Team Top Ten: Oscar's Greatest Losers (Actor Edition)

Al Pacino won his Oscar on his eighth nomination. He deserved it more the other seven times!Amir here, back with another monthly team poll. Back in May, we had a look at the Best Actress Oscars and picked what we thought were the greatest losers in history. Since we all love symmetry, it’s only fair to give the losing gentlemen their chance to shine. And it's also quite topical in December 2013. This year's Best Actor race has so many worthy choices that the losers are inevitably worth celebrating in advance. 

This was an incredibly arduous task. Though we may all have our regular disagreements with AMPAS, there’s no denying the wealth of talent on display in their record of movie history. These are some of the most iconic performances in film history and to narrow them down to just ten is a fool’s errand. List-making always is! How does one judge Mickey Rourke’s brooding anti-hero Wrestler against Chaplin’s satirical Great Dictator?  Is tortured Joaquin Phoenix in The Master too fresh in the memory to compare to tortured James Mason? Jack Lemmon in The Apartment or Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot? It’s heartbreaking to leave anyone out, but now it’s done. Have a look for yourself and let us know who would have made your list. 

THE 10 GREATEST BEST-ACTOR-LOSING PERFORMANCES
after the jump

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Male Acting 2013: Lopsided Embarrasment of Riches

It's that time of year when we have to start taking stock of the year and prepping all that delicious Year in Review nonsense that goes on forever (aka 2 months at least). I can't help myself with the listing from December through January (and sometimes beyond). We already surveyed impossible ballot decisions when it comes to the women. So now it's time for the men. I thought about delaying this another week since the great remaining unseens for me are male-centric. I'll see Out of the Furnace, American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street all within the next 8 days and will try and catch up with Rush, too... if only because, generally speaking, I adore Mr Daniel Brühl.  

We'll start with the weakest of the four acting quadrants both historically speaking and this year, too. Even in this meager list of 12 men I'm considering (before those last four key films) two of them are arguable leads...

SUPPORTING ACTOR - my longlist ballot
in no particular order

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Review: Dallas Buyer's Club

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

"Silence = Death" was a particularly genius political slogan for AIDS activists in the 1980s. Potently succinct, righteously angry, and, best of all, both literally and spiritually true.  The conversations it prompted about systemic gay oppression, political complacency, the importance of frank sexual discussion, and gay liberation -- particularly in regards to the fight against HIV and AIDS --  surely saved countless lives. But isn't it a curious thing that HIV/AIDS in the arts and entertainments still remains so tied to gay-only narratives of roughly a ten year window from the early 80s through the early 90s? Time to tell new stories from fresh perspectives? Enter DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, one of the first AIDS dramas (that I can recall at least) that is not about the gay community. 

Matthew McConaughey stars as Ron Woodroff, a hard-living homophobe electrician. When we first meet him he's having a drug-fueled three way with two women behind the scenes at the rodeo. While we're watching him getting it on, he's watching a man getting gored at the rodeo. This opening sequence arguably shoves the entirely less useful 'Sex = Death' argument in your face, but the film quickly finds its footing as an involving drama about a man who doesn't know what's knocked him out and also is too damn stubborn to stay down. 

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Happy Centenial, Burt Lancaster!

Anne Marie here to celebrate a Hollywood icon on his 100th birthday.

November 2nd is the centennial of that charismatic giant of an actor, Burt Lancaster. He had Clark Gable's charisma, Cary Grant's charm, The Grin, a mop of hair that couldn't be tamed, and a voice that dripped sweetness from every syllable. With all of these admirable qualities, Lancaster could have settled into a career as a leading man, however he chose to pursue challenging roles and a career directing and producing as well. I first saw him in The Rainmaker starring opposite Katharine Hepburn. It takes something special to tear my attention away from Kate The Great, but the minute Lancaster appeared I was starstruck.

But if we're going to talk about iconic Lancaster performances, we have to start here:

While this particularly sexy kiss is what we all remember the film for, it's worth mentioning that Lancaster's also very good in the film. As Sgt. Warden, Lancaster balances military bravado, empathy for his soldiers, passion, vulnerability, and steeliness on his well-muscled shoulders. He was rightfully nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. [Trivia Note: From Here To Eternity is tied with 8 other pictures for "most acting nominations from one film" with 5 (!) an achievement that is now extremely rare, ending with Network (1976)] 

Lancaster wouldn't win the gold until Elmer Gantry in 1960...

Elmer Gantry is a role tailor-made for Lancaster's particular brand of charm. Gantry is a con man who starts starts evangelizing at revivals because he wants to get into the habit of Sister Sharon (Jean Simmons). Gantry is a bad man preaching the Good Book. But my goodness, I could listen to him read the phone book! It's impossible not to root for him or fall for him. Lancaster roars and cajoles and cries while he's preaching, but his quiet moments are equally powerful. One such quiet scene is between Gantry and a prostitute played by future Partridge Family matriarch Shirley Jones. Lancaster portrays Gantry's powerful personality with an equally potent physicality, so when the wordsmith is temporarily broken, you can see it in his shoulders as well as his eyes. Elmer Gantry is more a whirlwind than a simple performance.

Burt Lancaster's career was as long as it was diverse. He played pirates, preachers, thugs, Nazis, conmen, convicts, and cowboys. One thing's certain: he was definitely never dull. Happy Birthday, Burt!

What's your favorite Burt Lancaster movie?

Tom Hanks, All-American

[Here's Deborah with a personal story that any movie-loving reader with a kid (or that hopes to have one might enjoy). How will you introduce them to the movies? And who will they love onscreen? - N]

Tom Hanks was my son's first favorite actor.

I started my son on classic movies when he was just eight years old. Arthur has Asperger's, and was intensely sensitive to any content that was even vaguely upsetting. At the age of nine, he could have worked for Screenit.com or the MPAA. My solution was to introduce him to movies from a time of more delicate sensibilities. Starting with Miracle on 34th Street, we moved to Arsenic and Old Lace, which opened into a long-term screwball comedy kick. Musicals, too, became a major part of our lives, up to and including Arthur's passion for Gene Kelly and his entry into dance school.

But at the movie theater, it was strictly kid stuff: Pixar, Harry Potter, Batman. Christmas of 2002, I asked my then-twelve-year old if he wanted to see a grown-up movie. He loved Catch Me If You Can. About a year later, I heard him say that Tom Hanks was his favorite actor. I was surprised, but realized that in fact, we'd seen Forrest Gump at home together, and he'd seen Apollo 13 at school, making Tom Hanks one of the few living actors that Arthur had seen in multiple movies, and the only one he really remembered.

Tom Hanks, all-American, the late 20th/early 21st century Jimmy Stewart. Arthur liked Hanks; he found he could connect to him. Hanks is also, I'd argue, one of the most tasteful modern actors. He knows how to read a script with a discerning eye. Sure, he's made some clunkers (Larry Crowne), but in general, Hanks's name in the cast adds credibility to a film. I mean, is John Cusack less talented than Tom Hanks? I don't think so, but his career suggests he has no ability to tell wheat from chaff, so when you see that Cusack is in a movie, you don't think, "Well, it'll probably be good."

But Hanks, with his pretty good taste and his aw-shucks accessibility, has managed to star in a whole bunch of movies that are just about perfect for introducing someone to the love of film. You can start with his voice in Toy Story, and eventually land as an adult at Captain Phillips, perhaps stopping at Saving Mr. Banks in the tween years.

I checked in with Arthur while writing this article. His favorite actor is now Liev Schreiber, but he still admires Tom Hanks.