As revered a historic figure as he is, playing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is basically an Oscar jackpot. Putting cynical awards consideration aside though, from all accounts, David Oyelowo's performance as the legendary civil rights leader in Ava DuVernay's Selma is stirring and captivating. If you're not familiar with Mr. Oyelowo's work, he has been a strong character actor for years in films like Rise Of The Planet of the Apes, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Middle Of Nowhere, and The Paperboy. In Selma, Oyelowo finally gets the spotlight to himself and it's hard to think of a better way to announce yourself to the world's stage than playing someone like Dr. Martin Luther King (ask Ben Kingsley how playing Ghandi worked out for his career). While cinematically taking on the life of a figure as transformational as Dr. King may seem like a fool's errand, Selma wisely picks a crucial event from the man's career as a microcosm for his life as a whole. In particular, the film chronicles King's attempt to gain equal voting rights for African Americans in southern states by leading a protest march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, a key instigator that led to the passage of federal civil rights legislation. As lofty as the film's subject matter is, and given how "socially conscious" the members of the Academy promote themselves to be, Oyelowo's nomination should be a slam dunk, but it speaks to the competitiveness of the category this year that his chance at a nomination is anything but certain. With competition from the likes of Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner, and Steve Carell in Foxcatcher, Oyelowo could easily find himself bumped out of the lineup on January 15. However, betting against a man playing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. does not seem like a smart move to make.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
