The 2nd Annual Anti-Oscars

Every year there are great performers and films that for whatever reason do not get the attention they deserve at the Oscars. Sometimes they’re underrated, sometimes they’re critical darlings and sometimes the field is just too vast.

I guess I should be proud that when I did this feature last year, none of the movies or performers I named got nominated. Is that a good thing? Anyway, here again I’ve picked some names that have nary a prayer when the Oscar nominations are announced next Thursday. If it feels like I’m missing a really good one, assume they actually have a shot.

Best Picture

• Looper
• The Kid With a Bike
• The Turin Horse
• Bernie
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Rust and Bone
• The Impossible

I’ll maybe wish I included my four of my Top 10 movies of the year on this list when they don’t get nominated. Those are “The Master,” “Skyfall,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

But the movies I have selected are all just as wonderful and not Oscar bait at all. “Looper” is exactly what clever studio filmmaking should be. “The Kid With a Bike” is such a heartbreaking and darling film about a kid who loves too strong the things that don’t love him back, and it’s only being forgotten because it premiered two Cannes film festivals ago. “The Turin Horse” is so gigantic, epic and hard to watch, it may just be considered one of the best movies ever made years from now. “Rust and Bone” is a daring romance that the Academy simply hasn’t seen. “Bernie” treads the line between comedy, drama and documentary a little too closely for the Academy to care. “Perks” is destined to be a teen classic alongside “The Breakfast Club.” And “The Impossible” should have Oscar bait written all over it, but Academy voters have already booted it out of contention in fields such as Visual Effects and Makeup.

There’s no questioning that the movies that are being nominated for Best Picture are quality films, but some of my picks might hold up in the culture’s eye just a little better over time.

Snubs: “Chronicle,” “The Comedy,” “Oslo, August 31^st”

Best Actor

• Jack Black – Bernie
• Denis Lavant – Holy Motors
• Tom Holland – The Impossible
• Matthias Schoenaerts – Rust and Bone
• Tim Heidecker – The Comedy

Let’s face it; the Best Actor race is stacked. It pains me to think that even Joaquin Phoenix might not get in. And for the most part, those guys are overwhelmingly deserving.

But just how good is Jack Black in “Bernie?” It’s the most offbeat, off type role he’s ever played, and the entire time watching that film we’re waiting for Black to dip into self parody, and although he’s required to always be teetering on the edge of it, he never does.

Then there’s Denis Lavant. I didn’t like “Holy Motors,” even though everyone else does. I’m not going to get into that now. But he played 11 roles in this movie. ELEVEN. The guy puts Alec Guinness to shame. To say he’s one character putting on different faces is completely wrong. He is all 11 guys, and he could be in 11 different movies with these characters.

As for Tom Holland, he’s really the lead in “The Impossible.” Thankfully he is getting campaigned for this category, but he’ll never make it in for the sad reason that he’s a kid. Coming from a background doing “Billy Elliot” in London, he here effortlessly helps a struggling Naomi Watts and displays more growth than any character in the film.

Matthias Schoenaerts is in a similar boat. Marion Cotillard is stealing away all the buzz because she doesn’t have legs in the movie, but Schoenaerts gives a breathtakingly unsentimental performance as a breakneck kick boxer.

Last of all is Tim Heidecker. In “The Comedy,” he also gives an unsympathetic performance. Maybe he is just being himself from the “Tim and Eric” show, but he walks the same nuanced line in his performance as Black, Schoenaerts and Lavant. He has to be very sincere about the act of being insincere, and a bad performance would otherwise ruin that film.

Snubs: Richard Gere (Arbitrage), Jake Gyllenhaal (End of Watch), Suarj Sharma (Life of Pi) Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) Sean Penn (This Must Be the Place) Liam Neeson (The Grey), Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) Anders Danielsen Lie (Oslo, August 31st)

Best Actress

• Anna Paquin – Margaret
• Aubrey Plaza – Safety Not Guaranteed
• Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Emma Watson – The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Kara Hayward – Moonrise Kingdom

Two of the names on this list had movies that were technically from last year, both “Margaret” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” Yet in each of them, their leading ladies arguably give the performances of their career. Paquin is perfect as an intelligent teenager with whom we can relate, but one we know is somewhat abrasive if not hostile. The real trick is that she seems to know it too.

As for Swinton, she’s one of my favorite actresses working today. She’s never given a bad performance and can achieve depths that other actresses would crumble at. In my review of “We Need to Talk About Kevin” I said of her, “perhaps no actress alive today can be as convincing when constantly caught in a state of perplexed emptiness and delirium.”

The other three performers are fairly young, even somewhat being discovered. Emma Watson is well known from Harry Potter, but in “Perks” she’s out of her shell, donning an American accent and vulnerable personality that shows her acting for the first time.

Aubrey Plaza is so perfect as April Ludgate on “Parks and Recreation,” but seeing her in “Safety Not Guaranteed” shows that she has a distinct personality that enables her to be surly, sour and sarcastic but still reveal she’s a tiny bit sweet.

As for Kara Hayward, I hope this girl has a bright future ahead of her. She’s precious in “Moonrise Kingdom,” a girl living above her age and an actress giving a performance beyond her age too.

Snubs: Meryl Streep (Hope Springs) Lola Creton (Something in the Air/Goodbye First Love)

 

Best Supporting Actor

• Dwight Henry – Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Jim Broadbent – Cloud Atlas
• Bruce Willis – Looper/Moonrise Kingdom
• Ezra Miller – The Perks of Being a Wallflower/We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Michael Pena – End of Watch

Here’s yet another stacked category, and probably the most tumultuous in terms of who will compose those final five Oscar nominees. Even with the surprising number of on-the-bubble people not listed here (Bardem, DiCaprio, McConaughey, Redmayne, Crowe, Jackson, Goodman), these five may not be completely dead in the water as I may believe. Anyone of them could be a big surprise.

Probably the biggest for me would be Bruce Willis. In two movies this year, he gave the best performances he’s given in over a decade. One was a nuanced, off type role in which he had perfect comic timing and unexpected emotional depth and the other displayed his bravura and intensity as an actor while reminding people he’s not just an action star.

One of the other more likely contenders however would be Dwight Henry. A non-actor, so thus denied a spot in the SAG nominations, he gives a thunderous performance that really isn’t out-shined by the spunk of Quvenzhane Wallis.

I had to throw a bone to Jim Broadbent. He’s such a great actor, and he’s having a ball in “Cloud Atlas.” That movie might be completely lost and unintentionally silly without him.

Then there’s Ezra Miller, a new kid on the block, but if you wanted proof that he’s got the acting bug, just look at how different his performances are between Kevin and Patrick. He’s at two complete opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, and he’s convincing as both.

Last is Michael Pena, long an underrated actor but in “End of Watch” giving the surprise performance of his career. “End of Watch” doesn’t always work as a crime thriller, but what works better than anything is his unbelievable cop car chemistry with Jake Gyllenhaal. The two of them look like they’ve been partners for 10 years, not 10 weeks during a movie shoot.

Snubs: James D’Arcy (Hitchcock), Woody Harrelson (Seven Psychopaths), Chris Tucker (Silver Linings Playbook), Edward Norton (Moonrise Kingdom)

 

Best Supporting Actress

• Tilda Swinton – Moonrise Kingdom
• Judy Greer – Jeff, Who Lives at Home
• Samantha Barks – Les Miserables
• Emily Blunt – Looper
• J. Smith Cameron – Margaret

I had a hard time putting this list of five together. The category is already thin in the Oscars, so picking five underdogs wasn’t easy. But I’m not scraping the bottom of the barrel either.

For one, Samantha Barks’s work in “Les Miz” is spot on. She’s an unknown screen actress but played the part of Eponine on Broadway, and she earns practically as much emotion in her solo as Anne Hathaway does, who is coincidentally the reason Barks probably won’t be nominated.

Then there’s Emily Blunt, who does so much more than be “the girl” in “Looper.” She’s got attitude, vulnerability and a real purpose to her character that another actress might not have conveyed as strongly.

J. Smith Cameron is yet another under the radar performer. In “Margaret,” she walks out on stage as a Broadway star and commands the attention of her audience and her fellow actors. Off stage at home with her daughter, she seems lost and wondering where that control went. It’s a devastatingly relatable feeling.

If Judy Greer is under the radar, it’s because she only has a few scenes in “Jeff, Who Lives at Home.” The movie initially paints her as a shrill, one-dimensional bitch cheating on her husband, and she follows suit. But the movie does a double take thanks in no small part to her work, revealing that she’s a woman with her own needs, concerns and depth. It’s reminiscent of her equally brief work in “The Descendants.”

And finally, my one repeat nominee: Tilda Swinton, as Social Services. In all honesty, the whole cast of “Moonrise Kingdom” is brilliant, but there’s something about the way Swinton wears that ridiculous blue cape and hat and refuses to bat an eye at being called Social Services that just makes her iconic.

Snubs: Rosemarie Dewitt (Your Sister’s Sister), Kelly Reilly (Flight), Frances McDormand (Moonrise Kingdom)