Eyes Wide Shut: 12 Performances the Academy Overlooked

I always get giddy around Oscar time. For as long as I can remember, I've been positively enchanted with the Academy Awards. To draw a comparison with which Bostonians can relate, the Oscars are my World Series, or Super Bowl.

But don't misread me here. I realized ages ago that there is really no such thing as a "best" actor or actress. It's all relative, and assigning awards in a popularity contest-styled way leaves the door wide open for criticism, error (Marisa Tomei for "My Cousin Vinny"??? That HAD to be a mistake!), and ignored performances.

As Sunday is Oscar time, I've been reflecting on some of the performances over the years that have particularly moved me, or really stood out in my brain for whatever reason, but failed to get a nomination. And please don't cue the exit music until I'm done with my ramblings.

-Daniel Day-Lewis, "The Crucible" (1996) - Day-Lewis has given us a varied career full of powerful, award-worthy performances, but his portrayal of John Proctor in "The Crucible" is DDL at his finest. How the Academy could ignore him, I don't know. In one of his most commanding, take-your-breath-away scenes, John Proctor proclaims with tortured, gut-wrenching passion, "I say God is dead!". When Day-Lewis failed to nab a Best Actor nomination, I felt the same way.

-Kimberly Elise, "Beloved" (1998) - "Beloved" remains to this day a film that is criminally overlooked, and Kimberly Elise's performance in it is simply flawless. As the sensitive, maturing Denver, the daughter of slaves, Elise is luminescent, easily walking away with every scene she's in. A flawless, emotionally taut performance that deserved more, much more, attention.

-Jessica Lange, "Titus" (1999), "Rob Roy" (1995) - Jessica Lange can do no wrong in my book, so I had to find a way to squeeze two of her non-nominated performances in this list. Her sexy, seductive, and calculating Tamora in Shakespeare's "Titus" is Lange at her scene-chewing best. In "Rob Roy", she is the eponymous hero's devoted wife, Mary MacGregor, a role light years away from Tamora. Lange plunges into Mary's very soul with a divinely emotional abandon. I will never forget her words to her husband's arch-enemy, after he has raped her: "I will think on you dead, until my husband makes you so. Then I will think on you no more." I still get chills just typing those words, hearing Mary MacGregor in my ear.

-Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (2006) - Sacha Baron Cohen is too talented for his own good. It's easy to watch "Borat" and regard it as nothing more than silly humor and pratfalls. But it is much more than that. His Borat is a fearlessly executed, raucously hilarious, and totally endearing character, and Baron Cohen makes it seem as natural as a second skin. You can't watch this film and separate actor from role. They are perfectly joined, and the result is not only the funniest thing I've seen in ages...but one of the most thought-provoking as well. Borat bravely holds a mirror up to American society and says, "Look at yourselves." And that is probably the precise reason SBC wasn't nominated.

-Katrin Cartlidge, "Breaking the Waves" (1996) - When Katrin Cartlidge died at age 41 in 2002, the motion picture industry lost its next Meryl Streep. Cartlidge was one of those easy, natural actresses who never made it look like she was acting, and she did the best work of her career in "Breaking the Waves". She plays the long-suffering Dodo, dealing with an unstable sister-in-law in a cloistered Scottish village in the 1970s, with understated power and raw emotional intelligence. Actors often talk about "making choices" when navigating their way through a character, and Cartlidge's choices in Dodo are brave, unique, and devastatingly real.

-Maria Falconetti, "La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc" (1928) - Had Falconetti, who never made another film after "Jeanne D'Arc", been nominated for Best Actress, it would have been at the very first Academy Awards ceremony. This performance is often regarded as one of the finest performances ever committed to celluloid. A silent film, the movie chronicles the journey of Joan of Arc's last days. In fact, the shooting script was the actual transcript from the trials of the real Joan. The bulk of the story is told with a single camera fixed on Falconetti's radiant, makeup-less face, conveying every emotion, feeling, and nuance with her amazing eyes and naked features. A master class in great acting.

-John Cazale, "The Godfather" (1972), "The Godfather Part II" (1974), "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), or "The Deer Hunter" (1978) - Another great actor gone too soon, Cazale starred in some of the best-loved and most well-respected films of the '70s. Though "The Godfather Part II" is generally considered to be his masterwork, he could've easily, justifiably, been nominated for an Oscar for any of the previously mentioned films. I bet Oscar is really kicking himself right about now.

-Debbi Morgan, "Eve's Bayou" (1997) - Mostly known as a soap opera actress, Debbi Morgan tackled the role of Mozelle Delacroix in "Eve's Bayou" with an expert ferocity, making it one of the greatest supporting performances I've ever come across. "Eve's Bayou", like "Beloved", is a tragically underrated and overlooked film, and Morgan's fiery, passionate, and emotionally-driven work was worthy of more attention. Her husky voice rising and falling in lush Cajun cadences, Morgan's Mozelle is wrenchingly unforgettable, shatteringly fierce, and hauntingly sensitive. A powerful, original performance.

-Darlene Cates, "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993) - Bravery, Thy Name is Darlene Cates. Weighing 500 lbs and discovered after appearing on "Sally Jessy Raphael", Cates turned in a powerhouse performance as Johnny Depp's homebound mother in "Gilbert Grape". Not an actress by trade, Cates is natural and alive in front of the camera, and imbues her Bonnie Grape with an unshakable pride and commanding presence. This is a performance that will break your heart, and, like all heartbreak, you will never forget it.

-Juliette Binoche, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988) - Juliette Binoche, like Katrin Cartlidge, is one of those actors that you'll never catch "acting". She is so easily natural and real in every role she plays, but none was as affecting as her turn as Tereza in the amazing "Unbearable Lightness of Being". This is a performance that could rightly be taught in an acting class on how to believably portray a character on a transformative journey. From a naive girl who only sees the good in everyone, to a world-weary woman who discovers that our contemporary landscape is not as easy or kind as it makes itself out to be, Binoche's Tereza is an expertly-drawn character study.

-John Cameron Mitchell, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001) - As the title heroine with the botched sex change, John Cameron Mitchell soared to breathtaking heights of emotion in the film version of his play. Like Baron Cohen in "Borat", JCM makes it look deceptively simple to play such an outrageous, larger-than-life character. But if you watch closely, you will see that Mitchell has his finger on the pulse of human emotion: emotion that rises above sex, gender, and, most importantly, music. An incredible, startlingly singular performance.

-Anyone but Julia Roberts, "Steel Magnolias" (1989) - Like Tomei's win for "My Cousin Vinny", I was baffled by Julia Roberts' nomination for "Steel Magnolias". She is the weak link in an otherwise-perfect cast chock-full of flawless performances. Any of the other central women in the film could have understandably garnered a nomination. My pick would've been Sally Field or Shirley MacLaine (come on, folks, can any of us ever forget the cemetery scene?!?), but, alas, it was Roberts who got the glory. Thankfully, she didn't win.