Best Actor - some thoughts

For those following the Oscars, which should be all of you, you may have noticed that it seems the five nominees for Best Actor have been all but sewn up for the best part of a month. This would normally be unimaginable. It's usually Best Actress which you can put your house on predicting 100% correctly, but not this year.

Ask around and the majority of people will tell you that these will be the five Best Actor nominees:

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

The thing is, it's hard to pick just who misses out if someone comes in to get a surprise nomination. Bridges is the favourite to win so it won't be him, and until Bridges came along Clooney was the early favourite, so you would think he'd be safe.

I've never been convinced about Colin Firth, but that might be because I've never been a fan. I've been puzzled by some early talk by pundits and blog commenters saying that Firth is overdue for a nomination. Firth is a lot of things, but overdue for a nomination isn't one of them. I struggled to think of what film he could have been nominated for, and after looking at his filmography on IMDB I was even more confused. Still, he's considered a lock for a nomination even though there's a very real chance his will be the film's only nomination.

Jeremy Renner is shaping up to be the previously unknown actor who manages to get nominated. We see at least one every year. They rarely, if ever, win, but it's always nice to see it happen. He's another lock. I'm thinking he could be like another sort-of-unknown (well, to the great unwashed anyway) actor who people thought would be nominated for a film which was winning every major critics awards leading up to the nominations. That man was Paul Giamatti for Sideways.

The one person who I think might miss out, who I think is the most vulnerable, is Morgan Freeman. The film wasn't really that popular with those who saw it and people seem to just be taking it for granted that he'll get a nomination. I haven't seen the film so he may well deserve to get in, but I think if anyone misses out it will be him.

So who would replace whoever misses out? It could be Viggo Mortensen for The Road. Tobey Maguire got a surprise Golden Globe nomination for Brothers, but I don't see that happening. Matt Damon has a lot of supporters for The Informant! but Oscar buzz pretty much died as soon as the film was released. Michael Stuhlbarg's chances plummeted as soon as A Serious Man's poor showing with the critics awards became apparent.

There are two others I'll mention. District 9 seems to have a lot of support - I'm putting it down for a few nominations, including Best Picture and (against my better judgement) Best Director - and since its release quite a few people have thought that perhaps Sharlto Copley could get in. If the Academy is full of fans of The A-Team then maybe they could nominate him in anticipation for his turn as Murdoch, but then Mr T didn't get much buzz for D.C. Cab way back when, so I'm not sure if this theory will pan out.

The last one is one of the most critically acclaimed performances of the year, but almost everyone is assuming it won't happen. I'm not sure why - something about Sony not sending out screeners or something? - but it would be a damn shame if Sam Rockwell isn't nominated for his simply awesome work in Moon. If I didn't know better I'd give him the fifth slot straight away. But I do know better. I know the Academy can't think for themselves and need to be spoon-fed names and films to nominate, and it sounds like Sam Rockwell and Moon weren't included.