82nd Academy Awards Blogathon: Best Actor
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart, George Clooney – Up in the Air, Colin Firth – A Single Man, Morgan Freeman – Invictus, Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Every year these actor categories go one of two ways for me. Either there’s a hands down clear winner or I haven’t seen most of the films. This year, the Best Actor category is quite a fuzzy one, if not the most difficult of all the categories.
On one hand you have Jeff Bridges and his history of amazing acting coming off a Golden Globe win for Crazy Heart. On the other hand you have multiple Oscar winner Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mendela in Invictus, and we all know how much the Academy loves a depiction of a real person.
George Clooney is at his most Cary Grant-ish in Up in the Air showing us his unmatched ability to balance dialogue and emotion equally. Colin Firth has played pretty stiff and boring characters in the past, but is boasting strong acclaim for A Single Man.
Then there’s Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker. His role as the bomb defusing William James was probably the most demanding of all the roles nominated. The film documents the fine line between sanity and insanity of war, and how one can return to a previous life after having gone through life changing experiences. Personally, I can’t think of a single thing he, or any actor for that matter, could’ve done differently.
Each of the actors have such vastly different performances that it’s difficult to predict a winner. I’d say the two really contending for the statue is probably Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth. While Up in the Air is filled with pitch-perfect performances, none of them is a performance of a lifetime. I think George’s biggest downfall in the film is that we’re supposed to believe that he ever hailed from Nebraska. I think we all know that the only thing that originated in Nebraska was the act of dozing off.
Both Bridges and Firth have been honored with career defining roles. Unfortunately I haven’t seen either film, though A Single Man has one hell of a trailer. I think that it will ultimately go to Jeff Bridges as throughout his forty (or is it fifty now?) year career, he’s been nominated five times and hasn’t yet won. Plus, who doesn’t love the story of a broken down man trying to make a comeback in his later years?
But I believe Renner put together a cunning performance of a very complex character that deserves as much recognition as the film itself is getting. Without his presence, it would be a completely different film, and boy I don’t want that film to change one iota.
Prediction: Jeff Bridges
Personal Pick: Jeremy Renner
Vote
Tags: Academy Awards, Best Actor, Oscars, Predictions
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