Tim Robbins as Dave Boyle in Mystic River.

(also known as "the performance which had thr 5th greatest impact on my life.)

This is part of the prelude to my Performance that Changed My Life blogathon that I shall start on Saturday and be keeping open through the weekend. To all those who expressed an interest in participating – brilliant – you’re up. All ya gotta do is write your article (however long/short as you like, about any performance and for any reason that you so choose.) When your article is posted on your blog, just poke me with an e-mal or by replying on the master post, which (with any luck) I shall release at 8.00 am, GMT. I will the update the master post. A huge thanks to everyone participating!

So, Robbins in Mystic River. One of the finest supporting turns of recent years, he brilliantly conveys how someone so tall can feel so small, with his body and facial expressions conveying far more than words ever could, and adds to the urgency of the film. And what about the impact this performance had on my life? Pure and simple, when I saw it in 2003, it got me interested in the Oscars. It was my love and respect for Robbins after viewing Mystic River, that, coupled with recent viewings of Dead Man Walking (which he directed) and The Shawshank Redemption, that got me supporting Timmy. I stayed up all night to watch my Timmy collect his award, and 2004 was indeed the year in which I lost my Oscar virginity. That said, as delirious as I was for Tim that night (by the way, at 6’5”, he’s only 2 inches shorter than another talented cutie), I also left the Academy Awards that Monday morning feeling terribly cold. This can, of course, be attributed to the awards that I didn’t agree with, and, frick, there were a lot of them. Surprisingly, I completely agreed with all 4 acting awards, and in one of my old issues of Empire resides an image of Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Charlize Theron and Renee Zellweger all standing together prettily with their statues, and it’s an image I’m extremely fond of, because I feel all 4 fully deserved their awards. But that’s really where my agreement ended. I had been rooting for Mystic River deeply through the Oscar season (I’d been equally wary of LOTR and Coppola fanboys) so much so that in the end, it hadn’t even been about Mystico wining, but neither of the other two winning. But, alas, they did, and the opportunity cost for their wins was one of my favourite films, Finding Nemo, being robbed of the two categories that I thought it truly excelled in – Best Original Score and Best Original Screenplay. Still, it was an incredible night, I was proud as Hell of Tim, and I still chuckle when I think of a grumpy (and undeserving) Bill Murray, refusing to stand up for Penn.

The following year, my favourite mainstream film of the year, Million Dollar Baby (sorry, but I do love it) won, and instead of Timmy, it was his Shawshank co-star Morgan Freeman I was rooting for, in the same category, and still under the direction of Clint Eastwood. I loved Freeman’s portrayal of Eddie Dupris, thought his voice-over a delight, and deeply enjoyed the rambling rapport between him and Eastwood, but there is not a single doubt in my mind that a lot of my support for him was also based on the tradition that I had set up the previous year, for supporting Tim.

The following year came Brokeback, and my obsessions for the Oscars heightened. Still, it didn’t win, and, that ranks up there as one of the gravest disappointments I’ve ever suffered in my life. It was ‘orrible! I still cry thinking about it, and I swore that I would never watch the Oscars again. Yet not only did I watch them in 2007, but I watched them avidly, predicting, analysing and blogging about the Oscars like I was some kind of a madman. I do this because, I remember that, at times, the Oscars can get it right, and performances that I like – like Morgan and Tim, do actually get rewarded.