Best Supporting Actor 2012

5. Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook
De Niro has got a fine character in a very good film, but he fails to bring anything into it. There's nothing he did with this character. It's hard for me to even say something about it, for I've seen the film six days ago, and yet I don't remember anything about him. He wanted to play it realisticly, but he was boring and forgettable, instead. I'm sad, because he took place some better supporting performance...

4. Alan Arkin - Argo
Yes, he was there just to be there. His character doesn't have a big purpose, but who cares. He was very nice and likable in all of his scenes, but the truth is he never tried to do something with his role, so that he would be just a little bit memorable. It's also true that he didn't have enough space to shine, but didn't bring much effort to it, either. Another forgettable performance between this year's nominees, but this one was at least funny...

3. Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln

Right now I can't think of anyone, who'd handle this role better than Jones did. It's written as another of the thousands of supporting players that are in Lincoln, it means it's written forgettably. Jones makes this character interesting and pleasure to watch. Though his last scene is destroying his character, he never allows to fully do it and handles it very gently. That's probably what De Niro and Arkin should do with their characters...

2. Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master

Playing Lancaster Dodd, the master of scientologic church, Philip Seymour Hoffman should be charming and authoritative. We all knew he can handle that. But his character also should be full of doubts. Why is he doing all this? He's a normal husband, which loves his family and friends, but why is he doing all of this? Does he really believes in everything he says and does? Should we believe in that? These are the questions his performance makes us ask, but we never get a satisfactory answer...

1. Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Django Unchained is one of the best films of 2012 and Waltz's performance is one of the best performances of the year. He obviously enjoys playing this character and if an actor enjoys playing his character, so do we enjoy watching his performance. He is funny, charming and adorable. He can be a worthy adversary to the co-stars of the film and the naive simplicity his character handles all of the problems and the way he portrayed it, gives him bonus points...

My Nominees:
1. Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained
2. Javier Bardem - Skyfall
3. Dwight Henry - Beasts of the Southern Wild
4. Matthew McConaughey - Magic Mike
5. Leonardo DiCaprio - Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actor 2012: Alan Arkin - Argo

Argo is quite and enjoyable political thriller about a man called Tony Mendes (Ben Affleck) trying to rescue six hostages from Teheran. He uses the way of pretending to be a part of a film crew. To make it all look more realistic, he invites some real filmmakers to it, for example makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and famous producer Lester Siegel played by Alan Arkin.
Many people blame Arkin here for playing the same character as he did in his previously Oscar-nominated (and winning) performance in Little Miss Sunshine. It's really undeniable that his performances are similar. But it's not his fault, these characters just are similar and there's nothing Arkin could do with this fact. The only thing he could do is just play it the best way he was able to, and that's not exactly what he did.
He succeeded to be funny and likable, but failed to be remarkable. He really isn't the first thing that will come to your mind when you think of Argo. And he's not even the second, not the third thing. The fact that he doesn't have much screen-time also doesn't help him much.
His presence in his scenes is certainly nice, but I think this character offers him more options to do with it, than he actually did. In my eyes he was a little bit overshadowed by John Goodman, which also wasn't somehow remarkable, but at least he did something with his role. But that's another story...
When I was thinking about Arkin's best scene, I realized there is no best scene of his performance. It's because his performance consists of many extremely short moments. There's no scene, where he would shine, or be even able to shine. Therefore it's not just him, who I blame for making this character so lackluster. But I was forced into telling you one moment, I would go for the scene he's getting the rights for shooting sci-fi Argo.
So, to sum it up: Arkin plays a nice and likable character in Argo, which just didn't get enough space to shine. But Arkin didn't bring much effort to it, either...
The chances of winning an Oscar: The lowest from all of the nominees. I would be extremely surprised, if he won.

Next Year: Best Supporting Actor 2012

The Nominees:
Alan Arkin - Argo
Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook
Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln (predicted winner)

So, please, comment. Who was snubbed? How would your nominees look like? Who would you like to win? Who do you think I'll let win? And how do you think I'll rate these performances?