On second thought, Russell Crowe should have gotten that Oscar. Simply incredible! (1 Viewer)

[Mike Broadman]

Seth, good point about the subtle acting roles. Many actors feel that characters who are crazy or whacky or retarded are easier than not. For example, while I think Dustin Hoffman is a marvelous actor, I feel Rain Man was overrated, or at least not as compelling as in Midnight Cowboy.

I am curious: who else was nominated for Best Actor against Crowe and Washington? Everyone was and is assuming that it had to be one of these two, but maybe someone else was even better?

 

[Eric Bass]

Spreading the wealth around is not a bad thing first of all.

In my own personal opinion I think it is. Why bother with awards if they're not going to go to the most deserving. You don't see the superbowl going to the team that has played pretty well for the past few years and really deserves to take the title. Either you're the best or your not. If you're gonna compromise that why even bother having awards? Just replace the whole thing with a ceremony for acknowledging members of Hollywood. Kind of an extreme view perhaps, but if you give someone an award titled 'Best Actor' they ought to have done the best acting in that given year.

 

[David Oliver]

To flat out say one performance is better than another is simply wrong, in my opinion, when you are comparing different roles. Washington and Crowe both gave excellent noteworthy performances for very different roles in very different movies, I tihnk it is comparing the proverbial apples to oranges.

 

[rhett]

I thought Denzel deserved the Oscar. Seeing a mentally/psychically challenged performance is almost cliche, and while Crowe did a good job with it, it has been done a million times before in movies like Rain Man, Forrest Gump, I Am Sam and Awakenings (De Niro's performance was in my mind better than all the others I've seen, but of course the best never win).
It is rare that we see a major Hollywood film with such a vile and unlikable performance from its lead actor, and Denzel did an excellent job with it. I think his win was well deserved, and awarded because it was the best performance of the year, not because he has been robbed before.