So I had this idea. Then I gave it to my pal Robin Write, who put it together here. I’m just putting it here also because I’m a completist.
What’s The Best Performance of the 21st Century…To Win an Oscar?
A Tournament
INTRODUCTION
Like you, we’re seeing a lot of “Best of the Century” lists and chatter, including the BBC’s recent list of the 100 Best Films of the last 16 years. Now, we all know there are far, far more Great Performances that have Not Won an Oscar than Great Performances that have.
And yet…64 times in the last 16 years, actors have won Oscars. A list can be made of them. And if you’ve been watching Oscars for the last 16 years, let’s face it, you’ve thought about those performances in competitive races. You thought about whether Denzel Washington deserved to beat Russell Crowe. You thought about whether Meryl Streep deserved to beat Viola Davis. You had many thoughts. You had 16 years of thoughts. And every year, after Oscar night, you put away those thoughts, seemingly forever.
Until now.
Just for fun, welcome to the First, and probably Only, Acting-Oscar Winner Tournament of the 21stCentury. “Acting-Oscar” refers to an Oscar that was won in one of the Academy’s four categories for Acting…which is also how we’ve divided our tournament, into the Best Actor Bracket, the Best Actress Bracket, the Best Supporting Actor Bracket, and the Best Supporting Actress Bracket. Perhaps that’s not fair, but the NCAA brackets aren’t always fair either. Seeding is chronological.
How does it work?
Intuitively. It works in rounds, just like the NCAA March Madness tournament, except that instead of two teams playing each other, you and all the other voters are voting for one winner of each “match-up.” So let’s start with the first one from the Best Actress Bracket, Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich versus Halle Berry in Monsters Ball. Pretend the two performances had come out during the same year. (Considering the vicissitudes of release schedules, that’s not such a leap.) Julia Roberts as an environmental activist or Halle Berry as a grieving widow: who deserves to win? You can interpret that question however you like, knowing that all the other voters will do the same. If “deserves the Oscar” is somehow different for you than “best performance,” then the eventual vote totals will be no more warped than what happens every year at the Oscars.
After Roberts or Berry wins their match-up in Round 1, one of them will take on the winner of the Nicole Kidman-Charlize Theron match-up in Round 2. You’re also voting on the Kidman-Theron Round 1 match-up. You’ve got 32 votes to cast in Round One. Then 16 votes to cast in Round Two. Then 8 votes to cast in Round Three. And so on. Make sense yet?
What’s the schedule?
We’ll start a new round every two days. Watch the site. When the round starts, you’ll have 24 hours to register your votes. Then we will add them up and release the results sometime within the next 24 hours.
Future round-accompanying blurbs will refer back to this intro, but will be much shorter, and probably with some snarky comments about which performances deserved better/worse.
What are we waiting for? Let’s do it!