The problem with Oscar night is that after more than a month of speculation and "Entertainment Tonight" insider scoops and countless predictions, actually watching the Academy Awards is really anticlimatic. I'm reaching the point where I watch it more for the designer gowns and to see who could ever top Jack Palance's push-up display during his acceptance speech from a few years back.
I mean, who really cares about the Oscars? It's kind of like the Olympics; anyone remember Mary Decker Slaney or Debi Thomas? Still, there's something upsetting when USA Today polls random people for their Oscar picks and one man picks Morgan Freeman for Best Actor because "I remember him from `Driving Miss Daisy.'" (Hey pal, I remember him from "The Electric Company," but that doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for him.) And it just bothers me that the best part about tonight's ceremony will be getting three full hours of Dave Letterman.
But this year's nominations and probable winners present a particularly insightful and somewhat unappealing view of what the present and future states of movies may be like. The Oscar scandals of 1995 are yawn-inducing to any media-savvy types by now: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disqualifies the foreign film "Red" from the Best Foreign Film category on the technicality that the cast and crew come from more than one European country; actress Linda Fiorentino is disqualified from the Best Actress category on the technicality that her film "The Last Seduction" was made partly with HBO money in return for showing the film on cable before releasing it in theaters; the documentary "Hoop Dreams" is not nominated for either Best Picture or Best Documentary on the technicality that it's too long and irrelevant for most of the white 85-year-olds that make up the documentary nomination committee, men who shine flashlights 15 minutes into a screening if they're bored, indicating to move on to the next picture.
While that last assertion is, admittedly, my own interpretation (except for the flashlight part--that's true), the former two indicate a retrograde approach to movies, or at least to the movie business. It's the same type of thinking that threatens to turn the Tony Awards, which refuse to acknowledge off-Broadway productions even though they have become the lifeblood of plays, into a bunch of one-man races. Both institutions refuse to recognize that the making of their crafts are becoming a decentralized operation, that the indie production companies (or, likewise, off-Broadway houses) are releasing lower-budget, often better-quality product to which more filmmakers are drawn.
It's also the same type of thinking that's threatening to keep black actors and actresses shut out of the Oscar races indefinitely. In the past 35 years, four blacks have won Oscars. That's four awards out of the 128 that have been doled out since Sidney Poitier's Oscar for "Lilies of the Field" in 1963, which was also the only one of those four that was granted for a leading role. Samuel L. Jackson could have joined Freeman in the Best Actor category, but apparently the Academy thinks Jackson was John Travolta's sidekick, not his partner.
But perhaps the sorest part of the Oscars is the Best Actress category, which will be the freak show of tonight's awards ceremony. You've got two nominations from movies released in about three cities for about four days: Miranda Richardson in "Tom and Viv" and Jessica Lange in "Blue Sky," which was made in 1991 and sat on a shelf for four years. You've got Jodie Foster doing her little woman-as-victim thing again in "Nell," Susan Sarandon doing a fine job in a fluff role in "The Client," and Winona Ryder in "Little Women," safely reprising her "Age of Innocence" role. Lange will probably win, partly by default. Foster winning three times in less than eight years is too much, and if Richardson were to win, you'd be able to lean out your window and hear the American population screaming "Tom and Who?!?" at their television sets. Wouldn't it be great if, for once, five women could be nominated for dynamite performances of strong parts in quality, popular movies, as is the case for this year's Best Actor category?
That race is neck-and-neck between Tom Hanks as everybody's favorite idiot and Paul Newman for his work in "Nobody's Fool." Hanks won last year, which is unfortunate since his "Forrest" was better than his "Philadelphia," and a back-to-back hasn't happened since the '30s.
Which leaves Best Picture, which will obviously go to the film we all know and reportedly love, "Forrest Gump." Media backlash to the contrary, there's absolutely nothing wrong with "Gump." It's a well-made film--it's just that "Pulp" is better.
This year, a nice little battle has emerged between the Gumps and the Pulps, and the perception is that the final decision will indicate the future course of movies. That's ridiculous--Quentin Tarantino's not in any jeopardy, and independent films are booming--but I do think the dichotomy calls into question what the Academy looks for, and with its love of "Gump" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and shun of "Hoop Dreams," it seems to look for agreeable content, skirting the issue of innovative filmmaking that "Pulp" wins hands-down.
A big part of me doesn't give a rat's ass about any of this. But the Academy Awards have the power to legitimize endangered types and genres of films, like foreign films and documentaries, thereby creating a wider audience for such fare. And I don't think I could stomach "Gump 2: Stupid and Stupider."
Rose Martelli is a Trinity junior and University editor of The Chronicle.
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