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Oscar Best Actor/Actress nominees/winners who do nothing extraordinary

posted 8 years ago by MikeHunt153
4 replies | jump to latest

Sometimes, when someone is nominated for or wins an Oscar for Best Actor or Actress, Leading or Supporting, it confuses the hell out of me. Not because I think their performance is bad, that's just an opinion, but because they do absolutely nothing extraordinary in their performance. That's not the actor's fault, it's because the character was written that way, the script doesn't call for them to do anything extraordinary. All they do is read their lines, and they usually read them it well, but you shouldn't win an Oscar for that. Reading simple lines is easy. To win an Oscar, you should do something challenging that really proves your talent. I'm not saying you need to scream and cry in every scene. I actually love subtle performances. But some performances that are nominated for or win an Oscar aren't subtle, they're just absolutely nothing, they're completely ordinary. When it happens, it really confuses me, and it makes me feel like I'm really stupid and failed to notice something everyone else noticed.

[–] strangefruit42 (6) 8 years ago

In some cases the extraordinary is not as obvious, but I agree, there are enough cases that leave me wondering as well. Sometimes I think they give an Oscar to an actor that was overseen before.

In 2008, I remember, enough people seemed to be upset that Robert Downey Jr was nominated for Tropic Thunder (and please, no one whinging about the reputed "black-facing"). I confess, I had to watch the movie more than once to completely understand why it was so special. When you notice that he really put the layers of the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude on each others, it becomes mighty impressive. English is not my first language, but I was told, that once in a while you hear a bit of the Australian accent through the American accent of the role of his role, and when "the dudes are emerging" that change in accents is both hilarious and brilliant. Plus in the first scene he's parodying himself from a terrible 90s action crap named "Danger Zone".

Seriously, I still wonder if there'd have been be any differences in the Oscar winner that year, if Heath Ledger wouldn't have died. No question, he deserved it, but he wasn't the only one. (And we'd probably all prefer if he would still be with us)

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2207) 8 years ago

Siskel and Ebert used to choose a "Most and Least Deserving" on their "If We Picked the Winners" show each year.

[–] BlackHoleSun77 (30) 8 years ago

Halle Berry's Oscar for Monster's Ball easily comes to mind concerning this topic. She didn't really do anything extraordinary in that movie.

[–] AndrewDavies (95) 8 years ago

Emma Stone in La La Land.