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T A B L E__T A L K

Is the New Yorker on the decline? Debate the merits and faults of Tina Brown's reign in Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Come back, O.J., all is forgiven
By Vivienne Walt
Finally, L.A., gets a piece of the Lewinsky action, but not very much
(02/10/98)

Whitewater, mon amour
By Patricia Marx
Confession of an illicit romance with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr
(02/09/98)

Let them make porn!
By Michelle Goldberg
Newly flush ex-scud stud Arthur Kent scolds Tom Brokaw and GE for running NBC News like a brothel
(02/06/98)

Red Planet
By James Surowiecki
Celebrity owners can't save Planet Hollywood from an invasion of red ink
(02/05/98)

Dunne deal
By James Poniewozik
Absolut's new ad is a splash of commerce, a jigger of art
(02/04/98)

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BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVES

"TITANIC'S" OSCAR STAMPEDE POINTS TO A HOLLYWOOD FUTURE FULL OF BLOAT AND MEDIOCRITY.
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BY CHARLES TAYLOR | If there's a story to the Academy Awards nominations in the past two years, it's the way the Oscars have become Hollywood's great PR tool -- allowing it to insist that the major studios and their big-budget releases do not have a stranglehold on the industry.

This particular bit of self-delusion sprang up last year when nearly every, pardon the expression, "entertainment reporter" pointed to the nominations -- and then awards -- given to "The English Patient" and "Shine" as proof that Hollywood was really starting to pay attention to independent movies. Apparently the fact that both those films were released by major studios (both Miramax and Fine Line are owned by Disney) and, more important, both were exactly the sort of hokum the academy eats up, was beside the point. The same drum beat is starting this year with best picture nominations given to "The Full Monty" and "Good Will Hunting" -- both very likable movies, and both conventional crowd-pleasers.

Who is "the academy" these pictures are pleasing? A combination of industry insiders and past winners and nominees who vote for nominations and then awards (some technical specialists are called on to make nominations in certain technical categories). Their choices are almost invariably more conservative (I mean aesthetically, but also sometimes politically) than the choices of critics groups for the basic reason that critics, simply because it's their job, see more movies. (That might not seem to matter in a year when nearly every critics group in the country has been suckered in by "L.A. Confidential," which has all the complexity of any Clint Eastwood revenge flick.) In any year, it's a given that some of the best movies and performances won't even register on the academy radar: It would be foolish to expect "Irma Vep" or Molly Parker's performance in "Kissed" to be nominated.

What's more insidious are what I call the David Lynch token nominations: nods the academy gives to pictures and artists that don't have a hope in hell of winning, merely to deflect criticism that its choices are staid and out of touch. After "Blue Velvet" was released to almost universal critical acclaim, there was no way the academy could ignore it. But since there was no way academy members were going to vote for that daring a movie, they solved the dilemma by nominating Lynch for best director while ignoring the movie.

That seems to be the rationale behind the nominations given Atom Egoyan for best director and best adapted screenplay (for "The Sweet Hereafter") and the best original screenplay nomination given Paul Thomas Anderson for "Boogie Nights." (If Burt Reynolds wins best supporting actor for his work in "Boogie Nights," and he should, it will be because the academy can sentimentalize his performance as a comeback.) The academy has done a better job in the last few years of responding to artists who receive critical praise, but for the most part nominations like Anderson's and Egoyan's are for show, useful to the academy as a way to retain its credibility -- to pretend it isn't entirely brain dead to what's happening in the movies.

For all the academy's posturing as the friend of the little guy, the real story of this year's Oscar nominees is of Goliath beating David. That's evidenced as much by the presence of "Titanic" (14 nominations, tying the record set by "All About Eve") as by the absence of "Kundun."

N E X T+P A G E+| "Titanic" raises to the surface the arrogant grandiosity that sank with the ship