Walk the Line was a great film. Don't forget to mention that Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon sing their parts! If it were up to me, they'd get the Best Actor & Best Actress Oscars. Witherspoon seems to be a lock for Actress but Actor is almost definitely gonna be Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, or Heath Ledger if it's not Hoffman.
Given who among "the Academy" votes, yes, they will mostly continue to salivate over Ledger.
I think Heath Ledger is an excellent actor but he's made poor choices as to the roles he's performed and that indicates to me he's making poor choices based upon his character...which indicates a problem there, also as reflected in some of his recent comments in "defense" of the film, "BM."
If it was a good film, even at all, he'd not be having to make those defensive comments about his role...which is another indication to me that "BM" as "good film" is pure Public Relations mudpack.
It's marketing baloney, that the title purveys worth, is my point here.
But I think Ledger is immature and also, intensely rationalizing his liberal, morally equivalent views. Which is working against his success, in my view.
I AGREE THAT Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, by comparison, have provided far more valuable and credible performances, are both far more worthy than anyone else for these Awards.
Ledger kissed another guy on screen with theatrical, artificially produced "passion." O.K., that took "acting."
On the other hand, Phoenix sang his own renditions of Johnny Cash, of all people (!) performances (and Phoenix is not even a singer by trade or ability but performed as Cash for this film and for this performance and even managed to do that quite convincingly), enacted Johnny Cash, not a simple thing to do, and has a legacy of pretty remarkable performances already accomplished (I really like his work and always have).
Witherspoon, also, did likewise, similarly, for her role in "Walk the Line."
I agree that Philip Seymour Hoffman is an immensely talented actor. His work as "Capote" was interesting but I didn't find it stellar or remarkable given that Hoffman begins from a point of noteworthiness.
However, Hoffman's work in other titles has been dubious, has not been remarkable (he's had his misses), like, for instance, the waste of space in his rendition of the preacher character in "Cold Mountain," utterly unconvincing and awful (not the character but Hoffman's performance of it).
I didn't find "Capote" to be as great an achievement of skill and craft as was Phoenix and Witherspoon's work in "Walk the Line."
If there's a winner this year, it's Phoenix and Witherspoon for "Walk the Line" -- compared to "BM," I mean, there's no comparison. Men have been having both actual and pretend homosexual acts with other men for a long time in "movies" and I can't see anything remarkable nor noteworthy in "BM" that hasn't been done before.
This year's AAwards are boiling down to how many times and how much todo can be made of and about homosexuality, more than about the excellence of filmmaking and the art of performing.