 |
2001 |
 |
 Nachman thinks Julia Roberts is dangerously overexposed, especially in this photo |
He saw virtually nothing in 2000,
so Nachman's picks are 'special'
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
HAVING SEEN none of the
nominated films for Best Picture of the year, and only five of
the 10 Best Actor or Actress nominees ever in anything, I figure
I am eminently qualified to choose the major Academy Award winners
this year.
A lot of members of the Academy have not seen many more films,
but that doesn't stop them from voting, the reason being that
"best" has, of course, virtually nothing to do with
who wins.
If a terrific movie or actor/actress actually wins an Oscar,
it is entirely coincidental, which is why all the nominees make
such a to-do each year over the fact that "just being nominated"
is honor enough. This is also a hedge against losing, of course,
but the essential point is that by now nobody much cares who
wins or loses and that few people can even recall who won last
year. The ceremony itself is all that matters, and the most crucial
performance is the emcee's.
With movie attendance dwindling, fewer people are seeing movies
anyway, so I am, as usual, in the vanguard. The best movies I
see every year tend to be from the 1940s. The reason is that
movie-going has become such a trial, and I have become such a
fussy, not to say cranky, guy that I see maybe half a dozen new
movies a year now, usually resolving after each one to be more
careful next time.
The films I saw last year can be counted on one hand, but one finger for now may have to do, since the only movie I can actually recall at the moment, without consulting the movie listings, is "Billy Elliott," and I would have left that after 30 minutes if I hadn't been with one of those people who feel it's a moral obligation to sit through every movie they see, no matter how lousy; I chalk this up to female optimism.
I just remembered two other
new movies I saw: "Girl on the Bridge" and "Cecil
B. Demented," each one almost instantly forgettable; the
first one fulfilled my art film quota for the year and the latter
satisfied the year's wacked-out quotient.
Those are two good reasons why I didn't see another movie until
"The House of Mirth," just last week, which had me
nodding off after 20 minutes; I had loved the book and was quickly
bored by the tedium of the opening segments, realizing in a few
moments that it was going to be yet another instance of American
actors struggling to create plausible period characters; it had
that "Daisy Miller" feeling about it, only without
Cybill Shepherd to make it a four-star embarrassment; Gillian
Anderson was lovely but unconvincing in the lead, but when Dan
Ackroyd entered, red lights began to flash. Something was out
of kilter here. "The Age of Innocence" was a better
Wharton film.
But enough of my movie going travails. The envelope, please!
The Best Picture will be "Traffic" because a lot of
people I know liked it--my usual method for picking the Best
Picture. It got "respectful" reviews and seems to have
the momentum; "Gladiator," which I had never heard
of until it was nominated, sounds like something Charlton Heston
and Tony Curtis might have been in around 1957; it lacks the
prestige of "Traffic" and is sure to be forgotten within
weeks of the awards.
I failed to see "Traffic" because I skip all movies
involving drugs, drug-dealing, drug addicts, etc.
That would include this
year's other major druggie movie, "Requiem for a Dream"
(I also tend to avoid all movies with "dream" or "dreams"
in the title; see "Dreams, Field of,"), starring Ellen
Burstyn as a woman trying to get off drugs, delivering one of
those scenery chewing acting jobs that keeps me out of all films
in which someone is trying to get the monkey off their back;
"The Man with the Golden Arm" cured me of the drug-movie
habit.
I also avoid all movies involving drunks, crazy people, and someone
with a hideous disease and/or disfiguring condition. You begin
to see why my movie going has been reduced so drastically in
recent years.
I liked Ellen Burstyn in "Same Time, Next Year" and
"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," about the last time
I saw her in anything (unless you count "The Exorcist,"
where she also gnawed the scenery), so it would be nice if she
won. Ellen is making a comeback, which makes her one of those
hard-to-beat "sentimental favorites" for Best Actress.
I also root for anyone very old and/or making a comeback, unless
they're also dying, or dead, which gives them an unfair advantage.
I don't think there are any posthumous nominees this year--that
always muddies the category. Anybody linked in any way to death
is likely to win--such as Joaquin Phoenix, the late River's brother,
which would pay homage to his late sibling.
Joaquin is up for "Gladiator," as Best Supporting Actor,
but he's got to beat Albert Finney, who is old. Normally age
trumps everything but, of course, death, especially young tragic
death, so Finney has his work cut out for him, all right.
Even though everyone seems totally gaga about "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon," it sounds too offbeat and arty to
snag Best Picture, which usually goes to the movie with the most
certifiably American mainstream theme or sentiments. Its very
title would rule it out on grounds it appeals to the weird art-house
crowd.
I've never see "Russell Crowe" in anything but Liz
Smith's column--I think he just broke up with Meg Ryan or Randy
Quaid or someone--and since I am virulently anti-Roman epic films,
I don't think he should win; and just how is he related to Cameron
Crowe? I was 15 when I saw my last toga and sandal flick, which
was "Julius Caesar," which doesn't count; I skipped
"Ben Hur," "Spartacus" and anything with
Victor Mature.
As to "Quills," it sounds much too dirty to win Best
Picture, but I'm rooting for Geoffrey Rush since a nurse asked
me if anyone ever said I look like him; it used to be Edward
Hermann. "Quills" sounds similar to all those versions
of "Dangerous Liaisons," and Academy voters--who are
as easily confused as I am--will think it's a third remake.
What else is out there? "Castaway" would win if only
Tom Hanks were not in it, but since I believe he's the only one
in it, that would make for a dicey film. (And why wasn't that
volleyball nominated for Best Supporting Actor?) Hanks, of course,
has won way too many times and, even though everybody thinks
he's a swell guy, I don't think his swell-guyness will quite
carry him over the top this year. It's a tour-de-force, of course,
which Hollywood loves, but from what I've read the movie lacks
an epic tragic dimension that might win it for Hanks; if he died
at the end, but I think he's rescued, hurting his chances on
Oscar night. Sorry, Tom, old buddy; see you next spring.
Julia Roberts, who is in a movie every two weeks, and nominated
almost as often as Tom Hanks, is dangerously overexposed, in
every way, but I think people are sort of Julia Roberts-ed out;
I know I am, and I've only seen her in trailers and a Woody Allen
movie. In (and as) "Erin Brockovich," she plays a noble
do-gooder character, though, which improve her chances enormously
because it allows Hollywood to pat itself on the back--a major
element in these awards--for battling nuclear waste dumps with
Julia as a plucky Sally Field character fighting the establishment.
I prefer Sally Field because I don't sense she's partly coasting
on her cleavage--a perverse image, but intriguing. And whatever
happened to Eric Roberts? I keep awaiting his return.
Laura Linney has a winning name, so she may win for Best Actress,
and she's a newcomer, not one of the usual suspects (Hanks, Roberts,
et al.), and I'm told the movie she stars in ("You Can Count
on Me") is pretty good, so my vote goes to her. She was
fine in "The House of Mirth" and seems to be On the
Rise, plus she's a former New York stage actress, whom I predicted
great things for when I saw her in a John Patrick Shanley play,
so I have a small rooting interest here; I'm only sorry she left
Broadway for Hollywood.
Juliette Binoche, whose name also is so much fun to say--she
wins for Best Name--may wipe out her rivals for "Chocolat,"
a movie so sugary that even I, a major chocoholic, have been
warned off it by my doctor, among others. Binoche is so great
to look at that no matter how sappy the movie may be, she may
win because of her looks, because she's French and thus considered
classy, and because she seems like one heck of a nice gal. She
is likely to overtake Julia Roberts for Flavor of the Month.
Men covet her and, despite her looks, even women like her ("She
just eats up the screen," a woman I know said). The kid
can also act, which never hurts, and the movie has been so heavily
promoted by the drum-beating Weinstein boys that it could be
the "El Postino" of 2001.
Who else? Benecio Del Torro's
name is too difficult for any presenter to pronounce, so I'm
afraid that cuts him out for "Traffic," and Javier
Bardem has a similar problem ("Before Night Falls");
they sound too much like third basemen. Good try, guys. As Best
Supporting Actress in "Pollock," it could be Marcia
Gay Harden, except that nobody ever heard of her before, which
Academy old timers secretly resent. She needs to pay more dues,
ditto Julie Walters in "Billy Elliot," which I saw
but she left no impression whatever, and Joan Allen in "The
Contender," which nobody saw; Joan Allen is always a contender.
Ed Harris is a solid journeyman actor that the Academy likes
to reward for showing up, and, while he's said to be hard to
work with, he has a leg up because "Pollock," which
he also directed and invested money in, was a labor of love.
Hollywood likes to reward labors of love, even if the box office
doesn't. Ed's basic problem is that nobody in Hollywood cares
about Jackson Pollock (if only it were Gandhi or Lou Gehrig)
or is quite sure who he was unless they happen to own one of
his paintings.
©
2001 by Gerald Nachman.
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