…but only five Oscar nomination slots in this category. So who will emerge as the weak sister…the odd man out at the end of the day…which performance will be cut loose from the pack?
The six Supporting Actor contenders are Jay Kelly‘s Adam Sandler, One Battle After Another‘s Sean Penn, Sentimental Value‘s Stellan Skarsgard, One Battle After Another‘s Benicio del Toro, Hamnet‘s Paul Mescal and Frankenstein‘s Jacob Elordi.
Obviously one of the performances that will be shucked will be either del Toro’s or Penn’s. If they both get nominated they’ll probably cancel each other out so one has to go. It’s kind of absurd that Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw seems to have the most heat in this category, at least as far as the shameless Gold Derby whores are concerned. Except Penn’s performance has no depth or shading — he’s playing a robotic, stiff-necked marionette in starched military fatigues. I say cut him loose and hold on to Benicio.
HE’s preferences for the five slots are in this order: (1) Skarsgard in Sentimental Value (likely to win as a kind of consolation prize as the empty Coke bottles have seemingly decided en masse that Value can’t win Best Picture because it’s Norweigan…totally moronic thinking); (2) Mescal in Hamnet (the first screen performance that he’s given that I really and truly respect…it almost made me forget his licking-up-the-cum-droplets scene); (3) Sandler in Jay Kelly (his saddest and most soulfully resigned performance); (4) Benicio del Toro‘s Sensei in One Battle…(the only French 75 leftist I really liked in that film); and (5) Elordi in Frankenstein…2025’s biggest breakthrough performance.
