I didn't want to be popular anyway

Well, it's the end of the year, and it's getting close to Oscar time, and the buzz is all Heath Ledger, all the time. I might be alone here, but, while it's awful that he's died, his performance in Dark Knight doesn't warrant an award.

In my opinion, an award-winning performance shows audiences something new, something they haven't seen before. What Heath Ledger gave us in his depiction of The Joker was derivative. Basically, the Ledger Joker was the love child of Jack Nicholson's performance of Jack Torrance in The Shining and Brad Pitt's Jeffery Goines from 12 Monkeys. The hunched shoulders, rambling gait, the gravelly voice: it was all Jack Torrance, all Jack Nicholson. Go ahead and compare the two images; part Heath's hair on the other side and he even looks like Jack in face paint, right down to the receding hairline. Yes, it was a new spin on The Joker, but more than anything, that new spin is thanks to the hair and makeup design that took it from being a campy comic book depiction Tim Burton gave us (and I love Tim Burton's version of the film) to being a seedy, dirty, gritty, realistic character. Can we really give Heath Ledger credit for wearing the makeup and costume well, or interacting with the lights and the city?

Let's be honest: if Heath Ledger wins this award, it will be for two reasons. First, it will be because he died young and tragically. Second, it will be because the academy feels guilty for passing him over for the Best Actor award he deserved for Brokeback Mountain. Now, I don't think Brokeback Mountain was all that great a film, but Ledger's performance as a man who falls in love with another man and is tormented to the point of self-loathing by his uncertain sexuality was the most compelling part of that film.

So let the hate pour in, but I honestly don't think Heath Ledger was the best actor of 2008.