A night at the Oscars
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Okay, we love the yearly extravaganza called the Academy
Awards, which will air on TV this Sunday night. It’s a fine family
viewing event. We invite over movie literate friends. We dress up in
costume depending on the nominated films. We love to scream at the
television, shouting out insults about clothes and make-up and bad hair-do’s.
Our house is a hot bed of serious dish.
Ballots are a must, and we always have an Oscar menu,
inspired by the nominated movies.
This tradition started years ago when Rainman was
nominated. That year we made a mold in which to make jello Oscars to honor
Dustin Hoffman’s character’s obsession with his jello being cut into
small pieces. We put our printed menu in an ornate frame on the buffet
table, with the good china. It’s all very silly.
This year for instance, we’ll be serving an oriental
fish soup a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Scotch for Traffic,
(think of the scene where Michael Douglas tells his wife how he deals with
the boredom when he comes home); and a nice tray of olives for Gladiator.
We’ll make a batch of Chocolat Oscar cookies in the Oscar
mold and serve some bad water to honor Erin Brockovitch.
Fortunately, Malena, an Italian film was nominated
for Best Foreign Film so we’ll be able to also serve pasta, and call it
Ricotta e Magdelena Malena, or something like that.
This year the Oscars present a classic conundrum. The high
concept splatter movie Gladiator, while entertaining is hard to
place on that great movie list. And somehow we want that Best Movie to
actually be a great movie.
Ang Lee’s lyrical fantasy Crouching Tiger is
beautiful, Erin Brokovitcvh well-made, Traffic compelling,
and Chocolat has nice moments and Johnny Depp, but didn’t live up
to the book (or the hype) at all.
Great movies? Maybe against the overall competition of
duds like I Dreamed of Africa and Autumn in New York, but
not for eternity. In fact, very few of the movies, over the past 10 years
that have won the best Oscar, truly can claim great movie status.
Often a movie is not truly considered great until several
years after it came out. How does it stand up? Does it date over the
years? What’s our feeling as the viewer in retrospect?
For instance, in 1979 instead of Apocalypse Now winning,
Kramer vs. Kramer was awarded the best picture nod. K vs. K
was a stirring movie, with important themes (parenthood) and great
performances by Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. It was well directed by
veteran Robert Benton.
But at the time, Hollywood was displeased with Apocalypses
Now’s director Francis Ford Coppola. He had gone over budget, and
time allowed, to make his war epic in the Philippines. His unproved star
(Martin Sheen) was drunk and had a heart attack. And his co-star (Marlon
Brando) got huge physically and demanded a lot of money.
All of this negative press affected the Oscar votes.
Now, I think we can safety say, that Apocalypse Now
is a remarkable movie which has some of the most compelling scenes ever
shot and indelible performances from everyone involved, from Robert Duval’s
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning," to Frederic Forest,
Dennis Hopper, Scott Glenn, Laurence Fishburne and Harrison Ford.
Check out these mis-awards: Charlton "not
gun-shy" Heston beat Jack Lemmon for best Oscar in 1959. Chuck won
for Gladia…oops, I mean, Ben Hur while Lemmon was
nominated for his juicy part in one for the great movies ever, Some
Like it Hot.
A Forest Gumpy Tom (yes, we love the guy but…)
Hanks, beat Paul Newman in Nobody’s Fool in 1994. As the
dumbed down and stuck in historical footage guy, Hanks also beat Nigel
Hawthorne in The Madness of King George. This was a superlative
performance. And Hawthorne is a real actor. He is so different every time
you see him, it’s hard to believe it’s the same man.
Roberto Begnini!? Remember that year? Life is Beautiful
was delightful but best actor…? What happened was this: Nick Nolte was
in Affliction, exceptional but so depressing—ancel him out. Tom
Hanks in Saving Private Ryan was good but he had won twice
before— canceled. Edward Norton in American History X was
brilliant, but the movie was flawed and few people saw it. The Oscar
should have gone to Sir Ian McKellan for Gods and Monsters, but it
was a quirky little boutique movie. That left the clown, Begnini…oh
well. At least he was amusing to watch as he climbed over the seats to
collect his statue.
This year we’ll most likely see some safe choices; toga
epic Gladiator over well-deserving drug flick Traffic. Julia
Roberts because she’s… well, Julia, will beat Laura Linney, who gave
such an authentic and clean performance in You Can Count on Me.
And can we say— Benicio is the man, and Kate, the
it-girl?
