Oscars are coming!!

Dear movie lovers,

these are my predictions (and wishes) for the Oscars this Sunday night. (I am only focusing on the really important categories.)


Best Movie
12 Years A Slave
Gravity, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actor
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey, Leo diCaprio (someone finally give him an Oscar, dammit!)

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Amy Adams 

Best Supporting Actor
Jared Leto, Michael Fassbender 
Jared Leto (I can't remember the last time I wanted so badly for a supporting actor to win an Oscar! I think his performance was the best one of the whole year, go Jared!) 

Best Supporting Actress
Lupita Nyong'o
Sally Hawkins

Philip Seymour Hoffman - an obituary

                                                    Philip Seymour Hoffman, (1967-2014)


I was shocked to read that actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died last Sunday at the age of only 46 with a great career to look back on and probably a lot of great acting moments still ahead of him.
I was also shocked to read it was apparently due to a heroine overdose and that he had  been addicted for a long time. Once more we see that a person can be very successful and praised, idolized even, in their job and remain a sad, desperate character behind the curtain.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was not only one of the best actors Hollywood has ever known. He was also likely among the best five actors of his generation - I am thinking of people like Russel Crowe or Johnny Depp.
It is sad that he was mostly cast for supporting roles such as the villian in Mission Impossble 3, Brandt in The Big Lebowski, or Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr Ripley, and is therefore not as famous as he clearly should have been.

as Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)

     
After a long long time of playing the less important characters, 2006 finally became his breakthrough. He was given the oscar for best actor for his unbelievable performance of bestselling author Truman Capote. Actually, I should say: he won it for becoming Truman Capote. The Time Magazine wrote that Hoffman "crowns ten years of brilliant work" with this role, and his transformation to the openly gay author with the exhaustingly exaggerated accent and manners is absolutely amazing.

as Truman Capote in Capote (2006)

When you saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in interviews, you often could not help but thinking "what a sweetheart!" and "oh, what a poor boy!" at the same time. There was always a tiny hint of sadness in his eyes, a little tinch of loneliness. Now that more and more details about his death and addiction to heroine are revealed, it becomes clear what a tragic figure he was - he might even have been able to play Capote so well because the author (according to the film) was a broken person inside, just like Hoffman himself probably was.
It is especially sad to see that the old story of the labile, sensitive genius that Hollywood has told so many times (Good Will Hunting, Inception, Magnolia) has once again found its way into real life.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, you were a wonderful actor, and I am sure you will be missed.