The Academy Awards are Sunday, so it's time for the annual predictions from the revered GonzoGeek panel: Bruce, Chris, John, Matt, Stephe and Matt’s copy of “Wrestlemania 2000” for the Nintendo 64.
Today: Best Supporting Actor
The Nominees:
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Odds (usually) provided by Bovada (formerly Bodog), but they don't have individual odds for this one; it's Christopher Plummer at -3000 and The Field at +1200.
Bruce
WINNER: Christopher Plummer
While I haven’t seen “Beginners”, I have seen enough Oscar telecasts to know this is where the Academy likes to give lifetime achievement awards. I’m still pissed that Martin Landau beat Samuel L. Jackson. Plummer achieved immortality as Captain Von Trapp in 1965’s “The Sound of Music.” Since then he’s worked steady and memorably. Who can forget his turn as Chang, the Shakespeare quoting Klingon in “Star Trek VI?” This field is pretty light. Only Branagh is really any competition. His turn as aging and frustrated Sir Laurence Olivier was my equal parts funny and heartbreaking. He was my favorite part of “My Week with Marilyn”. The Academy will get to Branagh in time. Just not this time. No, this time the Hollywood Hills are alive with the sound of Plummer.
In a Perfect World: Patton Oswalt would have received a nod for “Young Adult,” won and given the greatest acceptance speech of all time. He may have even Tweeted while doing so.
Chris
WINNER: Christopher Plummer
Much as the temptation exists to go for Nick Nolte playing a recovering alcoholic or Max von Sydow in a 9/11 flick (in what is probably this year’s coolest list of nominees. Just look at it…the highs, the lows, the sheer manliness, the young ‘un, and their insanely varied bodies of work), the marker instead goes to Christopher Plummer. His was the character people remember from this movie, and any time a supporting role does that, the shiny dude is his to lose. Sir Branagh falls to 0 for 5 in the process.
In a Perfect World: Jonah Hill carries the day as recompense for all the shit he’s had to take from that useless twat Aldous Snow over the years. It was nice to see him get a real job anyway.
John
WINNER: Christopher Plummer
This seems like a lock for one of those Oscars that ends up being a de facto lifetime achievement award. Add in the fact that Plummer has never won an Academy Award, and I think it's a lock he takes home the gold statue at the end of the night. The only one of these movies I saw was Moneyball, and I certainly didn't think Hill's bland number-crunching sabermetrician was some standout character. I suppose he can use this as some sort of solace, though, when he's making more movies like this 10 years from now.
In a Perfect World: A time machine is invented, we go back a few years and Norbit is never made -- thus giving Eddie Murphy the Academy Award he deserved for Dreamgirls.
Matt
WINNER: Christopher Plummer
Everything seems stacked up for Plummer here. I particularly enjoyed Nolte's performance in Warrior, but the nomination is reward enough in this case; recognition of a once-great actor crawling his way out of hard times. A lot of people decry Hill's nomination, but his understated baseball geek was a good performance, if somewhat subdued. It's rare for the second male lead in an Aaron Sorkin script to not be somewhat manic (though Steve Zaillian gets equal credit on Moneyball's screenplay) and Hill himself is known for a highlight reel of raspy screaming. Nobody seemed to notice that he did something a bit different here, and if there's only room for one geek, that's why Patton Oswalt gets shunned for Young Adult. Of the remaining nominees, von Sydow is as much a legacy nomination as Plummer but for a far weaker film, and Branagh is recognized for playing Sir Lawrence Olivier. Three old favorites and two mainstream standouts that have no shot at winning - sounds like an Oscar "supporting" category to me.
In A Perfect World: Oswalt would have been nominated as a lead two years ago for Big Fan and no one much notices him being left out here. Meanwhile, Max von Sydow is left off in favor of Albert Brooks in Drive.
Stephe
WINNER: Christopher Plummer
I’ve not seen any of these movies, but am convinced that Jonah Hill has pictures of Academy voting members with dead hookers or young boys or both. How else to explain that nomination? Has no one seen the rest of his oeuvre? He’s starring in a remake of ’21 Jump Street’ for Manny’s Sake! Give him the Richard Greico Lifetime Achievement Award and hustle him out of the limelight.
In a Perfect World: Jonah Hill never makes another movie again.
Wrestlemania 2000 *
WINNER: Nick Nolte
Hill isn't the least credible nomination, that goes to von Sydow, a left-field nominee from a forgettable movie. He's the first to go.
Kenneth Branagh, a good actor overshadowed by trying to puppet some of the greats - Jeff Jarrett
Jonah Hill, an occasionally-hyper fat guy who suddenly wasn't fat anymore - The Blue Meanie
Nick Nolte, a tired old man whose years of substance-abuse and bad parenting have caught up with him - Vince McMahon
Christopher Plummer, a lifelong journeyman whose star turn comes from a late-stage identity change - Mankind
Everyone teams up on Plummer early to get their advantage. When Nolte and Branagh tumble outside, Hill wraps CP up in a small package and gets the quick elimination at 2:44. Action continues in and out of the ring as the three remaining combatants change allegiances frequently. Plummer has unfinished business and inserts himself in the action, eventually setting up Nolte to hit a stunner on Hill and pin him at 9:37. Action returns to the ring and Branagh goes to work on Nolte's arm with a few submissions, setting up his patented "Another Goddamned shakespeare Adaptation" finishing move. It never happens, though, as Nolte reverses an Irish whip into a sleeperhold, forcing a surprise tapout from Branagh at 11:22!
* Wrestlemania 2000 picks the Oscars by (1) eliminating the nominee with the longest odds, (2) matching up the remaining four with a character from WM2K’s extensive circa-1997 WWF roster and (3) Staging a CPU-generated four-man elimination match where the last man standing is the Oscar winner. No wrestlers are repeated during the contest.