Best Actor 1987

5. Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam- Williams is given the right part that allows him to show his comedic ability in this film, it is not anything great, but it still is an effective enough performance.

4. William Hurt in Broadcast News- Hurt's performance is not all that interesting, but it does fulfill the requirement of his role as the rather shallow newscaster.

3. Marcello Mastroianni in Dark Eyes- Mastroianni puts a whole lot of effort in his big romantic performance, some of his performance does not entirely pay off, but enough does for this to be overall a charming as well as tragic performance.

2. Michael Douglas in Wall Street- Douglas' Gordon Gekko is not the most three dimensional character, but Douglas is properly commanding and convincing in his entirely villainous role.

1. Jack Nicholson in Ironweed- Nicholson for me this year stands far and above the rest of the performances. His performance as the homeless alcoholic Francis Phelan is a sad, haunting, exceedingly memorable performance, that easily gets my choice.

Deserving Performances:
John Lone in The Last Emperor

Best Actor 1987: Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam

Robin Williams received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam.

Good Morning Vietnam tells the story of a anti-establishment army radio show host, who annoys many of the authorities, well being liked by basically everyone else.

Robin Williams has not had the best Oscar record with me, having been under 3 for every single of his nominations so far. Well what do I criticize, well his breaking of character to do his comic routine every so often in his other performance. I also criticize as well just a lack of dramatically convincing portrayal of a character.

What about this time though, well firstly the breaking out of character to do his comic routine is not a problem this time, since the character is a comedian who does a comedy routine just like Williams' own routine. Williams is constantly making his jokes, with his various voices he does, and well as mannerisms, but they are all in that of the character of Adrian Cronauer.

I think how much one enjoys this performance than all depends on how much one likes Williams' comedy routine on a whole, and in particular his material in this film. Well I have never been a huge fan of Robin Williams' comedy, I find some of his work his more enjoyable than others. In this film I would say all his routines are enjoyable, but I never really laughed out loud about them either.

The whole comedy of the character is shown to be a bit of a defense mechanism for Cronauer, as instead of every facing anything completely he tries to change the subject, or defuse a situation with a joke. Now this is displayed, but I did not think the film presented or Williams as some sort of deep pathological problem of Cronauer, but I guess it was still shown. It could have been far more interesting though if Williams had presented his constant use of comedy as something deeper.

The film attempts to become deeper, in the relationship between Williams' character and a young Vietnam man, as well a young Vietnam woman. Williams though still is not really required to show all that much dramatic weight, except for two key scenes. One after a bar he was in was bombed, and Williams is good in showing his struggle to keep up with his good humor on the radio, well clearly thinking of what happened. The other scene concerns him finding out that his Vietnamese friend was the one who bombed the bar. Williams is again good in the confrontation scene but not amazing.

This is not a great performance, but it is well attuned for Williams. Williams mostly uses his comedy, which is his forte, making it so his performance is actually effective enough. His whole character though technically is not a giant challenge for Williams, but at the same Williams is probably the only actor who could have really portrayed the part with his particular amount of energy, and constant comedic attempts. This is not an amazing performance, but it is technically a good displays of Williams' abilities.

Best Actor 1987

And the Nominees Were:

William Hurt in Broadcast News

Marcello Mastroianni in Dark Eyes

Michael Douglas in Wall Street

Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam

Jack Nicholson in Ironweed

Best Actor 1991: Results

5. Warren Beatty in Bugsy- Simply a bad performance which fails at its core. He never finds the right tone for Bugsy, and never seems to be authentic, and many times comes off unintentionally funny in his worst scenes.

4. Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides- Nolte has a few scenes where his is okay, they are his quiet confession scenes, but everything else he does either comes off as completely false or just weird. He always plays his character artificially and never really gets down to the heart of him.

3. Robert De Niro in Cape Fear. De Niro has some good scenes early on despite his terrible accent, but as the film goes on he simply hams it up way too much.

2. Robin Williams in The Fisher King- Robin Williams at first over plays the role, and cannot stay in character, but as he goes on he gets a bit better in the crazy scenes, and he actually is fairly effective in his quiet scenes.

1. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs- This ought to be a surprise to no one, but Hopkins by far gave the best lead actor performance nominated this year and he can even be argued as not a lead. Still Hopkins is brilliant in every minute of his relatively short performance. He creates a fascinating, memorable, and truly effective character from Hannibal Lecter. Every scene he handles with perfection, never going over the top, or even seeming calculated since all of his motions are brilliant.

Deserving Performances:
John Turturro in Barton Fink

Best Actor 1991: Robin Williams in The Fisher King

Robin Williams received his third Oscar nomination for portraying Parry a mentally unstable homeless man in The Fisher King.

The Fisher King is better than Bugsy, and The Prince of Tides, since it does not fail completely and it attempts at something a little more original, but it does not succeed enough for me to say it was really a very good film.

Robin Williams plays Parry who actually does not show up too quickly in the film. It focuses largely on Jeff Bridges who plays a Howard Stern esque shock jock Jack Lucas. Parry shows up to save Jack after he is attacked by two hoodlums. When Williams first showed up I really was very annoyed. When he initially shows up, he goes for pure Williams Shtick. He does some voices that are suppose to be funny, and does a Williams seen to its most annoying. He does not create a character in these first scenes but instead tries just for comedy through his usual type of routine.

Williams though after these initial scenes does change his method of portraying the character a little bit differently. I felt he started to tone down the Williamsisms and tries harder to be a real character. He does not fully succeed at this but I am glad that he tries to create a person with Parry rather than just a routine. He is suppose to be a man who becomes mentally unstable after seeing the brutal murder of his wife, and he is suppose to be almost blocking those memories by creating another personality. At times his crazy acts seem forced crazy, and really do not hold any truth to them, a few times Williams pulls them off but most of the time he does not find the proper authenticity for Parry's madness.

Williams' best scenes are though when he tones it down and acts much more quiet. He actually is pretty good in the scene where he tells of the Fisher King. He suggests more about Parry with his brief quiet scenes than his over the top loud scenes. He has a few scenes like this besides that one where he is effective, he also is effective do to that reason with his romantic interest played by Amanda Plummer. He is never perfect in the role but when he is quiet he fines a subtler strand of the character that works well. Unfortunately he really does not have enough scenes that really on this better technique. Most of the time he does the obvious crazy that just never is that well done. Overall an okay performance, that is weakened especially by the beginning where he does not really stay in character. 

Best Actor 1991

And the Nominees Were:

Robert De Niro in Cape Fear

Warren Beatty in Bugsy

Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Robin Williams in The Fisher King

Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides

Here is the special Halloween edition of Best Actor, since there is not anything scarier than Bugsy, The Fisher King, and the Prince of Tides.

Best Supporting Actor 1997: Results

5. Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting- Williams is okay at best and at worst he seems completely false. He is mostly at worst instead of at best.

4. Anthony Hopkins in Amistad- Hopkins is very good as John Quincy Adams, playing the part as it should be played, with a very good final speech.

3. Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets- Greg Kinnear is very good in all his scenes and shows the changes of his character well, even in amidst of bad writing.

2. Robert Forster in Jackie Brown- Max Cherry is not the most complex of characters but Forster plays him as well as possible.

1. Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights- This seems to come a surprise to no one but Reynolds is easily my pick. Burt Reynolds is very good in Boogie Nights making Jack Horner into a fascinating character despite the fact that he could have failed with this character in a numerous amount of way but he never does. He is a strong presence, and creates a memorable character. 

Deserving Performances:
Kevin Spacey in L.A. Confidential

Best Supporting Actor 1997: Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting

Robin Williams won an Oscar from his fourth nomination for portraying Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting.

Robin Williams plays the psychotherapist who helps Good Will Hunting (Matt Damon) deal with his past, and attempt to help him forge his future. Maguire is a movie psychiatrist in all regards, revealing a bit too much to his patient and also getting a little unrealistically close to him too. Now first of all the technical aspects of this performance are poor. No one can do a natural Boston accent well in this and Williams is no exception. His accent is especially strange, where Ben Affleck and Damon kept a poor accents consistent, Williams randomly includes the accent which is both odd and distracting. Another problem I have with his performance is one brief scene where he breaks character. Williams always seems to have trouble not reverting to his comedian self such as his imitation scene in Dead Poets Society, and here where he talks about Maguire's deceased wife's farting problem. He really makes an awkward transition in the scene from the character than telling to joke getting to much like himself, then quickly reverting back. It was an unneeded part of his performance which only takes away from his realistic approach in the rest of his performance.

Now his performance is meant to be that of a real working Bostonian who only happens to be a psychotherapist. Now I never believe that in the least that Maguire has his past because Williams never makes it believable that he does. He never really shows  this well enough, and his attempts to seem real working class are laughable at best. His scenes with Damon range from okay to over the top. Okay are say his speech about how Will Hunting doesn't really have real experience, but over the top are like his first encounter where Maguire says he will end Will for making fun of his wife. Williams goes way over the top there and never is believable. He is okay at times but the big emotional scenes always seem to fall a little short, as if they were trying too hard to make them emotional intead making theses scene a little artificial. Otherwise than that he has some okay scenes with Stellan Skarsgard, but again only okay. He is always a little off because the character at his core is not believable due to Williams. At best he is okay and at worst he is awkward and poor. Overall he is more bad than okay making his win rather undeserved.

Best Supporting Actor 1997

And the Nominees Were:

Robert Forster in Jackie Brown

Anthony Hopkins in Amistad

Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting

Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights

Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets

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