Oscar 2010: Best Supporting Actor

Over the next two and a half weeks I'll take a look at the major categories of the Oscar and putting my finger to the wind to see if I can forecast the victor. I'll also add my two cents on who I would vote for.

I'll start with a fairly easy category to predict, Best Supporting Actor. The front-runner, since the film was released, is Christian Bale for The Fighter, as Dicky Ecklund, the brother and erstwhile manager of boxer Micky Ward. Bale makes an impressive personal transformation, as at no time during this film do you think, "Hey, that's Batman!" It's the kind of performance that draws attention to itself, though, with numerous tics, but I suppose this is proper considering the person he's playing had done an awful lot of drugs.

Bale picks up his first ever nomination for this role, but he's been a prominent actor for a long time (starting with his juvenile role in 1987's Empire of the Sun, which I thought was the best performance by an actor that year) and his resolute performances in two Batman films have proved worth as an actor of blockbuster stature.

Lurking in the weeds is Geoffrey Rush, as the speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech. Rush has won before, in 1996 for Shine, and thus the voters won't feel any sympathy for him. But if a King's Speech wave crashes through the Kodak Theater, Rush could get caught up in it. He also has the kind of role that attracts attention--a quick wit, and a cuddly eccentricity. In some ways he's like George Sanders in All About Eve, having all the good lines, with an extra dollop of sentimentality.

I don't see anyone else in this category having a realistic shot. Mark Ruffalo, who's been kicking around in high profile films for a decade, finally gets a nod for The Kids Are All Right, as the sperm donor who finally meets his two teen-aged children. It's a showy part, and essential to the plot, but I found him a bit too jittery. Jeremy Renner, as the tightly coiled bank robber in The Town, scores his second nomination in as many years, and it's well deserved. It's the kind of part that has roots that can be traced back to Robert De Niro in Mean Streets and even further back to James Cagney in the Warner Brothers' gangster films of the 1930s--the guy who is ready to pop at any moment.

Standing the least chance is probably John Hawkes, as the menacing, meth-cooking uncle of the main character in Winter's Bone. Hawkes, who has a lot of credits but was unknown to me at the time I saw the film, grabbed me by the throat with his performance. He plays a scary guy, but as the film goes on we see the fully-rounded man. I walked out of the theater that day thinking this guy deserved an Oscar nomination, but I would have never imagined he'd actually get one.

Bale has won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actor's Guild Awards, so look for him to get the trifecta on Oscar night.

Will win: Christian Bale
Could win: Geoffrey Rush
Should win: John Hawkes