Bale For Best Actor?

Warner Bros. is pushing hard for "The Dark Knight" to get a Best Picture nomination. Heath Ldger's nomination is a lock, with Aaron Eckart as a dark horse for a potential additional Best Supporting Actor nominee. Warner has been printing lots of ads, but aside from from the ads that do that silly "For Your Consideration In All Categories" ads, Warner has been focusing on four specific categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Actor. Wait a minute? Best Actor? Who are they pimping for Best Actor? Could they be pushing for Ledger for bother categories? No, they aren't. Besides, with Ledger having a lock on a win for the supporting race, Warner Bros. wouldn't want to jeoperdize that win. No, they are pushing for Christian Bale to get a nomination in the lead slot. Which is interesting because Bale, up until now, has not been given much respect for this movie, constantly being overshadowed by Ledger.

Now it looks like Warner Bros. is realizing what a great performace this is, and so they are pushing hard for it. It would add more credability to the film if they got a lead actor nomination. However, I don't think this is going to happen, and not because the field is too crowded. No, the reason it's not going to happen is this: Bale is not the lead actor in this film. None of the actors are. "The Dark Knight," at heart, is an essamble film. No key characters gets more or less screen time as the other characters, and when they do it's minimal at best. Bale may play Batman, but Batman has as much screentime as Joker and Gordon. Single him out as a lead is playing favorites in a cast where no actor is more or less important then the other. The only actor to get a significant less amount of screentime was Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is the only character who truly comes off as a "supporting" character if there is one.

Still, since there is such a big push, and since "The Dark Knight" is likely to be one of the biggest Oscar contenders this year, I'm going to put Bales name on the sidebar. Don't expect this to last though. In the next few weeks we've got "Australia," "Milk," "Frost/Nixon," "The Wrestler," and all these other movies that will more then likely push Bale off the rader (if he was ever there). For now though, best of luck to Warner Bros. on their Oscar campaign.