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To
the Academy: This year's Oscars, another disappointment
With
the recent Academy Awards, I take this time to reflect upon
the Oscars of recent years, including this year: the hype,
the failures, the winners and the even more interesting losers.
Let's
start with 1998 and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
This was probably the most critcally acclaimed film of 1998
with some awesome, gut wrenching, not-for-the-waek-at-heart
war scenes. It did not make my list for the best films of
the year (see my website).
I found it not to have that extra something special to make
it standout among the movies of that year. An alright story
in conjunction with some very well made scenes does not satisfy
my movie going experience.
Instead
that year, I fell for The Truman Show, a smart well acted
thematical excellent film which was overlooked by the Academy.
Instead, Miramax's Shakespeare In Love took home little Oscar
that year. It was a safe bet: good acting, intelligent dialogue,
pretty good story with some funny scenes. I don't think many
disliked it. Also, god forbid that the Academy should ruin
their reputation of past years making it nearly impossible
for early year pics (ie Saing Private Ryan, The Truman Show)
to have ANY success at their annual ceremony.
In
1999, the Academy finally broke they're string of "safe bets",
that is avoiding any daring films, or the unimaginable, oh
my gosh, daringly great film. American Beauty was the first
Best Picture winner since 1995's Braveheart to make my annual
top ten list. It was daring, funny, dramatic, with an unforgettable
story and even more unforgettable main character, Lester Burnham,
brilliantly portrayed by Kevin Spacey. Thank you Academy for
your best selection in half a decade.
I
was so happy in 1999 that I thought this year, there may actually
be a chance that the Academy members continued their streak
of looking like they know something about film. Boy, was I
disappointed. Gladiator. This was not a safe bet and here's
why: it was not a good movie. The story was so ridiculously
predictable that it almost gets a laugh. The special effects
look like they were done on some 2nd rate PC with a freeware
graphics program (What was with that Colosseum? The audience
is not suppose to see it as a computer generated object but
the idea is to make it look real). The picture was dark and
mrky at times. It was not good to look at. The fight scenes
were good, but not comparable to the likes of Braveheart,
or Spartacus to which this movie has been compared to.
Here's
a newsflash: Spartacus was not a great movie either! Stanley
Kubrick said it himself. At least Kirk Douglas showed that
he could act. I would not believe that Russell Crowe was capable
of giving such incredible performances as he did in 1997's
L.A. Confidential and 1999's The Insider, judging by this
flick.
I
guess the Academy has an excuse in that it was a bad year
for movies. Hopefully, 2001 will be much better. One of this
year's early films, Enemy At the Gates would have been one
of last year's best. After this annual Academy-bashing I leave
you with my choices for the best of the year:
Best
Picture: Finding Forrester, a very well told story with
two incredible performances by Rob Brown and Sean Connery.
It was from the same guy who brought us the best film of 1997,
Good Will Hunting.
Best
Actor: Rob Brown. This was his first film but the only way
you can tell is because he is young. Mr. Brown stole the screen
from Sean Connery, who in his own respect was no less than
excellent in this movie.
Best
Actress: Renee Zellweger. The satirical, funny, outrageous
Nurse Betty was brought to life by its star, who I first noticed
in 1996's Jerry Maguire.
Best
Supporting Actor: Vin Diesel. This guy could get places just
with that cool voice. Oh, yea, he's a good actor too. Just
check out his overlooked performance in Boiler Room.
Best
Supporting Actress: Kate Hudson. This was supposed to be the
ONE guarantee at this year's Oscars and I was happy with it;
but, Marcia Gay Harden got the award. I cannot really criticize
because I have yet to have seen Pollock.
Maybe,
the Academy will force their members to take film classes
over the course of this year. Okay. I know I'm going WAY overboard
here, but they bring it upon themselves. Don't go with the
safe bets. You actually got some praise for selecting American
Beauty as Best Picture. Oh, also, refrain from picking the
bad movies. Think before you select.
Blair
Bass
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