Cooper Vs. Bale (and what a win "means")

I love the fact that we're already picturing this as a two-horse race when there's a dark horse named Viggo who's apparently turned in one of his best performances. I'm not really looking forward to seeing Green Book but I am looking forward to seeing Viggo, an actor who gave me some of my best moviegoing memories. If Green Book will be beloved by the industry as pundits claim, then he's being massively underestimated.

I'm not a big fan of Cooper. I loved him in Silver Lining's Playbook, I hated him in American Hustle, I found him decently good in American Sniper despite the horrible writing. His work in A Star Is Born is not bad by any stretch, it's just a bit surface-level. I wouldn't begrudge his win as I do Redmayne's, for instance, but it wouldn't fall among my favorite winners in recent memory. He wants to be a method actor but he never really inhabits his characters, he never makes my heart beat for them, he never makes my blood boil for them. I can appreciate the courage but ultimately they fall short of what I expect to be an Oscar-worthy performance.

Bale on the other hand can be very bad when he wants to (Exodus, The Dark Knight Rises) but also very good. I know I'm one of those few, but I'm madly in love with his performance in The Big Short. He's very bold in his transformations and I believe that his idiosyncratic style of acting works best with the kind of transformative turn required by Vice. I couldn't see any other actor in this role. He doesn't take chances and that is why he's very divisive as an actor: his fans adore him, his detractors despise him. That is also why I don't think his chances this year are as high as people say: he's in a divisive film, playing an extremely controversial politician in a subtly farcical way (I haven't seen Vice either but this pretty much is clear).

I hope Viggo Mortensen ends up winning.

You’ve seen it? 

I don't really think there's much of a race, really. It's Cooper's to lose, and the only way I think he does lose is if he either kicks a puppy while saying the N-word as he refuses to apologize for offensive tweets he made ten years ago. He's campaigning harder for Best Director than he is for Actor, but I think he knows that he's going to win anyway regardless, and it's more of a feather in his cap if he pushes the direction narrative because it establishes him as a well-rounded filmmaker rather than simply an actor.

Bale needs a huge critical sweep (I'm talking undeniable, DDL-level stuff) in order to have a shot at knocking Cooper off his perch. But Hawke has sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the room at vital places. And I just don't see the Academy wanting to reward a performance of a living controversial figure like Dick Cheney; even if the film is a scathing indictment of the man, it still is recognizing him in some way. I think that Bale's performance might age better than Cooper's and people might look back and go, "Well, Bale should've won for that," but it doesn't help that Bale already has an Oscar and Cooper (a multiple nominee they adore) doesn't.

I doubt very much that Mortensen winning. Green Book's done well thus far with precursor nods but its box office has undershot expectations, and Viggo has always been an industry outsider. He's not a campaigner. He's not an ass-kisser. Certainly, his faux pas a few weeks ago hasn't helped matters, and while I see what he was trying to say, his point was completely missed in the furor surrounding his unnecessary use of the word. I don't think that was his death knell, but I think that Cooper's just so far out in front that I don't see how Mortensen can knock him down, because I think if anything beats A Star Is Born, it's not going to be the movie that people are already drawing Crash/Driving Miss Daisy comparisons to.

Honestly, I think if there is someone who can take down Cooper at this point, it's Ethan Hawke. But he would need to win out every single major critical prize from here on out, get into SAG and BAFTA, and A24 would have to keep Paul Schrader from talking about Kevin Spacey in the interim. Hawke is very well-liked, has been around an awful long time, and if he and his film can get in, I would say he's probably the one with the clearest shot of knocking Cooper out. But even that's unlikely. Cooper had this race locked down a long time ago.

Christ, no. Most of the problems with A Star Is Born stem directly from Cooper's monstrous ego and his desperation to craft an Oscar sizzle reel for himself while completely undercutting the titular character in the back half of the movie, and while I can stomach a Best Actor win, he'd easily be my least favorite Director winner in a long while.

I’d love for Viggo to win as a dark horse. Really would be happen with any out of Cooper, Bale, or Viggo though.

I’d also be good with Cooper winning director and Viggo winning actor.

I feel like Cooper should win this pretty easily. Hawke could have been a challenge, but the Globe miss was a huge blow.

Vice is critically divisive judging by early reactions (despite the strong Globe showing, like Nocturnal Animals) and Bale is not doing a critics sweep, which he'd almost certainly need to win a 2nd in this race.

I feel once the televised awards come, Cooper will start winning fairly comfortably. And director will go to Cuaron or someone overdue like Spike Lee.

...And both films will just seem like mere footnotes by the end of 2019....

The thing about Bale is that he sucks

I think it's pretty much Cooper too. He's felt way out ahead of everyone, and I never bought the whole buzz about a month or so ago that Bale was going to challenge him. Not to say that Bale hasn't been picking up industry and regional nominations, but Annapurna is still hiding Vice's reviews with an embargo. Plus, Hawke has cut off the path that Bale was supposed to take to challenge Cooper by winning pretty much all the critics' awards so far. 

I actually don't think it's Hawke that could challenge, but Malek. I don't think he will, but for a performance that I thought might not even be nominated because of the reviews plus controversy, to going to a performance that I thought might hit everywhere except Oscar, to going to a performance that I think is in second place now, so maybe it will end up winning in the end since I'm underestimating it again. 

I would have never thought so before SAG, but that Ensemble nomination speaks volumes, imo. Plus, he's playing a real life person who most people know vs. Cooper's fictional character, and usually the advantage goes to the actor with the real life role like Malek's. 

I don't think he will because of the controversy and because the poor reviews will finally matter in the end, but if he wins the Globe and BAFTA, I think I'd have to start predicting him as the Best Actor winner. 

Yep.

(And Not to brag or anything but as someone who wasn't following the buzz post-2015 I was 100% sure it's going to be Malek.)

I think Cooper is a fine, talented actor.
But it still shocks me the fact that he suddenly became a default nominee and with the same number of Oscar Acting nominations giants like Bale and Phoenix have.