Oscars 2014: Predicting 10 Best Supporting Actor Nominees

For me, the Best Supporting Actor category is the most difficult category to predict this far out from the actual nominations. This is not atypical either as this category is annually, almost without fail, the toughest to foresee. The reasons for my particularly foggy clairvoyant skills on this specific matter are two-fold. First, given the types of movies being made in this day and age, the abundance of choice supporting roles with potentially Oscar-worthy prospects is just ridiculous. They're as plentiful as water in the ocean, and this plethora of promising performers, while a boon for fans of cinema, is a nightmare for an Oscar protagonist such as myself trying to pull off the illusion that I retain some unique insight into these awards that your regular laymen could never hope to attain. This year's crop of potential players makes this job an especially Herculean effort because they include so many recognizable names. Brad Pitt, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Bradley Cooper, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Murray, and Ewan McGregor is just a sampling of names that have a performance in a film (some two) that, on paper, looks like it could garner the attention of members of the Academy. A list with this many A-listers makes it none too easy to decide on what basis one performance deserves ranking above the other. Then of course there is the issue of whether a particular performance even belongs in this category. The Academy is notoriously bad on clearly and consistently defining what exactly constitutes a "supporting" performance". Many cried category fraud over Christoph Waltz's win in this category last year, while other examples (such as Morgan Freeman's Best Actor nomination for his role in The Shawshank Redemption, despite the fact that Tim Robbins' character is clearly the protagonist), feel misplaced in the opposite direction. Regardless to say, the delineation is fuzzy at best. In large ensemble pieces, it is also difficult to say, sight unseen, whether a specific performance is significant enough to warrant Oscar attention. Before having actually seen the film, just by looking at the cast of Argo last year, it would have been hard to have said between John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston, which one had the best chances of securing an Oscar nod. After laying eyes on the film, it was pretty obvious Arkin's performance was the most flashy of the bunch. For a film like the upcoming Monuments Men, it's damn near impossible to guess with any certainty which of Bill Murray's, John Goodman's, or Jean Dujardin's performance will pick up the most awards traction. I could hardly look at myself in the mirror and proclaim to be a self-respecting Oscar protagonist if I didn't at least hazard a guess at 2014's Best Supporting Actor lineup, no matter how foolhardy the task. Here then is my, extremely preliminary, stab at which of this year's supporting male performers will catch the fancy of the Academy's eye. I will next be previewing the Best Supporting Actress category, so be on the look out for that as well...