For the week of March 20 - 26, 2002

Why you can’t vote too

(Psst...it’s not the People’s Choice Awards)

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Sunday! Sunday! At a television near you! The Oscars are coming. Get out your trusty pen and check off your favorites. We all get to vote and not one of our votes actually counts. Sounds a bit like Florida, no?

So who does get to vote? I mean, outside those ubiquitous inter-office, emails and home-viewing pools?

The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences says that membership in the Academy is "limited to those who have achieved the highest level of distinction in the arts and sciences of motion pictures."

Current there are 5,607 voting over-achieving members in 14 branches—Actors, Art Directors, Cinematographers, Directors, Documentary, Executives, Film Editors, Music, Producers, Public Relations, Short Films and Feature Animation, Sound, Visual Effects, and Writers.

All very well but there are plenty of mailroom geeks who get advance copies of flicks or has-beens who live in Peoria, who are still members. So what gives?

To get to be a member in the first place someone in your appropriate branch must submit your name to the Board of Governors for approval.

And while members-at-large should be working in film production, there is no separate branch for their particular craft. The lucky ones, are the life members, so designated by unanimous vote of the Board of Governors and having full privileges of membership, and no dues.

So, for the Oscars, voting members make nominations, usually heavily promoted in the industry rags. These nominations are restricted to voting by members of the Academy branch concerned; directors, for instance, are the only nominators for Achievement in Directing. (Wouldn’t it be more fun, though, if Grips got to vote for directors, Best Boys for actresses, and so forth?)

So when people thank their peers—after lengthy thanks to high school drama teachers and dog walkers—they mean it literally.

As with every year, certain awards have already been announced well before the Oscar air-date. Among them are Scientific and Technical Awards, Honorary Awards, Special Achievement Awards and other special honors.

Chief among these is the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, a bronze bust of the legendary MGM producer, which is given to "a creative producer who has been responsible for a consistently high quality of motion picture production." It’s considered the most impressive award producer might receive. However, this year….gasp…there is apparently no such producer, and so no winner.

Then there is the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award given to someone within the industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry. This year it goes to veteran director Arthur Hiller.

Not one of his flicks—"The Out-of-Towners," "Plaza Suite," "Man of La Mancha," "The In-Laws"—is a true classic, but hey, the guy has been involved in Hollywood and it’s charitable achievements for eons. And in this case, that is what it’s all about.

A tad bit more fun will be the two honorary awards which this year are being given to Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier—good actors both who began their working lives as hunky, pretty boys.

Poitier in particular was a huge break-through African American actor, who was twice nominated for Academy Awards. His first, in 1959, was for his leading role in "The Defiant Ones," and the second, for which he won, in 1964 was for "Lilies in the Field." He is still the only African American to ever win the Oscar in a leading role.

However, much of his legend is based on starring roles in two 1960s gems, "To Sir, With Love," and Spencer Tracy’s last flick "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner."

And what to say of Bob Redford that is not already common knowledge? He was nominated for "The Sting," won as a director for "Ordinary People" and was nominated again for "Quiz Show. "

Not much compares, in my humble opinion, with his performance as the cocky, sexy outlaw in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," or his sophomore directorial effort "Milargro Beanfield Wars." Besides his long career, Redford is notably the creator of the Sundance Film Festival, which has become a major showcase for independent film makers.

Not too shabby for a pretty boy.

So what about the juicy stuff? Will there be any streakers, as there were in 1974, rejections like George C Scott’s in 1971 (for "Patton") and Marlon Brando’s in 1973 (for "The Godfather") or one armed push-ups by 71 year old Jack Palance (1991).

Will Russell Crowe win two statuettes in a row and then offend his peers by not saying thank you as he did during the SAG awards, or prove he’s sensitive by reciting poetry as he did at the BAFTA awards only to reverse that perception by cussing out and shoving a producer.

Imagine it and it probably happened at one time in the long and illustrious history of the Oscars. Since 1929, the industry that celebrates itself has celebrated with aplomb, but only did they include us, the paying public, in the fun when in 1940 during the war, they broadcast the show live on the radio, with an address by President Roosevelt and surprise winners.

No matter how you look at it, who votes or who wears what, ultimately the Oscar voting process continues to be the most politically motivated fashion show around, other than skating competitions, of course.

As the great theatrical stage star—and non-Academy member—Tallulah Bankhead once famously said, "The people who vote in that free-for-all don’t know on which side their crêpes suzette are buttered."

 

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