The Ultimate Walt Disney Company Performances Bracket -- Round One, Day Fourteen

Bring me that horizon.

Friends, I hope you’re rolling into the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with the same level of relaxation and bliss on the face of Cameron Poe, as seen above. (I think that’s the character’s name? I could look it up, but I’m just so relaxed on this holiday that I wouldn’t dare open up a new tab and go to IMDb or Wikipedia.)

No need for a big intro today — let’s get into the vote!

(7) Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl vs. (58) Kurt Russell, Miracle: If we can limit our scope in voting in these matchups solely to the performances at hand, the answer here is very easy, in that it has to go to Johnny Depp. But I understand that each of us can only have blinders on to a certain degree for each celebrity and whatever activities they may or may not have engaged in (and you can do us all a favor by not bringing said activities up in the comments).

Some of you may hesitate in voting here — and Kurt Russell is good in Miracle! I may or may not be saying this specifically so Alan Sepinwall does not virtually rap my knuckles for not saying it — but for me, it’s got to be Depp.

(26) Geoffrey Rush, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl vs. (39) Ralph Fiennes, Quiz Show: I am unhesitating on this one — while I enjoy Quiz Show as an effective drama, I only have so much forgiveness for British actors doing American accents when those accents are Not Great, Bob. (Fiennes’ accent here is, in my opinion, somewhat rough sledding.) Geoffrey Rush is hamming it up in all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but he’s at his most enjoyable in the original, so I will go with Rush. How about you?

(10) James Earl Jones, Return of the Jedi vs. (55) Nicolas Cage, Con Air: I like Nicolas Cage just fine, and Con Air is an agreeably goofy action movie with some memorable moments, such as the one captured in the photo at the top of this post. But when you’re going up against the man whose voice brought Darth Vader more fully to life…I mean, sorry, Nic. I gotta go with James Earl Jones.

(23) Tom Hulce, The Hunchback of Notre Dame vs. (42) Richard Gere, Pretty Woman: So, as I may have already noted earlier in the lengthy first round, I am not a huge fan of Pretty Woman. I am especially not a fan of Richard Gere’s smug and hollow performance in Pretty Woman. (While I don’t love the movie, I understand that it was a massive star turn for Julia Roberts, so I get why her performance may go relatively far in the overall bracket.) So this is as much me saying my preference against one of these performances as it is an appreciation of Tom Hulce’s tender voice performance as Quasimodo in the underrated The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So, yes, I vote for Hulce. How about you?