Oscar, Take The Year Off

Maybe some years they just shouldn’t have a Best Picture. We're beginning to think 2002 was one of those years. For 1994, the Best Picture nominees were "Forrest Gump," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Pulp Fiction," "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Quiz Show." This year there doesn’t appear to be one movie that would even deserve to be nominated for 1994, yet for 2002 one will be declared a winner.

Oh, they tried. Insert Meryl Streep here, paste Jack Nicholson there, but the result was good films, not great. And that is why they probably call it "Best Picture" and not "Great Picture." Because then Steve Martin wouldn’t have a crowd to play to and sponsors wouldn’t have a four-hour marathon to sell from. There’s no Oscars this year, folks, the Hollywooders didn’t qualify.

Maybe the only artist who really tried to stretch was Robin Williams. If we had to pick the two most haunting roles of 2002, they would both belong to him, with the standout being his lonely film developer in "One Hour Photo." Williams has won an Oscar once ("Good Will Hunting") and been nominated several times, but the Academy missed this achievement of a lifetime, leaving Mork to be someone else’s guest to even gain entrance into the Kodak Theatre. Instead of statues of naked gold eunuchs why don’t they hand out
silver rotary phones for everyone who dialed it in this year?

Remember "Wonder Boys" and "L. A. Confidential"? Curtis Hanson didn’t, deciding memorable characters and complex story lines were passe in favor of "8 Mile," which was named for the negative distance he created between himself and his previous accomplishments. Or how about "Gangs of New York," which would have been more honest if the first word in its title lost the "N"? Or "Signs," whose best sign was the one that said "Exit"? Don’t get me wrong, all of these movies were competent, but moviegoers deserved movies that were
confident.

We also had another installment from "Lord of the Rings," a franchise which would have been best served to take a chapter out of George Lucas’ saga success and release each movie three years apart to create more anticipation, not to mention some time for a greater quality film. "The Two Towers" was nothing more than an outtakes portion of "The Fellowship"'s DVD, except Elijah Wood forgot to break out laughing in the middle of a scene. We didn’t.

But, regardless, the Academy will have its day and we’ll have our Oscar Night. Just don’t look for memorable moments, unless the ghost of David Niven decides to streak across the stage.