Yes, he’s seen Daniel Day-Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but Richard Corliss would award the Best Actor Oscar to Johnny Depp in SWEENEY TODD. In an article entitled “The 800 lb. Golden Gorilla,” TIME’s film critic Richard Corliss ponders the Oscars’ track record for rewarding “stuffed turkeys and middling domestic dramas,” films “at the high end of mediocrity,” and actors who excel at the familiar rather than those who break new ground. “In judging movie acting, the Academy is often slow to notice the arrival of talent ready to shake up or reshape a staid industry,” writes Corliss. He also observes that actors working in any genre other than “serious dramas for Oscar-winning directors” are likely to be denied the golden statuette–those in comedy, musicals, or genre films will watch a colleague in a drama (say, Sean Penn in Clint Eastwood’s MYSTIC RIVER) claim the prize.

Regarding the current handicapping of the Best Actor Oscar race, Corliss writes:

Should Win–Johnny Depp (SWEENEY TODD) He’s fierce, wondrous, haunted, funny, scary–and on key.

Shouldn’t Win–Daniel Day-Lewis (THERE WILL BE BLOOD) A superb actor in an opaque role–it’s all snarl, no soul.

The Zone thanks FANtastic JD for sharing Mr. Corliss’s thoughts–you can read his article, and a lot of lively commentary about it, on the Zone’s Porch forum. To see the Corliss article, click here: http://tinyurl.com/36z89r –Part-Time Poet