..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

The Bestest of 2004

In the past week, critics groups in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Boston have all chimed in with their annual honors and to an organization they have singled out Sideways as the movie of the year. The Hollywood Foreign Press and The Broadcast Critics Group have also announced their slates and Sideways was the film with the greatest number of individual nominations. The Independent Spirit Awards also cited it most often two weeks ago.

The degree of unanimity among critical award givers, while not unprecedented, is rare. One has to go back more than a decade to Schindler's List to find a comparable outpouring of artistic love.

Whether Sideways is worthy of such adoration is not really the point. Time invariably proves to be the sternest judge of art, and in the rear view mirror Modern Times, Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia weather its passage better than Cimarron, Gentleman's Agreement or Rocky.

It's not the quality of Hollywood's best efforts but the paucity of choice that's worrisome. Three of the four critics group's selected Virginia Madsen's Sideways performance as well as its screenplay; two cited Alexander Payne's direction. Three of the organizations found some method of honoring the American indie Maria Full of Grace and The Incredibles.

There are other individuals and productions that figure into the conversation but in most instances there are rarely more than three names considered worthy of discussion. Imelda Staunton's title performance in Vera Drake is an obvious favorite this year, as is Jamie Foxx's incarnation of Ray Charles. Clint Eastwood and everyone else associated with Million Dollar Baby should also have a significant presence when honors are doled out and one expects The Aviator to continue to pick up kudos during the long march to the Kodak Theater in late February.

It's about this point that we need to step back and consider that thorny relationship between art and commerce. There was a time when the separation between the two in so far as Oscars and other awards givers were concerned didn't seem so extreme. In the past two decades such films as Titanic, Forrest Gump and Rain Man took home best picture honors from the Academy and also wound up at the top of the annual box office champions list.

Critics organizations also used to be a lot more idiosyncratic in their selections. Such films as Blue Velvet, Brazil, Drugstore Cowboy, Fargo and My Left Foot were cited by one of the big three critics groups as film of the year and it was often the case that Academy voters paid little heed to those pronouncements. Though the Oscar givers have nominated plenty of films that were far from commercial blockbusters, there aren't many instances when a movie that failed commercially wound up on the best picture short list.

Several weeks back a friend queried me about the pictures I thought the Academy would nominate in its top category. While I entered the fray with caution and caveats, my list on November 19 was: The Aviator, Hotel Rwanda, The Phantom of the Opera, Ray and Sideways. It remains a plausible list, though Million Dollar Baby now appears to be a contender at the expense of one of the quartet. I could also proffer likely Academy slates in other major categories that would likely result in a prescience level of more than 80%.

What ought to disturb movie goers about all this is the level of predictability in what's good and commercial. It's a short list that doesn't appear to have much wiggle room for the arcane, foreign or niche arenas that at least make up the viewing experience in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and London where the majority of aforementioned Academy and critic organization members reside.

For the die hard industry types uniformity is a good thing, especially when the select few are produced or distributed by a major or one of its specialty arms. All the Golden Globe and Broadcast Film Critics picture nominees fit that frame and all the winners except in the documentary/non-fiction or a newcomer category honored studio or affiliate company movies in the selections by the four critics groups that made announcements this past week.

Scanning the lists of winners to date, the most unusual selections - not in terms of merit but more in keeping with campaign profile - are lead and supporting actress nods to Julie Delpy in Before Sunset and Sharon Warren from Ray.

While I'll stop short of berating any individual for altering a vote because another organization has singled out a particular film or personality already, there's more than ample ammunition to take a broadside when it comes to both the pack mentality and short memories. As the year-end approaches, there is a clutch of movies for critics to see that are touted as important, significant or just good. Among the last minute entries this year were Eastwood's film, The Aviator, Spanglish, Closer, The Phantom of the Opera and In Good Company.

There's always that pressure of rushing to judgment and reviewers tend to be a rather timid bunch. You'd also have to conclude that their ability to retain vivid images of recent movies and their own reviews is on some half life cycle. Certainly based on a consensus of four star reviews for such diverse fare as Spider-Man 2, The Terminal, The Manchurian Candidate, The Bourne Identity, Kill Bill, Vol. 2, I Heart Huckabees, The Motorcycle Diaries and Shrek 2, one has to scratch one's head and wonder about their absence in the final voting by the sundry critics groups.

And while it's true that there can only be a single winner (ties aside) and, in some instances, a runner-up, it seems more than a little odd that virtually all the films and artistic and technical achievements cited by the critics were for films released after Labor Day. One exception, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, centers on someone that's had his mind erased.

It should also be noted that regardless of voting procedure, the best lists result from compromise and may not reflect any one reviewer's absolute favorites. Still, expect to see most of the oft cited movies and individuals somewhere on critic X's year-end roundup.

There's also better than average odds that more iconoclastic fare will pop up with regularity on top 10 lists than is readily apparent from the juried prizes. Bright Young Things, The Saddest Music in the World, Moolaade, Kitchen Stories, Distant and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring … are some of the pictures that come to mind. There's also a host of admired non-fiction fare beyond Fahrenheit 9/11 that includes The Corporation, Tarnation, Bright Leaves, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and The Story of the Weeping Camel. And there are even a few American independent films that will be recalled such as Primer, Mean Creek and Baadasssss!

The above laundry list certainly indicates that when you take the Hollywood majors out of the equation, there actually might be the opportunity to see a rich and varied tapestry of film. It's just that the prizes meted out by the various award-giving bodies have failed to reflect that reality.

While there are no hard and fast rules in the award sweepstakes, one assumes that the industry honors that also embrace numerous guild dinners have at least a nodding bias toward commercial success. Conversely, one expects something a bit more artistically elevated from critics that presumably troll cinemas and film festivals in search of the next wave. And though the stereotype has a degree of credence, it is a stereotype.

Twenty years ago film reviewers in an odd sort of way did and didn't matter. Their influence on big commercial movies driven by stars was viewed as negligible and therefore they were tolerated within industry circles. Where they could make a difference was with those "smaller pictures" that had tiny advertising budgets. So they were allowed to be critics for that sliver of readership that actually read their prose.

Newspapers and national magazines were the bastion of film reviewers and some television outlets had entertainment reporters that periodically commented on movies at the local bijou. But with the advent of Entertainment Tonight and its ilk the dynamic began to change. Film criticism was slowly replaced with something closer to consumer reports in which greater emphasis was placed on laugh counts, special effects and production values.

That tilt toward quantifying value is now dominant. So, it really shouldn't be puzzling that the same narrow list of films and personal achievements are honored over and over again. The criteria employed by the judges is much more myopic and symbiotic with what will pass for popular entertainment. The incentive to chronicle anything outside the mainstream is not encouraged and at best of low priority.

In North America, the majors routinely control about a 90% market share of the box office. They do not produce 90% of the best movies, so some sort of disconnect exists that relates to access to the best screens and the ability to dominate through advertising heft.

The studios each make a number of so-called event movies annually plus comedies, teen movies and family films. It all tends to be cookie cutter programming with films of more ambitious content largely relegated to specialized divisions. The blockbusters play during the summer and holiday periods and the serious fare tends to get bunched into November and December in what's become the awards season.

For decades it was possible to commercially exploit prestige pictures from September through March when the Oscars were held as long as an individual title was perceived as a contender. That window obviously shrunk when the Academy Awards advanced its ceremony a month to the chagrin of many in the distribution and exhibition sectors. But the Academy had no choice. The event was losing its luster and potency because the proliferation of rival awards had made its winners appear anti-climactic.

Still, an abbreviated season hasn't appeared to make much difference. I can think of but one awards event that has perished in the process and the rest have shifted around to create a shorter, more intense season. The Oscars look a lot like dozens of other movie award shows but with slightly better production values. And should Academy voters bestows statuettes on Sideways, Imelda Staunton and Clint Eastwood this year it will come as no surprise - we saw it coming three months in advance.

- by Leonard Klady