Academy Awards

OSCAR NOMINATIONS
By TOM SOTER
from MOVIE TIMES, December 1995

Cary Grant never won an Oscar. Hollywood's consummate leading man is not alone, either: scores of great actors (Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo), directors (Alfred Hitchcock, Spike Lee), and pictures (Grand Illusion, The Color Purple) have been ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at Oscar time, while some amazing oddities have taken the top prizes (who here remembers 1937's best picture, The Life of Emile Zola?)

Everyone loves to moan about the idiosyncratic winners and losers at Hollywood's annual gala of self-congratulation, the Oscar Award ceremonies. But there is a method to the madness: every January, nomination ballots go out to the 13 branches of the Academy. Its more than 4,755 members then nominate by branch (actors pick actors, writers choose writers), except in the case of best picture, which everyone selects. After that, a series of screenings of the nominated films is set up for voters.

Many Academy watchers say choices get skewed because the membership is by and large conservative, conventional, and sentimental, usually preferring costumed epics (Gandhi, The Last Emperor) to unsettling dramas (Five Easy Pieces, Apocalypse Now). But others claim the skewing goes deeper than that, since outside of documentaries, shorts, and foreign flicks, the Academy offers no guarantees that the voters have actually screened the movies they pick. If you think choosing movies without having seen them is odd, well, hey, welcome to Hollywood.