5. Peter O'Toole - Venus
The Academy loves its veterans more than a small Midwestern town during a Memorial Day parade, and they show them their love by consistently showering unworthy old-timers with awards and nominations that would not be considered were it not for their reputation. This is especially the case for Hollywood veterans who have for some reason or another, failed to win an Oscar, such as Peter O'Toole. In fact, many times they make up for past transgressions by giving the "once-great" actor an Oscar for second-rate work (see Paul Newman's win for The Color of Money), thereby ripping off some more deserving young actor who they will inevitably have to reward for some inferior performance later on, starting an endless cycle of unjustly rewarding seniority over merit. The fact then the Academy didn't feel it was necessary to reward the legendary eight-time Oscar losing actor (which is more nominations without a win than any other actor in Oscar history), tells you something about the performance. Now don't get me wrong, I love Peter O'Toole. I consider his performance in Lawrence of Arabia as one of the all-time greatest performances in cinema history. It was a role he should have easily won for (although, the actual winner, Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, is inarguably terrific as well). His performance in Venus though, while not terrible, is an all too common retread of the "dirty old man" role that was tired and trite when whoever originated it first made goo-goo eyes at some young pretty thing who could have any man her own age (or even middle-aged) whenever she desired. A beautiful young woman, hanging out with a dying old man, just so he can have some jollies vicariously recalling the days of his sexual conquest is the type of nonsensical sentimentality that I can't stand, and O'Toole does nothing new with the role to make it interesting. A suave, delusional, womanizer, O'Toole's Maurice acts exactly as you would expect him to, which is the problem. Peter O'Toole is a great actor, who should have won an Oscar at some point in his career, but I, for one, will not let sentimentality ease my analysis. This is a performance that was not worthy of winning, or even being nominated.