NOMINEES Christian Bale, American Hustle Bruce Dern, Nebraska Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club To get into the big tournament, Dern won a play-in game: he edged out Robert Redford (All Is Lost) in the subcategory of favorite 77-year-old giving a career-capping performance. In part, that’s because Redford didn’t really campaign for the nomination. But Nebraska, in which Dern plays his usual ornery coot with a crazy dream, remains the least seen of the nine Best Picture nominees, taking in only $16.5 million at the domestic box office. And in this deadpan Plains-state comedy, the actor never gets to tear a passion to tatters — an implicit prerequisite for an Acting Oscar. Instead, his performance is a long aria of alterkocker grumbles. (READ: Why 12 Years a Slave Will Win Best Picture) Dern’s other handicap: his Woody Grant is a fictional character in a category that usually rewards the stars of bio-pics. Six times in the past nine years, the Best Actor Oscar has goes to actors playing real people: Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Colin Firth as King George VI and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. The characters inhabited by Dern’s four rivals may not have the brand recognition of a President, a king or an African tyrant, but they are all inspired by actual heroes or brigands — which makes you wonder how Tom Hanks, as the Somali kidnappers’ stalwart captive Captain Phillips, missed the cut. Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld was really Mel Weinberg, a con artist who fronted the FBI’s Abscam sting in order to avoid a prison sentence on 10 counts of fraud. The Welsh actor, known for his brooding or explosive intensity, managed to make Irving both hulking and delicate, menacing and poignant. He well earned his Academy nomination, which is only his second, and both in David O. Russell movies (the first was The Fighter, three years ago). It’s not Bale’s![]()
