The 83rd annual Academy Awards are less than a week away, and the Quad is here to bring you up to speed on the most popular nominees, potential upsets, and can’t miss winners for this year’s Oscars. Each day, a different critic will be counting down our top picks (and the safest bets) for the winners in each of the big categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress.
First up on the countdown is the award for Best Supporting Actor and unlike in years past, we actually have a decent crop of this time around, even though one performance is sure to take home the trophy.
The Favorite: Christian Bale — The Fighter.
Who would have thought that the actor previously best known for his catestrophic (and meme-worthy) meldown on set would be the front-runner for an Oscar just two years later? But here we are, and Christian Bale is poised to take home the award for his performance as that lovable rogue, the washed up boxer and crack addict Dicky Eklund. Originally offered to Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, the role lets Bale do what Bale does best: chew scenery like no other. While Marky Mark puts in a solid job as The Fighter’s main character, it’s the over-the-top Bale and the rest of the cast of psychotic Lowell, M.A. family that keeps the audiences’, and the Academy’s, attention.
Honorable Mention: Jeremy Renner — The Town
That’s right, Jeremy Renner. Yeah, The Town doesn’t have the greatest pedigree when compared to a heartwarming period piece (The King’s Speech), an overcoming-the-odds sports flick/family drama (The Fighter), a dysfunctional lesbian dramedy (The Kids are Alright), and art house meth labs (Winter’s Bone). Yeah, Geoffrey Rush was great in The King’s Speech, the odds-on favorite for Best Picture. So what?
Simply put, Jeremy Renner is the best thing to come out of Ben Affleck’s Boston-based B-movie by a mile. Renner plays “Jem” Coughlin with the slick confidence you’d expect from a street-tough bank robber. He carries a perfect smirk plastered to his rounded face throughout the movie, and only occasionally does the mask slip. But when it does, and we get a quick peek behind the facade, Renner shines. “Jem” is a bubbling mass of violence, just itching for a moment to unleash some pent up Charlestown whoop-ass. It’s all the more terrifying thanks to Renner’s disarming performance. Sure he won’t get the win, but the nod was well deserved.
Doesn’t Belong: Mark Ruffolo — The Kids are All Right
Don’t get me wrong, Mark Ruffolo is good in Kids. But since when is “good” Oscar worthy? Was his performance any better than that of his snubbed co-star Julianne Moore (correct answer: no)? Or, for that matter, consider the other great supporting roles that got ignored by the Academy this year, most notably, Matt Damon as a gruff, cocky cowboy in True Grit and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the mind-and-city-bending Inception?
The Verdict: Christian Bale — The Fighter
It’s not even going to be close. Score this one a knock-out for Bale … Ah damn. I almost went the whole article without a boxing pun.
