State of the Oscar Race 2013: Which of the Many Best Actor Candidates Make the Cut?

Yesterday's Independent Spirit Award Nominations proved one fact, there are so many great performances from male leads this year that there had to be six nominees.  The six nominees are Bruce Dern for Nebraska, Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave, Oscar Isaacs for Inside Llewyn Davis, Michael B. Jordan for Fruitvale Station, Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, and Robert Redford for All is Lost.

Looking at this list of six most folks, including myself would go wow, this would be a great line-up for Oscar, and they and I would be right.  There is just one or well a few minor problems, and they include: Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips, Forrest Whitaker for Lee Daniels' The Butler, Christian Bale in Out of the Furnace or American Hustle, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street or even The Great Gatsby, and the bigger long shots Idris Elba for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Joaquin Phoenix for Her, and Ben Stiller for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  That is 15 possible candidates, and astounding.

Let's look at Independent Spirit Award Nominees past track record, meaning the last 5 years, or even 10 before that the amount of crossover between minimal.

2012

Only Bradley Cooper was nominated for both Oscar and and the Independent Spirit Award (ISA), but he did not win either John Hawkes who was a strong contender to be nominated, but missed out because of Joaquin Phoenix.  Hawkes won the Spirit Award.  Of the five nominees Cooper and Hawkes were the only strong contenders.

2011

Jean Dujardin won the ISA and the Oscar for Best Actor for The Artist, this rarely happens, but could happen again this year. Dujardin and Demian Bichir were the only two nominated for the ISA, and Oscar.  The only other nominee for the ISA who had a possibility of being nominated was Ryan Gosling for Driver, but the Academy appeared to hate this film.

2010

James Franco was the only person nominated for ISA, and Oscar of the five nominees; he won the ISA, but lost Oscar to Colin Firth.  None of the other four contenders were ever "serious" contenders for Oscar.

2009

Jeff Bridges won the Oscar and the ISA for Crazy Heart.  The only other person nominated for both ISA and Oscar was Colin Firth for A Single Man.  None of the other three men were "serious" contenders.

2008

If you want to find a year similar to to 2013, where ISA, and the Oscars line-up was 2008.  4 of the 5 nominees were nominated at both, and they were Sean Penn in Milk (who won the Oscar) Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (won the ISA), Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker, and Richard Jenkins for The Visitor.  I could see a similar situation to this happening this year, 4 of the five nominees come from this line-up, while two are snubbed.

Let's look at this year's ISA nominees:

Locks:
Chiwetel Ejiofor-12 Years a Slave
Robert Redford-All is Lost
Matthew McConaughey-Dallas Buyers Club

Ejiofor and Redford are the two top contenders at the moment, but watch out for Matthew McConaughey his performance in Dallas Buyers Club is the thing Oscar performances are made of!

Near Lock:
Bruce Dern-Nebraska

Dern is almost the next closest thing as a lock in this category, with his buddies like Nicholson and his daughter Laura Dern championing him, he can/will be a strong contender to not only be an Oscar nominee, but a surprise winner.

Longshots:
Oscar Isaacs-Inside Llewyn Davis
Michael B. Jordan-Fruitvale Station

Isaacs and Jordan are the newcomers of this group, they have critically acclaimed performances, but breaking into this category as relative new comers is going to be tough.

Who takes the fifth spot of the non-ISA contenders?

Tom Hanks-Captain Phillips-The film just made 100 million and he is getting rave reviews for his performance.  The thing working against him is that people may just nominate him in supporting for Saving Mr. Banks.

Forrest Whitaker-Lee Daniels' The Butler-The film is going to better with Oscar voters than critics, and with Weinstein Company behind the film I can't imagine it not getting more than one acting nomination  Whitaker has won before, is the movie out of sight out of mind?

Christian Bale-Out of the Furnace or American Hustle-If he was going to get nominated my money would be on Hustle, but in this tough year his performance and weight gain may be overlooked.

Leonardo DiCaprio-The Wolf of Wall Street or The Great Gatsby-Wolf has not been seen by anyone, and DiCaprio is always a dark horse especially in a Scorsese film.  Gatsby is only a contender in the technical categories.

At the moment my prediction for Best Actor is:
Bruce Dern-Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor-12 Years a Slave

Tom Hanks-Captain Phillips

Matthew McConaughey-Dallas Buyers Club

Robert Redford-All is Lost

Anything is possible in this category, but I only see one of these men losing out, if any.  The truth of the matter is that Oscar should take a note from the ISA nominees, and have 6 nominated performances.

Lee Daniels' The Butler Successfully Pulls at the Heart Strings, but also Hits some Bumps in trying to be too Ambitious

Lee Daniels' The Butler (3 1/2 out of 5)

Directed by: Lee Daniels (Precious, The Paperboy)

Written by: Danny Strong (Game Change, Recount)

Starring: Forrest Whitaker, and Oprah Winfrey

About 18 years ago Robert Zemeckis directed the film Forrest Gump, the film had an impact on grand storytelling, and one man's place in connection with history.  How do you tie one person to 50 or more years of history, and not clutter the film with happenstance.  Gump used things as obvious as Vietnam, and the not so obvious, with ping pong.  Lee Daniels' The Butler (yes this is the official title) uses a similar method of storytelling, in describing events, based on a true story, in the life of Cecil Gaines.

Gaine's (Whitaker) life starts out as young boy in North Carolina, growing up on a cotton farm.  As a young boy he loses his father, and his mother does not recover from the loss so he leaves the plantation after years of serving in the house.  Cecil's experience as a house service provides him the experience to work his way through employment at various hotels.  While working at Washington's Excelsior Hotel he meets his wife Gloria (Winfrey), has two children with her but also eventually becomes so well liked that he lands himself a gig as a butler at the White House.

The meat of the film's script is connecting history to the person, showing Cecil working in every administration from Eisenhower to Reagan, and how race played out in dialogue and debate within each administration.  Cecil's oldest son Louis (David Oyelowo) see history from a different lens finding himself in every Civil Rights movement from the Freedom Writers, the Black Panthers, and fighting for Madela's freedom in the late eighties. 

Danny Strong who wrote the scripts for HBO's Game Change, and Recount has knack for writing about historical situations; he makes real life events within both of those stories concise to the point analysis of the one or central event within each film.  Strong's script is ambitious, and he is taking the next best steps within his career, but the script and long reaching historical connections is where this film often flounders.  The dichotomy between history and personal is often contrived, you can also see this with the portrayal in each and every one of the Presidents, who distract from the films message. 

The most genuine moments within the script come while Cecil is with his friends and family at their homes.  There is more emotional weight watching them as they work through their various experiences, rather than watching Liev Schirber (who plays LBJ) on the toilet, or Robin Williams (Eisenhower) painting.  Watching Cecil and Gloria work through the pain and anguish of the years they have spent trying to do right by each other, their family, and friends, and as they age through the years is the more interesting part of the story.

The reason this film succeeds is because of four people, Forrest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Lee Daniels' and producer Laura Ziskin. Whitaker is simply fantastic as Cecil; he operates as this calming force in the lives of his co-workers, and Presidents while trying to navigate the struggles within the era, and his own family turmoil.  Whitaker is one of the best actors because we he takes on roles you find this distinct character/person with whom you feel connected because of the way in which he transforms. 

 Whitaker has dynamite chemistry with Oprah, as a husband and wife team there love, and anguish ring true.  Gloria battles booze, and infidelity as she navigates her husbands commitment to his job, and she must be the glue and bond which keeps their family together.  Oprah is simply electric within this role, stealing many scenes, but also playing the emotional heft masterfully; she is a talented actress, her other work in The Color Purple has proved she has the chops.

Laura Ziskin will be given a lot of credit when (if) this this film is also a financial success.  Ziskin who passed away recently pushed hard when she read the story “A Butler Well Served by This Election” in the Washington Post, which was about a man named Eugene Allen, who this film is based.  Ziskin is one of the forty producers listed on this film, but she was the brainchild who pushed hard for this film to be made.

With Ziskin's hard work to get this made, this film does have an incredible emotional impact, and while the script is lacking the tightness,  Lee Daniels' direction helps create an aura which helps make this film successful.  Daniels last film The Paperboy, while bad still showed potential, and his first big feature Precious has a style, clear to this man. Daniels took on an ambitious project, worked hard, and pushed to help make this an emotional story, which make you think about the evolution of our nation through the eyes of one man, and the forward movement making that still must be carried forward.

As with films which tackle this "Forrest Gump" like analysis of a man's journey through history, there are always bound to be some problems, even with Forrest Gump.  Gump has several contrived scenes, the Watergate one is one of the worst.  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has a similar style, and tried to navigate this man's journey through time, although never trying too hard to connect him with history.  At the end each of the films, including The Butler has something, which makes each of them a solid movie experience, and that's heart.