It's not set in silver, gold or stone, but here are a few
predictions about who the Best Actor nominees will be come the third week of
January when the nominees for the 80th Annual Academy Awards are announced.
The Awards will be broadcast live on Sunday, February 24, 2008.
So when January rolls around the actors that are expected to be on Academy
voters' ballots will be those below. The campaigning in Hollywood will
begin for these following five leading gentlemen in the 2007 film year:
2007 was an astonishing year in film for Josh Brolin -- five films and
remarkable performances, especially in "American Gangster" and "No Country For
Old Men", both of which were initially released in early November 2007.
Mr. Brolin has risen dramatically after more than 20 years of big screen
performances, and his leading work in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's powerful
cat-and-mouse drama made a lot of waves. Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, a man
with nothing to lose. He is hardly a good-guy, more an opportunist in
fact, and Mr. Brolin straddles the line between good and bad oh-so delicately.
Moss's shades of gray are always on display. He steals money, remains
resolutely faithful to his wife, and leaves an ailing man to his own devices
when help would have been easier. Moss is roguish, sly, and wily, and Mr.
Brolin grants him an air of invincibility that appears arrogant and
unrestrained, even though Moss's confidence is hardly cocky. The wheels
are turning furiously within Moss, and Josh Brolin camouflages the character's
insecurities so well that even when Moss's back is up against the wall he seems
undaunted by the circumstances. Mr. Brolin's Moss spends large periods of
time in solitude, which requires him to be silent, which makes it difficult as
an actor to constantly be reacting to things that are internally based or just
not physically present. Mr. Brolin reacts to fear, suspense, tension while
giving Moss an unbridled fearlessness, and within the rhythms of the Coen
Brothers' film, his acting fits like a hand in a glove.
"Michael Clayton" was an impressive film telling several stories -- a
multi-layered exercise which will be remembered more for the riddle of those
three horses than it will for its overall impact as a morality tale, and what
better place to play out ethical dramas than the legal profession? George
Clooney stepped in to the title role as a big New York City firm lawyer and
stepped up with a performance that is more complex than first meets the eye.
To appreciate Mr. Clooney's fine work here as an attorney who has to put out a
nasty fire when one of his veteran colleagues has a meltdown on a billion-dollar
class action suit while he wrestles with his own demons, you must watch the
ending of the film, including the end credits, and watch the film twice to catch
the acting nuances. Mr. Clooney has to be a flawed man of justice trapped
in an adulterated world, while seeking a semblance of innocence and naivete, the
type that he can credibly translate both to his onscreen son and to the audience
who is watching him do this. Clooney also has to tone down the sleekness
of some of his other onscreen roles (ie, the "Ocean's" films) and unvarnish
himself here, and he does so in the same way that he did in "Syriana" in 2005, a
film for which he won a supporting actor Oscar. "Michael Clayton" requires
Mr. Clooney's character to be a storyteller while rewriting (or erasing) the
script of that story (or another story) at the same time. There is a
moment where he weighs a key decision as he goes home to his son, and it is
priceless acting.
Action figure is what the Academy has recognized in this category over the
years, whether it be "Spartacus" or "Gladiator", and some of the Academy's older
members won't mind obliging James Mangold's remake of the 1957 film "3:10 To
Yuma". Russell Crowe, already an Oscar winner for "Gladiator", displays a
range of nuance as cold-blooded killer, psychological mind-game player, seducer,
charmer and renegade outlaw Ben Wade, a fugitive from justice. Mr. Crowe
weighs in with a muscular performance, mixing charisma, menace and malice and
selecting each as if a human jukebox. He turns on a dime, a changeling in
each of those three departments. Mr. Crowe makes Wade an appealing figure
-- you know you shouldn't like him, but you do. It's a Crowe performance
that is new, different and at times compelling, compelling in the same kind of
way that Robert Mitchum was when he played heavies with relish and zeal.
There were times when Mr. Mitchum was not always liked among some in Hollywood,
and Mr. Crowe received some backlash from the Academy in 2002 after engaging in
some highly-publicized extra-curricular activities which probably cost him a
second lead acting Oscar in succession (for his role as mathematician John Nash
in "A Beautiful Mind".) Mr. Crowe is a galvanizing force in "Yuma", and as
Ben Wade there isn't a single moment where his gravity isn't felt throughout Mr.
Mangold's film -- even when he's not onscreen, he always seems to be lurking.
This veteran of stage, screen and television is assured of an Oscar nomination
in this category, and perhaps Frank Langella will also take home Oscar, for his
performance as Leonard Schiller, an award-winning New York City writer whose
career is flagging, due in part to a ten-year-labor of love -- a novel -- which
he is still trying to complete. Mr. Langella is grand as Schiller, a man
who is lonely but stubbornly resigned to keeping it that way, especially when a
graduate student is interested in doing her thesis on his prolific works.
Mr. Langella plays him as a sheltered introvert, but opinionated and decisive.
The character of Schiller is quiet and humble, but he flickers passionately in
silence, whether at the hint of romance that may alter his life and career, or
in the intricacies of family and the daughter he loves so dearly even as he
vehemently disagrees with her relationships choices. Langella retains an
equilibrium in Schiller, giving him a tender, warm bright light. There is
a glow within him that is statesmanlike and unconquered. There's a scene
in which Schiller says very little -- there are a few scenes where he says very
little -- but there is one in particular where his eyes and his silence do all
the talking. There's a power in this one singular moment that is very
heartfelt. It is difficult to describe just how strong Mr. Langella's
performance is, but watching him at work in ways small and meticulous in
"Starting Out In The Evening", it is hard not to see something very special
unfolding.
Frank Lucas is charismatic, as is Denzel Washington, and the two-time Academy
Award winner dons the guise of Mr. Lucas, who was once the most notorious drug
kingpin in the United States, Harlem's premiere businessman, albeit in the
culture of death and addiction. Mr. Washington takes the flamboyance of
Lucas and tones it down considerably in Ridley Scott's scintillating film, but
he also wields a fearsome power by using his charisma in the most powerful and
tense moments of "American Gangster", making Frank Lucas just as dangerous as
his reputation suggested. A role like this could invite a certain amount
of theatricality, but a stage-thespian like Mr. Washington resists such a
tempting enterprise, letting the situation of theater come to his character.
There are three moments in the film where this strategy comes through so well
and despite the immense tension, there is lots of laughter. Mr. Lucas'
complexity as a figure who had his own family structure intact while destroying
so many other families through the sale of drugs to communities near and far, is
given full voice by Mr. Washington, and his fire is not quenched even in the
most subtle moments shared with Russell Crowe's morally-flawed pursuing
detective character Richie Roberts. Since Mr. Washington essentially
shares screen time with Mr. Crowe, one might argue that Denzel Washington's
performance isn't one that should be in the leading role category, but when Mr.
Washington is on screen the stage and the film are unmistakably his. He is
the film's center, the one from whom the events emanate and the actor's
influence and strength are, as usual, undiluted.
