Is Oscar Next?

Heath Ledger’s chances of becoming only the second actor to capture an Academy Award posthumously received some momentum at last night’s Golden Globe awards when he was honored for his psychotically intense portrayal of ‘The Joker’ in 2008’s The Dark Knight.

The Australian actor, who died nearly a year ago of an accidental drug overdose, beat out Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr. for the Best Supporting Actor award.

Ledger’s director from The Dark Knight, Chris Nolan, accepted the Golden Globe on Ledger’s behalf.

“All of us who worked with Heath on ‘The Dark Knight’ accept this with an awful mixture of sadness but incredible pride,” Nolan said.

Well-deserved. A few critics who are probably just trying to be ‘different’ are suggesting that Ledger didn’t deserve the win, and that all the rave reviews of his performance were attributable to his untimely death.

We find that argument difficult to accept, particularly considering all the pre-release buzz that Ledger received for the role.

Dead or alive, the stage was set for a let-down, in that nothing short of a miraculous portrayal could have justified that sort of hype.

But damn if Ledger didn’t pull it off, at least in our humble opinion.

Should Ledger win an Academy Award this February, he would follow Peter Finch as the only other posthumous Oscar winner.

Finch won the Best Actor award in 1977 for his portrayal of crazed TV anchorman Howard Beale in the movie Network.

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