"Lord of the Rings," realistically, had no competish.

"Master and Commander" was a silly male costume drama, a moistened "Gladiator," what with Rusty Crowe and his locks of goldenest Clairol, pouncing manfully about the deck with his beefy guts of lager, minding scuppers both bow and stern. Whilst cannonballs splintered the poop deck and wee boys' arms were sawn off, me whistle was whetted for e'en finer upcoming computer graphicks dramas on the high seas, like "Troy." Nay, that film 'twas neither sentimental enough nor was there sufficient bodice-rippage for the Oxygen demographick.

"Seabiscuit" was a stink-pony -- superclean schlock from nose to bumper. Spare me the sight of quaint, Depression-era crowd scenes that look like they've been swaddled in tweeds by J. Crew, surging in rapture to majestic life-insurance violin orchestrations. That shit was strictly for Burl Ives, Pepperidge Farm and creamy ranch dressing.

"Mystic River" -- eh. Sorry, boys: Emotional Violence for Dummies. While Sean is great at bawling openly toward the sky-cam in "Why hast thou forsaken me?" fits of bathos, unrestrained Mook Feelings do not count as emotional nuance, in my book. I've seen more skillfully calibrated grief at Super Bowl parties. Sean Penn is unquestionably the finest actor of his generation, but his best actor win was strictly the Academy playing catch-up ball -- they got embarrassed that they didn't recognize him for "Dead Man Walking" or his most naked Oscar bid, that dribbling "Sam I Am" gambit. Sean's time was overdue, but "Mystic River" was just one Mexican soap opera out of dozens he'll flex his scenery-chewing skills on in the years to come; Bill Murray, on the other hand, may not get another shot. Sad, I say.

"Lost in Translation." OK -- I'm jealous of Sofia, I admit it (knuckle-biting spleen, arrrgh, arrgh). I haven't seen the movie yet, but she's clearly got great taste and gets her inspiration from smarter sources than anyone else, at the moment -- still, she's too young and the movie was too quirky to compete with the whole of Middle-earth.

I didn't really dig the maudlin Irish sob-fest that was "In America" -- it was a shamelessly heart-poking, Spielbergian emotional short-con -- basically "The Color Purple" for broke, co-dependent Catholic honkies, shot in glorious Technisqualor. Samantha Morton is the most Serious Actress going, these days, in that she tends to naturally look like she's put on 20 extra pounds and a prosthetic nose, but that vintage Givenchy dress looked a bit like twin Edsel grills strapped to her tits, and it just wasn't her night.

"Lord of the Rings: The Passion of the Frodo" was, for me, a great tool of conversion to Hobbitism. They got me where I lived. I was riveted to my seat for the full three hours; I cried so much that by the end I was holding a cardboard tub of polenta. A wildly ambitious and unbelievably realized monster achievement in the genre of epic filmmaking. Bully for the elves, but it's not like this sweeping win of Peter Jackson's was any great shocker -- certainly nobody needed to watch the dental nightmare that was the 76th Oscars all the way to the end to figure out who was going home with the big jackpot.

Shame on you, Oscar, for being such a craven corporate pussy. Shame, shame, shame. The only way you can possibly redeem yourself is to get Dave Chappelle to host in 2005 -- if not, you may as well go lie down and die in some Opus Dei donation box, because the TiVo contingent will have nothing to do with you. You've never had genitals, but now you clearly have no spine.

Recent Stories