In the very first lines delivered in the brilliant opening scene of The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (Jessie Eisenberg) rifles off the interesting trivial tidbit that there are more people with genius IQs living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States. Zuckerberg goes on to pose the question, "How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got 1600 on their SATs?" This is how I feel about the Best Supporting Actor category almost every year. At this current juncture in the history of cinema, it just so happens that the availability of choice roles for male supporting players and characters actors is as plentiful as adorable pet videos are on Youtube. This makes the daunting task of whittling down the gargantuan field of deserving Best Supporting Actor candidates to a mere five nominees a Herculean effort. It also guarantees that without a doubt there will be, every year, a host of wonderful supporting performances that don't make the final cut, and 2012 was no exception to this rule. In fact, I could write a whole article on the best supporting performances from male actors in 2012 that did not get nominated (or even those that were not even in the conversation to be nominated), that's how deep this field is, but in the interest of focus and brevity, I will just mention a few that would have made it on my own personal ballot. The first and foremost of these is the astounding performance from the non-professional actor Dwight Henry in Beast of the Southern Wild. Playing Wink, the father of Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis), it's very evident that this is a performance from someone other than a professional thespian, and I mean this in the best possible way. It's a performance clearly based on observation and experience, which is why it's my favorite performance of the year, regardless of category. I would have also made room for the revoltingly creepy turn from John Cusack as Hillary Van Wetter in The Paperboy. The film proved to be pretty divisive amongst critics, most of who derided it with the exception of a few vocal ardent defenders (of which I am one). Even if you're not so hot on the film itself though, it's hard not to appreciate, or at least remember, some of the crazy performances in this Southern Gothic Neo-Noir and among all the film's fine performances, none stood out as much as John Cusack's performance. Finally, I would also have nominated Scoot McNairy in Killing Them Softly. Like The Paperboy, Killing Them Softly was another film in 2012 that I felt was criminally underrated, but if you haven't seen the film, it is worth checking out just for its plethora of fantastic supporting performances. From Richard Jenkins to James Gandolfini to Ray Lioatta, this film had an amazing lineup of character actors, but Scoot McNairy, appearing to be channelling Casey Affleck, was particularly impressive. All in all though, the nominees the Academy came up with weren't half bad. As you will see momentarily, I took some exception to a few of them, but most gave terrific performances that will undoubtedly be well regarded for years to come.