O Academy, Where Art Thou?

Certainly, 2000 was no 1999. Last year, a dozen films deserved a crack at Best Picture, and it was hard for critics to agree on their top ten lists. Still, 2000 was not such a bad year that Gladiator, Erin Brockovich and Chocolat deserved Best Picture nominations.

Two of these are enjoyable films: Gladiator is like a live action cartoon, and Erin Brockovich is a featherweight drama about saving the environment. If the category were Best Picture with Appeal to the Brainless, these two pedestrian offerings would deserve their nominations. But let's face it-Gladiator is no deeper than 1996's The Rock. The dialogue is campy, there are plot holes large enough to push a doublewide through and Russell Crowe's performance is no more than a series of choreographed grimaces and grunts. It's porn with swords.

That's more than one can say for Chocolat-a movie that almost no critic liked and almost no one saw. Miramax's Weinstein brothers-who already successfully stole Best Picture Oscars from Fargo and Saving Private Ryan-deserved to finally get their comeuppance this year. But here they are with another undeserved nomination under their belts.

The acting nominees didn't fare any better. Chocolat hottie Juliette Binoche beat out Nurse Betty's Renee Zellweger, while Jeff Bridges' wandering performance as the president in The Contender edged out Michael Douglas (Traffic), Morgan Freeman (Nurse Betty) and Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days).

In the Best Director category, Michael Almereyda-who exercised smart audacity in his modern Hamlet-and Darren Aronofsky, who took us on a strange trip in Requiem for a Dream, were replaced with Stephen Daldry, who gave us The Full Monty Part III, also known as the middling Billy Elliot. The critics also offered a double helping of Stephen Soderbergh, nominated both for the hard-hitting Traffic and featherweight Brockovich.

The Academy has a long history of letting the best pictures lose out to crowd-pleasers. In 1976, Rocky beat out Network and Taxi Driver. In 1981, Chariots of Fire edged Reds. The year 1990 saw Dances with Wolves blank Goodfellas. And need we mention Titanic? In fact, the state of American film is strong-but you wouldn't know it from this year's Oscar nominees.