The Oscars are coming up on Sunday. We all know the drill — there are four acting categories divided by gender and prominence of role. In all, 20 actors will be judged against each other. This is how the system has worked for decades, and nobody is demanding that we change it.
Nobody, that is, except me.
What if we didn’t divide actors so arbitrarily? What if we simply put everyone in one big pool? After all, this is 2017. There’s a black man a crazy orange man in the White House. Anything is possible. Consider this a new movement:#oscarssosegmented. Instead of an Oscars modeled on the NBA Playoffs, let’s have the Indy 500.
In the new system, there will be five awards handed out for acting: A small Oscar, a medium Oscar, a normal-sized Oscar, a super-sized Oscar, and a life-sized Oscar. These awards will go to the five best actors, no matter the gender or size of part. Everybody else will be divided into three subgroups.
Make sense? Of course it does. Let’s get started.
THE “SORRY, YOU’RE DISQUALIFIED” GROUP
20. Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic
19. Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins
18. Nicole Kidman in Lion
17. Octavia Spencer in Hidden Figures
16. Michelle Williams in Manchester By The Sea
In my system, these otherwise fine actors aren’t even invited to the ceremony. I’m sorry — it’s nothing personal, you’re all wonderful artists, but you must go. I’m sure there’a a bar down the street that will be showing the Oscars that night.
Captain Fantastic is the only nominated film in the acting categories that I would classify as actively bad — it ends with a bunch of kids singing a Lumineers-y cover of “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” which is an insult both to Guns N’ Roses and Step Brothers. So long, Viggo.
Everybody except your right-wing uncle loves Meryl Streep. but her nomination for the pleasant but forgettable Florence Foster Jenkins suggests the Academy is either lazy or overly cruel when it comes to trolling Amy Adams, this year’s worst Oscar snub. As for Kidman, Spencer, and Williams, they’re all fine but their screen-time is minimal. Add up all their minutes and I’m not sure it equals the amount of time that Casey Affleck is shown shoveling sidewalks in Manchester By The Sea. (I would replace one of them with Hailee Steinfeld for The Edge of Seventeen, an excellent performance in an underrated movie that will definitely inspire wondrous anniversary thinkpieces written by contemporary teens 10 years from now.)
THE “YOU CAN ATTEND THE OSCARS BUT MUST SIT IN THE BACK” GROUP
15. Lucas Hedges in Manchester By The Sea
14. Ruth Negga in Loving
13. Viola Davis in Fences
12. Emma Stone in La La Land
11. Andrew Garfield in Hacksaw Ridge
Hedges was authentic as a dumb, sex-obsessed teenager in Manchester By The Sea. However, the likelihood that he’s a dumb, sex-obsessed 20-year-old in real life lessens his Oscar value. Negga, Davis, and Stone are very good in somewhat thankless girlfriend/wife roles that are secondary to dominant lead male performances. (Joel Edgerton wasn’t nominated for his great work in Loving, likely because the Best Actor category is stacked this year, but he’s clearly the focal point of that movie.) Out of the three, Stone has the meatiest role in one of the most popular nominated films — I wouldn’t be surprised if she wins Best Actress. But in this new system, Stone is the most adversely affected. Against the field, she’s only 12th best.
I feel bad for Andrew Garfield — he went hard after an Oscar this year. In Hacksaw Ridge and Martin Scrosese’s Silence, Garfield plays spiritual men who get their heads bashed in repeatedly because of their religious beliefs. Garfield’s wide-eyed Jimmy Stewart-isms are more effective in Ridge, though the true star of that film is Mel Gibson, whose bellicose preoccupation with self-martyrdom and hyper-graphic violence dominates nearly every frame. In the film’s second half, Gibson tramples over Garfield’s relative gentleness. So, sadly, I must also trample over his Oscar hopes.
THE “CONGRATS, YOU CAN KEEP THE GIFT BAG” GROUP
10. Dev Patel in Lion
9. Naomie Harris in Moonlight
8. Ryan Gosling in La La Land
7. Jeff Bridges in Hell or High Water
6. Denzel Washington in Fences
Patel made me cry, so he automatically makes the top 10. He’d be ranked higher if I felt good about it — but Lion is one of those movies that you know is blatantly manipulating you, and you’re powerless to stop it. If you’re a parent, Lion will use your own kids against you. (Ditto that for Manchester By The Sea and Arrival — the Academy apparently loves “kids in peril” movies, which subsequently ruined several Oscar season date nights with my wife.)
I’ve got nothing but love for Harris and Gosling — she’s a tragic monster in Moonlight, and he’s a comic monster in La La Land. I give Gosling the edge because he rescued La La Land for me after the film’s extremely precious opening 10 minutes. (I’m tempted to make a sports-style case for Gosling being the most valuable actor on this list, in that Gosling’s underrated sense of humor makes the “Dream your dreams!” earnestness of La La Land go down a little easier.) I also love Bridges, who riffs in Hell or High Water on the same rough-hewn ol’ Southern cuss character that dubiously won him an Oscar for Crazy Heart and dubiously didn’t win him an Oscar for True Grit.
And then there’s Denzel. I wasn’t a huge fan of Fences, which feels more like a play shot on film than an actual film. But you can’t deny Denzel — his performance as a toxically resentful African American patriarch in the late ’50s was surprisingly vulnerable, even brave. I don’t know if Washington has ever allowed himself to seem so pathetic before; he winds up being wrong about pretty much everything, and destroying himself in the process. He’s the anti-Equalizer. To do that and still come off like this era’s reigning movie star is an impressive feat.
However, it’s not quite impressive enough …
5. AND THE SMALL OSCAR GOES TO … Casey Affleck in Manchester By The Sea
Now, the small Oscar could easily go to Washington. It’s starting to look like Denzel might win the actual Best Actor Oscar, in spite of Affleck cleaning up at the pre-season award shows. There are those sexual assault allegations, as well as the likelihood that Affleck will accept the award in a Super Bowl LI hoodie while picking pieces of Dunkin’ Donuts out of his beard.
Nevertheless, I must go with Affleck, because when I saw Manchester By The Sea, he moved me — even when he does virtually nothing, which he does a lot of in this movie. No other actor in this field did more while also doing less. The single most emotionally overpowering scene in any 2016 film involves Affleck handling picture frames. Picture frames! Affleck is truly a wizard of understated melancholy. Just thinking about Affleck cleaning out a toilet makes me want to bawl my eyes out.
4. AND THE MEDIUM OSCAR GOES TO … Michael Shannon in Nocturnal Animals
What Shannon does in Nocturnal Animals is remarkably similar to what Bridges does in Hell or High Water. Shannon plays a likably crusty lawman imbued with unexpected pathos. He starts out as a cad and winds up being the hero. You can almost smell the Skoal coming off the screen whenever he opens his mouth. He’s great. Shannon and Bridges are both great.
So why does Shannon get the nod? Because he manages to do all of those things in a much, much dumber movie. Nocturnal Animals is only slightly better than Captain Fantastic, but the “twist” ending is so much worse than the aforementioned “Sweet Child O’ Mine” disaster. And yet I still look back fondly on Shannon’s performance. That’s worth at least a medium Oscar.
3. THE NORMAL-SIZED OSCAR GOES TO … Mahershala Ali in Moonlight
When I saw Moonlight, I literally thought to myself, “I don’t know the actor who is playing the nice crack dealer, but whoever he is, he should get an Oscar.” At that point, Ali was a lock for for the normal-sized Oscar.
Now it seems like Ali is everywhere — he was also good in Hidden Figures, and I later remembered him from two Hunger Games movies and a bit part in The Place Beyond the Pines, in which he fights over Eva Mendes with Ryan Gosling. But Moonlight is Ali’s star turn — as Juan, he’s more like a memory than a man, a fondly remembered beacon of safety for Chiron in the midst of a hellish adolescence. Ali’s innate gravitas is what makes Juan feel like a full-fledged person, while also staying true to the character’s mythic quality. He’s a perfectly imperfect embodiment of complicated masculinity.
2. AND THE SUPER-SIZED OSCAR GOES TO … Natalie Portman in Jackie
Portman gets the super-sized Oscar because Jackie is impossible to imagine without her. Who are you going to put in her place? Anne Hathaway? Please!
Casting Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy was so obvious that I’m surprised it didn’t happen before. (I guess she was only 10 when Oliver Stone made JFK.) That’s not just because of the physical resemblance, but because Portman has the unique ability to make men want to protect her, at which point she inevitably exposes how much stronger she is than any dude. That’s the game Portman plays with Billy Crudup throughout Jackie, batting him around like a ball of yarn. But at least Crudup is smart enough to recognize that Jackie is a one-woman historical docudrama. Crudup allows himself to be used as a prop, akin to the recording device that Philip Baker Hall abuses in Secret Honor.
Then there’s that accent. I don’t even know how to describe it. (Here is my best attempt: Portman in Jackie sounds like Carol Channing trying to act fancy holding back a sneeze.) It’s amazing. I want it to be the new voice of my GPS.
1. AND THE LIFE-SIZED OSCAR GOES TO … Isabelle Huppert in Elle
This is the closest thing to a Robert De Niro in Raging Bull/Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood-level entry in this year’s field — a ferocious, monstrous, clear-the-decks, don’t-push-me-cuz-I’m-close-to-the-edge kind of performance. If you’re looking for multiple tools, Huppert has more than anybody. She’s funny, sorrowful, sexy, scary, unpredictable, and wholly believable in a pretty preposterous (in a great way!) movie. Huppert is both a great movie actor and a great movie star in Elle. She’s so magnetic, she can sleep with other women’s husbands and the women still want to hang out with her, and as a viewer you never question why. Plus, she’s a reliable veteran who’s never gotten her due — if Huppert is ever going to get that lifetime achievement Oscar, it should be for Elle.
By the way: This proves that my system is better, because as the Oscar are currently situated, one of the two best performances in this year’s field is guaranteed to lose. Huppert and Portman are in direct competition when they should be both taking home hardware of differing sizes.
