..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Globes Week Special:
Underdogs R You

As we get into the heavy pre-Oscar voting season, I thought it was time - having seen everything in play now - to offer a few names to remember that are likely to be lost on mainstream lists everywhere.  Here are 10 you should be considering (in alphabetical order) ...

Hiam Abbass - Supporting Actress - The Visitor - One of those understated, delightful performances from an unexpected actor that audiences simply love.  The movie isn't explosive, like House of Sand & Fog, where Shohreh Aghdashloon broke out.  But this little underdog movie continues to resonate with people in ways that many of the expected awards chasers have not.

Peter Andrews - Cinematography - Che - God bless Wally Pfister and all, but Mr. Andrews (nee' Soderbergh) did more to push the visual envelope this year than any other cinematographer.  Che was fearless in approaching the camera work, with the “Red” camera arriving two days before shooting, doing the two films in different ratios, etc.  But mostly, it is one of the most beautiful pieces you will see this year or any other.

Josh Brolin - Actor & Supporting Actor - W. & Milk - Two truly great performances in the understated style that has suddenly become a real movie trademark for this actor, best known before last year for his performance as a 16-year-old in The Goonies and for licking Patricia Arquette's armpit in Flirting With Disaster.  George W. Bush is quite a familiar image for Americans, but Brolin didn't imitate the man, he embodied him and his spirit.  Oliver Stone may have been the biggest block against this performance getting awards attention by allowing/choosing-to-have actors do two different kinds of performances in the film, interpretation and imitation.  Brolin rose above.  And in Milk, his Dan White, a real-life character who is not familiar to many, is a bit on the underwritten side, but you feel his angst, from the first moment with him to the last.  Nothing short of great. 

Rosario Dawson - Supporting Actress - Seven Pounds - Ms. Dawson finally arrives as a full-fledged actor with this performance of subtlety, nuance, and beauty in a drama that plants its flag firmly in the emotion centers of the audience's brain.  She has always bewitched the camera, a near-mythic multi-ethnic beauty of full curves and come-hither eyes.  But she pulls back here - though to say she isn't still a looker even made up to look ill would be silly - into a certain shyness and vulnerability that she simply hasn't been challenged to deliver before.  One gets the feeling she has been looking for the right role.  And this time, she found it. 

Benicio del Toro - Actor - Che - It's simple.  It's perfect.  While others chew scenery, he owns the screen for four and a half hours as the absolute center of this epic.  It is a performance you can feel completely, in any language.

Rebecca Hall - Supporting Actress - Vicky Cristina Barcelona - It's not all that unusual for a film to deliver two Supporting Actress candidates.  But with two films trying to turn that trick this year (VCB and Rachel Getting Married), Ms. Hall may be the odd woman out.  But that's not fair.  She really is the lead of the film, ahead of the three better known actors.  And she owns the film.  She also turns up in a smaller role in Frost/Nixon, but this one is the launch of what should be a great career.

Eddie Marsan - Supporting Actor - Happy-Go-Lucky - Mostly typed in the U.S. as a bad guy (Hancock, 21 Grams), Marsan does remarkable lower case work in this Mike Leigh film as the character carrying the most serious emotional baggage, all the while trying to feel something he can't seem to get to feel.  It's the kind of career performance that would get much more attention from American character actors.

Liev Schreiber - Supporting Actor - Defiance - Schreiber is walking gold on the New York stage, but he just hasn't found the right role that brought out his strengths on film.  Here, as the brother who chooses violence over restraint, he has all of the emotional resonance that he has shown before, but also feels real as a man of rage ... out first movie glimpse at the full Liev.  And one of the great performances of the year.

Will Smith - Actor - Seven Pounds - The Kill Will campaign has reached full steam.  The media is drooling to get its shots in against the undeniable biggest movie star in the world.  They didn't believe in him in The Pursuit of Happyness, obsessing on the title spelling and his son in a supporting role ... Oscar nod.  They tried to bury Hancock for a month before its release ... his second highest grossing film ever.  And now, another drama, very much in the European style that critics always claim they want more movies to emulate, complex, forcing the audience to think from frame one until “The End,” and there is very little buzz around his central performance as a man trying to do at least three very complex things at once.  Now, Sony has some responsibility, as the movie didn't become available for viewing until last week, a late date this time of year.  But it smells like a December hit at the box office.  And Smith continues to push the envelope as a producer and as an actor.

Eamonn Walker - Supporting Actor - Cadillac Records - Surrounded by the great Jeffrey Wright, Oscar-winner Adrian Brody, high energy scene-stealer Columbus Short, beauties like Beyonce and Gabrielle Union, and Mos Def in a terrifically fun happy-go-goofy turn as Chuck Berry, one performance owns the movie every time his character wanders into a scene.  Brit Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf sears the room with that voice, those eyes, and that absolute menace.  Best known for his turn as Kareem Said on HBO's Oz, Walker outsnarls Wright - disadvantaged by playing a man who won't show emotion - and makes you wonder why he didn't become the biggest star of the entire group of actors in this story about Chess Records breaking the race barriers of pop music.  Had this film been shown in Toronto in September, people would still be talking about this performance and this movie.

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