Heath Ledger, The Joker, and Oscar.

Heath Ledger's version of the Joker deserves it's own blog, so here we go.

Trying to compare Jack Nicholson's Joker from 1989 with Ledger's Joker from the current Batman movie is simply absurd. Acting has come a long way in the twenty years or so since Jack's campy yet definitely insane rendition of the clown prince of crime. Ledger's Joker is dark, twisted, sickly amusing, insane, but definitely intelligent. His schemes are never what they appear on the surface. Whether that is a testament to Ledger's acting abilities or the directing and writing is debatable. Quite honestly the nod for Hedger's Joker being better is probably a bit of all three.

Now for the Oscar buzz.
I understand why people are wanting to posthumously award the little gold statue to Ledger for his performance. Quite honestly it's probably the best supporting actor performance so far this year. On the same note, however, Aaron Eckhart did just as good of a job in The Dark Knight as a straight laced district attorney fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds. People want to go with the pity vote because of how sad it is that Heath Ledger was taken at such a young age by a stupid accident involving prescription drugs.

All that being said, here is my opinion on it. It's too early to just hand the Oscar to whoever would accept it on Ledger's behalf. We aren't even halfway through the year. Was his performance excellent? Definitely. With Ledger's performance he would have gotten a blank check from Hollywood and could have done anything he wanted to. This movie would have solidified him as a box office power house and would have put him in the league of Leonardo Dicaprio, Robert Downey Jr, and other very talented actors.

That is what I am most sad about. I remember seeing this frizzy haired kid with the weird accent in a teen movie called 10 things I About You and thought nothing of him. Just a pretty face in an industry filled over flowing with them. Over time he got more roles and his technique improved. This was the bust out role for him just as The Crow was the bust out role for Brandon Lee. Now Heath Ledger joins the infamous fraternity of gone too soon.

-Twiz