Tuesday, December 20, 2011

84th Oscar Lead Actor Updates (12/21/11)

As last week’s precursor nominations were announced, there was a splattering of drama around the embargoes of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, but I have to wonder whether the real timing story was Gary Oldman. You see, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy premiered at Venice, opened in England and Ireland in September, spread to Israel and Poland in November, but didn’t hit the states until December, and even that was in limited release. I can’t help but wonder if Oldman would have had better luck if he hadn’t made the Americans wait. You know how spoiled we can be.

The interesting thing about this race is that I can imagine any of my five nominees winning it. Clooney won the National Board of Review, Pitt took New York, and Fassbender stole Los Angeles, while Dujardin is headlining the likely best picture winner and DiCaprio has the type of classic biopic role that the often steals the day.

Here are today’s rankings for the 84th Oscar Lead Actor race, with previous ranking shown in parenthesis after each entry.



1. George Clooney for The Descendants (Predicted Winner) (previous rank 2)
2. Brad Pitt for Moneyball (previous rank 5)
3. Jean Dujardin for The Artist (previous rank 3)
4. Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar (prevous rank 1)
5. Michael Fassbender for Shame (prevous rank 6)



Alternates:
6. Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (previous rank 4)
7. Michael Shannon for Take Shelter (previous rank 7)
8. Ryan Gosling for Drive (previous rank 10)
9. Demian Bichir for A Better Life (previous rank 16)
10. Ryan Gosling for The Ides Of March (previous rank 8)
11. Joseph Gordon-Levitt for 50/50 (previous rank 9)
12. Woody Harrelson for Rampart (previous rank 18)
13. Tom Hardy for Warrior (previous rank 11)
14. Michael Fassbender for A Dangerous Method (previous rank 13)
15. Owen Wilson in Midnight In Paris (previous rank 30)
16. Brendan Gleeson for The Guard (New)
17. Paul Giamatti for Win Win (previous rank 32)
18. Antonio Banderas for The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito) (previous rank 14)
19. Asa Butterfield for Hugo (previous rank 38)
20. Jeremy Irvine for War Horse (previous rank 15)
21. Joel Edgerton for Warrior (previous rank 17)
22. Matt Damon for We Bought A Zoo (previous rank 12)
23. Thomas Horn for Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (previous rank 23)
24. Kevin Spacey for Margin Call (New)
25. Gerard Butler for Coriolanus (New)

26. Brad Pitt for The Tree Of Life (previous rank 22)
27. John C. Reilly for Carnage (previous rank 20)
28. Chrisoph Waltz for Carnage (previous rank 25)
29. Ryan Gosling for Crazy Stupid Love (New)
30. Ralph Fiennes for Coriolanus (previous rank 21)
31. Hunter McCracken for The Tree Of Life (previous rank 24)
32. Laurence Fishburne for Contagion (previous rank 26)
33. Johnny Depp for The Rum Diary (previous rank 19)
34. Ewan McGregor for Beginners (previous rank 35)
35. Christian Bale for The Flowers Of War (previously listed in 85th Oscar race, rank 26)
36. Dominic Cooper for The Devil’s Double (previous rank 34)
37. Matt Damon for Contagion (previous rank 36)
38. Anton Yelchin for Like Crazy (previous rank 27)
39. Daniel Craig for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (previous rank 28)
40. Peter Mullan for Tyrannosaur (previous rank 44)
41. Tom Cullen for Weekend (New)
42. Chris New for Weekend (New)
43. Michael Fassbender for Jane Eyre (previous rank 47)
44. Oliver Litondo for The First Grader (New)
45. Peyman Moaadi for A Separation (New)
46. Eddie Redmayne for My Week With Marilyn (previous rank 43)
47. John C. Reilly for We Need To Talk About Kevin (previous rank 45)
48. Rhys Ifans for Anonymous (previous rank 33)
49. John Boyega for Attack The Block (New)
50. Goran Kostic for In The Land Of Blood And Honey (previous rank 46)

As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
See Lead Actor predictions for other years HERE.
Or check out the Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress predictions.
See predictions for other categories at the 84th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year: 84th,  85th,  86th,  87th,  88th,  89th  

4 comments:

  1. I'm pulling for Jean Dujardin. It seems like The Artist is pretty much a lock in the Best Picture and acting categories. That's great to see.

    ReplyDelete
  2. my top five is exactly the same with you!!!Nice preditions.I noticed you you included Tom Cullen!!this is my ranking on who i want to win
    1.Michael fassbender
    2.Jean Dujardin
    3.Leonardo DiCaprio
    4.George Clooney
    5.Brad pitt

    and I also have this feeling it will be george's year as he seem to win all the critic awards!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yep the 5 you predicted seem to be the eventual 5 nominees. I think the only 3 who can actually win are Clooney, Dujardin and Pitt. Dicaprio's film is too critically derided and Fassbender's film won't sit with a lot of the voters.

    I do think you are on to something with the late release in US affecting Oldman. The fact that his performance is subtle can't be the only reason why he is missing with everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Castor, yeah, The Artist is definitely in at this point. I'm thinking Bejo too.

    @F.Franklin, Clooney does seem to be in the lead, but the critics awards have had some splits too. If I were picking the oder I would vote for in terms of personal favorites, it would probably be DiCaprio, Fassbender, Dujardin, Pitt, then Clooney... but that's because Clooney has already won (in supporting)and I'd like to see them spread the wealth.

    @Ryan, I still have hopes that the Academy will surprise us, but I agree that those three are definitely in the lead. I haven't seen TTSS yet, but agree that there's something else going on besides just the subtlety. To be ignored by some of the big precursors could be a subtlety problem, but all three speaks to something else for me.

    ReplyDelete