If you had an AMPAS ballot, which performance would get your vote?
Michael Keaton gave the performance on the year. Definitely him.
Of the nominees in this category, I’ve only seen *Birdman *and American Sniper and thought both leads gave great performances, but Keaton was amazing. He’s got my vote.
Keaton was great in Birdman.
Cast for Cumberbatch.
Oscar loves a guy in a wheelchair.
Keaton, but not enthusiastically - I’d have taken Isaac from Violent Year or Oyelowo from Selma on him in an instant. But we deal with the cards we’re dealt, and Keaton was the best of the nominees.
I’d add Spall in TURNER or Hardy in LOCKE to that excluded, vote-worthy list.
Definitely Cooper, but we all know the Academy won’t give a film about a venerated Iraq War veteran the nod.
We don’t know any such thing. Cooper was nominated, and that’s a helluva “nod” considering all the worthy actors left out in the cold (ask Jake Gyllenhaal how he feels not being nominated after giving the finest performance of his career). The movie was nominated for Best Picture, beating out dozens of extremely BP-worthy movies. Though not not the favorites, if AS & Cooper don’t win it’ll have nothing to do with politics.
Btw, Kyle isn’t quite as "venerated"as teabaggers would like to imagine.
Ok, I’ve seen American Sniper now and I’m sorry I didn’t wait to vote. If I could, I’d change my vote from Michael Keaton to Bradley Cooper. No matter what the real Chris Kyle was like, and no matter how this movie might have changed/softened him, Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of the character as written for the movie was perfect. I’m as bleeding-heart a liberal as they come, but I thought it was an excellent movie. It was tense, harrowing, moving and very very sad. Excruciatingly sad. It wasn’t the “America, FUCK YEAH!” rah-rah bullshit I’d thought it was going to be. Yeah there was a bit of that, but mostly it was about a soldier trying to protect his fellow soldiers, and the heavy price the war took on his (the movie character) psyche. Mostly it made me hate George Bush and Dick Cheney even more than I already did for starting the war, and I didn’t think that was possible. But getting back to the movie, IMO it absolutely deserves its Best Picture nomination and Bradley Cooper’s Best Actor nomination. If Cooper were to win, I wouldn’t be upset at all. He was great.
Oscar day bump
Like I said…
I would have made good money betting this year. I predicted all the top prizes except director.
I wasn’t really qualified to answer as I’d seen only one of the performances (Michael Keaton’s) but when I went downstairs to watch the end of the show last night and saw a quick recap of the nominees for Best Actor when the guy playing Stephen Hawking came up I looked over at my wife and said, “It might very well end up being him.” (I based that on the perception that playing somebody with a debilitating disease and coming off as convincing must’ve been VERY difficult. Notice that both top acting awards went to actors who were playing people with ailments) We both were pulling for Michael Keaton (partly because he’s the one we saw but also because we figured he’ll have fewer chances to win that sort of award at this point in time than the guy playing Stephen Hawking will) but I guess we can’t be too unhappy with the guy who was chosen.
We were sure it would be Michael Keaton and when Redmayne was named: “My Left Foot syndrome”. (Julianne Moore too although I am happy she won.)