I have varied tastes, having argued the merits of gross-out comedy vs. Oscar bait type of movies. Everyone I met in the movie business claimed “Election” was their favorite movie of 1999, and the only person I met who had actually seen “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” was Rob Schneider’s agent. And he was lukewarm about it.

Total worldwide box office take for “Election” = $16M ($14.8M Domestic).

Total worldwide box office take for “Deuce Bigalow” = $92M ($65M Domestic).

Not bashing either movie; I love them both. But you can see a discrepancy.

Anyway, the nominees for Best Picture:

“Gladiator” – Saw this at the pre-ArcLight Cinerama Dome and was blown away. Still have to watch it on TNT at least one of the thirty-eight times a month they play it.

“Erin Brockovich” – One of my favorite genres: Movies that suck on paper but are actually really good. I never expected the movie to be as funny as it is. Albert Finney wuz robbed.

“Traffic” - The crowd where I saw it at the General Cinema AVCO Center in West L.A. booed Orrin Hatch’s cameo. Childish? Yes. Hilarious? Hells yes. Really like the movie a lot.

“Chocolat” - Wait, what?

“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” – Ang Lee brings high wire kung fu to the masses.

WHAT SHOULDA BEEN NOMINATED?

“Erin Brockovich” - You know why everyone thinks that all lawyers are backstabbing bloodsucking scumbags? Because they are!

“Memento” - I told my boss about your condition and stuff, and he said try and rent him another room.

“Almost Famous” - They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.

“Traffic” - Is this like freebasing? No, not like. It is.

“Gladiator” - It vexes me. I’m terribly vexed.

WHAT SHOULDA WON

“Erin Brockovich” wins by a nose for me. The truth behind the movie doesn’t bother me so much because unlike in the case of, say, “Fair Game” (this one, not this one), the filmmakers sought to make an entertaining movie. The liberal agenda was not the focus of the movie. Furthermore, an argument could be made that it’s not a liberal movie at all.

Soderbergh finally took a stab at a mainstream Hollywood movie with 1998’s “Out of Sight,” which didn’t find the audience it deserved. 1999 saw him return to edgier fair with “The Limey,” a fractured crime drama with a great performance by Terrence Stamp. Was he as good in “The Limey” as he was in “The Phantom Menace?” I’m not sure. Chancellor Valorum is a character that will be remembered for-never.

“Erin Brockovich” has no business being as good as it is. The key to me is the humor. It’s a really funny movie with a great central character. Julia Roberts tears into the title role, and she has the perfect foil in Albert Finney, who plays a rumpled, somewhat frazzled attorney who’s just never met anyone like the snarky, bitchy Erin.

I worked in a movie theatre in Austell, Georgia in 1999. It was the type of theatre where “Election” bombed and “Deuce Bigalow” made bank. At least half of the people who bought tickets for “Notting Hill” did so as follows: “Two for the Julia Roberts movie.”

If you question Julia Roberts’ talent, fine, we can disagree. But she was, at the time, a pure movie star. Consider the poster: her. Sneering. In sunglasses. With a baby slung on her hip.

Movie. Star. She is such a big star that when “Duplicity” bombed, no one thought to ask if it was because Clive Owen isn’t a movie star. Sexist Fair or not, the movie’s failure was placed entirely on her shoulders. Audiences were rejecting her, not Clive Owen. I guess that makes sense.

She’s never been better than in “Erin Brockovich,” stepping just outside her comfort zone to play a woman who’s sometimes tough to like. But we like her anyway because (a) Julia Roberts plays her and (b) she says things many of us wish we had the nerve to say. And she’s funny.

It’s not a perfect movie. This wasn’t a great year for movies. But Soderbergh, screenwriter Susannah Grant, and Julia take a very standard story that could have been a preachy, weepy, Lifetime movie and make it a funny crowd pleaser by turning the template for this type of movie on its ear. Time after time, this is what Soderbergh excels at doing, from “Traffic” to “Oceans Eleven,” he defies and winks at genre conventions, which – when he’s on — sets his movies apart from others in their respective genres.

Janke could turn out to be right, and I will look like a sucker. Which is fine. Maybe I am a sucker, but there are worst things that being a plain old sucker…or are there? My overall point is that we’re one season in on a series that is an unfolding drama. Things that seem anti-American now might not be in the grand scheme of things.

Even with that qualifier, I don’t think Season One of the show is anti-American.

Spoilers Aplenty Ahead

As the series opens, CIA field agent Carrie Mathison (a seriously, ridiculously superb Claire Danes), learns from an imprisoned CIA asset in Iraq that an American P.O.W. has been turned by Al-Qaeda. She thinks nothing of it because there was no reason at the time to believe that Al-Qaeda had American POWs, much less that one had been brainwashed.

But then a Marine named Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis, also great), is rescued in a Delta Force raid on a compound owned by a vile terrorist named Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban). Carrie immediately suspects that Brody is the Marine who has been turned. She scrutinizes his every move, gesture and tic, bugs his house with the help of Virgil, a surveillance expert (scene-stealer extraordinaire David Marciano). No one believes Carrie, least of all her immediate superior Saul (Mandy Patinkin, soooooo good), and he doesn’t even know she’s on anti-psychotic medication.

Brody is a reluctant hero. He comes back home to a family who thought he was dead. His wife (alien Obama stand-in Morena Baccarin) is sleeping with his best Marine Buddy Mike (Diego Klattenhoff), his daughter’s a budding pothead, and his son, um, takes karate. Brody doesn’t easily slide back into domestic life. And he is, in fact, a Muslim who sneaks into the garage at night to kneel toward Mecca.

Which doesn’t necessarily make him a sleeper agent, except that he is. In the series most unconvincing turn, Carrie meets him, clumsily, and falls in love with him, even more clumsily. He tells her that Abu Nazir offered him aid and comfort, “And I loved him for that.” At just that moment, Carrie learns that the long-thought dead Tom Walker (Chris Chalk) — Brody’s partner who was also captured — is alive. And he’s the terrorist.

Most Americans believe that in the War on Terror we’re the good guys, and it’s pretty cut and dry. But human emotion and conflict muddy the waters. Fairly late in season one, we learn how Brody was turned. Abu Nazir pulled him from a hole and offered him a nice place to live. Nazir asked him to teach his son Issa to speak English. He grows close to the son, and mourns when Issa and 81 other children are killed in a drone attack ordered by current US Vice President William Walden (Jamey Sheridan). Watching the news footage, Nazir sneers, “And they call us terrorists.”

To me, the irony of this and other emotional complications is the heart of the series. The death of 82 kids is certainly tragic. Brody had a personal connection to one of them that, for him, was larger than the War on Terror. But while I can recognize the tragedy, I can’t claim the same emotional connection to the kid. Furthermore, I’m not convinced Nazir was really mourning the loss of his son. At that moment, he knew he had Brody. He couldn’t connect with 300 Million Americans, but he didn’t need to. He just needed one.

Brody’s relationship with Nazir isn’t all lollipops and sunshine. Nazir has Brody convinced he killed Walker, and when he finds out Walker’s alive, he is justifiably angry with Nazir. But Nazir consoles him and brings him back into the fold. Nazir’s relationship with Brody is one built on false pretenses, and I’m hoping that this will play into the series in season 2.

The emotional bonds shared by many of the characters complicate this particular front of the War on Terror. Virgil helps Claire illegally bug Brody’s home because they’re friends. Saul indulges Claire because of their history. Her other superior doesn’t indulge her because of their very different history.

Even when things are black and white, complications ensue.

Janke took issue with the series finale, in which Brody films a martyr video, blaming VP Walden for the death of 82 kids. The video has not yet been exposed, and I think it’s going to be exposed only when Brody has switched back to the good guys. I’m pretty convinced he’s going to realize something awful about Nazir, and the video will become a liability for him. Another of Janke’s complaints was a particular line of dialogue uttered by VP Walden. When Saul takes Walden to task for ordering a drone attack on a school, Walden says, ““Don’t cloud the issue. If Abu Nazir is taking refuge among children, he’s putting them at risk, not us. It’s our joint opinion the potential collateral damage falls within current matrix parameters.” Saul is disgusted, and apparently so was Janke, but you know what?

I think the VP is right. It’s cold, it’s vicious, but…as I recall, we haven’t yet learned how America learned of Nazir’s location. What if Nazir wanted the attack to happen? What if he was grooming Brody all along?

Perhaps I’m totally wrong, but the first season of the show was exciting enough for me to tune in for season two so I can see where they take us. I’m not going so far as to say the show is conservative, but I’m not ready to call it anti-American, either.

In other words, had Weinstein’s movie been snubbed altogether, I think people would remember it more fondly than they do. If I recall correctly, no one was complaining much that the movie was nominated, but the win immediately changed the perception of the movie.

I loved a lot of movies released in 1998, but only one of them was nominated for Best Picture. It’s a very tough year for me to pick a favorite. The nominees:

“Shakespeare in Love” – Only saw it once, and I liked it. Costume dramas really ain’t my thing, but costume comedies? Well, that’s…wait, I don’t like them much either. But I guess this one’s alright.

“Elizabeth” – See above. Never seen it.

“Life is Beautiful” – Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor for this remains one of the great whiffs in Academy history.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The invasion sequence alone remains worth the price of admission.

“The Thin Red Line” – For my money, this is a pretentious mess. I’ve got a buddy who says it’s his favorite movie. I say he’ s trying to seem smart. But what do I know? I’m the guy who would have nominated…

“There’s Something About Mary” - Stalker? Big time.

“The Big Lebowski” - Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No, you’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an assh*le.

“Out of Sight” - You don’t have an extra clip I can use, do you?

“Rushmore” - Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream I would have sons like this.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The Statue of Liberty is kaput. That’s disconcerting.

This is really an absolute squeaker. Why? Partially, it’s because I love all of these movies so much. But mostly, it’s because I’m stupid.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly established themselves with “Dumb & Dumber,” then made the box office bust “Kingpin,” which deservedly found an audience on video. No one expected much from their third movie. Leading man Ben Stiller was not yet a star or a box office draw, but he had honed the nervous stammering act of his in pretty solid comedies like “Flirting With Disaster” and turned in hilarious supporting work in “Happy Gilmore.” In 1998, he had a breakout year, appearing in the underrated “Zero Effect” and the misanthropic “Your Friends & Neighbors.”

Released in the middle of July, less than a week after “Lethal Weapon 4″ and just before “The Mask of Zorro,” the Farrelly’s comedy was a genuine word-of-mouth sleeper hit. It hovered in the lower half of the top five until the end of August, when it finally crept up to number 2 at the box office. First week of September, it claimed the number one spot — a full seven weeks after it debuted at number 4.

Its performance is part of the reason I pick it over the more obvious choices on the Academy’s list and my own list. I worked in a theatre at the time, and I witnessed the slow build. By September, older couples were coming to see the movie — and were loving it. The Farrellys had done something amazing; they had made a vulgar comedy that crossed over to people who would never see a vulgar comedy, much less embrace it.

The key to their success is the unconventional screenplay, and the cast.

Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz have been more than overexposed by now, but in 1998, they seemed like a breath of fresh air. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for a dude to get the girl more than I did in “There’s Something About Mary.” No one has ever deserved a girl who was so out of his league in the history of movies.

This is set up from the very beginning and then pounded into our heads, sometimes with subtlety and sometimes with the force of a sledgehammer to the nuts. The Farrellys make Ted (Stiller) go through hell to land dreamgirl Mary (Diaz); it’s a journey during which no good deed goes unpunished for Ted, and our heart sinks with his about a dozen times over the course of the movie. Consider:

- He comes to the aid of her mentally challenged baseball loving brother Warren (W. Earl Brown – fantastic performance) and almost gets his ass kicked for his trouble. He later gives the gargantuan Warren a piggy back ride.

- He shows up to pick up Mary for the prom and is told by her father Charlie (Keith David? Genius casting.) that Mary already went to prom with Woogie — a Mr. Everybody’s All American type from a different high school. Ted slumps, frowns, but what makes it UNBEARABLE is that he not only pretends that he’s not hurt by the jilting, but that he seems to think he deserves to be jilted. Of course, Mary’s dad is “just f*cking with” Ted, and Mary is home the whole time ready to go to prom with Ted.

- Ted offers Warren a baseball but inadvertently touches the big man’s ear; Warren goes psycho, tears the room apart and delivers a belly to belly suplex on Ted atop a coffee table. I love the  tension in the aftermath of this moment. Ted’s freaked out, Mary goes upstairs with Sheila, her hot mom (Markie Post), to fix her dress, and Charlie consoles Warren and barks at Ted. Ted defends himself, Charlie responds: “Are you yelling at me? Are you yelling at me in my own damn house?” Ted insists he’s not. Awesome. But the capper is when Ted asks where the bathroom is and Charlie answers, “Grrrrrrrrrrr!”

- The bathroom scene. One of the two most talked about scenes in the movie. “Franks & Beans!” Once again, a misconstrued situation — this time only a look, a glance, a harmless peek! — leads Ted into an uncomfortable situation. Perhaps the most uncomfortable situation in movie history. Sheila sprays Bactene on his nuts, a cop shows up (“What? The f*ck?” he exclaims), a fireman — pretty soon the bathroom’s packed with people and Warren is in the hallway screaming, “Franks & Beans.” If you don’t exit this scene with pee-stained pants from laughing yourself wet, there’s something wrong with you. More importantly, if you don’t exit this scene hoping Ted gets Mary, there’s something wrong with your soul.

- On Ted’s day off, he helps his boss’s brother move. Not his boss. Not his brother. His boss’s brother, who happens to be a crusty, mean, profane man in a wheelchair. Genius line: when Ted complains that a gigantic armoire is heavy, the guy in the wheelchair seethes, “Heavy?! What I wouldn’t give to know what heavy feels like, you insensitive prick!”

- He also, out of the goodness of his heart, offers a serial killer a ride, takes a fish hook to the mouth, and is made to dress up in a superhero costume. Nothing in the movie would have been as funny without our empathy for Ted. In “Mary,” the Farrelly Brothers dodge a landmine. She likes golf. She likes to drink beer and watch football. She likes to talk about football. In essence, she’s too perfect, and women should have rooted against her. But, using subtlety and a sledgehammer, the Farrellys make her vulnerable… to stalkers. She’s got so many stalkers she had to change her name. The only reason that Ted ever got a chance to go to the prom with her is because her high school boyfriend Woogie “got weird.” Like a stalker.

Ultimately, it’s my pick because from a pure story standpoint, it’s the most difficult of any of nominees (actual and in Cam-Land) to pull off — a comedy about stalkers that’s actually really sweet despite relentless vulgarity. Its unconventional-but-still-mainstream-and-not-weird structure (the romantic leads are apart for a good chunk of the movie — ask Gore Verbinski how hard it is to pull that off) makes it an even more difficult movie to pull off. But ultimately, it’s the constant barrage of jokes both verbal and visual, great characters and strong performances that make it my favorite movie of 1998.

The Biggest Letdown Ever!

A Reclusive Genius Returns … for a Letdown!

The Internet Helps a Micro-Budget Movie Score Big and Unless You Saw It Early…It Was a Letdown!

They Finally Made “Friday Night Lights” Into a Movie — Oh, Wait, No They Didn’t – What a Letdown!

Seeds for Future Letdowns:

Brothers Reinvent Sci-Fi!

What a Great Twist!

The nominees:

“American Beauty” – As pretentious at it is at times, I like the movie. I remember an argument with a conservative friend who hated the Chris Cooper storyline — abusive military type who’s secretly gay. Thing is, I had a guy a lot like the Chris Cooper character in my neighborhood growing up. Only his kid wasn’t the brooding poet Wes Bentley was in the movie. I also remember a liberal feminist friend of mine arguing that the movie was misogynist. Personally, I’m inclined to like a movie that gets people from all sides of the socio-political spectrum in a tizzy.

“The Cider House Rules”- Finally! A feature-length abortion manifesto!

“The Sixth Sense” – Came out of nowhere, hasn’t aged all that well. Not bad, but the stench of Shyamalanga-ding-dong’s career since hangs over even this, his breakthrough movie. Fair or not. Probably not.

“The Green Mile” – My biggest problem with this movie is that the only reason it’s seventeen and a half hours long is to make it feel more like an Oscar movie. I like it, but daggum, it’s ponderously paced.

“The Insider” – Has no business being as good as it is. That said, I’ve never felt the need to see it again.

What Shoulda Been Nominated?

“Election” – Larry, we’re not electing the f*cking Pope, here. Just tell me who won.

“South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” - It’s been six weeks since Saddam Hussein was killed by a pack of wild boars and the world is still glad to be rid of him.

“Three Kings” – No. Not the little cubes you put into water to make soup.

“Being John Malkovich” – Think fast, Malkovich!

“Toy Story 2″ - I can’t look! Can somebody please cover my eyes?

The Winner Is…

Tracy Flick is one of the greatest, most memorable characters ever created. She would be a lovable underdog if she weren’t a pompous, conniving, vindictive, obnoxious little twerp. And Reese Witherspoon brings her to life with one of her best performances ever. Witherspoon, at the time an indie darling, doesn’t so much play Flick as embody her. The walk. The speech patterns. The annoyed sigh when her speech is interrupted. She thinks she’s an adult, above her peers, entitled to win the Senior Class Presidency.

But popular teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) has other ideas. He knows of Flick’s dark side. She had an affair with his best friend Dave (Mark Harelik), and when they were found out, Dave got the axe and Flick emerged unscathed, free to annoyingly overachieve for another year. McAllister is that type of teacher we all had. The one who was at all the football games, cheering for the team, the one who went above and beyond. There’s probably only one or two McAllisters in every school. He’s more than a teacher.

McAllister had probably had many students like Flick over the years. But only Flick participated in an affair that got his best friend fired. McAllister fantasizes about Flick – sexually – and he’s as disturbed by the fantasy as we are.

The Nominees:

“Titanic” – This may mark the only time that I’ve ever completely agreed with that hopeless douche Peter Travers. If memory serves, he called it the best and worst movie of the year. I thought I would hate it and was only half right. Despite the cringe inducing dialogue and laughable, supposedly subtle social commentary, the movie mostly works.

“The Full Monty” – Cute movie, total fluff. Of course, if it hadn’t been nominated, I would probably think more of it. That’s what the Oscars do, they change our perceptions in often crazy ways. On a side note, the phrase “This year’s ‘Pulp Fiction’” was last-used in 1997, only to be replaced in 1998 with “This year’s ‘The Full Monty.’”

“Good Will Hunting” – Man, did this movie experience a backlash! But then its initial groundswell of support was partially generated by the Weinstein hype machine, which put forth the Horatio Alger-esqe lie that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had come out of nowhere to write and star in this little movie — Weinstein practically begged people to go see it — if you don’t see it, Damon and Affleck will starve! Okay, Harvey never said that. And on the eve of the Oscars, another swirling lie: pssst! Did you hear? William Goldman really wrote it. I still like the movie, if for no other reason than it ushered in a new genre of Boston-set movies with white trash characters. It’s still refreshing to this very day to see white trash characters that aren’t from the South.

“L.A. Confidential” – During Oscar season, the pundits pitched this one as one of those too smart for the room movies. Which couldn’t have been the reason it struggled. After all, I loved it, and I’m not to bright. I mean, too bright.

“As Good As It Gets” – When I saw this, at a sneak preview, I thought, “wow.” James L. Brooks has finally lost it. The Academy, ahem, disagreed. But all the flaws that have plagued his last couple of movies are here in “As Good As It Gets.”

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED

“Jackie Brown” – It tripled its budget at the box office, but after the enormous success of “Pulp Fiction,” it was viewed as, at best, a disappointment. At worst, a flop. I’ve loved it from the moment it unspooled before my eyes. Great performances from Robert Forster, Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robert De Niro. Funny side note: I saw Tiny Lister not too long ago, and I begged him to bellow, “Yo, I give you his beeper!” I’m pretty sure he wanted to punch me in the throat.

“Boogie Nights” – There are several moments that always get me. Like when Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) insists people tell him he looks like Han Solo. Or when Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) makes his first appearance, punctuated by the sound of screeching tires. And — oh, yeah! — when Reed and Dirk argue with the guy at the recording studio, so firm in their belief that they are destined for musical stardom.

“The Apostle” - Predictably, studios rejected Robert Duvall’s screenplay about a flawed but dedicated preacher wrestling with his calling and his own redemption. It’s a triumph of capitalism that the independently financed movie stirred a bidding at the Toronto Film Festival. I love how the movie is subtly about one character’s own accepting of Christ, but we don’t even know it until it happens at the end.

“Donnie Brasco” – Al Pacino put his schtick on hold — you KNOW THE ONE, don’t PRETEND. That you DON’T — for Mike Newell’s gangster drama, and the result was his best performance in years. The movie was largely ignored at the Oscars, which was a shame, as the movie holds up better than most of the nominees.

“L.A. Confidential” – Curtis Hanson juggles a lot of characters and a fairly intricate murder mystery in this amazingly photographed story of Los Angeles police corruption in the 1950s. Great performances from a huge cast. Marred by a falsely upbeat ending, it is nevertheless a great movie.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” combines the scope of Altman with the “look-at-me” show-offiness (pretty sure I just made up a word) of Scorsese. He directs this movie like it was the last movie he would ever get to direct, and that energy comes through in every line, every scene, every frame. The actors don’t so much play characters as embody them, from Mark Wahlberg’s sincere, naive, and, um…talented porn star, to Burt Reynolds as the porn auteur who longs to make porn art, but has neither the budget or artistic vision to make it happen.

“Boogie Nights” charts the rise and fall of Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), who rides the bus every day from Torrence to the porn capital of the world, waiting for his chance to be discovered. Burt Reynolds is Jack Horner (yes, Jack Horner), the director who does indeed discover Eddie, but suggests a new name. Thus, Dirk Diggler is born.

We follow Dirk and his friends —  awkward stereo salesman Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), sound man Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffman at his most actor-y), tragic mother figure Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), and the aforementioned, loyal to the end, Reed Rothchild — through a tumultuous decade of sex, drugs, and bad rock and roll.

The structure is pure “Goodfellas” with pornographers instead of gangsters.

First half = Debauchery is fun. And harmless! I’m jealous.

Mid-Point = Oh, wait. This could go too far. The Line Producer just killed himself. I hate Debauchery! Down with pornographers!

Second half = See? I told you that debauchery and porn and drugs were a bad idea!

Anderson somehow injects a sense of morality into the movie. When the business model shifts from film to videotape, Jack is crestfallen. The new, more accessible format inexorably leads to dirtier dirty movies. And Jack plays along…but he doesn’t seem particularly proud of it. Not that pornography was ever clean, or righteous. But with film it had some level of dignity, which was stripped away the minute the medium became mass produced. That the medium got uglier and more immoral once it hit the internet, sort of proves the movie’s point.

The movie achieves greatness, though, when Dirk, Todd, and Reed visit the home of a whack job dealer named Rahad Jackson (seriously, the names alone in this movie should have qualified it for an Oscar), played by Alfred Molina. As bizarre as the scene is — and it is, most definitely, bizarre — it somehow makes perfect sense that Dirk and his friends would end up in the some dude named Rahad’s living room, while he walks around in a robe and little else, singing along to Night Ranger (on a tape labled “My Awesome Awesome Mix Tape #6.” I mean c’mon), while a little dude we can only assume is his boy-toy wanders around, sullenly lighting firecrackers, and a big, strapped dude weighs the coke Dirk and his friends hope to sell Rahad. Only it’s not coke, it’s baking soda. It’s a long scene, that grows more uncomfortable by the minute.

Rahan puts on “Jesse’s Girl.” And jams to it. And Dirk…just…stares at him. For what feels like five minutes. Twitching, sweating, flinching, itching…he just. Stares. While Reed tries to convince him to leave. In that moment, Dirk realizes what a shambles his life has become, and tries to leave. As dim and shallow as Dirk is, we want him to end up okay. We want him to patch things up with Jack, with whom he’s become estranged.

In the end, it’s a movie about a big, huge, dysfunctional family, and Dirk returns home to his surrogate dad, Jack.

They never come right out and say they love to lose. Instead, when their movie of choice loses the Oscar to “Crash,” they say things like, “Hollywood’s homophobia could be on par with Pat Robertson’s.” The case of “Crash” versus “Brokeback Mountain” turned into an absolutely hilarious pissing match that saw liberals clamoring to stake their claim to being at least as liberal as the next whiny liberal.

About the only thing liberals love more than losing is claiming they’ve been victims of — gasp! — censorship! If I seem like I’m making light of — gasp! — censorship! it’s because, well, I am.

In the vast majority of cases of — gasp! — censorship! there has in fact been no censorship.

Take Harvey Weinstein’s latest claim.  The Hollywood Reporter reports that ABC asked for three cuts to the trailer for “Our Idiot Brother,” on the basis that three shots violated its “long established ad-guidelines.” Where you and I might see an entity exercising its right to purchase and air WHATEVER THE HELL THEY CHOOSE TO PURCHASE AND AIR, Harvey sees an opportunity to reassert himself as the undisputed champion of hemming and hawing about so called censorship. The Weinstein Company quickly cut together a new red band trailer, which Harvey knew would be useless without a press release that made him look like a victim. Putting on a happy face, Harvey proclaimed, ““We’d like to dedicate our new red band trailer for Our Idiot Brother to censorship everywhere. Enjoy!”

Is this censorship? No really. I’m asking: Is. This. Censorship?

If a writer pens a spec script, sends it to The Weinstein Company (TWC) and TWC rejects it, refuses to buy it, or film it, or distribute; has that writer been censored?

I find these kinds of claims fascinating. The Super Bowl has in the last few years become a bizarre battleground for claims of censorship. There was the whole Janet Jackson affair, which was either a fiasco or an unbridled success, depending on your point of view. I recall a story in Rolling Stone, in which some journalist wrote- … … …  …

(Sorry. I was laughing hysterically at the idea of Rolling Stone employing journalists to do journalism, and a swallow of Newcastle went down the wrong pipe.)

– Anyway, Rolling Stone decried critics of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction as hysterical Bible-thumping, pitchfork-wielding, stake-burning prudes. Their accompanying photo of Janet Jackson really hacked me off; the so-called offensive part of her anatomy…was blurred. Or, censored.

I’m averse to in-depth research, but I found this story, published four years later in Rolling Stone, where in they shriek, “The incident led to an almost-censorship of live events, with tape delays becoming the norm to avoid future unscripted situations.”

“Almost-censorship.”

Alrighty, then.

Another fantastic censorship whine-fest from the last decade involves none other than The Dixie Chicks. Perhaps I’m too thick-skinned, but I wasn’t exactly offended by what Natalie Maines said in London. Why? Because being offended by what she said lent her credibility. She’s a country singer. A pretty damn good one, in my opinion. I don’t expect her to have earth-shattering opinions about George W. Bush or any other President. It was a goofy thing to say.

The ensuing hullabaloo made a mountain out of a mole hill in my opinion. Her comment deserved nothing more than an eye roll and a, “Dadgum, that Natalie done lost it. Put on ‘Goodbye Earl’ and let’s get good and ripped.” Getting together with a bunch of other people and burning Dixie Chicks CD’s was, in fact, about the silliest thing I ever heard of until Al Gore weighed in on the matter.

“They were made to feel un-American and risked economic retaliation because of what was said. Our democracy has taken a hit,” said Gore. “Our best protection is free and open debate.”

Wait — What?

Gore commits a classic blunder here, in defending the poor, poor, pitiful Dixie Chicks. Yes. They have freedom of speech. They could have said even worse things about Bush, and have. And I, and other loons, are free get offended and to burn their [bleeping] records in retaliation.

For her part, Maines apologized for her “brave” Bush rant, and later reneged on said apology. Why?

“I’m Not Ready to Make Nice,” she crooned on the lead single from their next album. Yes, it seemed that The Dixie Chicks had taken a page from the Weinstein playbook, and figured out a way to profit from the controversy. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Harvey himself coached them on how to ride this particular gravy train. After all, Harvey’s company distributed “Shut Up & Sing,” the documentary/whine-fest about the Dixie Chicks horrible ordeal. When NBC and the CW rejected ads for the movie, Harvey gravely intoned, ”It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America.”

I am telling you what. Crying about censorship is good work, if you can get it.

The big hullabaloo at the Oscars was that all of the best picture nominees but one were indy movies. Big deal, sniffed Cam.

“The English Patient” – I’m with Elaine Benes on this one.

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“Jerry Maguire” - I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I still love just about everything about “Jerry Maguire,” despite its clunky moments.

“Secrets & Lies” – Other than “Naked,” which I saw under the influence of…something…I never have cared for Mike Leigh’s movies. Nor do I hate any of his movies, or find him to be a hack. But his movies don’t illicit anything more than a “that didn’t suck” outta me.

“Shine” - Really never got all the fuss over this one, either. I kinda hate it, in fact.

“Fargo” - From the lie that it’s based on true events to every aspect of the execution — everything about “Fargo” screamed instant classic.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:

“Tin Cup” – Yeah, tt’s fluff. But damn if isn’t rewatchable and entertaining. Costner is so on, after a string of misfires. What the hell ever happened to Ron Shelton?

“Sling Blade” – There are about a hundred lines in this movie that I use every chance I get. Complete with the Karl Childers voice. Throwaway lines, even, like when my kid says a cuss word, I poke out my bottom lip and growl, “You shouldn’t be tawlkin’ like’at, you jest a boy.”

“Swingers” – So good that they remade it with actors as bottom-feeding gangsters, and I still loved it.

“Trainspotting” - Marketed as a British “Pulp Fiction,” the film is actually more like “Good Fellas” with junkies. Its first half comes very close to glamorizing the lifestyle of heroin junkies, and then the baby dies, and the carefree tone shifts radically. Haven’t seen this in years, but it remains burned in my brain.

“Fargo” – I had always been a fan of the Coen Brothers, but with this one I finally decided they were geniuses.

WHAT SHOULDA WON

“Fargo” comes tantalizingly close to being a perfect movie. The genius of the movie: its tone. Its humor is both dark and folksy, sometimes both at the same time, and from the very first scene, in a smoky bar in snowy Fargo, North Dakota the Coens establish a tense, unshakable sense of dread: we know Jerry Lundegaard’s (William H. Macy) convoluted scheme will end badly.  Jerry hires two goons, the monosyllabic, chain smoking thug Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), and the wiry, talkative Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) to kidnap his wife in hopes that Jerry can convince his “well-off” father-in-law to overpay the ransom. Jerry will split the overage with Gaear and Carl, and give them a burnt umber Cutlass Ciera to boot. Right off the bat, Gaear and Carl have their doubts about the plan. “That’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul, Jerry, it doesn’t make any sense,” chirps Carl, who is unwilling to debate the subject any further.

But they go along with the plan and it goes bad when they’re pulled over by a State Trooper. Carl shows his hand, the Trooper suspects something, and Gaear takes it upon himself to kill the Trooper, after which he mocks Carl sarcastically, “You’re a real smooth smooth one.” So. Awesome. Oh, and then a passerby sees them dragging the trooper to the side of the road, so Gaear takes off for’em, kills them, and we think, “Goshdarn, what a mess, yah know?”

And then we meet Marge Gunderson (Francis McDormand), the Chief of Police in Brainerd, Minnesota, home of Paul Bunyon and Babe, the blue ox. She’s, oh, about fourteen months pregnant, married to Norm “Son of a” Gunderson, a painter. A nicer couple you shall not meet, but Marge doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the bad guys will face justice.

But it turns out that Marge is a pretty goshdarn good detective, albeit a bit naive to the darker side of human nature. She arrives at the scene of the crime and figures out what happened in about two seconds flat, “OK, so we got a trooper pulls someone over, we got a shooting, these folks drive by, there’s a high-speed pursuit, ends here and then this execution-type deal.”

I’m not the first to say it — this moment is a game changer. We know that bad things will happen, because we’re watching a Coen Brothers movie. But we also, in this moment, relax a bit, knowing that there will be some level of justice. Marge is on the case.

Marge Gunderson is one of my twenty favorite characters of all time. Laid back, friendly, smart but never smug; it’s impossible not to root for her. Francis McDormand walked away with an Oscar for the movie, and the Coen’s don’t so much direct her as turn her loose. She’s not introduced until thirty or so minutes in, but it’s her movie. The supporting cast also excels. Macy wrings empathy from a role that could have been just plain creepy, and the Coens never judge him or attempt to justify him. We sense he was at one time a decent guy, and hate that he has chosen to go down a very dark path. Buscemi is in typically motormouth, bizarro-Barney Fife form. Stormare’s Gaer is a monster, plain and simple, with a seemingly impenetrable dark heart. But, because they’re geniuses, the Coens include a scene in which a routine twist in a bland soap opera offers a brief glimpse at Gaer’s human side.

“Fargo” is, to me, a masterpiece. It’s one of those movies that make me say, “So, this is the best movie ever,” every time I watch it.

“Braveheart” – Mel Gibson’s stirring epic would take home a slew of Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, perhaps deservedly. I know I’ll get crushed, but I don’t love it. Just my $.02; these types of historical epic action dramas aren’t my thing. I appreciate the movie more than I enjoy it. I never got the whole controversy, which painted the movie and Mel Gibson as homophobic. The supposed outrage felt completely inorganic, manufactured, and just plain phony.

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“Sense & Sensibility” – Never seen it. Look, there are people who don’t go see “Fast Five” one time, much less three times, and there are people like me who do. The people in the latter camp typically don’t watch movies like “Sense & Sensibility.”

“Apollo 13″ – Good movie that spawned the lamest catchphrase of the decade and made “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” a wee bit less challenging.

“Il Postino: The Postman” – I seem to recall it was the dark horse favorite to win Best Picture and the odds on favorite to make me throw up in my mouth. It didn’t win. And, whoa, I kinda liked it.

“Babe” – Seriously. No, really, seriously? A talking pig movie?

What should have been nominated:

“The Usual Suspects” – I’m still baffled that this ended up here. I can see not liking it. But c’mon, Roger.

“Casino” – I remember dragging my wife to see this. She resisted. Something about it not being appropriate viewing for our honeymoon. Oh, yeah. We had just gotten married. We argued about it — playfully — and I reminded her that she was the one who picked a wedding date that coincided with the opening of the new Scorsese movie. The playful tone vanished as she hissed, “I chose this weekend because you made me move it from the previous weekend so you could go to the Georgia-Auburn football game!” How is it I’m still married?

“Get Shorty” – When Travolta is on, as he is in Sonnenfeld’s fantastic adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel, he is so very on. Everyone in the movie is great, and the dialogue, true to its source, is perfect. Gene Hackman seems miscast, but once you warm to the idea of him playing a chump, he wins you over.

“Toy Story” – Changed movies, ushering out the classic 2D animation and ushering in the dominance of computer animated movies. Before “Toy Story,” Disney produced the vast majority of animated movies. And most of the non-Disney animated movies were underwhelming at best. Pixar has made everyone step up. No one can top Pixar still, but “Kung Fu Panda” beats the hound dog out of “Rock-A-Doodle.”

“Babe” – That’s right. A talking pig movie. And it’s totally awesome.

And the winner is…

In all fairness, for me this is pretty much a four way tie between “Babe,” “Toy Story,” “The Usual Suspects,” and “Get Shorty.”

I actually saw “Babe” pretty early on, and was one of its defenders when people said, “Seriously? A talking pig movie? No really. Seriously?”

But has there ever been more of an underdog than the runt Farmer Hoggett won at the fair ? Sure, Rocky was a million to one shot against the Master of Disaster. And Daniel LaRusso faced long odds against defending All Valley champ Johnny Lawrence. But they were men against men. Babe transcends his place on the food chain to achieve victory in a game he’s never meant to play.

By being nice.

From the sun-dappled cinematography and the subtly funny dialogue to the total feel-good vibe, “Babe” is pretty much a masterpiece. The movie grabbed me about a minute in, when Farmer Hoggett (Best Supporting Actor Nominee James Cromwell) holds up the runt pig, gazes into its eyes as the Narrator observes, “The pig and the farmer regarded each other. And for a fleeting moment, something passed between them. A faint sense of some common destiny.”

As the film opens, the narrator tells us, “This is a tale about an unprejudiced heart.” When Babe first arrives at Hoggett’s farm, he quickly learns the hierarchy, meets his neighbors, and encounters prejudice at every turn. Everyone on the farm is resigned to the way things are simply because, “The way things are is the way things are.” Even Ferdinand, who refuses to eat lest he become Christmas dinner, woefully reasons, “I suppose the life of an anorexic duck doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.”

When he observes Babe herding hens, he gets an idea: he gives the pig a shot at herding sheep. Babe fails miserably because the Sheep don’t take him seriously. It’s not his place to herd sheep. They laugh at him. His surrogate mother, Fly, a Border Collie, suggests he play rough with the sheep. Fail. Finally, the sheep themselves suggest he try just asking nicely.

Babe’s aspirations upset Fly’s mate, Rex, a proud champion.  The movie is ultimately about “The way things are,” and observes that things are the way they are because of everyone’s preconceived notions about everyone else. Rex’s career as a champion sheep dog was cut short, Fly explains, because of the undeniable stupidity of sheep, who refused his help during a storm. They drowned and even after a couple of days of recovering by the fire inside Hoggett’s house, Rex was left partially deaf. Late in the movie, it’s revealed that the sheep find the dogs as ignorant as the dogs find them stupid. If Rex had been nice to the sheep, they would have been saved and he would be a champion.

Babe’s ascension irks Rex. When Babe falls ill, he’s the one by the fire, inside the house, a turn that stuns the barnyard community — a pig in the house? Who could imagine such a thing?

Babe never whines about his place in the hierarchy. He has doubts about his ability to perform. He overcomes the prejudice around him by being true to himself. When he learns that Hoggett will probably one day eat him, he suffers a crisis of faith. But Hoggett pulls him through.

It takes a lot of work, but Babe’s actions and determination convince the other barnyard animals that the way things are doesn’t have to be set in stone. Which leads to the sheep trials, a sheep herding contest, where Hoggett and Babe face angry judges and a mocking crowd. With his mortified wife watching at home, Hoggett stands firm in his decision to let Babe herd sheep. Babe wins the crowd over, leaving them speechless, leading to one of my favorite closing lines in movie history:

Narrator: And though every single human in the stands or in the commentary boxes was at a complete loss for words, the man who in his life had uttered fewer words than any of them knew exactly what to say.

Farmer Hoggett: That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

But even then, some dumbass would do this.

The nominees:

“Forrest Gump” – The part that always confused me was he said, “She tastes like cigarettes,” like it was a bad thing.

“Four Weddings and a Funeral” – For my money, the oddball nominee at the time. I like it more now, but back then I was convinced it was only nominated because it’s British.

“Quiz Show” – I love the part when Herb Stempel cranes his neck to see what’s going on in the other soundproof booth, CLONKS his head on the glass, then checks-real-quick to make sure no one in the studio audience saw him. We saw ya, ya sponge-memoried freak.

“The Shawshank Redemption” – Great movie, saved by the studio’s rejection of the alternate ending, in which Red goes to Buxton, but can’t distinguish one hayfield from another because he’s never read a Robert Frost poem, screams in agony; meanwhile, the grocery store owner calls his P.O., who calls the fuzz, who come to Buxton, and gun him down. As life flickers from his eyes, he realizes he’s laying on a piece of volcanic glass that has no business being in a hayfield in the middle of Maine. He laughs to FADE OUT.

“Pulp Fiction” – I think you know how this is going to end.

What should have been nominated:

“Forrest Gump” – I mean, I don’t smoke anymore, but cigarettes are really tasty.

“Quiz Show” – Also, when Rob Morrow gets embarrassed because mustard is on his face. You can read Morrow’s mind: Trying to fit in with the WASP, and this happens?!

“The Shawshank Redemption” – I love that actor that plays the mean guard. He was awesome in “Bad Boys,” in which Sean Penn mashes his nose all over his face with a six pack inside a pillow case.

“Speed” – Pop quiz, hot shot: There are only five spots available for your favorite movies of 1994. What do you do. What do you do? You leave off “True Lies,” “Dumb & Dumber,” “Hoop Dreams,” “Nobody’s Fool,” and “Police Academy: Mission to Moscow,” even though they’re all totally awesome.

“Pulp Fiction” – During my 4 1/2 years of college, no movie was as debated with friends and in classes as much as “Pulp Fiction.”

The winner: “Pulp Fiction.”

Its immediate impact turned out to be a lasting impact. It felt like Quentin Tarantino was a flash in the pan for sure — but we’re still debating that point after a few more love-it-or-hate-it movies. I remember a couple of conversations in particular: One was in a writing class, where a grad student who was no doubt friends with Michael Stipe snarked, “The only reason anybody likes that movie is because the critics loved it.”

A friend of mine responded, “Then why did so many people like ‘Ace Ventura?’”

“Same reason,” shot back Mr. Detached and Oh So Cool.

I’m still scratching my head about that one.

It’s a movie of moments, real movie moments. Tarantino rips off so many movies by way of other movies and TV shows, it’s dizzying. Gangster hit men talk like my roommates at the time–sarcastic snide–”Well, you are aware that there’s this invention called television and on this invention they show shows, right?”

A boxer tough enough to kill a man in the ring flips out on his girlfriend, then acquiesces in shame, only to continue the flip out later when he’s alone in the car. Boxer’s name is Butch. Which means nothing. Because he’s an American, and our names don’t mean shit.

The crime boss casually strolls to a doughnut shop and grabs a dozen doughnuts. Just like me. Everyday. Sometimes twice a day. Oh, except that in the middle of the crosswalk at Fletcher and Atwater, he spots a guy who crossed him sitting in a Honda, whips out a gun, fires as he’s creamed by the Honda, the bullet nearly hitting Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin.

Tarantino rips everyone off, but his movies work because they’re populated with characters we can relate to; that behave like us and converse like us. Only different.

My wife and I still say we “ain’t got no friendly people in the eight-one-eight,” even though it’s no longer true.

As late as 1997, a guy I worked for was still claiming he was the “Foot fuckin’ master.” Everyday.

It’s close, but it’s the movie that to me has had the most lasting impact of all the movies released in 1994.

After the misfire of “Always” and the colossal misfire of “Hook,” he returned to the director’s chair for “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” two vastly different movies that demonstrate the different ways that a movie can inspire awe.

Even aside from Spielberg’s contributions, 1993 was a pretty solid year.

The Nominees:

“The Fugitive” – Easily the benchmark for big-screen adaptations of TV shows, featuring an Oscar winning supporting turn from Tommy Lee Jones.

“Schindler’s List” – This was not the sure-fire home-run it seems to be in retrospect. Spielberg turns artsy, but wisely remains high concept in doing so.

“The Piano” – As contrived a movie as you’re ever likely to see. Feel free to tell me where I’m wrong. I can’t be swayed.

“Remains of the Day” – Anthony Hopkins. A shotgun. Awesomeness ensues. Not really, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t go see that movie. Merchant-Ivory. Like Simpson-Bruckheimer. Only…boring.

“In the Name of the Father” – I feel like I should remember this movie more than I do. It’s about…jail, or something. Right?

What should have been nominated:

“Schindler’s List” – I’ll never forget the sheer silence of the packed theatre when I saw this movie…

“Jurassic Park” – …just as I’ll never forget the kids in the theatre going “aaaaah!” when the dinosaurs make their first appearance in this movie.

“Groundhog Day” – Make this same movie about a butler, with none of the laughs, set it in Victorian England…Oscar gold!

“True Romance” – You two sorta roommates? Exactly roommates.

“Dazed and Confused” – One of my favorite opening shots ever. And the movie only got better from there.

What shoulda won:

“Dazed and Confused” – I wonder if this movie would be as good and as enduring, if it had actually been a hit. I personally never wanted to see the movie but my girlfriend and I had gone from Athens to Atlanta for the day and had some time to kill, and we had seen everything else showing at the theatre. So we saw “Dazed and Confused,” and couldn’t wait to tell our friends about it.

While it was never a hit, it gained cult status pretty quickly. I remember it playing over and over again at The Georgia Theatre when there were no bands playing. Essentially a 1970s version of “American Graffiti,” with wall to wall music, fast cars, and teenagers killing time, Richard Linklater’s masterpiece is the quintessential sleeper. Part of the joy of the movie is discovering it.

Me and my friends saw it so many times that one buddy noticed Ben Affleck stumbling in one scene when he’s way off in the background.

The characters that drive the movie are timeless. We all knew bullies like Clint and O’Bannion, fun-loving jocks like Benny, mean chicks like Darla, anointed cool kids like Mitch, introspective jocks like Pink, and we all knew a Wooderson.

Matthew McConaughey was obviously a star in the making. He’s been good in movies since, but he has never been this good. His performance is emblematic of the movie itself. We loved it because we discovered it. Now, we feel like McConaughey is over-exposed, jammed down our throats. But when we were allowed to find him, it was special.