Whip It (With kid & Serenading Unicorn)

Devo meets a child & unicorn!
I hope the word "WHIP" gets musically re-associated with Devo and no longer Will Smith's offspring. More videos on http://mylivetube.blogspot.com

Best Actor 2006: Results

5. Will Smith  in The Pursuit of Happyness- Smith simply is not very good here, he simply never is authentic as the person he is suppose to be playing, he always stays as just Will Smith, rather than Chris Gardner.

4. Peter O'Toole in Venus- Peter O'Toole is very strong showing the life, and lust of a washed up actor. The film is not particularly good, but O'Toole always stands out well despite this.

3. Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson- Gosling gives a brilliant understated performance, as a drug addict teacher. He never overplays single scene, and stays subtle almost throughout, except a few key scenes where he stands out incredibly well.

2. Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond- DiCaprio despite some weakness of the film's script, is incredibly strong here, in both a sense of creating interesting character and dealing with the changes of the character very well, and giving a strong leading man performance, which few actors could do as well.

1. Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland- Forest Whitaker is absolutely brilliant in every single scene in his film. He shows a man who is both absolutely insane, but also incredibly charismatic. It is an incredible challenge, and Whitaker achieves completely despite every challenge he must accomplish.

Deserving Performances:Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed
James McAvoy in The Last King of Scotland
Daniel Craig in Casino Royale

Best Actor 2006: Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness

Will Smith received his second Oscar nomination for portraying Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness.

The Pursuit of Happyness I actually did not mind watching, actually since it was actually upbeat, unlike so many films of this era. I am not saying that many films need to be positive, but not all should be negative as they are these days. I am not saying that it really is all that good of a film, but I liked the change of pace from the other movies with the other nominated performances.

The real Chris Gardner who went from homelessness to millionaire apparently believed that Will Smith was actually a bit of miscasting. I am inclined to agree with the real man for a few reasons. Number one is the role does not really seem to be the right type of role for Smith. Smith an actor who does mostly use his natural charisma for his roles, which does work okay for lighter types of roles. There are a few times he does not really even use that, such as Ali which results in basically a complete failure. His natural charisma is rated differently by many, I think he does certainly have charisma, but it is not anything astonishing.

In this role he actually should have tried to avoid his Will Smithisms. He does not exactly do this for most of his performance and I think that is a bit of a problem in this performance. I feel he usually simply plays the character in more of a superficial way most of the film. I find he mostly just acts it as a Will Smith performance, and I find he does not really get into the heart of the character for most of the time. I think this is particularly in any scene where he is doing something involving the stock broker firm. For some reason I always saw every scene as a little bit false, as Will Smith working hard at his job opposed to Chris Gardener. I just never could see him as the real man, I always saw him as Will Smith. He never was able to override this, fact especially in these scenes stopping his performance from ringing true.

He has some slightly better scenes involving when he is not working toward his prospective job. Still though in scenes where he is yelling at people who cause him trouble, I still felt there was a certain falseness, and I simply never believed him in the role. I want to address that this is not because he is Will Smith, great actors with great personal charisma, can avoid this, but Smith does not do this effectively here.  The part just demands more realism which Smith does not bring to the role most of the time. He is not awful, just simply does not meet the needs of the role.

There are a few scenes where he is a bit better. These are almost all scenes with Chris's son played by Smith's real son. They actually do work well together and obviously do have a natural chemistry. Still I felt I was seeing Smith, and his son, but these worked better for the film overall. His two big scenes involving tear jerking on Smith's part which he does, well enough I guess, but never in any sort of amazing way. I would say he does a good reaction when he learns he has earned his job, his slight display of tears of happiness is well handled. But call be harsh, but for some reason it seemed just a adequate technical feat opposed to a truly emotional reaction. As I said he is not terrible, just simply he never seems to be right in the role.

Best Actor 2006

And the Nominees Were:

Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond

Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson

Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland

Peter O'Toole in Venus

Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness

So who do you pick, or predict? The mercenary, the teacher who has some problems, the Dictator with very severe problems, the old Actor, or the man who goes from rags to riches.