Day-Lewis is a lock for the best actor Oscar

Tommy Lee Jones
An Oscar-winner for “The Fugitive,” Tommy Lee Jones was expected to be a nominee once again this year — but for his role as a seen-it-all sheriff who comes face to face with unspeakable evil in the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.” But while audiences stayed away from “In the Valley of Elah” in droves — a fate shared by “Rendition,” “Redaction” and several other Iraq War–themed movies released in the fall — a quorum of Academy members obviously dug Jones’ work in Paul Haggis’ follow-up to “Crash.”

It’s a movie, and a performance, that deserves more attention from the general public. Where “Crash” was thuddingly preachy and obvious in its points about race relations, “Elah” uses a good old fashioned whodunit to make more subtle points about America’s disastrous foreign policy and what it’s doing to our young men and women fighting overseas.

Warner Independent Pictures

Jones stars as Hank Deerfield, a retired Army investigator who starts looking for clues when his son, freshly returned from a stint in Iraq, goes AWOL. When the young soldier is found dead, and in pieces, lots of ugly secrets come to the surface. Hank is prickly and obnoxious — not a big stretch for Jones’ on-screen persona — but he’s also grappling with a tricky investigation, his fragile relationship with his bereft wife (Susan Sarandon), and his own problematic bond with his late son.

“Elah” is the least-seen of the five movies in this category — trailing even the limited-release “There Will Be Blood” by more than $3 million — and that pretty much spells doom to Jones’ chances of being honored here. But he was in two of the year’s best reviewed films, he’s an acclaimed director, and he’s already got an Oscar at home, so he’ll be just fine, thanks.

Viggo Mortensen

Focus Features

Mortensen’s road to the Kodak Theatre has been an interesting one — in addition to slowly building up a fascinating résumé as an actor, he’s also been a poet, a photographer, a painter and an icon of the underground during the years he spent married to punk rock diva Exene Cervenka. But onscreen, Mortensen has established his cred in films ranging from “G.I. Jane” to “Portrait of a Lady” to “A Walk on the Moon” to the massively popular “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

His work with director David Cronenberg has brought Mortensen to a whole new career plateau, first for his portrayal of a man trying to escape his criminal past in “A History of Violence” and now as a Russian mobster who may be more than he appears in “Eastern Promises.” While many point to the thrilling bathhouse fight scene, in which a naked Mortensen dispatches two would-be assassins, the actor’s first Oscar nomination isn’t just about the nudity. The chillingly cool tango of empathy and intimidation that Mortensen conducts with co-star Naomi Watts provides one of the film’s most exciting throughlines, as does Mortensen’s give-and-take with Vincent Cassel as a coddled mafia chief’s son.

Recognition by the Academy confirms that Mortensen is a talent on the rise. But with such strong competition, he’s firmly in the “it’s an honor just to be nominated” camp this year.

Should have been nominated: Gordon Pinsent

Lionsgate

While Julie Christie and Sarah Polley were justly nominated for respectively starring in and writing the exquisite “Away from Her,” there’s one key member of the ensemble who didn’t receive his due from the Academy. Gordon Pinsent as Grant, the husband who helplessly watches Christie’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted character drift away, anchors the film. His character, in fact, perfectly counterbalances Christie’s through his efforts to cope with the situation, as well as through Grant’s slow realization that his marriage was already on rocky ground — and that he’s to blame — well before his wife’s dementia became pronounced.

One of the most powerful moments in Polley’s assured directorial debut comes when Grant makes a devil’s bargain with Olympia Dukakis, playing another spouse of an Alzheimer’s patient, and they exchange a look that silently acknowledges to each other that they know what they’re really doing. It’s not to remove any glory from Christie’s bravura work to note that Pinsent plays such a key role in holding the film together.

Alonso Duralde is the author of “101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men”; find him at www.alonsoduralde.com.

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