Completed Category: Supporting Actor

 This is the other category I completed by watching The Apprentice. 

Actor In A Supporting Role
Yura Borisov - Anora
Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain
Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce - The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong - The Apprentice

This is a category where I really like all five performances. I wouldn't be mad or at least not really mad when any of the five of them wins, except for the fact that one of the nominations belongs in another category! However,  I have a clear far and away favorite who I want to win, who will sadly not win. 

Three of these nominees are from films also nominated for Lead Actor. Will we have men from the same film in both of the men categories? (you know, the two for male actors? unless they get nominated in an Actress category of course).  It has happened before that the Lead and Supporting Actor winners are from the same film - including for one of my top Oscar-winning Best Pics of all time, The Best Years of Our Lives, as well as for Going My Way, Ben-Hur, Mystic River. Dallas Buyers Club, and most recently, Oppenheimer.  This shows us that a majority of the time the two men's categories (there are two) winners won for the same film, it was also the film that won Best Pic, but not every single time.  And so - theoretically A Complete Unknown could do this, even if The Brutalist  wins Best Pic, and I would like that. 

I don't think chances are strong for The Apprentice here. But it was a great honor for Jeremy Strong to be nominated, and he's Gen X!  Which I'm mildly obsessed with this year.  He made us feel all kinds of things, such as sympathy and affection for Roy Cohn, which is quite an amazing feat. This would be one of the best upsets of all Oscar time, if he wins. By the way, I still haven't watched Succession in which he's evidently great, and I need to do that. 

The other honor to be nominated is Yura Borisov. Where the heck did he come from, right?! Russia, actually, is the answer. Side note that he apparently voiced the cat in a The Master and Margarita film, which I didn't know existed until five minutes ago and which I need to have in my life. Anyway, he's freaking fantastic in Anora, and his part is so interesting, the way he is the least frantic of this gaggle of misfit friends - so, so well done. 

Now, everybody thinks Kieran Culkin is going to win, and he probably is, because he's category fraudulent here and was absolutely a co-star of A Real Pain. So, ugh. Moving along...

What if, indeed, The Brutalist the Brutal-est starts sweeping everything beginning with an early evening win for Guy Pearce?  I honestly wouldn't mind that much. We've had worse Oscar nights. I liked his performance even more than Adrien Brody's.  It was wild and bold and scary and fantastic. He is also Gen X. 

But you know who the best Gen X-er in this category is? My favorite, which I feel so, so strongly in my heart, is Edward Norton in A Complete Unknown.  Ed Norton as Pete Seeger was revelatory. I was transfixed by him in every scene as he conveyed so much about Pete Seeger, and about Bob Dylan, and about everything that was going on with and around them - it was wonderful beyond belief and him not winning Supporting Actor is the thing that is going to make me the absolute saddest on Oscar night. 

Order I want them to win: 
Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton, Edward Norton

Order I think they will win: 
Kieran Culkin the Category Fraud, Guy Pearce, possibly Edward Norton who should win, Jeremy Strong, Yura Borisov

Down with fraud! Up with Seeger!