1. James Franco - Spring Breakers
This entry is unique in my series of articles previewing the 2014 Oscars in the fact that it is the first entry in the series that puts a spotlight on a film which has already been released this year. If you happened to miss it (and if you did, you did yourself a disservice), Spring Breakers chronicles the misadventures of four college-age vixens (played by Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Kornine) who are obsessed with taking the youthful rite of passage they feel they deserve. The party-hardy trip turns out to be quite the journey, fracturing the quartet and bringing out aspects of the girls' personalities that forever transform their lives. The film was the newest flick from off-beat auteur Harmony Kormine, whose previous films include Trash Humpers, a controversial film which followed a group of sociopathic elderly people in Nashville, Tennessee. Spring Breakers is another entry in what seems to be the growing "montage as movie" genre (the person I saw the film with described it as "Terrance Malick does spring break"). While the film sports an uber-hip score from none other than the dub-step maestro himself, Skrillex, it undoubtedly befuddled a number of vapid college-goers who were expecting something closer to reality TV than an experimental art film. The standout feature of the film though is undoubtedly the performance given by James Franco as aspiring-rapper and gangster going by the name of Alien. Based on the underground rap artist Dangeruss (although most believe it is based on another rapper by the name of Riff Raff), Franco is like you've never seen him before, embodying the fatalistic, short-term outlook of the rap/gangster world. While he slips out of the accent a tad here and there, this is a very minor quibble with an otherwise fantastic performance. With cornrows in his hair and white-man-acting-ghetto persona, Franco is everything this dark, Millennial Gen fairy tale needs him to be, and it's quite the mesmerizing performance. Now you may think my obvious appreciation of this performance may be blinding my otherwise sterling analytical abilities when it comes to prognosticating the Oscars, but hear me out for a second. While the film is far too under the radar to receive major Oscar attention (and opened to a overall mixed critical response as well), out of those who professed to like the film (and there were some significantly praiseworthy reviews among those who did like it), they were all ecstatic about Franco's performance. A number of Oscars pundits even declared the performance worthy of an Oscar nomination, and while they simultaneously dismissed his chances, this is the type of secretly-held consensus that spurs on the crowning of cult films and performances. While Franco's performance may not currently be the topic of conversation, much like Matthew McConaughey's performance in Magic Mike last year, I wouldn't be surprised to see Franco's name being mentioned in a lot of papers and cinematic rags on their year's end "best lists". If that happens and begins to avalanche on itself, then it's only a matter of if Franco's campaign can build up enough momentum to overcome whatever competition he may face. It may be a long shot, but I believe it is a realistic one.
That concludes my list, but it only scratches the surface of terrific viable candidates this year for Best Supporting Actor. I had to make a lot of difficult decisions and cut out some big name players off my list, so feel free to name some of this year's coming male supporting performers that you think may be included in 2014's Best Supporting Actor lineup.