OVP: Actor (2018)

OVP: Best Actor (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Christian Bale, Vice

Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born

Willem Dafoe, At Eternity's Gate

Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen, Green Book

My Thoughts: Oscar should always be a starting point when it comes to film & an appreciation of it.  Many classic movie fans use Oscar as a guide into this world, as he presents an overview of what the public & the industry thought was work worth highlighting in a given year.  But he shouldn't be taken as a grand authority on film itself, because there are times that he gets it so wrong as to be flabbergasted.  2018's Best Actor lineup is, for me, potentially the worst acting lineup in the history of the Academy.  With one exception, none of these are even good performances, much less award-worthy, and I have spent much of our 2018 OVP dreading having to get into these men & the ridiculousness of a lineup which could've been exponentially better.

We're going to start with Willem Dafoe not because he's noteworthy, but because he's the easiest of the quartet of lackluster performances to forgive.  That's partially because no one really thought this nomination would happen-Dafoe was cited by the Globes, but that felt like a "we love a celebrity" scenario more than anything.  Dafoe's work is rudimentary.  He plays van Gogh sensitively, but is lost in a gimmicky movie that had just had its gimmick utilized better in the animated Loving Vincent.  As a result, you leave wanting more from Dafoe, a terrific actor who otherwise has had solid runs with Oscar in terms of his nominations.  Let's just forget this even happened (I suspect Dafoe has).

It's harder to forget Christian Bale in Vice.  Bale as Cheney is a weird decision.  Obviously the handsome Bale doesn't resemble the Mr. Potter-villain that is Dick Cheney one physical iota, so you'd hope that Adam McKay would have seen something in Bale's persona that would lift Cheney, rather than just being a second nomination for the makeup team.  That's not the case.  Cheney feels like a cartoon, never really admitting the reasoning behind his ruthlessness, just that he happens to be ruthless-Vice is a sloppy movie, and Bale as its main player should hold a bunch of the blame there.  I still think this is mostly the fault of the writers, but he couldn't find a way to use his deep introversion onscreen to more impressive affect, and so I left lost as to the celebration of this man.

Viggo Mortensen, like Willem Dafoe, would probably prefer to forget this nomination even happened.  Eastern Promises and Captain Fantastic are both movies that I was middling on, but at least they are movies that have pockets of support around the internet.  Mortensen brings some physicality to his Tony, but there's not enough going on underneath, which is strange because Mortensen (like Bale) has made a career out of well-playing the strong, silent type into three-dimensionality.  If you know me at all, you know I'm not impressed by physicality as a rule, and that's not enough for me to get behind Mortensen even though he brings something to his character in a way a few of these nominees don't.

Bradley Cooper is the one performance in this lineup that is going to encounter "but what about's..." from anyone reading who sees "worst lineup ever" and protests.  Cooper is solid in A Star is Born, much better than his costars.  He does such intricate character work with mirroring the mannerisms of Sam Elliott (the true younger brother, trying to be his own idealized version of his hero), and the way that he plays Jackson as a man who has been famous for so long it takes genuine work for him to understand what is real & what is mirage as the movie continues.  He also, especially in the film's first half, has solid chemistry with Lady Gaga.  This is Cooper's best performance to date, and it's probably the performance that will win him an Oscar someday (even though it would've been easier had AMPAS just given him the Oscar here for the actual performance).

But instead they gave it to Rami Malek, a man who I wonder if he'd have preferred to have just lost at this point.  Malek's win is so maligned that it's easy to risk hyperbole, but I'll be honest-other than make George Arliss in Disraeli, you'd be hard-pressed to find a worse lead actor winner.  Malek doesn't do his own singing, so he starts out with a deficit, and then takes it from there.  A movie that seems hell-bent on condemning Malek's character despite him being the assumed hero, Malek can't ground him in anything-there's no understanding of Freddie Mercury's sexuality, of his drive, of his vanity.  Malek uses his expressive eyes as often as he can, but getting a look right doesn't give your character a soul.  The film is offensive, long, & gross...Malek's work as Freddie might not always cause those descriptors, but it adds another one: boring.

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 gave us the victorious Malek, beating out Cooper, Dafoe, Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased), and John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), while Comedy/Musical went to Bale over Mortensen, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns), Robert Redford (The Old Man & the Gun), and John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie).  SAG also favored Malek, with an exact replica of the Oscar lineup except Dafoe is ousted for Washington, while BAFTA did a similar trick, having Malek on top and Dafoe beaten for Steve Coogan of Stan & Ollie.  In terms of sixth place, you have to assume it was John David Washington, inexplicably missing for BlacKkKlansman, though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ethan Hawke in First Reformed, which had a lot of buzz throughout the season even if it went nowhere.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: We will get to "My Ballot" next week, so I'm not giving away anything quite yet, other than to tell you to stay tuned, as I pick an entirely different lineup from Oscar (all five new names coming).

Oscar’s Choice: Malek won in a landslide, a win that even on the night looked like it would age poorly.  In a different universe they would've realized the error of their ways sooner & gotten Cooper the trophy they'll eventually be forced to give him.

My Choice: Cooper, and it's not a close contest (Cooper, for the record, will be my seventh place for 2018 showing just how far off I am from Oscar).  Follow him with Mortensen, Dafoe, Bale, & Malek, though really everyone other than Cooper has just earned embarrassment.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you joining me on Team Bradley Cooper, or does Malek still have his defenders?  Anyone have any explanation how Dafoe ended up here for a movie so few people saw?  And is this Oscar's weakest lineup ever?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2018: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

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

OVP: Actor (2016)

OVP: Best Actor (2016)

The Nominees Were...

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

My Thoughts: We move forward with the 2016 Oscars this week into Best Actor, a contest that was far more competitive at-the-time than it looks in hindsight, considering Casey Affleck ended up with the trophy that most assumed he'd win the day Manchester by the Sea came out.  Part of that had to do with Affleck's personal problems, but I also do think even in a normal year we would have seen two of these men start to pop in a way that we hadn't before in terms of "competitiveness."

One of those two guys is Denzel Washington.  Washington is a strange bird in that he regularly works in commercial fare, and yet is never punished for it when it comes to the Oscars.  Most actors (looking at you Tom Cruise, but Tom Hanks would also fit into this bill) who toe-the-line between commercial and artistic fare occasionally are snubbed for their returns to Oscar-bait films, perhaps to say "don't take it for granted you can always come back" but that's not the case for Washington, who always makes it back.  Even if he was being punished, it's hard to imagine that happening for Fences, where he brings a fire and fortitude to his Troy Maxson that makes you think it was almost written for him (and not a thirty-year old play).  There are moments where Washington should modulate his performance (remembering, perhaps, that he is not playing to a standing-room only audience at the Cort), but in the scenes where he's great (like "the daughter" scene), he's giving some of the best work of his career.

The other actor who conceivably could have dethroned Affleck is Ryan Gosling in La La Land.  People talk about how Leonardo DiCaprio was going to be the "next Paul Newman," frequently dismissed despite putting in killer work for years, but doesn't it feel like Gosling fits that fate more?  Gosling somehow can't even get nominated for his best work (Blue Valentine, Drive, First Man).  Gosling tries to capture the mood of La La Land, and in his acting he does that.  There's a sense of the mood that Chazelle was trying to accomplish there.  Unfortunately, in a movie that wants us to indulge in numerous flights-of-fancy, the singing isn't up-to-snuff, and as a result I never got into this the way that other people do, even though I give Gosling's work overall a thumbs up and love him as an actor in general.

Gosling & Washington both were obvious threats for the win, but that doesn't mean that Affleck wasn't deserving.  An actor of tics and nervous introversion (so different than the bravado confidence of his brother Ben), Affleck is perfectly cast in Manchester by the Sea as a man who cannot get past the grief of his family dying in a fire, even when he is given a new chance to be a savior for his young nephew.  The scenes with Michelle Williams late in the movie are my favorite part of the film, and of Affleck's performance, the inability of him to forgive himself showing in his face, because that would be to acknowledge that life could move on-it's a heartbreaking performance, fully-realized, and the best thing he's done in his career.

The last two nominees are more after-thoughts, though considering the lock-step aspects of this lineup through the precursors, they obviously had their champions.  Mortensen gets the more difficult part, as a mountain man who is raising a young family on the outskirts of society (a weird companion piece to Leave No Trace two years later, though this one has more room for levity).  His performance hinges on being able to convince the audience that he is doing the "right thing" by his family, even if that right thing comes with too much tunnel vision about what is also "right for him."  The movie itself I didn't love, but I don't put that as much on Mortensen's lead performance, which is interesting if occasionally not revealing enough about what he's feeling (which is crucial for the late scenes to achieve emotional payoff).  The actor who once adorned posters in the dorms of young men everywhere continues to pave perhaps the weirdest post-LOTR career with this movie, and considering it got him an Oscar nomination, perhaps the most fruitful?

Doesn't it feel like Andrew Garfield has been waiting for this Oscar nomination way longer than he actually has?  His citation for Hacksaw Ridge was yes, part of that film's stampede, but also a long road from when he nearly made it for The Social Network.  I have talked about how, while I didn't like Hacksaw Ridge, I didn't hate it like many online critics seemed to, and I think a lot of Garfield's best moments are from Gibson forcing a narrative on him, making his work elevate because Gibson is showing "this is important" in big bold letters through the editing, cinematography, and sound design.  The earlier scenes, the ones outside of an action lens & the ones Gibson just view as a means-to-an-end, are terrible, and Garfield doesn't know how to play this version of his Desmond Doss work.  This isn't Garfield's best work, but it is nice to know he finally got his overdue Oscar nomination if his career never fully realizes its initial promise.

Other Precursor Contenders: We start with the Globes, which distinguish between Drama and "Comedy/Musical," and as a result have ten men on our ballot.  The dramatic men included victorious Casey Affleck, besting Garfield, Mortensen, Washington, and Joel Edgerton in Fences; Comedy/Musical was an easy lift for Ryan Gosling, the only Oscar nominee of the bunch, against Colin Farrell (The Lobster), Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins), Jonah Hill (War Dogs...one of those Golden Globe-nominated films I have absolutely no memory of existing), and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool).  SAG went with a carbon copy of Oscar, though they picked Denzel Washington for the win, likely at that point trying to give Oscar an out considering some of the #MeToo stories that were swirling about Affleck at the time.  BAFTA went to Affleck, and here it was Washington oddly enough snubbed (it is, at the end of the day a pretty American story, but Viola Davis won so I don't know what was happening here), and including Jake Gyllenhaal for Nocturnal Animals.  Sixth place in retrospect feels like a distant sixth, but at the time Mortensen's film, which was really under-seen felt vulnerable, either to Edgerton or Reynolds (there were a lot of people pulling for Deadpool at the last minute).

Actors I Would Have Nominated: First off, Garfield is nominated for the wrong movie.  I'm glad that we finally have an Oscar nomination for a very fine actor, but his superior work in 2016 was in Silence, not Hacksaw Ridge.  I would have also included Trevante Rhodes, for playing the third quarter of Moonlight so beautifully; that scene in the cafe alone warranted an Oscar nomination.  And honestly, I'd probably rely on two films that almost no one saw for my final two citations.  Adam Driver is always excellent these days, but his work in Paterson shouldn't be ignored-this sweet, kind, slightly strange movie is so effective because of his sensitive work.  Finally, I love what Logan Lerman did in Indignation.  I know he kind of got Bryce Dallas Howard/Jessica Chastain'd by Timothee Chalamet in recent years, but he's a promising actor who has now had three truly great performances this decade (along with Perks of Being a Wallflower and Fury)-at what point do people start giving him acknowledgement?

Oscar’s Choice: I think this was pretty close between Affleck (who made the most sense on-paper), Washington (whom I believe I predicted at the time because there was a movement going against Affleck), and Gosling (whom I also thought might be a decent winner at the time considering he hadn't won yet and his winning someday feels inevitable), but it was Affleck's work that won.

My Choice: This is a first for me, and sadly not a last.  My winner is Casey Affleck, and for the purposes of this series (where we are focused solely on the performances at hand and not careers or makeup Oscars or the personal lives of the actors), he is the official winner.  However, if I had an actual real world ballot, I would have probably voted for my second place Denzel Washington considering the sexual harassment allegations against Affleck at the time.  But for this series, it's Affleck, Washington, Gosling, Mortensen, and Garfield, in that order.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you think that Washington or Gosling had a legit shot at besting Affleck here?  Do you think this is the end-of-the-line for Andrew Garfield (who has fallen into less-seen productions since Hacksaw Ridge), or will he sneak back for a second nomination?  And has anyone actually seen War Dogs-is it any good?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2016: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2016

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

OVP: Green Book (2018)

Film: Green Book (2018)
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini
Director: Peter Farrelly
Oscar History: 5 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture*, Original Screenplay*, Actor-Viggo Mortensen, Supporting Actor-Mahershala Ali*, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Like I said this morning, we are going to be getting all of the 2018 Oscar-nominated films (that I've seen and somehow didn't get around to reviewing) onto the blog over the next two weeks.  This is part of a bit of housekeeping around the blog, as I'm currently preparing for four consecutive OVP features (finishing up 2015, and I'm nearly completed viewing of 2016-18 so we'll be able to do them all back-to-back), which will last us right up until the end of the year.  If we're going to do the 2018 films, though, perhaps no movie is in more need of a review than Green Book, the film that actually emerged triumphant from the 2018 Oscars, though that's probably something you wish you could forget.  But if we're going to discuss the year, we can't skip out on it, so let's dive into the movie the Academy thought the finest of last year.

(Spoilers Ahead...though it's real life, so you know, pay attention) The movie is based on the real-life relationship between "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (Mortensen), a New York City bouncer, and Don Shirley (Ali), a renowned African-American pianist who wants to take a tour through the American South, likely going to play in restaurants and clubs where he wouldn't even be allowed to be a patron.  The film shows them developing an unlikely friendship, with Tony trying to ease Shirley into being more "relaxed" while Shirley showing Tony dignity and helps him romance his wife through letters.  The film also focuses on the racism of the era, and to a very small degree the homophobia (there is a scene in the picture where Shirley is arrested for having sex with another man at the YMCA).  The film ends with Shirley performing in a black club, one that would actually serve him, and joining Tony for Christmas at his New York City home, showing that they have emerged from this working relationship as friends.

There's a lot to unpack with Green Book, but I'm going to start with a confession-I get why an older, white audience probably liked this and it won the Oscar, even if I also understand why it shouldn't have.  Green Book is not Vice or Bohemian Rhapsody (man is the 2018 OVP going to be a slog to revisit-I promise not to make it one to read though)-this is a handsomely-made film with watchable actors and a script that makes structural sense & doesn't run overlong.  I'm not going to give it one-star, because I understand what makes a film good or bad if you remove the politics from the decision, and this is nowhere near as bad as those other two Best Picture nominees.

That said, the politics in this film are just cringeworthy and basically ruin whatever quality it tries to attain.  The movie has multiple scenes in the picture where a white man lectures a black man about not understanding the black experience-there are scenes where your shoulders will ark and you'll want to look away you're so confident there were no black people in the writing room that day.  The film received a lot of publicity for not contacting the family of Don Shirley, who proclaimed that most of the movie was lies (though, to be somewhat fair to Farrelly, he did hire the family of Vallelonga for his writing staff, albeit he should've checked both sides of the story here), particularly Shirley's distance from his family and that his relationship with Vallelonga was strictly professional.  The movie totally throws out the random nugget that Shirley is gay, and yet it doesn't remotely explore the idea that this careful, cautious man would randomly hook up with a guy in a YMCA locker room in the middle of the South (Shirley's real-life sexuality was never confirmed, and the YMCA scene was claimed as reality by Vallelonga, though not in as salacious of a way as is depicted in the movie).  This feels like a way to titillate the audience and make Vallelonga the hero once again in saving Shirley, but man does it come across as exploitive.

The movie's acting isn't particularly good, I'm going to be real here.  Mortensen comes across better, adding some physicality to his Tony, but both men are playing surface-level characters without really exploring what is going on underneath these real-life people.  Ali, who is a very fine actor and deserved his Oscar for Moonlight, totally botches his "screaming in the rain" scene, overplaying it and letting the filmmakers run roughshod over anything subtle he's put into Don until that point.  Neither deserved their Oscar nominations, and that Ali actually won for a clear lead performance is heinous.  The film is a cookie-cutter movie, one with a high-budget and enough seemingly well-intentioned warmth that you might forgive it some of its mistakes, but it's too egregious to forgive most of them.

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.

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