MARCH 2000:

OSCAR SCHMOSCAR II

It's that time of year again! Actresses are selecting gowns and renting expensive jewelry, actors are adjusting their toupees and trying on man-girdles, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is having ballots and Oscars kiped right out from under their noses. Yup! It's Academy Awards time! The time of year when Hollywood honors their best.

Or do they?

Hollywood unfortunately has a long and hypocritical history of honoring what seems most honorable. In other words, they like to give awards to films that conform to Hollywood's glamorized vision of itself - which is why big, lumbering epics like OUT OF AFRICA, or noble, triumph-of-the-human-spirit snoozefests like CHARIOTS OF FIRE can boast Best Picture Oscars. It's also why actors playing cripples or retards win awards. Sometimes it's also why actors who ARE cripples or retards win awards - like Harold Russell for THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, or Roberto Benigni for LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.

Here at DISSOLVE the process is different. There are no politics, no string-pulling, no favors to be handed out. Of course there are no screeners, no party invites, and no glory, either. Damn. This sucks. 

Oh well, hopefully one day I'll be as venal and shallow as everyone else. In the meantime, I'm forced to kid myself about having some sort of integrity. (Integrity is easy to maintain when no one cares enough to try and influence you.) So without further ado, I am proud to present our second sorta-annual Schmoscars!

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A COUPLE OF SUPPORTING ROLES: Everybody likes to talk about how Jim Carrey got jobbed when he didn't get an Oscar nomination for MAN ON THE MOON. But I think there's another comic actor who deserved a nomination for not one, but two terrific performances, and he was never even mentioned when awards time rolled around. I'm talking about Eddie Murphy in BOWFINGER. Murphy's dual performance as mega-movie star Kit Ramsey and his good-hearted-but-simple brother Jiff is not only a comic tour de force (not to be confused with a comic Tour de France - Jerry Lewis always wins that), but is amazingly layered as well. Both characters could have been nothing more than stereotypes, but Murphy inhabits them so thoroughly that they become more than caricatures. You really feel for them, and care about them. And while it's easier to get an audience to feel for a gentle, innocent character like Jiff, Murphy even manages to evoke sympathetic feelings for the wealthy, pampered, obnoxious and slightly crazy Kit. I'll be the first to admit that Murphy has made some bad films, and given some less than stellar performances, but I also remember him as the amazing talent who blew everyone away on Saturday Night Live, and then in movies like 48 HRS., TRADING PLACES and BEVERLY HILLS COP. Well, the amazing talent is once again on display in BOWFINGER, and I think it's... excuse me, they're... his best film performances yet.

Eddie Murphy was able to play multiple characters in a movie using
minimal make-up (for a change).

BEST-WRITTEN SCREENPLAY: This award is not for the best screenplay of a film I saw this year. It's for the best screenplay I read this year. Big difference. Quite often good scripts get made into pretty lousy movies (see our next category), and every once in a while a crummy script does beat the odds and get made into a decent film. The only way to tell what really is the best screenplay is to read what the author wrote, before it was interpreted by actors and directors and producers and producers' wives and producers' girlfriends and producers' pets... In other words, if you want to know what the best script is, go to the pure, undiluted source. Using that criteria, the best screenplay I read this year was Alan Ball's AMERICAN BEAUTY.

As it's available to read in my 'Script O' The Month' section, you can take a gander at how well written it is for yourself. Ball not only tells an intriguing story with fascinating characters, he also manages the nearly impossible task of creating a unique atmosphere that envelops the reader in the world that these desperate characters live in. And not just their physical world, but their emotional worlds as well. It's bleak, and it's cynical, and it's jaundiced... but it's also amazingly sweet and hopeful, especially the ending in which Lester (played by Kevin Spacey in the film) finds himself, and in finding himself also finds some peace. Oh sure, maybe it's a little late, but that adds to the bittersweet tone of the story. Script gurus like to hold up Robert Towne's CHINATOWN as the template for a great screenplay. In my opinion, they should place AMERICAN BEAUTY right alongside it.

Get a script this good and then add Kevin Spacey?
You'd have to leave the lens cap on to screw up this film!

BEST SCREENPLAY TO GET MADE INTO A REALLY CRUMMY MOVIE: Sometimes you read a really good script and it makes you anticipate the film as if you were a kid waiting for Christmas morning. And then you go see that film, all a-tingle, and you can't believe how badly they screwed the whole thing up. Then you have to explain to all the friends you recommended the film to that, "The script was a lot better! I swear! No, I'm not giving you your eight bucks back!" SLEEPY HOLLOW is one of these films. 

Now I know I risk the wrath of all the Tim Burton fans out there when I say this, but I've finally come to the regrettable conclusion that he is an absolutely terrible director. And to those die-hard Burton fans all I have to say is this: Just because a film looks pretty doesn't make it a good movie. As a director, Tim Burton is an excellent production designer. Unfortunately he doesn't know anything about how to tell a story, or pace a film, or develop interesting characters. I found myself struggling to stay awake as the film plodded on, turning what had been an intriguing screenplay into a chore to watch. It committed the cardinal sin of any film - it was boring. Add in the fact that somewhere along the line someone decided to weaken the character of Ichabod Crane by mixing the strong-willed constable from the script with the cowardly schoolteacher from the classic Disney cartoon. Which means that every time something ghoulish happens, our hero faints. Now, it may be good for a cheap laugh - once - but I swear, it seemed like Depp spent most of the film swooning with his eyes rolling back in his head. So you combine this snail-like pacing with a strangely muddled hero and even a series of state-of-the-art decapitations can't make SLEEPY HOLLOW interesting. I will give it this: the film definitely lives up to the 'sleepy' part of its title. Come to think of it, it lives up to the 'hollow' part, too. A real shame.

They had the script, the actors, the look, and a cool story.
Unfortunately they also had the usual Tim Burton problems as well.

BEST MOVIE THAT WAS TOO MUCH LIKE ANOTHER RECENTLY RELEASED BLOCKBUSTER TO GET MUCH CREDIT, BUT IT'S PRETTY GOOD SO YOU SHOULD RENT IT OR SOMETHING: This really cool movie came out last year that featured a little kid who could see dead people. But hardly anyone saw it because THE SIXTH SENSE came out a few weeks earlier and completely stole its thunder. The film I'm talking about is STIR OF ECHOES, the David Koepp-directed, Kevin Bacon-starring thriller that was Artisan Entertainment's first release in the wake of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT's phenomenal success. Now, I'm gonna admit right up front that I have yet to see THE SIXTH SENSE, so I don't have any basis for comparison. I'm not saying that one film is better than the other. What I am saying is that if you missed STIR OF ECHOES because you didn't want to see a second ghost story so soon after sitting through SIXTH SENSE, do yourself a favor and pick it up next time you're wandering through the video store. I was pleasantly surprised by how smart, involving, and genuinely spooky it was. Maybe you will be, too.

MOST CONFIDENT, BALLSY JOB OF DIRECTING: I watched the wonderful political and social satire ELECTION with awe at the sheer confidence on display in every frame of Alexander Payne's direction. He uses freeze-frames, hand-scrawled notes, superimpositions, shifting points-of-view and other techniques that in the hands of less talented filmmakers would be called 'tricks'. I've heard many critics laud Spike Jonez for his direction of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (more on that film later), but to me Payne is the one that made a subversive, successful movie out of difficult material. He turned a story about a high school election into a smart, insightful film which is also hilariously funny, touching, sad, and hopeful. He also got great performances from his cast, most notably Reese Witherspoon as the driven, willful and slightly psycho overachiever Tracy Flick. ELECTION is a film that snuck up on a lot of people - myself included - to become one of the biggest and best surprises of the year.

If you'd have told me that MTV would help finance one of the best
films of the year I'd-a figured you suffered brain damage from
watching a 'Real World' marathon.

MOST SURPRISINGLY FUN MOVIE THAT I THOUGHT WOULD BE MILDLY AMUSING AT BEST: I'd heard some positive things about the winner of this category, but I'd also heard the plot of the story, so I was a little dubious as I entered the theatre. I mean, come on - it's a teen film about four guys who make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. Anyone who grew up in the 80's has a shiver run down their spine when they hear this type of film might be making a comeback. But I've got to tell you, sitting through this movie was possibly the most enjoyable 90 minutes I spent in a theatre all year. I'm talking, of course, about AMERICAN PIE. 

AMERICAN PIE is so retro that I took it for granted that the film was set in the 80's, until I had to consciously remind myself that, no, it's not a period piece. Much like THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and the AUSTIN POWERS movies, all AMERICAN PIE wants to do is make you laugh, and it'll go to any length to accomplish that goal. And God bless it, it succeeds a whole lot more than it fails. Though many critics have lauded it (some grudgingly) for having well-drawn, thoughtful characters - particularly the female characters - Adam Herz's script and Paul Weitz's direction never let their more noble instincts get in the way of their down-and-dirty jokes. And they have some pretty funny jokes to tell. AMERICAN PIE is one of the few comedies that actually made me laugh out loud on a regular basis this year. I'll never look at flute-toting-band-dorks the same way again.

MOST OVER-RATED PIECE OF CRAP OF THE YEAR: Believe me when I say I'm truly sorry to present this award to the following film, but it was hands-down, far-and-away, no-holds-barred the most unaccountably praised movie I've seen in years. Plural. YearS. And that film is BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. (Keep in mind that this is a year which included EYES WIDE SHUT, making this a very tough category indeed!) 

Why am I sorry to be knocking this film? For the same reason I think it's been overpraised - it's DIFFERENT. It aspires to be something other than your typical Hollywood cookie-cutter product. And while that's admirable, the problem is that 'different' isn't enough. This is a film with a mildly amusing premise that would have probably made a really fun half-hour short. Instead it dragged on and on and on, its quirkiness and attitude wearing thin very quickly. When my partner and I are working on a script we always have to be aware of how a film will build. Not just the plot and the character arcs, but the jokes as well. See, if you start out really manic and wild, you run the risk that you won't be able to top yourself, and pretty soon the script just flattens out and doesn't build correctly. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is a textbook example of a film that starts out at such a level of eccentricity that after a while its quirks begin to seem ordinary, and even boring. It flatlines and never gets the shot of adrenaline needed to bring it back to life (to use a cheesy metaphor). So praise it for trying to do something unique, and admire it for getting made at all... but don't try and tell me it's a good movie.

THE MOST INEXPLICABLY COOL THING I SAW IN A MOVIE THEATRE THIS YEAR: Sometimes you'll see something in a movie that will stay with you long after the film is over, and you're not sure why it had such an impact. Maybe it was shocking, or maybe it was funny - or maybe it was just frickin' COOL. I had this experience with the end of Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA. Now, if you haven't seen the film stop reading right now, because I'm gonna spoil the ending. Okay? Okay. Anyway, like I was saying, the rain of frogs at the end of MAGNOLIA was one of those film moments that just made me... well... happy. It was something that I was really glad I was seeing (and hearing - the theatre I was in had a great sound system, and those frogs splatting into the ground in THX really added a visceral dimension to the experience). And you know what? I don't know why that is. I honestly can't explain it. All I know is it was really cool to watch, it made me feel good, and it's stuck with me even since. I think those are the best movie moments, though - the ones that you can't explain. The ones that reach down and touch something inside of you that maybe you didn't know even existed.

THE ABSOLUTE, NO SHIT, WORST MOVIE I SAW ALL YEAR: SUMMER OF SAM was excruciating for all the wrong reasons. It could have been a gritty portrayal of urban life during one of the most interesting periods in New York City's history - the summer of 1977. What happened that year? Oh, not much. Citizens were terrified to go out at night because Son of Sam was gunning people down in their cars, there was a record-setting heatwave engulfing the city, the Yankees were in a pennant chase, led by flashy and controversial slugger Reggie Jackson, and in the midst of all this, there was even a blackout which sparked massive looting and vandalism. Now, SUMMER OF SAM touches on all of those things, but it never really makes you feel like you're living through any of them. And that's ironic, because director Spike Lee covered similar territory with DO THE RIGHT THING, a film in which you felt the heatwave and the tensions that the characters were living through. It was like you were right there in Bed-Stuy with them.

SUMMER OF SAM, on the other hand, has chosen to show us the summer of '77 through the eyes of the least likeable or interesting characters imaginable. Everyone in this film is such a complete and unredeemable assnugget that you wish Son of Sam would start picking THEM off. Hell, he'd deserve a commendation instead of a prison sentence, that's how repellant these characters are. And their shortcomings have nothing to do with their ethnicity - they are just awful, boring, one-note, shrill, idiotic, unsympathetic losers. Now, I don't think every character in a movie has to be sympathetic, but they do have to be interesting enough to watch for two hours. When David Berkowitz seems like the most rational guy in the film, you know you're in serious trouble. There are 6 million stories in the naked city, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they chose to tell these peoples'.

... And that's not even mentioning the scene where Sam the dog visits Berkowitz in his apartment and starts talking to him like an old Tex Avery cartoon. (Made even more bewildering because Berkowitz revealed a few years after his capture that his whole "the dog told me to kill people" story was bullshit.) Un-be-lievable.

So who am I supposed to care about? The moronic disco guy who
cheats on his wife and abuses drugs, or the moronic punk guy who's
a male hooker and introduces his new girlfriend into the porn industry?

THE ABSOLUTE, NO SHIT, BEST MOVIE I SAW ALL YEAR: And the winner of the Schmoscar for Best Picture of 1999 is... SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT. No, I'm not high. Truthfully, in my opinion (and on this page that's the only opinion that counts, baby), even though I saw some pretty terrific films this year, the SOUTH PARK film wins in a landslide. 

Why, you ask? Because not only is it funny, not only is it a smart and scathing satire of the hypocrisy that surrounds us on a daily basis, not only does it boast a great song score (making it the best film musical in... years? decades? eons?), but because it is absolutely FEARLESS! It doesn't give a damn what you or I or Jack Valenti think, it's gonna say what it wants to say, how it wants to say it, and if we don't like it we can go to hell. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have transformed their little cardboard cutouts into spokesmen for perspective and sanity in our hermetically sealed, politically correct society. That they're foulmouthed spokesmen is all the more appropriate - we need someone to shock us back to reality and away from the Oprah Winfrey/Rosie O'Donnell/mad mommy view of the world. This sanitized view of how things should be has led to nothing but repressed anger and rage. SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT is all about UN-repressed rage, and while a few 'naughty' words may keep the tightasses away, it's a far more healthy outlet for the way a growing number of people feel than a million hours of touchy-feely TV talk shows could ever hope to be.

Aw, enough with the pompous crap - it's the funniest damn movie I saw this year, as well as the most shocking. Anyone who says their jaws didn't drop open when they heard 'Uncle Fukka' for the first time is a liar. SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT does everything I've been saying comedy should do, and it does it brilliantly. For that, I am eternally thankful. 

Yup, the best film of the year had its origins as a foulmouthed little
cartoon with characters made of construction paper.
Genius then, genius now.

So there you have it, the Schmoscars honoring the films of 1999. The ceremony is over, the after-Schmoscar parties are beginning, and all that's left is for me to turn the hose on Army Archerd to get him the hell off my front lawn.

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