Serious Contenders:
George Clooney - The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio - J Edgar
No-one has seen Clint Eastwood's J Edgar Hoover biopic, but based solely on the strong reputation of its Director and Star, as well as the persona and reportedly sordid private life of the famous FBI Director, as penned by Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black
(Milk), the Best Actor Oscar is already considered his to lose. Of course its far too early to make such predictions, performance unseen, and early hype can be difficult to live up to, but provided the film delivers, the match of character and actor should play right into Oscar's hands.
Jean Dujardin -The Artist
The Cannes Best Actor winner is the charming centre of a film the Academy is sure to love - a sweet, old-school black-&-white silent film about show business & movie making. He won over the french and, unless the film flops in the States, is sure to charm his way onto many Academy voters' ballots.
Gary Oldman - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Simply because George Smiley is such an intriguing literary character, Cold War espionage dramas are so easy to like and because Gary Oldman, despite shifting from raging psychos (
Leon) to gentle law-enforcers
(The Dark Knight), has never been an Oscar nominee. Not once. Not even for
Sid & Nancy,
Prick Up Your Ears,
JFK or
The Contender, not to mention his long-list of iconic crazies & oddballs.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy gives him the chance to lead a large, fantastic cast with a subtle complex performance. Time will tell if it will be enough.
I frankly don't know why Brad Pitt's performance in
Moneyball is being considered Oscar-potential. He has made good movies post-
Troy, and has stretched himself as an actor, but this true story of a Baseball manager's apparently revolutionary endeavor to select players based on computer-generated statistics, and upset the order of the Baseball world, seems highly underwhelming. The only things backing up the excitement is the involvement of
Capote director Bennet Miller and last year's Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin, as co-writer. Pitt will, of course, bring on the charm, the winning determination & the legendary smile and Terrence Mallick's
Tree of Life will ensure he is already on everyone's radar, but I still don't see it being one of the year's strongest performances.
Ryan Gosling - Drive / The Ides of March
Gosling's intense, understated & largely silent performance in
Drive seems destined to be an iconic standout in his already-impressive resume, but it could be too edgy / subtle / cool for Academy voters. His lead performance in George Clooney's political thriller
Ides of March is yet to be seen but has all the makings of an Oscar-friendly journey from idealism to compromise. Gosling is an exceptional young actor who was overlooked for his astonishing performance in last year's
Blue Valentine but is fast becoming impossible to ignore.
Michael Fassbender - Shame / Dangerous Method / Jane Eyre
Michael Fassbender burned his way to critical acclaim as Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's 2008 hunger strike drama,
Hunger, and into the public consciousness as slick, doomed Lt Archie Hicox in Tarantino's
Inglorious Basterds. And he has been very busy since. Just this year, he has impressed critics as the bitter man who becomes Magneto in
X-Men: First Class, an intense and untamed Rochester in
Jane Eyre, and groundbreaking psychoanalyst Carl Jung in David
Cronenberg's psychological drama,
A Dangerous Method. But it was his turn as Brandon, a troubled sex addict negotiating endless sexual escapades & his complicated relationship with his troubled sister (Carey Mulligan) in Steve McQueen's latest,
Shame, that saw him win Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and step into the Oscar golden circle. Provided voters can stomach the edgy subject matter, his performance in
Shame is sure to put him on the map.
Maybe Contenders:
Michael Fassbender burned his way to critical acclaim as Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's 2008 hunger strike drama, Hunger, and into the public consciousness as slick, doomed Lt Archie Hicox in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. And he has been very busy since. Just this year, he has impressed critics as the bitter man who becomes Magneto in X-Men: First Class, an intense and untamed Rochester in Jane Eyre, and groundbreaking psychoanalyst Carl Jung in David
Ralph Fiennes finally gets to inhabit Voldemort in all his glory, and he delivers a strange, eerie beast indeed. Never lacking in menace, he gains much traction from always keeping the dark lord eccentric, left of centre and dangerously unpredictable. Danielle Radcliffe faces off against him with his usual grit and intensity. The film's biggest emotional blow, however, does not come from the heat of battle or in the long-awaited face off between Harry & Voldemort, but when Yates takes a side step to tell Snape's full story. It is a stirring yarn that finally puts a lid on the serious, sinister and ambiguous Severus Snape, and Alan Rickman plays it perfectly, as always. Of all the epic things that take place, it is Snape's story that resonated the most when leaving the theatre.
In terms of the source novels, Rowling shows how carefully and well plotted her series was by bringing together all the strands she set up in her previous novels. The one thing I felt she underused is the Deathly Hallows of the title, although they feature prominently, their impact could have been made far more significant. Yates, too, falters slightly in failing to clearly explain the significance of the Elder Wand's allegiances, despite carefully setting up the sequence of events that determine its ultimate fate as far back as the Half-Blood Prince. He also introduces a subplot about Dumbledore's family history that serves to illustrate Rowling's consistent commitment to well-rounded heroes & villains who are neither purely good or purely evil (even Voldemort is portrayed as being lost, hurt & without love, rather than simply evil), but is never taken further or concluded.
