Best Supporting Actor 2000: Results

5. Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator- Phoenix takes most of his ideas for his portrayal of an evil emperor from those who have played similar parts before him. He is very over the top, and rather obvious in his performance, which would be fine if he was entertaining but he is not.

4. Jeff Bridges in The Contender- Bridges is fine in this film but he really is never anything special or memorable. He has his nice charisma but  besides that his performance really brings nothing that any competent actor could have done.

3. Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich- Finney is better than the main star Julia Roberts in both being more likable, less annoying, and far more believable in his role. In fact if the film had to have the same roles I would have preferred Finney in the lead. Having said all that though his role is still very limited, and unfortunately his character takes a backseat to Roberts' limiting his performance potential.

2. Benicio Del Toro in Traffic- Del Toro gives a subtle but very effective performance as the lone man trying to do something right. He finds a way to get empathy without ever pleading for it, and finds some emotional powerful moments through some very quiet scenes.

1. Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire- Dafoe stands head and shoulders above the rest here in my book. His imitation of the original Max Schreck is uncanny. Dafoe though utilizes his incredible imitation though also to create an odd, and original villain with the right amount of evil delight, but also oddly some sorrow. Simply a terrific performance.

Deserving Performances:
Takeshi Kitano in Battle Royale

Best Supporting Actor 2000: Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator

Joaquin Phoenix received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Commodus in Gladiator.

Phoenix portrays Commodus as a pure evil spoiled evil emperor. This type of performance has been done many times before, any film with an evil Roman emperor has this sort of performance within it. Joaquin Phoenix does not really show anything new in his portrayal of Commodus as an evil Emperor. From his first scene we can instantly see that he is an evil, with his sweaty pale look, and his voice which really can be described as evil.

His voice he uses sound rather similar to an infamous portrayal of another evil emperor whose name also starts with C. Phoenix quite clearly seems to be imitating that actor with his performance. After all they both play evil emperors who murder their predecessors, and they both wish rather for a relationship with their sister which is far too close. Phoenix really imitates this earlier performance, and really I should not even say imitates but rather really rips off the earlier performance. He has the same evil voice, self-indulgent manner of movements.

Phoenix I suppose is creepy but any actor could be creepy quite easily since the character himself is simply just that. He really does nothing more with his character than one would expect. He makes Commodus a fairly one dimensional evil villain. Instead of trying to suggest more depth of Commodus he just does the evil emperor routine which is expected and includes a lot of flamboyant overacting that was not very impressive. Now a villain can be one dimensional, and an actor can still excel by making their performance incredibly entertaining and effective. Phoenix does neither making his Commodus a rather unoriginal simple, a not very entertaining villain.

Best Supporting Actor 2000

And the Nominees Were:

Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire

Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator

Benicio Del Toro in Traffic

Jeff Bridges in The Contender

Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich

After finally getting over the trauma of watching Star! I feeling I can finally return to supporting.

Best Actor 2005: Results

5. Terrence Howard in Hustle and Flow- The biggest acting he tries is an accent which he fails with and the rest is just a dull, dull performance.

4. Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line- Phoenix gives an okay dramatic performance I suppose but he does not give one that does Johnny Cash any justice.

3. David Straithairn in Good Night and Good Luck- Straithairn lacks much of a challenge as Edward R. Murrow but I do think he gives good performance despite being almost completely in a functional quality.

2. Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain- Ledger gives an incredibly strong performance and mixes in brilliant subtlety with genuine emotion practically perfectly.

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote- Hoffman simply is brilliant from beginning to end in this film. Every single scene he nails completely. He always is Truman Capote I never doubted it which is amazing, and if that was not enough his performance is one of the most powerful performances ever.

Deserving Performances:Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence

Best Actor 2005: Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line

Joaquin Phoenix received his second Oscar nomination for portraying Johnny Cash in Walk The Line.

Walk the Line is a bio pic that I find does not exactly work. One of the biggest reasons is because I never felt it showed any wider influence or importance of Cash, and it always stayed a bit to introverted.

Johnny Cash is an easily seen figure, therefore Phoenix really has his work cut out for him. Phoenix does not try really for a full fledged imitation but he still tries a bit of one which is really a problem. I mean if he did not try to imitate at all he could just focus on giving a strong emotionally convincing performance, but instead he does try to imitate a little bit. He never really at all tries to imitate Cash's normal speaking voice, but he does try to imitate his singing voice. This is odd because his singing voice and speaking voice should be similar but Phoenix only does the imitation with the singing voice. His singing voice is okay it is sort of like Cash's but it obviously is not the real deal. Still his imitation here is better than average and is not complete ineffective. Also he never does any mannerism for Cash except when he is performing. Again he imitates these mannerisms well enough but they never really added in convincing me he was Cash. It seems he only really used performance footage of Cash for imitation nothing else, making it so he never really seems like the real Johnny Cash.

In fact that was a problem I had throughout his performance was I never for a second though he really was Johnny Cash. It is not because he did not look like him, after all Philip Seymour Hoffman did not look like Capote, it was I did not feel he really found the right essence of the man. He only ever tries artificially to be Cash, he never really ever finds the soul of his character which causes his performance to falter for me. I never felt I met Cash or no anything more about him. Now this foes not mean its a terrible performance, if it had been a perfect imitation and if he really felt like Cash it would have been a great performance but that is not the case.

Phoenix also has another problem one of the key points of the film is his romance with June Carter. He is not so much the problem here because I think it would have been rather difficult for any actor to have chemistry with Reese Witherspoon's awkwardly odd performance. But still what he is doing is not anything special either. His performance is okay in fact he does seem like a troubled artist most of the time, not a troubled Johnny Cash but a troubled artist. I find most of the time his performance is okay properly fulfilling the emotions required for the role. He is just satisfactory in doing this never amazing. I do think that this was a challenging role for any actor to take on and he does try but he does not succeed in being Johnny Cash. If he was playing country star John Somebodyelse perhaps the performance would have been a little more satisfying but as Cash his performance falls short.

Best Actor 2005

And the Nominees Were:

Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain

David Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote

Terrence Howard in Hustle and Flow

Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line

Who do you pick? What do you predict my ranking will be?