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jump to today's dialogue: THE WINNERS
The Academy Awards: Not Crazy Enough After All These Years
By JOHN HARKNESS
The lights, the glamour, the short acceptance speeches.... Gilbert Cates, long-time producer of the Oscars, has issued a challenge to the nominees: shorter acceptance speeches.
John Harkness, author of The Academy Awards Handbook
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Shortest speech wins a high-definition TV, and when the winners come offstage they can hand a list of people they want to thank to some Academy drone and it'll be put up on the Web site for all to see.Cates, in the interest of a shorter show, has brought back Debbie Allen, whose choreography is a persistent embarrassment. And clip-master Chuck Workman will no doubt dig into his bag of excerpts to make another great montage out of Gene Kelly swinging on the lamppost and Claudette Colbert hiking up her skirt and Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains walking off into the fog on the Warners sound stage.
It makes one wonder if Cates actually has any idea why people watch the Oscars. Reality check, Gil: it ain't because we want to see Michael Flatley.
It's the chance to see phenomenally wealthy and popular people under extreme emotional duress. We want Cuba Gooding Jr. leaping about the stage and Gwyneth Paltrow breaking down and Martin Landau torn between gratitude and seething distaste over the years of his career wasted doing things like Space 1999.
OK, we don't necessarily care who the special-effects guys want to thank this time, but I'd trade every Debbie Allen number ever staged for James Cameron's magnificently untrammelled ego.
This is a very confusing year. We've now seen all the films, and all the non-Academy awards have been handed out, and the picture is as clear as Proust explained by a six-year-old. A bunch of societies, critics and awards-granting groups got on a horse and rode off in six different directions at once. The only thing made really clear by what are known as the "precursor" awards is that Chocolat isn't going to win much of anything on Oscar night.
For your delectation, and without commentary, here are how the five best-picture Oscar nominees shook out at the major pre-Academy awards:
Chocolat - Supporting actress, Screen Actors Guild
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Director, Director's Guild; director and foreign-language film, Golden Globes; picture, score, cinematography, production design, L.A. Film Critics; foreign-language film, National Board of Review; cinematography, New York Film Critics; picture, Toronto Film Critics
Erin Brockovich - Actress, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, L.A. Film Critics; director*, British Academy Awards; supporting actor, Screen Actors Guild
Gladiator - Best picture, Producer's Guild, Golden Globes; supporting actor, National Board of Review
Traffic - Editing, screenplay, supporting actor, British Academy Awards; screenplay, supporting actor, Golden Globes; director, L.A. Film Critics; supporting actor, National Society of Film Critics; film, director, supporting actor, New York Film Critics; director, actor, Toronto Film Critics; actor, ensemble cast, Screen Actors Guild; adapted screenplay Writer's Guild
*Soderbergh's awards are a little complicated, because a number of organizations honoured him for his direction of both Erin Brockovich and Traffic.
NOW senior film writer John Harkness is the author of The Academy Awards Handbook (Pinnacle).
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