Best Actor

Best Actor

This category’s a tough one for me, because I haven’t seen any of the movies involved (except for As Good As It Gets, which gets this year’s award for Best Title Which Inversely Describes The Quality Of The Film, although to be honest, for all I know Good Will Hunting could be in the running for that award). I know a bit about the actors involved, though, so I’ll give it a shot. We’ve got Matt Damon who played the better-than-average Will Hunting. I don’t know anything about Matt Damon except I think he was in School Ties as a WASPy thug-type. I’m really not sure, so I can’t give him anything. [Ed.: I'll tell you what you can give him -- a wallop in the mouth for stealing our idea of being good looking, writing a play in college, getting it turned into a motion picture and getting nominated for an Oscar. We ought to sue or something.]

The rest of the nominees, however, are old masters of the bad movie genre. We’ve got Jack Nicholson, who began his career working for Roger Corman. I can’t possibly express how much of an advantage this gives him compared to the other nominees. It’s like the kid in The Karate Kid who you know is going to win because he’s got some cool old Japanese guy teaching him cool old Japanese guy moves while the other kids have some white guy with a big neck who looks like Moose from the old Archie Comics. With Corman in his corner, Nicholson’s ready to take on all contenders.

Robert Duvall has been in movies forever. Sure, he started out in the classic To Kill A Mockingbird as Boo Radley, and sure, he’s finishing it (so far) with the critically acclaimed The Apostle, which he also wrote, produced, directed, and probably catered. [Ed.: "A-tella, a-tella me Lord-a! Should I-a serve-a wiener tots-a, or tiny sandwiches-a!! Amen!!] With all the movies he’s made, he’s had to have some stinkers, right? Well, kind of. I mean, he was in The Scarlet Letter with Demi "Who Reads Books?" Moore, but has he really done anything all that bad besides this? Then I was sitting back, thinking of bad movies instead of taking notes on Frege’s principles of logical arithmetic, when it came to me. Newsies! That’s right, Robert Duvall was in Newsies as the evil William Randolph Hearst (or Pulitzer, I can’t remember and I don’t care). This takes care of all the The Godfather’s and the Network’s and Apocalypse Now’s. When I’m an old man and looking back at my pathetic life, at least I’ll be able to proudly say "Hey, I wasn’t in Newsies!" Something our dear friend Mr. Duvall will never be able to do. [Ed.: He won't be such buddy-buddy with God when Saint Peter reminds the Big Guy of that]

Peter Fonda and Dustin Hoffman are also both nominated here. Fonda has his family name going for him here. He also has such classic films as Fatal Mission (along with its porn version, Fatal Missionary Position, Killer Force (porn version: Killer On All Fours), and Spasms (with the porn version called... well, Spasms). He was also in something called High-Ballin’. The mind reels. Because I haven’t seen or heard of any of these, I’m forced to conclude that Peter Fonda just doesn’t have all the bad stuff to really make him a contender. For that matter, neither does Dustin Hoffman. Sure, it would be easy to make an Ishtar joke here, but those went out with the Safety Dance, so I’ll refrain. I’ll also refrain from making any Dick Tracy jokes. I don’t know, I guess I’m just in a giving mood. Still, even if I wanted to rip him a new one for the crap he’s done, it still wouldn’t be that much and I’d be left with nothing but an empty feeling in the morning. So let’s move on to my pick.

Rob’s Pick: Because of the weak competition in this category- aw, hell, forget that- even if this category was filled with all the Jeff Fahey’s and Frank Stallone’s and Erik Estrada’s in the world, I’d still have to pick as my winner------------------- Leonardo DiCaprio! Why pick someone who wasn’t even nominated? Well, he should have been nominated. Not because he was good in Titanic or anything, but because the guy’s a comic’s dream! He looks like he’s twelve, made Romeo and Freakin’ Juliet, and has a legion of fans who still use toilet paper to pad their bras! All this plus he was the kid who stole all the family gifts from the Seevers on the Growing Pains Christmas episode (for those who don’t believe me, check the web!). [Ed.: that Basketball Diaries was PAINFUL] Come on! If I could only go to every man, woman, and child in America who has seen Titanic (and I think that’s every man, woman, and child in America) and show them a clip from Growing Pains, I think my life would be complete, just to see their faces of pure, twisted horror. Ahh, pipe dreams... Oh, and for the record, my money’s on Robert Duvall from those who actually did get nominated. A little Newsies goes a long way...