My Award Nominations: Supporting Actor

Onward we march in my drawn-out unveiling of 2014's best cinematic achievements. Today the focus is on Best Supporting Actor.

Unlike in my recently unveiled Best Original Screenplay ballot, I find there is a dearth of quality in this category. I'm sure you'll immediately notice that my top five are nearly identical to the SAG, Globes, BAFTA, and Oscar slate (save for one obvious non-contender who should've received more consideration anyway). It's not that I particularly enjoy lining up with the everybody else, but I couldn't find a whole lot of alternatives that I felt okay nominating myself. When different groups are in this much agreement at the nomination stage, it's often an indicator of a weak year.

But enough griping, because these five performances are still excellent -- whether or not they had any competition:

Review - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes – the surprisingly good 2011 reboot of the classic sci-fi franchise – we met Caesar, a super smart lab chimp contemplating his place in a human world that would keep him caged up. In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – the excellent new sequel which delivers high blockbuster thrills in a story with the dramatic scope of a Shakespearean tragedy – Caesar is older and a bit wiser, but still has a lot to learn about the cruel subtleties of trust and leadership.

Picking up ten years after the events of Rise, Dawn finds humankind all but extinct due to a pandemic outbreak of the same man-made virus that blessed Caesar (Andy Serkis) with heightened intelligence in the first place. Conversely, he and his posse of escaped simian brethren have since flourished into a thriving ape community in the temperate rainforest of northern California, with any humans happily out of sight and out of mind.