..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Breakthrough Gents

Breakthrough stories can be huge successes at the Academy Awards.

Last year, Jamie Foxx hit it huge with two jarring performances in Taylor Hackford's Ray and Michael Mann's Collateral. Both performances led him to Oscar nominations. Catalina Sandino Moreno was also one of the year's big breakthrough stories in Maria Full of Grace.

In 2003, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Shohreh Aghdashloo made awards waves with their performances in Whale Rider and House of Sand and Fog respectively. In 2002, the big story was Adrien Brody in Roman Polanski's The Pianist.

However, many a breakout success has lost its way on the journey to the Kodak.

Paul Giamatti's resounding success in both American Splendor and Sideways missed with the Academy, while Hayden Christensen and Naomi Watts were snubbed in 2001 for Life as a House and Mulholland Drive respectively, following numerous precursor notices throughout the awards season.

2005 could be a definitive breakthrough year for three actors who hope to ride the success of their multiple films to Oscar recognition.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL

Jake Gyllenhaal made his on screen debut in 1991's City Slickers at the age of 11. He got some attention in 1999's October Sky, the film that also opened doors for Chris Cooper. But he really hit the zeitgeist radar in 2001 in what has become a cult classic, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko.

After throwaway roles in everything from the absurd (Bubble Boy) to the mundane (Moonlight Mile), let alone being type cast as the "youthful lover" (Lovely & Amazing, The Good Girl), Gyllenhaal found himself headlining a summer blockbuster with Dennis Quaid last year in Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow.

2005 brings with it three performances that break through in full force, potentially in the form of awards recognition.

In John Madden's Proof, which gathered dust for over a year until it was finally released by Miramax Films in September, Gyllenhaal finds himself sharing the screen with Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Auburn, the film received tepid critical response, with Paltrow's performance being the standout amongst most reviews. Gyllenhaal found a warm reception with those who saw that he offered more in the role of Hal than that "youthful lover" cut-out from the actor's past. But it was the tip of the iceberg.

Jarhead finally released in November to extremely disappointed critics, columnists and audiences alike. And while Sam Mendes' Gulf War chronicle is extremely trying, reaching for a point of absolution that remains out of its grasp, Gyllenhaal's leading performance as Anthony Swofford is one of the most commendable pieces of work this year. Gyllenhaal carries the torch of Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen and Matthew Modine well, even if Mendes failed to continue the lineage of Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick. Gyllenhaal's controlled, reactionary portrayal really announced ability to carry a film on his shoulders. It is his best performance of the year.

Next week brings Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, one of the most accomplished directorial achievements of the year. Gyllenhaal's love-struck rodeo misfit and ranch hand, Jack Twist, is one of a few demanding parts in the film. In what will possibly be an Oscar-nominated performance, the actor gets better and better throughout the course of the story. The older his character gets, aging some twenty years in the film, the more tiresome his eyes appear - and the more nuanced and weathered the performance becomes. Much like in Jarhead, Gyllenhaal's work here shows that he can convey the troubles of burden with the best of them.

Next year, the actor tackles another major role, this time working with David Fincher in Zodiac. Gyllenhaal will be portraying Robert Graysmith, who wrote the books that give an accounting of the Zodiac killer's rampage through the 60s and 70s in San Francisco. Zodiac could be a great murder mystery to go along with Brian De Palma's James Ellroy adaptation The Black Dahlia, also being released next year.

TERRENCE HOWARD

Terrence Howard has been at it for a long time. His first role of consequence was opposite Richard Dreyfuss in 1995's Mr. Holland's Opus. He has put forth memorable but brief performances in Albert Hughes' and Allen Hughes' Dead Presidents and Ice Cube's The Player's Club, not to mention more substantial work in Clark Johnson's TV movie Boycott and Gregory Hoblit's Hart's War, opposite Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell.

2005 has been an extremely busy year for the actor. With performances in no less than seven films, including HBO's acclaimed Lackawanna Blues and the recently released 50 Cent vehicle Get Rich Or Die Tryin', Howard is truly on the brink of commodity-level stardom. Two specific performances, however, mark his claim to fame in 2005.

The buzz on Howard erupted in January when Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow bowed at the Sundance International Film Festival. The film took the Audience Award and the Cinematography Award at the festival, and now in the midst of awards season, Paramount Classics hopes to usher it through to a Best Actor nomination for Howard at the Academy Awards.

In the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp with aspirations of making something of himself, chasing the dream of becoming a hip-hop sensation, Howard's performance is the most explosive of the year. The work is all the more captivating when you meet Howard face to face, a laid back, quiet and unassuming individual who bears no approachable resemblance to DJay in the slightest. The film had hoped for a Best Actor nomination in the comedy/musical category of the Golden Globes to keep the Oscar buzz afloat, but being chalked up in the drama category might be the final nail in the coffin for what is perhaps the single greatest performance of the new millennium.

I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong.

Also new to Howard's résumé this year is his performance in Paul Haggis' Crash, a film that debuted at 2004's Toronto International Film Festival to less than ecstatic response. When the film opened in May, however, word of mouth carried it all the way to a surprising $53 million domestic gross.

Haggis' film has a lot of steam built up for the Million Dollar Baby scribe, as well as the concentrated love for Crash that exists within a specific faction of the Academy. Oprah Winfrey was adamant about getting the entire cast on a stage months after the film's release.

Howard has an uphill climb against the rest of the talented ensemble, facing direct awards competition from Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon. However, given his status as "breakthrough actor" this year with Hustle & Flow, Howard might just be the most likely of the cast to receive a notice.

CILLIAN MURPHY

Cillian Murphy began his career in the late 90s in a series of small Irish films, including Oscar nominee Kirsten Sheridan's Disco Pigs, before finally making his mark in the States in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later in 2002. He followed up with fleeting but capable performances in Peter Webber's Girl With a Pearl Earring and Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain in 2003.

This summer the actor found himself in the villainous scenery-chewingcompany of Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman as he assumed the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane (aka The Scarecrow) in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

Still one of the year's best, Batman Begins is the first film of the franchise to consider itself realistic and plausible, making it more akin to The French Connection or Serpico than it is to Spider-Man. Murphy's devilish and downright sadistic portrayal is perfect for the role, combining a sick irony and a twisted, diabolical approach that holds its own opposite the scenery chewing of Tom Wilkinson's crime boss as well as the grandiose and iconic Dark Knight himself (portrayed with equal assuredness by Christian Bale).

What's more, we might see the character again, as I would not be shocked to see him reprised further into the franchise.

(Curiously, Murphy auditioned for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman in August of 2003. Director Christopher Nolan liked his audition so much that he cast him in the role of Crane instead.)

Murphy was allowed to stretch his villainous legs once again in August in the clunky, at times rather lame, Red Eye from the "master of suspense," Wes Craven. The critical fraternity inexplicably forgave the film, but at the very least it boasted a genuinely creepy performance from Murphy as Jackson Rippner, deadly and in the aisle seat.

The cat and mouse chemistry between Murphy and co-star Rachel McAdams was splendid, even if the film was lazy and meandering. It provided the opportunity for Murphy to play the baddie for the second time in two months, and also offered a nice counter-example to his best performance of the year.

In Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto, Murphy stars as Patrick "Kitten" Braden, who leaves his Irish foster home behind, becomes reborn as a transvestite and ventures to London in search of the mother that abandoned him. Though the adaptation of Patrick McCabe's novel is structured in an awkward manner, Jordan's film still moves delightfully through an episodic chronicle that never shakes Murphy off of a stellar performance.

Murphy also finds the opportunity to share the screen with some of the finest actors from across the pond, not the least of which being Jordan staples Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Brendan Gleeson, with whom the actor has the privilege of working with on a third occasion. He holds his own considerably, and perhaps he can find awards recognition throughout the fall, if not an Oscar.

November 29, 2005

Previous Oscartown Columns
11.22.05 - Money Talks
11.15.05 - Where Have All The Cowgirls Gone?
11.08.05 - Imitation of Life
11.01.05 - Suggestion Card
10.25.05 - Youthful Digression
10.18.05 - Nothing New, Nothing Old... A Whole Lot of Nothing
09.01.05 - A Brave New 'Wood?

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