Writing in TheWrap, Steve Pond asks, Will Somebody Please Nominate Javier Bardem?
“Every awards season is rife with injustices, but one in particular stands out so far this year. Javier Bardem’s performance in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s haunted, crushing tone poem Biutiful is a towering achievement, a magnificent performance that should comfortably sit on every list of the great acting accomplishments of the year. Without saying much… Bardem subtly evokes and embodies a world-weary Everyman living with a ticking clock and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Guillermo del Toro has called Bardem’s performance ‘monumental’; Sean Penn said it’s the best thing he’s seen since Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. ‘When I saw King’s Speech, I thought Colin Firth gave the best performance I’d seen in a couple of years,’ Ben Affleck told me at a party for The Town a couple of weeks ago. ‘Then I saw Biutiful.’ He shook his head. ‘Javier is on another level from the rest of us.’
Memo to Academy members: SAG and Globe voters blew it, badly. Don’t you do the same.”
Read Pond’s interview with Bardem here.