Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actor

Sylvester Stallone could win his first Oscar for playing Rocky Balboa in Creed, nearly 40 years after he created the character.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are:

Christian Bale for The Big Short

Tom Hardy for The Revenant

Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight

Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies

Sylvester Stallone for Creed

So often when we talk about great supporting performances, we talk about big, flashy characters who come in and steal every scene in which they appear. We think of out-sized villains or larger-than-life personas that make an immediate impression with some big show of power, strength, or often as not, oratory talent. There is nothing like that in the Best Supporting Actor category this year.

Sure, these nominated performances feature showy moments, and each of these actors certainly leaves his mark on these films, but this year, the nominees leave their mark with subtle character work and attention to detail. In so doing, they create portraits of relatable people with flaws and virtues similar to our own.

There is little to connect these five characters – a math genius with no people skills, a cowardly fur trapper, an idealistic journalist, a Soviet spy, and a broken-down boxer – but the one thread that carries through is the idea that each man, no matter his actions, believes what he is doing is right. These may not be noble people, and a couple may even be misguided or on the wrong side of history, but they pursue their causes faithfully because there is nothing else for them to do.

Sylvester Stallone for Creed – Sometimes, it really is as simple as the Academy wanting to see someone win. It may not be everybody’s favorite performance, but it would be hard to find people who would not at least enjoy watching Stallone accept an Oscar. Something about it just feels right – and for this role in particular. Rocky Balboa is his creation, one of America’s favorite fictional heroes, a cultural icon, and a figure many of us grew up idolizing. Rocky represents the best of us, and the character still resonates so deeply today because Stallone has spent nearly 40 years cultivating this legacy.

If Stallone wins – and he is the frontrunner right now – it will no doubt be for those 40 years of work and not just his singular performance in director Ryan Coogler’s Creed. This may or may not be fair – after all, none of the other actors had four decades to build a character – but it would not be undeserved. A close viewing of the Rocky series reveals an actor completely at one with his character.

Rocky is who he is not because of his role in these grand American sports epics but because of the little moments Stallone inserts that make up the fabric of the character. Stallone’s looks, his line deliveries, and his posture tell us everything we need to know about Rocky. Spoiler for one of the most popular films of all time that is also 40 years old, but Rocky loses the big fight in Rocky, and we love him anyway. The Rocky movies have never been about winning championships. They are about finding something special within yourself, the will to struggle, to fight, and to survive. That remains true of Coogler’s Creed, and it remains true of Rocky because Stallone makes sure of it.

Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies – You may recall last month I named Rylance’s work in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller my second favorite performance of the year. The quality of the work has only grown in my estimation since then. It is otherworldly how much Rylance communicates without doing much of anything. He never raises his voice, never furrows his brow, and generally never seems concerned about the reality staring him in the face.

Rudolf Abel is a man condemned, both literally by the U.S. court system and figuratively by his chosen profession. He has had a long time to come to terms with his fate, and Rylance plays this character fighting for his life as someone at peace with the decisions he has made that have brought him here. Though what he has done may be illegal in the eyes of the law, spying on the U.S. for the Soviet Union, he has no sense of guilt because he knows in this war, people do what they must to survive. Rylance turns this criminal into someone the audience roots for just by showing us the power of accepting one’s self.

Tom Hardy for The Revenant – What a year for Hardy – four wildly different turns in three utterly unique films, The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Legend. He has always been a chameleon, disappearing into roles like few other actors of his generation. He is a big, intimidating presence, but he is just as likely to play debonair as destructor, and he seems most at home giving himself over to the demands of the part.

His character in The Revenant, John Fitzgerald, could easily be a stock villain – a selfish, mean bastard who is inherently evil – but Hardy has never taken the easy route. He digs into Fitzgerald to find the man beyond the action of the story. He plays him with sympathy and understanding, recognizing that each man is the hero of his own story. While the audience follows Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) in his quest for vengeance, Fitzgerald similarly wants only to survive. His actions are cowardly, but cowardice is never in short supply in this world. Thanks to Hardy’s performance, though, the audience sees the roots of Fitzgerald’s choices, and if we do not like it, at least we can understand it.

Christian Bale for The Big Short – A three-time nominee, Bale is the only previous winner in this category, having earned an Oscar in 2010 for The Fighter, and is well known for his physical and emotional commitment to his roles. While on the surface, his transformation into Michael Burry for The Big Short may seem to pale in comparison to some of his other similarly lauded work, Bale absolutely takes on the skin of a man who knows he is right but does not have the aptitude for sharing that information with others.

Burry is quite clearly on the autism spectrum – like so many math geniuses in pop culture these days – but Bale employs none of the quirky, platitudinous mannerisms or line readings we have come to expect from these kinds of characters. Burry is just a man who can see the future in the numbers, and his job is to earn money for his clients with that knowledge. Because he understands numbers but not nuance, his life is constantly frustrating, and Bale taps into that frustration expertly.

Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight – Ruffalo was here just last year for his wonderful turn in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher. He is back for his standout performance as fiery journalist Mike Rezendes, the kind of man whose passion for his job sometimes clouds his judgment but whose goals are always noble. He is so appalled by the depth of the abuse and corruption he uncovers that it rattles him in ways he never could have imagined.

This is the only performance in the category this year to feature what one might call an “Oscar scene” – that big, showy moment we talked about above – and Ruffalo nails it. The goal of the Spotlight team is to dig deeper than anyone else is willing to go, to investigate more than anyone else has thought to, and to find what others missed.

As the scope of the Catholic Church’s cover-up becomes clear, Rezendes insists they publish their findings sooner rather than later, while the rest of the team says there is still more to find. Ruffalo never hits a false note during Rezendes’ impassioned speech about taking down the system that has allowed this to happen. The scene is the culmination of all the careful groundwork Ruffalo has laid to establish who this man is, what he cares about, and what he wants.

The final analysis

The most likely winners are Stallone and Rylance. Stallone has the nostalgia factor in his favor and the kind of story voters may want to give a happy ending. He also won the Golden Globe. However, Rylance mostly dominated the critics’ awards – at least among those who were nominated – and just picked up the BAFTA last Sunday. The Golden Globe may mean little for Stallone’s chances since the Hollywood Foreign Press loves celebrities and Stallone is a huge international star. However, Rylance’s win with BAFTA was not so surprising since he is a wildly popular stage actor in England.

Interestingly, each of the other three nominees is here representing one of the three Best Picture frontrunners. Should Stallone or Rylance falter, whichever of the other actors wins would be a major signal for which film might take the top award. If Hardy wins, we could be looking at a sweep for The Revenant. If it goes to Bale, then it means The Big Short’s seemingly waning strength has rebounded. A Ruffalo win would be a powerful statement for Spotlight. In the end, though, I expect Stallone to win and get a standing ovation to boot.

Will win: Sylvester Stallone for Creed

Should win: Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies

Should have been here: Michael Shannon for 99 Homes

Tomorrow: Best Actress

Year in Review: Top 10 Performances of 2015

On Tuesday, I called this the year of the ensemble, and many of the best films of the year were stacked with wonderful performers giving themselves over to a theater-like atmosphere of community and trust. As a result, this year was not overflowing with big, showy, movie-star performances – with one notable exception we will discuss below – and instead, 2015 was a year of talented actors, young and old, delivering the type of subtle, measured work that often goes underappreciated.

The following 10 achievements come from seven very different films, which share in common only the commitment and perseverance of their actors. The characters they play run the gamut from prisoners and spies to survivalists and robots. In each case, though, it is like the audience is witnessing a magic trick, watching as one person disappears and another appears in an instant to transport us to worlds we could otherwise never know.

Before we get to the list, here are five more performances that certainly belong in the conversation for the year’s best: Benicio Del Toro in Sicario; Marion Cotillard in Macbeth; Paul Dano in Love and Mercy; Rinko Kikuchi in Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter; and Günes Sensoy in Mustang.

10. Tom Hardy as John Fitzgerald in The Revenant

Hardy has built his career on chameleon-like character work. It is a cliché, but if you had told me the same actor was Charles Bronson in Bronson, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, Eames in Inception, and Fitzgerald in The Revenant, I simply would not have believed you. Hardy had a magnificent year with turns as Max in Mad Max: Fury Road and the Kray brothers in the critically acclaimed Legend, but those pale in comparison to his portrayal of the antagonist in the year’s darkest adventure story.

Hardy makes Fitzgerald completely unsympathetic while still giving the audience time and space to come around to his point of view. His actions are incredibly self-serving and cowardly, but one may never question his will to survive. For a film that is all about the triumph of the human spirit against impossible odds, Hardy is the kind of fearless actor who dares to show us the dark side of the human spirit. Fitzgerald is not evil, just weak, and Hardy’s performance is that much stronger for the choice.

9. Jacob Tremblay as Jack in Room

This may be a bit of a mild spoiler for Room, so if you have not seen it, I insist you run out and see it as soon as you can, then come back and finish up the list – or you know, just skip to the next entry. Everyone else still here? Okay. The moment Jack first meets a real dog might be the most uplifting three seconds in recent cinema history. A boy who until a month or so before had no idea the real world existed meets the animal he has long dreamt of but could never really imagine. It is a moment that reminds us why we watch movies, and its success is all due to the look on Tremblay’s face.

If it were that moment alone, Tremblay might have earned a spot on this list, but from the first scene to the last, the then-8-year-old child star of Room makes the audience feel every second of his experience. He simply radiates childlike wonder, curiosity, and exuberance. In an otherwise bleak tale, he is the shining beacon of light for every other character, but without Tremblay’s mature, controlled performance, the role could come off as too cute or cloying. Instead, it is one of the most memorable elements of an eminently memorable film.

8. Brie Larson as Joy in Room

Joy is the shadow of Jack. She is the one who knows the life she is missing, the life she has lost. She does everything she can to keep Jack sheltered from reality, but the truth is always staring her in the face. She is a young woman who is nearly destroyed by the contradictions she is forced to live with every day, and the only reason she keeps it together is for the sake of her son. Larson embodies this torment with an achingly physical performance that ensures the audience comprehends the torture she endures.

Still just 26, Larson has been appearing onscreen since she was 9 years old – something which no doubt allowed her to connect on a deeper level with her young co-star. Apart from 2013’s Short Term 12, though, she has never had a role as raw as this to sink her teeth into. No one would have doubted the lifelong actress could pull off this part, but even Larson’s most ardent fans and supporters must have been floored by the grit, determination, and strength of this performance.

7. Michael Shannon as Rick Carver in 99 Homes

Albert Brooks has a great speech in Broadcast News about the devil. In it, he says, “What do you think the devil is going to look like if he’s around? Come on! Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail.” It is my favorite scene in one of my all-time favorite movies because it gets at a core truth about people. We do not fall prey to evil because we are evil ourselves. We fall prey because evil is often seductive and alluring. Carver is a bad guy who rarely acts like a bad guy. He comes off as a pragmatist and an opportunist, but few of us could identify him as evil, which is what he is.

By walking that line and never betraying the darkness inside the character, Shannon pulls us into a web of deceit and treachery the way only a true villain can. He is inviting rather than menacing. He is calm rather than raging. While the world collapses all around him, Shannon portrays Carver as a man who will sit back and wait for it to finish, then go collect the deeds on the rubble. I have said before that along with Michael Fassbender and Leonardo DiCaprio, Shannon is one of the best actors of his generation, and with performances like this, I do not think I will be proven wrong any time soon.

6. Tom Courtenay as Geoff in 45 Years

Courtenay is an absolute acting legend who could have had any career he wanted. In 60 years of screen work, he has just 51 credits and often has gone years between film or television gigs, preferring instead to focus on the stage. Considering the universal acclaim he has enjoyed, things have not worked out too badly for him. For the rest of us, as people who mostly cannot make to British theater productions very often, we are surely missing out. Nowhere is that more evident than in Courtenay’s stellar work in 45 Years.

The audience never meets Geoff before the opening scene of the film changes his life forever, but through Courtenay’s portrayal, we are able to understand the kind of man he was and the kind of man he has become. We see him lost in thought, sulking, sullenly contemplating the five decades of his life since his first love died in an accident. Yet, Courtenay also gives us glimpses of the loving husband and anarchic spirit that are buried by unexpected news from the past. We cannot exactly root for Geoff, but because of Courtenay, we can certainly understand him.

5. Alicia Vikander as Ava in Ex Machina

Last year was a remarkable breakout year for Vikander, who appeared in the critically lauded Ex Machina, Testament of Youth, and The Danish Girl. She does not look to be slowing down in 2016 with Derek Cianfrance’s highly anticipated The Light Between Oceans, a new Wim Wenders film, and a role in the next Bourne film. If she is not a household name by now, she should be by the end of this year, and she has earned it, not only by starring in quality films but by generally being one of the best aspects of those films.

Her performance as Ava is so studied and mannered it is almost otherworldly, which is the point. She is a humanoid robot meant to test our capacity for telling the difference between a human and a machine. The question of whether Ava has what we would call a soul is the central drama of Ex Machina, and Vikander’s portrayal of this alien being keeps the audience in the dark right up to the final frames. Meanwhile, we are as transfixed by Ava as the characters, and that is due to Vikander.

4. Yana Novikova as Anya in The Tribe

The Tribe is a swirling maelstrom of rage and disaffection, and at the center of all this pain is Anya. The plot may revolve around Sergei (Grigoriy Fesenko), the new arrival at a boarding school for the deaf, but Anya is the film’s soul. We cannot know how long she has been a part of this makeshift society, but we can see how she has accepted her place in it. There is a gang that runs the school, and she is simply a cog in their machine. She wants out, but she knows no matter where she goes, her options are limited, so she stays.

Novikova is heartbreaking in the role. Like most of her co-stars in the film, Novikova is deaf and had never acted before The Tribe. Her performance makes one wish there were more call for deaf actors. Hell, someone should probably just write a movie around her. Every moment she is onscreen in this essentially silent film, your eye is naturally drawn to her. Almost without uttering a single noise, she brings you into Anya’s world of disappointment and lost innocence. There is no comparison in cinema history for this work, and this is just as well because the performance is incomparable.

3. Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass in The Revenant

I talked about this a bit in my review of the film, but I am going to repeat myself here because I want to be very clear. Apart from it generally being an honor, DiCaprio does not care if he wins an Academy Award. The cynical among the film commentariat would have you believe his choice of films and roles is influenced by a burning desire within him to win a small gold statue. Consider this, though: Maybe his choices are informed by a sincere wish to do amazing work. Wouldn’t that be novel – sincerity?

It seems necessary to repeat this because some have criticized DiCaprio’s performance in The Revenant as simply Oscar bait. If these critics mean DiCaprio’s physical and mental dedication to portraying the grueling journey made by Glass is the kind of performance the Academy often awards, they are correct. DiCaprio should win an Oscar for his wholesale transformation from famous actor to frontiersman, and if he does, some will deride that victory, but they will be wrong. DiCaprio’s portrayal of Glass is career-defining work by an actor at the height of his powers.

2. Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies

Like Courtenay, Rylance is a brilliant British actor who has devoted himself to the theater, earning multiple Tony and Olivier (the British version of the Tony) awards in the process. He has just a handful of screen credits, but after his turn in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, you can expect that to change. In fact, Spielberg has already brought Rylance on for his next film, The BFG, a dark children’s literature adaptation. I do not have to see it to know Rylance will be amazing in it. Rylance delivering an awesome performance is a fact of life, like the sun rising or a stone sinking.

Abel is a suspected Soviet spy who is captured and railroaded through the court system, not because it is just but because the institutional fear of communism demands it. His lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks), is incensed by this miscarriage of justice, but Abel remains cool. Rylance plays Abel as a studious man at peace with the things he has done and the consequences thereof. When Donovan asks if he is scared, Abel asks in return, “Would it help?” It is a wonderful line, and Rylance sells it with the calm conviction of a condemned man who has done nothing but follow his conscience.

1. Charlotte Rampling as Kate in 45 Years

This could be nothing else. From the minute this film ended, I knew I had just seen the performance of the year by a living legend of European cinema. Rampling has created indelible characters her whole career, from The Night Porter to The Verdict to Swimming Pool, but the most remarkable thing about Kate is how unremarkable Rampling is able to make her. Kate’s life has pretty much gone according to plan. She met a man, got married fairly young, became an apparently well liked school teacher, and retired to the countryside with her beloved husband. By all indications, hers is a dream life.

At the start of 45 Years, the dream is over, and Kate wakes up. For an hour and a half, we watch as this woman’s fragile existence is torn apart from within and without, and Rampling’s performance turns an otherwise low-key marriage drama into a Shakespearean tragedy. Every note of pain and remorse registers on Rampling’s face, and she uses her body the way other actors use a monologue. There is not a false note or wrong step to be found in Rampling’s portrait of a woman grappling with the lie at the center of her life and searching for the strength to face the truth.

Check back tomorrow as we conclude our Year in Review series with Last Cinema Standing's Top 10 Films of 2015.

New movie review: Bridge of Spies

Tom Hanks stars in Steven Spielberg's excellent Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies.

“We all want it to have that Barton Fink feeling, and I guess we all have that Barton Fink feeling, but since you’re Barton Fink, I’m assuming you have it in spades.”

– Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) in Barton Fink

No one can make a movie like Steven Spielberg. There is a whole generation of filmmakers inspired by Spielberg that is making movies now and trying to capture that particular brand of magic. JJ Abrams immediately springs to mind, but only Spielberg feels like Spielberg. It is that feeling you are watching something that exists outside of time, a classical work of art that could be appreciated as well now as 40 years ago or 40 years hence. When the lights go down and the first frames of the movie flash by, it is transformative. It is transporting. It is Spielberg.

Right away, Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies has that feeling, up to and including leading man Tom Hanks in his fourth appearance in front of the camera for Spielberg. I do not like to say, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore,” because it is a cliché and it is rarely true, but it is has been a long time since we saw something this Capra-esque at the theater. The little guy earnestly fighting a corrupt system with the power of good and right just does not have much place at the movies anymore, except in a Spielberg movie.

Mark Rylance and Hanks in Bridge of Spies.

The director has rightly taken knocks throughout his career for a sentimental streak that sometimes borders on maudlin. There are elements of that tendency in the family sequences here, which are the weakest part of the film but take up such little screen time it hardly matters. The meat of the story involves a man who has dedicated his life to learning the letter of the law so he can inspire others by protecting the spirit of the law.

Hanks plays James Donovan, a Brooklyn attorney tasked by the government with providing the semblance of legal defense for a suspected Soviet spy. The trial is a sham, however, and Donovan’s client, Rudolf Abel, is railroaded through the system toward a quick guilty verdict despite shoddy police work and a failure to adhere to basic legal principles. This does not sit right with Donovan, who refuses to betray his ethics and instead vows to fight for the due process rights of the most hated man in America. This makes Donovan the second-most hated man in America.

The film makes clear in its first scene – an excellent film noir-style chase through the streets of New York City – Abel is guilty. There is no question of this, but it is the legal precedent that concerns Donovan. He takes the case to the highest court in the land and asks quite rightly how we can claim American exceptionalism while denying the very freedoms and rights on which that exceptionalism is founded. He loses anyway.

In one of the best edits you are likely to see this year, as Donovan is pleading his case in a lower court, Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn cut to Donovan’s children in class, holding their hands over their hearts and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. It is a brilliant bit of symbolism as the children robotically spout learned, practiced words about “liberty and justice for all,” while Donovan puts his life and reputation on the line to defend the meaning behind those words.

In any other movie, this would be the bulk of the story, but in Bridge of Spies, this actually is only the first act. The screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, who gave us that Barton Fink quote above, and Matt Charman spends the last two-thirds of the movie on Donovan’s attempt to negotiate a prisoner exchange among the U.S., Soviet Union, and East Germany. If you know the history on which the movie is based, you know what happens to Donovan, Abel, and downed American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, developments I will not spoil here. The joy, as ever, is in watching Spielberg recreate history.

Spielberg is well known by now for his massive historical set pieces such as the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in Schindler’s List and the storming of Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. There is nothing in Bridge of Spies that quite rivals those masterful sequences – really, there is little in cinema history to rival those two scenes – but Spielberg is allowed to indulge this aspect of his filmmaking in depicting the building of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall goes up in Bridge of Spies.

The Wall is such an icon of modern global history that to watch it go up brick by brick is an unsettling experience. In the nearly 30 years since it came down, it has attained a certain mythical quality in its legacy of oppression, separatism, and turmoil, but in reality, it is a mostly stone wall constructed hastily out of fear and anger. It is another wonderful bit of symbolism, showing the divide between East and West is a simple construct that can be put up and torn down as easily as a wall if we choose to work at it as Donovan does.

On a technical level, all of the scenes set in Berlin are simply gorgeous. Production designer Adam Stockhausen perfectly evokes the feel of a post-war city that is still crumbling, while cinematographer and longtime Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski captures the desolation and despair of the landscape. It is a fully lived-in world and one in which no right-thinking person would want to live.

If Spielberg is channeling Capra, then Hanks has conjured the spirit of Capra’s favorite everyman, Jimmy Stewart. Hanks portrays Donovan with an awe-shucks charm that belies a razor-sharp wit, brilliant legal mind, and cunning political savvy. He is like Andy Taylor, Atticus Finch, and Jefferson Smith all rolled into one. He is the man you do not see coming, which makes him dangerous. It is the kind of role Hanks was born to play, and he knocks it out of the park as you would expect.

More likely for American audiences, the revelation will be Mark Rylance as Abel. Rylance is a highly respected, award-winning stage actor who has appeared in a handful of feature films, but his wry line deliveries and world-weary presence absolutely steal the movie. Rylance acts the part of the perfect spy, who cannot be rattled by threats of torture imprisonment, or death. Every time Donovan asks him if he is scared or worried or nervous, Abel asks dryly, “Would it help?” This is a man who knows his lot in life, and Rylance captures that resignation beautifully.

Bridge of Spies may not knock your socks off right after you see it – it is not that kind of movie – but it will stick with you long after you leave the theater. It resonates because it is a simple story about mostly good people trying to do good deeds in a world in which the line between right and wrong has been blurred beyond recognition. It takes a lot of work to stay on the right side of the line, and if Bridge of Spies has a message, it is about the importance of that work.

See it? Yes.