The 91st Academy Awards: Best Actor

The Oscar for Best Actor is a good, old-fashioned race, with two nominees who stand a chance and three who don't. However, who deserves it is actually worth a discussion.

Out of the five nominees, four of them play real people. This happens a lot with Oscar, as I think many voters are persuaded by the accuracy of the impersonation. Christian Bale, for example, is loaded with prosthetics and has Dick Cheney's gravelly voice down pat in Vice. Bale is a fine actor, a real chameleon, but I can't say I was overwhelmed by the acting as I was by the transformation.

The same could be said of Rami Malek, as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Malek, who only faintly looks like Mercury, has more work to do, but then again, he lip syncs the singing (I don't think there's enough acting training in the world to reproduce Mercury's voice). But some months after I've seen the movie, that's what I remember--the songs.

The other two actors playing real people did so without benefit of much to go on. Willem Dafoe, as Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate, has only Van Gogh's letters and paintings to build a character on, but certainly no one alive knows what he sounded like. It's a very good performance, though. Viggo Mortensen, as Tony Villalonga, a bouncer turned actor in Green Book, ended up on The Sopranos and other shows, so Mortensen had something to go by. But Mortensen's performance seems like an ethnic cliche, no matter how accurate it is.

Frankly, I think if I had a vote I'd pick Bradley Cooper, for playing the on-the-way-down rock star in A Star Is Born. His character is all his, and he has written and directed some mighty fine Oscar clip scenes. I think I'll always remember the look on his face when Lady Gaga's manager tells him he's bad for her, and he's decided what he's going to do.

But Cooper won't win--he might win for Best Adapted Screenplay, although I think Spike Lee will ace him out--and neither will Mortensen and Dafoe. It's between Bale and Malek.

If we look at the precursors, both won Golden Globes, in different categories, but Malek took the SAG (and besides, Bale gave an obnoxious speech, even if Dick Cheney is Satanic). Bale has also won before. Little did I realize forty-five years ago, when I first got into Queen, then they would one day be the stuff of Oscar-winning movies. That would be like a 1975 film about Nelson Eddy. I've got Malek for the win.

Will win: Malek
Could win: Bale
Should win: Cooper
Should have been nominated: Ethan Hawke, First Reformed