Vanishing acts heat up tight best actor race

Keaton

The most exciting race at the Oscars (on Feb. 22) this year is in the best actor category, whose tight, three-way battle among Michael Keaton (“Birdman”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game”) and Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) would have been more significant had the Academy not ignored Jake Gyllenhaal’s gritty portrayal in “Nightcrawler.”

But, Bradley Cooper is just as exceptional in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper,” which opened in Manila this week. The actor committed to a four-hour workout regimen and consumed 8,000 calories a day for months to gain more than 40 lbs and approximate the bulk of Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in US military history—with 255 kills!

Cooper’s dedication is a snug fit for the no-frills directorial style of our favorite director, whose unromanticized take on the dehumanizing aspects of war sets his film apart from emotionally manipulative and ideologically one-sided war dramas.

The US Navy Seal sniper was deployed to Iraq after the 9/11 terror bombings in 2001. His instinct was legendary on the battlefield, but he had difficulty adjusting to civilian life after four tours of duty!

Memorable

Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum are memorable as Olympic gold medal-winning siblings, Dave and Mark Schultz, in Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher.” But, the creepy Steve Carell is practically unrecognizable as John DuPont, the eccentric philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast who lured the brothers to train at the lavish, 14,000-square foot training facility he built for the 1988 Seoul Olympics—with deadly results!

Cumberbatch

Like Cooper, Tatum and Ruffalo trained exhaustively for six months—but, Carell’s preparation went beyond physical training and prosthetics.

In a delicate and darkly dramatic moment, Miller motivated the actor by asking him to write what he hated the most about himself on a piece of paper, put it in his pocket and said, “Just have it right there, and know that it’s in a place where, if I was a d**k, I could just grab it!”

Michael Keaton anchors Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s deliciously idiosyncratic “Birdman” with his career-boosting, crackerjack portrayal of Riggan, a washed up actor who refuses to be put out to pasture—so, he decides to direct and act in a Broadway show.

But, the arrival of the brilliant but scene-stealing actor, Mike (Edward Norton), on Riggan’s troubled set is more than he has bargained for. Worse, he crosses paths with a sneering theater critic who swears to “kill” his play even before she sees it!

Benedict Cumberbatch is also heart-breaking in “The Imitation Game,” Morten Tyldum’s bittersweet biopic of mathematician Alan Turing, whose code-cracking “Turing machines” helped the Allies win World War II and shorten the war by more than two years—only to be criminally prosecuted and chemically castrated for his homosexuality!

Eddie Redmayne is likewise unforgettable as Stephen Hawking in James Marsh’s “The Theory of Everything,” the agnostic physicist who wants to discover “the single unifying equation that would explain everything in the universe”—and triumphs despite getting diagnosed with the degenerative Lou Gehrig’s disease!

Redmayne

Redmayne’s performance is difficult to watch because of its physical and emotional complexity—and how his character comes to term with his disability—and humanity.

In the end, Hawking’s empathetic assumptions will make you believe that, indeed, God doesn’t play dice with his creation.

The physicist explains, “The ultimate triumph of human reason is to understand the mind of God—to know who we are and why we’re here”—and to acknowledge the possibility of a higher being!