My Picks for Best Actor

Best Actor is really stacked this year. If these five roles were nominated over the course of five different years I could see each one winning. Unfortunately, there can only be one.

5. Morgan Freeman- Invictus
Morgan Freeman is clearly the only working actor allowed to play Nelson Mandela, and he does a perfect job. If he had not already won two Oscars I would say he was a shoo-in but alas, he is surpassed by flashier and career-defining performances this year.

4. Jeff Bridges- Crazy Heart
In a few long hours he will probably be crowned Best Actor, but not for this role. Mr. Bridges has had such a wonderful career that his fellow actors will probably have decided that "it's time" for him to win. It's unfortunate that it is for this and not something else (The Dude!) but I'm not too bitter, and on the bright side it is not as similar to The Wrestler as I feared it would be.

3. Jeremy Renner- The Hurt Locker
When he first comes onscreen (replacing Guy Pearce, no less) I was convinced he was going to play his role the cowboy caricature way, but he quickly dispelled any thought of that. I cannot imagine any other actor playing his role, and giving it the kind of treatment he does. He redefines the American soldier cowboy formula by making his character intense and modern enough where you truly cannot tell whether or not he really is suicidal, or just an addict who has picked a horribly dangerous drug.

2. George Clooney- Up in the Air
This is his career-defining him-at-his-peak performance, and it's a damn shame he won't win. He makes it look effortless, which may be to his disadvantage, but he somehow makes a movie about firing people funny (at least to me). His character could have easily been villain of the year but he makes Ryan Bingham multi-dimensional and, in the process, likable and human. Whereas most voters are looking at Jeff Bridges's entire career when they vote for him, those voting for Clooney are looking singularly at this performance, perhaps as it should be.

1. Colin Firth- A Single Man
I consider Colin in this role a firm career resurgence, as he was previously as likable as could be in romantic comedies and dramas, but he never really got to stake a movie on his performance alone. He brings such a soul to this character that you forget that he is, in fact, trying to kill himself, and instead focus on the fact that he is reuniting with his one true love, however backward that may be. His marriage with Matthew Goode is easily the most believable coupledom of all those onscreen marriages this year (beating out my number 2: Meryl & Stanley), which makes his thought-process all the more believable. Again, I cannot imagine another actor performing this role to the level that he has.

Images via Google search.

Movies You Need Not Watch

First entry: Leatherheads, a 2008 comedy written and directed by George Clooney, patron saint of attractive gray hair. Leatherheads stars Clooney, Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and is about the start of the National Football League in 1925. Clooney is the aging star, Krasinski is the war hero star and Zellweger is the snappy female reporter for the Chicago Tribune.Notice in the above picture that George seems drunk, John seems constipated and Renee seems airbrushed. These are all true and are the bases (basises?) of their respective characters in the movie. Which is unfortunate.
Let's start with Johnny Boy. While on The Office he is cute, warm and quite funny (or at least in the first three seasons of the show), in this he is, well, constipated. I do not know whether he was just intimidated to be in a movie with George, but he had little to no personality, and what he did have could be attributed to either an impersonation of himself as Jim or halfway decent writing. Either he needs to humble himself with acting classes or he just needs a decent part to actually showcase his range rather than his looks.
George plays a drunker, more aggressive version of himself in the film, or at least from what I've heard of him. His chemistry with Z is minimal, he makes funny faces, and while he gets socked in the jaw plenty he rarely has any bruising. Kind of like watching a UFC fighter get hit in slow motion- It's painful and yet slightly sadistically funny to watch and you know he will not be having children for a long, long time. It seems that Leatherheads was a vanity project for him- clearly he likes football, himself and has had a relationship of some sort with Renee in the past, so if you mix the three together and add a rising star, the outcome has to be good, right?
As Dwight would say, False. All I have to say about Renee, because I have had a bias against her ever since forever and probably could not judge her fairly in any circumstance, is that 1. She should fire her makeup artist from the film because she looked absolutely terrible and 2. Please stop being annoying and cutesy. I know that the movie was supposed to be a bit of a romantic farce, but I can only roll my eyes so many times before they are permanently stuck in my skull, and let's just say that I am having imminent surgery to fix this problem.
On top of these acting challenges, the movie has to overcome 3+ montages (and no movie has had that many, ever. I looked it up) a running time just shy of two hours (for a movie about gentlemen in leather hats) and is severely lacking a... hmmm.... it rhymes with yacht? Oh, right, plot. You know, the thing that shapes the entire movie and is the whole reason for filming? I guess it's not that important. For me, movies lacking a plot and containing corniness, cheesiness and Renee Zellweger are doomed for failure, but that's just my humble opinion. And I'm right.

Image via http://movieboxx.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/leatherheads_header.jpg.