring more of it seems pathological, a personality disorder of sorts that will never be quenched without mental health.  He talks about money troubles as if he's a moment away from becoming a pauper, and seems intent on only investing in things with a tangible return, like artwork and real estate, not even a grandson who is moments away from death.  The film doesn't underline his claimed rationale for waiting so long to pay the ransom (that he didn't want to encourage copycat kidnappers and that he "did not negotiate with terrorists"), perhaps because director Ridley Scott didn't buy it (neither do I).  Instead, it seems to focus on his insane dependency on keeping wealth at all costs.  Plummer's performance probably could have used a bit more baking, but he does well in scenes where he's playing Getty as a man with a warped sense-of-right.  There's a terrific scene in the middle of the picture where he plays off of Mark Wahlberg's Fletcher Chase (a former CIA operative who works for Getty and is trying to procure Little Paul for him at a minimal cost) with protestations that he's "never been more financially vulnerable" despite having more money than any person in history.  It's got great insight from Plummer as an actor, watching him believe things no rational person ever could, perhaps because that's the only way Getty could justify the actions of a sociopath.

Williams is the best part of the film, though.  She's so good so often these days it's taken for granted, but I love the way that she adds little touches to this character.  For example, watch the way that she uses the Getty name when it's to her advantage or is clearly influenced by money even though she doesn't have any (living with even the estranged son of a billionaire will inevitably give you a warped sense of proximity to that wealth).  I loved the way she also struggles with her relationship with her son and her own emotions, with her unable to play for the cameras when they demand tears.  This is a woman who has lived with a drug-addicted playboy, and she's been the good wife/mother that whole time, and the entire world still wants to turn her into a villain because she's "rich" but doesn't actually have money.  Williams brings nuance to a role that could have just been tragic.  Unlike her costar Wahlberg (who feels like he's just on an action-film auto pilot, and whose status as an Oscar nominee becomes increasingly unfortunate every time he can't connect to yet another character), she finds shades in her Gail.  The film itself occasionally is too predictable in its story beats and it's hard not to wish that Plummer would have had more time with Getty to see what else he could ring out of a (not small) part, but Williams work is very good, and this is still an exciting ride in the theater thanks in large part to she and Plummer.

OVP: Supporting Actor (2009)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor (2009)

The Nominees Were...

Matt Damon, Invictus

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

My Thoughts: We’re going to head straight into the Top 6 here, rather than dilly dally (plus, there’s nothing big politically happening except Hillary’s book and I haven’t received an advanced copy for some reason).  With Supporting Actor, we’re entering the categories that I’m guessing you’ve probably seen all of the nominees AND have opinions on, so I shall naively hope for comments below.

I should start out and say that Stanley Tucci deserved this Oscar.  After all, that might get someone to post, but alas, I cannot put out such lies into the universe.  Stanley Tucci is one of the worst performances in recent years to have been nominated for an Oscar.  I get where they were coming from here.  He’s a very likeable star (someone whom you suspect is genuinely popular off-screen) and has that sort of character actor glamour of someone who is too good of an actor to not at least nab one Oscar nomination in his career (see also David Strathairn, Richard Jenkins, Gary Oldman, etc).  But this was the wrong way to go-his work as George Harvey is all overactive tics and bad line readings.  Everything is heavy-handed and without a trace of subtlety.  Who honestly wouldn’t assume this guy was a serial killer?  Where is the least bit of restraint in his performance?  You can go over-the-top in a character if you want (Bette Davis did it marvelously as Baby Jane Hudson), but you cannot if you’re going to sacrifice reality.  Tucci does this (it doesn’t help that the film is awful), and gets one of the worst nominations I’ve seen in my Oscar-watching career.

The one thing going for Tucci is that this was a WILDLY uninspired list of actors.  Supporting Actor hasn’t really been a great slate in a few years, and 2009 was a piss-poor year for this category even if you include all nominees, but that doesn’t mean they had to get so lazy.  Another clear example of this is Matt Damon in Invictus.  Honestly-what was the Academy thinking here?  Damon is a strong actor, and deserved to get a second nomination after Good Will Hunting at some point, but what about The Talented Mr. Ripley?  Syriana (don’t hate-he’s better than Clooney in it)?  Instead they go with his always reflecting soccer player.  Damon’s character never becomes interesting, never becomes more than just stoic athletic cliché.  Perhaps the Academy got distracted by the ridiculous things Damon’s physique was doing in this movie (damn girl!), as that’s the only explanation for why they would give him a citation for such a mundane role.

We’ll finish off the trio of banal with Christopher Plummer in The Last Station.  Here I at least understand where the Academy was coming from-Christopher Plummer is Stanley Tucci if Tucci never got an Oscar nomination.  He deserved to be called Oscar-nominated.  It’s a darn pity that AMPAS didn’t know that Beginners would be coming two years later and that they’d have a perfect way to acknowledge him because his work as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station is okay (at my most generous).  Plummer laughs and knows how to sell his chemistry with Mirren (then again, who doesn’t have chemistry with Helen Mirren?), but his character is all surface-level.  We never get inside of this man, and coming from an actor as accomplished as Plummer (one of the great stage actors), that’s a disappointment.

Moving on to actors who probably DID deserve their nomination (or at least can credibly carry one) we have Woody Harrelson in The Messenger.  Harrelson has been so good so often these days you’d be forgiven for almost overlooking this work (side note: I particularly remember that the Oscar ceremony was hitting a low point that year when Alec Baldwin made a dated Harrelson/pot jokes).  He’s not quite as strong as you’d assume here-he doesn’t always find a human switch in this character, and occasionally is too robotic to be believable, but his scenes, particularly with the “NOK” are devastating and you see the empty spirit of this man.  Harrelson gets the crutch of a showy role, but he knows how to use it to be most effective.

Finally we have the scene-stealing savior of this category.  Sometimes I feel that you can excuse an entire field if they got the winner right, and there’s no denying that hilariously evil Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa (it always says something when you remember a character’s name and don’t just refer to them by the actor's moniker) is the best-in-show here.  I love the way that he’s also a true supporting player (not like the Django situation) and that he draws himself into each scene he’s in, having that great puncturing diction that knows he’s in control.  It’s a work of comic genius, and unlike Tucci, he knows to ground his scenery-chewing into a reality (he can do whatever he wants, include be a mad men-he’s still in control).  Waltz may never do anything as memorable or as entertaining, but that doesn’t stop the fact that this was the third in a series of three incredibly satisfying villains to win the Supporting Actor Oscar.

Other Precursor Contenders: We always end with the BAFTA’s, so let’s start there this time.  The field was somewhat different (though with Waltz still winning).  Alfred Molina in An Education (a surprise) and Christian McKay in Me and Orson Welles (less of a surprise) got in while Damon and Plummer missed.  Proving how boring this category was, the Globes and the SAG Awards copied AMPAS (I know they came first, but clearly they were just catering) both with nominees and the victor.  As far as sixth place, McKay makes the most sense (Ann Dowd should worry about how little of a career he had after missing here), though I would also entertain the notion that Anthony Mackie was in sixth place.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Like I said, it wasn’t a great year for the category.  Still, I would have certainly put in Michael Fassbender for his wonderful scene-stealing in Inglourious, and probably would have found some room for Heath Ledger in Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus as well as Burghart Klausner for The White Ribbon.  And though it would never have happened in a million years, Jim Broadbent in Harry Potter as Professor Slughorn (I loved the fish scene so much!) would have rounded out the nominees.

Oscar’s Choice: Oscar couldn’t deny Waltz (no one really could), though I wonder who was in second place.  My heart says Harrelson, though I shudder that it might have been Tucci.

My Choice: Oh Waltz, obviously (he would have won for me over all actors that year in this category).  Harrelson is a clear second, with Plummer, Damon, and Tucci finishing things off.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Does anyone vote against Christoph Waltz over one of these contenders?  Can anyone defend Stanley Tucci’s inclusion?  And which actor had the best supporting actor performance of 2009?  Share in the comments below!

Also in 2009: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2009

Past Best Supporting Actor Contests: 2010, 2011, 2012

OVP: Supporting Actor (2011)

OVP: Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees Were...

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

My Thoughts: And now, it's time for the four categories people tend to most discuss the-those of the actors.  There are always performances to be heralded in each of the four lineups (or at least, there were performances given throughout the year worth heralding in the lineups), but of the four categories, this is probably the one I most often disagree with Oscar on when it comes to their nominations.  Because of the demographics of the Academy, while Supporting Actress oftentimes celebrates the ingenues struggling to make it big in the industry, this category is typically reserved for the veterans of the industry-the marquee stars of yesteryear who are now playing fathers and grandfathers, and no longer get the roles they once coveted.  It will oftentimes ignore the character actors in the middle or beginnings of their careers, and more so than the other three categories, feels too often like an "Honorary Award."  The lineup is typically not quite as lopsided as this one (Kenneth Branagh, at 51, is the second youngest of these nominees), but you see my point in most years of the Oscars.  It's a true pity, because some of my favorite performances in a given year would qualify in this race, but Oscar rarely decides to go that direction.

Let's start out then, with the two eldest statesman of this lineup-Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow.  Plummer has embraced almost every role Shakespeare ever wrote outside of Lady Macbeth, and has appeared in dozens upon dozens of films, but is most well-known to audiences as the man with the whistle, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (a film he famously detested).  In 2009, he got a consolation prize of sorts when he was nominated for playing Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station, a huge relief for the Academy, who had long been harangued for not nominating this legendary actor (Donald Sutherland and Mia Farrow-there's always hope!).  At the time, it didn't seem like he would be returning so quickly (or ever) to the Kodak Theatre, but he defied expectations with the independent dramedy Beginners.

Plummer's character is a long-closeted gay man who, after many decades of seemingly happy marriage to his wife, comes out to his son after his wife's death.  The film follows Plummer's late-in-life declaration of his sexuality, as well as his son's (Ewan McGregor) coping with his father's new path and decaying health.  Plummer brings a real sense of happiness to his role, something not always easy to do onscreen.  Dying is easy, comedy is hard has long been a saying, but it may just as well be depressed is easy, keeping happy interesting is impossible.  Plummer's decaying health gives him a few great speech moments, but it's the happiness that is probably the hardest thing he's doing onscreen, as we get to celebrate the joy of being who you are, even if we find our youth-oriented brains wondering "why now?"  I was not of the group who thought this was a cosmic, brilliant sort of turn (it's well-acted, to be sure, but I don't quite push the button toward Oscar-worthy), but it's nice to see an actor of Plummer's talents still being challenged onscreen in his 80's.

Max von Sydow is also being challenged in his 80's in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Von Sydow is most well-known to audiences today as one of Ingmar Bergman's muses and the father in Pelle the Conqueror (his only other Oscar nomination), but he's continued working steadily during a time-of-life that most people are golfing in Palm Springs (most recently, he wowed as the father in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).  This film was deservedly much-maligned, and while I won't get into that too much now (I'll reserve judgment when we discuss its bizarre Best Picture nomination), von Sydow is not the issue.  I spent so much of this film hoping that Thomas Horn and his nails-on-the-chalkboard performance would lead us to any of the other actors onscreen, and though I didn't get this reward (he stayed the entire film), he at least brought excellent performers out, particularly in the form of von Sydow.  His mute old man with a mysterious past is a rich, complicated performance that has no business in a film this one-dimensional and treacly.  While von Sydow is limited in how much of an impact he can make with Horn's loud performance taking up much of the onscreen air, his weathered glances and searches for approval and internal conflict over human connection are far-and-away the best part of this terrible movie.

Another senior citizen of the screen, gaining his third nomination for Warrior, is Nick Nolte.  Not many actors have gone through more transformations than Nolte, a one-time screen star and "Sexiest Man Alive" who became a tabloid joke after his drunk driving arrest in 2002.  Few people expected him to attempt a comeback, but he did just that as the drunk, abusive father in this sports film.  Nolte gives the long, tedious film a shot in the arm, but is ultimately far too one-dimensional for me to take serious as a legitimate contender for the "best" of the year.  Nolte has given some incredible performances before, particularly in Affliction, but this is a case where the role was nominated rather than the shaky, sometimes workable performance.  And also, for the record, just because someone mumbles their way through a movie it doesn't mean that they're doing Brando-level work.

Kenneth Branagh has one of the strangest histories ever with Oscar-he is the first person to ever be nominated in five separate categories, and he did it in five nominations-Best Actor and Director (Henry V), Live Action Short Film (Swan Song), Adapted Screenplay (Hamlet), and in this category for My Week with Marilyn.  For an actor who has spent much of his career being favorably compared to the greatest of all modern Shakespearean actors, Laurence Olivier, it seems either genius or stunt casting to put him in that role in this film about the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.  Either way, the casting is serviceable, though it limits the hammy Branagh a bit.  I have to admit that I was so spellbound by Williams in this film (not necessarily due to her performance, since she's always good and typically better, but because she does a marvelous Marilyn transformation) that Branagh sort of falls by the wayside, and nothing about his performance calls out to me.  He gets meaty, over-the-top readings throughout the film, but it doesn't translate to great acting.  About the only scene where he works is his "little girl lost" soliloquy, but one strong speech from one of the world's finest Shakespearean actors is not enough to warrant inclusion in this category.

As you may have guessed, even by the standards of this not being my favorite Oscar acting category, this is not a lineup I'm at all happy with, and that unfortunately doesn't stop when AMPAS includes a token "guy under 40" to fill out the category, Jonah Hill in Moneyball.  I have to hand it to Hill, who managed to be one of the first guys of my generation to score an Oscar nomination, and he was not one of the ones I was ever expecting to make it (and neither were you, let's be honest) and is not an actor I greatly anticipate making it here again (note that he's the only one of the five actors I'm not ready to give his own tag).  He manages to luck into the second biggest role in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, and has a wonderful screen partner in Pitt, who is doing his cocky excellence thing in this movie.  Hill's character has little depth, and aside from strong one-liners and a true chemistry with Pitt, there's nothing exceptional about this role or performance.  It was a nice way to round out a weak lineup with an actor who seems like a nice guy, but it, and I sound like a broken record at this point, is not Oscar-worthy.

Other Precursor Contenders: Like writing, acting has a treasure trove of contenders to deal with, so we'll just stick to the Globes, the BAFTA's, and the SAG Awards.  The Globes, always a bit more star heavy, skipped von Sydow and Nolte, instead going for Viggo Mortenson's calculating Dr. Freud in A Dangerous Method and Albert Brooks cold-hearted villain in Drive.  BAFTA also kicked out Nolte and von Sydow, though they favored Philip Seymour Hoffman's exhausted campaign official in The Ides of March and hometown favorite Jim Broadbent playing Denis Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  Finally, the SAG Awards kept all but von Sydow in their lineup, instead favoring the closeted lover that Armie Hammer portrays in J. Edgar.

Performances I Would Have Nominated: Here's where my anger at this category really lights up, because there were excellent performances in supporting roles last year worth honoring.  Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken are a heartbreaking father-and-son in The Tree of Life.  Pitt, in particular, is giving the best performance of his career as a domineering, unsuccessful husband-and-father.  There's also John Hawkes creepy and intoxicating cult leader in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene that would have been a fine choice after his worthy inclusion for Winter's Bone.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar loves a comeback and honoring a celebrated and elderly thespian, and the precursor onslaught showered upon Christopher Plummer made this an easy landslide decision for the Academy.

My Choice: As I've mentioned, I probably wouldn't have included any of these five men in my personal lineup, and Pitt or Hawkes would have been such an easy decision.  However, I have to work within the confines of the game, which means that von Sydow beats out Plummer for the trophy.  Von Sydow's work is a bit more effective and he has a much more difficult film to be able to excel in than Plummer.  Third place goes to Branagh, and I'll give Hill the slot just above Nolte.

And now, what about you-which of these five gentlemen deserved to win Best Supporting Actor?  Who was wrongfully snubbed in the category?  And of all of the performances of the year, who most deserved Best Supporting Actor of 2011?

Also in 2011: Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, 2011 Recap