By Dale Nauertz

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Time for everyone in Hollywood to tell us that they actually make uplifting and/or “important” films all year by selecting the four or five films of the year that actually made a difference. Well, most years anyway. But, apparently, not this year. The year 2000 was not as bad a year as most people say it was, but you would never know that from the damn Oscars.

Yes, I loved “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. I thought “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich” were both fine films. And I thought “Gladiator” was pretty good. But “pretty good” is nowhere near “Best Picture”, folks.

I mean, come on! Hey, Academy! Get your dick out of “Gladiator”’s ass already! Jeez! It was only a few notches above a Bruckheimer film! In fact, if you had Jerry Bruckheimer produce “Ben-Hur” and morph it with “Spartacus” the results would be not unlike “Gladiator”. It has the same “world through a pair of shades” tone to it. It has the same rapid, concentration-deficit editing style. The only difference is that it has a fairly compelling story and some great acting. But that does NOT make it the best film of the year.

The Best Film of the Year? It was possibly “Quills” or “Almost Famous” or “Cast Away”. But guess what? None of those films were even NOMINATED!!!!! Horse shit, I say! How anyone can look me in the eye and tell me that “Gladiator” was better than any of these films is beyond me. IT is a crock. Easily the least great picture to win Best Picture in the past ten years. Ridley Scott is an overrated windbag of a director, too, by the way. All style. All the same style since “Blade Runner” and none of them all that hot. I liked “Gladiator”, I liked “Thelma and Louise” and I liked “Hannibal” fairly well. But based on the strength of these films, I would rate him as nothing more than a competent hack. That’s it.

“Gladiator” is not even as good as “Charlie’s Angels” for the love of Christ!

Anyway, aside from their lavishing awards on “Gladiator” I thought the awards were fairly competent. Oh, and the oversight of “Almost Famous”, “Cast Away” and “Quills” that is. Oh, and “Nurse Betty”. Steve Martin was a breath of fresh air. He was much funnier than just about anyone ever to host the Awards, and lightyears better than Whoopi (couldn’t even sit through the 1998 awards thanks to her). Ernest Lehman deserves his recognition (Better late than never, I suppose). For writing “North by Northwest” and “Sabrina” alone he deserves an award. Dino has produced more movies than God and was worthy of his award as well.

Glad to see Benicio get recognized. He is awesome in just about anything. Thank God Cameron Crowe and Steven Soderbergh were recognized (the least the fucking Academy can do after mainly stiffing Crowe’s film) and the awards given to “Crouching Tiger” were nice to see also. I thought Ellen Burstyn deserved Best Actress, but Julia was my second choice and her acceptance speech dissolved my skepticism as I watched. However, how the Academy can stiff both Tom and Geoffrey for their best performances ever (Make it a tie) and give it to the utterly humorless Russell Crowe (thought he was gonna kill Steve Martin) is a travesty. Russell is a good actor, true, but not as good as either of those other men. Or Ed Harris, for that matter. Based on his work in that CLIP from “Pollock” I would almost be tempted to give him the award.

Vincent Price, oops, Bob Dylan deserved his award for Best Song (just listen to the songs and tell me he didn’t). And Bjork? What the hell is that woman on? I wanna know someday. A Swan dress? Uh, no comment. And it was nice to see Marcia Gay Harden even get mentioned! I have been interested by her work since I saw her in “Miller’s Crossing”. I didn’t see “Pollock” but it looks like a powerful work and she is always very good in anything. See her in “Space Cowboys” in fact.

So, in summary, the night was a sham and a travesty and a real pain in the ass. But it usually is and at least Steve Martin made everything worth sitting through. Nice to see someone funny aside from Billy (and funnier than Crystal, come on) hosting the things for a change.

Hope he’s back next year. And I hope that next year the Oscars award something of higher quality that tackles more important issues and comments upon the human condition in a refreshing and compelling manner.

Something like, oh, I don’t know, “Charlie’s Angels”.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2001 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Dale Nauertz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.