4.Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
Why Academy, why did you not nominate DiCaprio for The Departed? I know I already discussed this above, but I can not think of this nomination without anger boiling up over this ridiculous mix up. I want someone who voted to nominate DiCaprio for Blood Diamond over The Departed to explain to me their reasoning. What was it that you liked about his performance in Blood Diamond so much that it was somehow superior to his role in The Departed? Was it the crappy European accent? Or maybe it was the prototypical character arc, starting out as a brash, hubristic man who is "only in it for himself", moving on to a brooding fragile man with flaws and a "troubled past", and finishing up as the reformed self-righteous prodigal son who proves he "really was a good guy all along" by making an enormous sacrifice? Is that what suffices as good acting to you, hitting the preordained paces? As an accounted DiCaprio fan myself, it pains me to have to criticize the man this way, but in this rare occasion, I honestly don't blame DiCaprio that much for the misstep. For even though I do believe an actor is ultimately responsible for his or her performance, there is one man who I think should take the lion's share of blame for DiCaprio's formulaic performance, and that man is Ed Zwick. Zwick has never been a favorite of mine, to put it politely. In fact in my book, he has a sort of anti-Midas touch, turning everything he works on into pewter. Zwicks modus operandi, in films such as Glory, The Last Samurai, Defiance, and Blood Diamond, is to take subject matter of great historical or political importance, and turn it into an entertaining action flick. The result is almost always a coarsening and oversimplification of key issues and events that make his films hard to stomach, even when you agree wholeheartedly with the central moral of the story. The Academy clearly disagrees though, as Zwick has managed to be successful, particularly when it comes to his actors, in securing nominations. Still, if I was an actor, I would stay far away from a Zwick project. Many a fine thespian has turned in some of their worst performances under his stewardship, and unfortunately, DiCaprio's no exception. As much as I would have been tempted to vote for DiCaprio and just pretend I was voting for his performance in The Departed, the rules are the rules, and DiCaprio's paint-by-numbers turn in Blood Diamond is far from "Oscar worthy".