Day-Lewis in the Driver’s Seat
Everybody knows that critics don’t choose the winners of Academy Awards. Still, with new reviews like this and this, we may have to scratch that conventional wisdom and say that Daniel Day-Lewis (pictured here with Dillon Freasier) is the Oscar front-runner for Best Actor. Yes, this could be another year like 2003, when Day-Lewis was the favorite for “Gangs of New York” and lost to Adrien Brody. And it’s almost unheard of for both main acting Oscars to go to non-Americans in the same year. (Best Actress is between Englishwoman Julie Christie and Frenchwoman Marion Cotillard.) But the 2008 ceremony looks likely to be unconventional in almost every way, starting with the ramifications of the ongoing writers’ strike.
Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance in THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the greatest male film performance since Marlon Brando did Stanley in STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. The audience at the performance we saw sat stunned in their seats even after the lights came on. If Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t get the Academy Award for this performance it will be even more distressing than when Judy Garland lost for A STAR IS BORN. And I must put in my two cents for Hal Holbrook’s supporting role in INTO THE WILD. He was wonderful. Let’s just hope the Writer’s Strike will be over so we can see Daniel and Hal walk up and receive their Oscars.