The problem with Depp

There really aren't any really horrifying picks in the best actor and actress categories this year. Usually there is someone put there just to upset me. Why was Matt Damon nominated for "Good Will Hunting?" Why ever nominate Jack Nicholson for any of the cynical, lazy work he has done for the past two decades? I can't wait until that man is no longer cast in films.

But just because none of them seem totally and completely undeserving doesn't mean I'm not bored with some of the films and performances. Johnny Depp was sweet, but I cannot remember a thing about "Neverland." The movie has completely escaped my brain. Okay, he deserves some praise for playing a guy who dresses up and plays with children but didn't seem to have any pedophiliac tendencies. He deserves SOME praise, yes, but an academy award? Nah. His performance has none of the impact of Paul Giammatti in "Sideways" or Ethan Hawke's emotionally-numbed novelist in "Before Sunset."

Hmmm, speaking of Paul Giammatti - he seems to usually plays the same character in each movie. I think he's a good actor but a casting director wouldn't put him in a part of a happy-go-lucky guy, would he/she? Now that would be "acting."

I was amazed by the actors this year. I have not yet seen "Hotel Rwanda" but believe the other four picks to be right on though Paul Giamatti is perhaps slightly better than them all, but I wouldn't know who to leave off to make room for Giamatti. It was an amazing year for actors, and we haven't even mentioned Jim Caveizel for "The Passion of the Christ," Jim Carey for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or Tom Hanks for "The Terminal" who in a normal year would have clearly been amoung the best, but this year just got lost in the shuffle amoung all the great lead actor performances.

Tom Hanks for The Terminal? Are you kidding? I'm sick of Tom Hanks. I've had enough of Tom Hanks unless he goes back to his good stuff like The Burbs, and Big. Castaway sucked, Forest Gump was the only movie I ever walked out on in the theatre, and I couldn't even get thorugh all of The Terminal. Sure Road to Perdition was good, and so was Saving Private Ryan, and Philidelphia but (with the exception of Philly) someone else should've been cast.