BEST ACTOR?
Too often the Academy Award for Best Actor has been based on a career rather than an individual performance. As in- “It’s about time we gave so-and-so an Oscar; he ain’t gonna live forever.” Well, maybe that’s ok, but I have some problems with it.
Most recently Michael Keaton won the gold for Birdman in 2015. He was pretty good. But even better were Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game, and Eddie Redmayne in The Theory Of Everything.
John Wayne is an American icon and appeared in over 50 movies and I yield to no one in liking most of his films. But let’s face it- the guy just played himself over and over. In 1969, he won the Oscar as Best Actor for True Grit, a fine tongue-in-cheek Western. Who didn’t win are Dustin Hoffman or Jon Voight for Midnight Cowboy, and frankly The Duke couldn’t carry either one’s union card. 
In 1961, the award went to Maximillian Schell, who wasn’t even the best actor in the dreary, overlong Judgment At Nuremberg. Who should have won? How about the young and wonderful Paul Newman as the immortal Fast Eddie in The Hustler.
A more recent example of career-time syndrome happened in 2001, when Denzel Washington (by the way, as good an actor as we have) won for one of his worst films, Training Day. I know, I know, he played a bad guy- so what! He should have won several times, like for The Hurricane, or Antwone Fisher or Malcolm X. But he didn’t. That year he beat out Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind and Will Smith for Ali. He shouldn’t have. 
Tom Hanks has won two Oscars. He deserves at least that many, but maybe not for Forest Gump (1994), sort of a one-note performance.  That year, for my money, the winner is Paul Newman in his best career performance in Nobody’s Fool. And in 1998, I would argue that Hanks should have won for Saving Private Ryan instead of the 
self-indulgent Robert Benigni for Life Is Beautiful.
Rod Steiger’s turn as a redneck sheriff got him the gold in 1967 for In The Heat Of The Night. Not bad, but what about Dustin Hoffman’s performance in The Graduate, which is only a letter-perfect rendering of a 60's youngster. 
Robert DeNiro has won the Oscar twice (Raging Bull and Godfather 2). But may I suggest he certainly should have won in 1976 for Taxi Driver. Shoot, Travis Bickle has become more famous than lots of real people! (Are you lookin’ at me?). Can’t remember who won? How about Peter Finch for Network?
Some of you may argue with these selections. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t!
All of the movies in this column are available on DVD and for streaming (so you can judge for yourself!). All are for grown-ups.