Best Actor

Forest Whitaker is winning everything; if there is a Des Moines Film Critics Award or a Golden Goblet award, he has won it. His portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin made a clean sweep of the top four critics’ awards and picked up every industry nomination possible. With all the gold he has collected, the race should be over; what kind of juggernaut could possibly unseat him? How about the most Oscar-losing actor of all time? Peter O’Toole and the late Richard Burton are currently tied for the most acting nominations without winning, with seven losses apiece, and this year, 74-year-old O’Toole is guaranteed a chance of either breaking the record or being happily taken off the list. After these two, the race is truly over, so three more guys can count themselves lucky just to be nominated. The next most likely candidate should be Leonardo DiCaprio, but the question is, for which film? He gave two starring performances this year, in Blood Diamond and The Departed. The latter film should have the upper hand, with better reviews and a guaranteed Best Picture nod, while Blood was seen as a preachy, so-so film with good performances. However, DiCaprio’s Departed candidacy has been split between the lead and supporting categories. (Which is ridiculous; he is at least the co-lead actor with Matt Damon, if not the single main character.) Academy rules forbid an actor to compete for two films in the same category, so in the event that DiCaprio gathers enough votes for both films, only the film with the most votes will be counted, and the votes for the other film will be tossed out of contention. I’ll put DiCaprio to the side for a moment and size up the rest of the candidates. One is Will Smith. I am very cranky about this candidacy because of his film’s purposely misspelled title, the too-cute casting of his real-life son, and mostly because I can’t stand Will Smith. He was nominated for Ali without a SAG nomination, and this time around he got the guild’s endorsement, so another nod is inevitable. There is Ryan Gosling, critics’ darling for The Believer in 2001, teen heartthrob from that Notebook movie in 2004, and critics’ darling again for the indie movie of the year, Half Nelson. The 26-year-old actor has arrived, so his chances look solid. The last major player in this race is Sacha Baron Cohen, a British actor playing that omnipresent Kazakh reporter that has spawned a rabid cult of fans. Cohen adopts this character as he encounters real people in this semi-documentary (many of whom are trying to sue him over their representation in the film), so the question is, will voters see this as genuine acting or just a stunt? Will they see the film as satire or a feature-length episode of Punk’d? There is a bullying mentality surrounding this film: Anyone who doesn’t like it just doesn’t “get it”! (I get the humor, thank you very much, and while much of the film made me giggle, it was still a puerile vehicle for satire.) Voters may well feel the need to prove they “get it” and give Cohen the last slot, but it seems more likely the film will remain divisive enough that they’ll stick with Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorsese’s new DeNiro for the 21st century, for The Departed.