	Bob Hostetler > Writing

My Private Hollywood

by Bob Hostetler

It’s Oscar time.

This weekend the seventy-eighth annual Academy Awards will be announced. And the event will once again demonstrate the yawning chasm between Hollywood’s agenda and America’s values.

Now, because my wife is a movie-lover, I see a lot of movies in a year’s time (it doesn’t bother me a bit to blame it on her; my perfect date night is a walk in the woods, while hers is watching people dodge danger and blow up things in the darkness of a movie theater. Go figure). Still, I don’t plan to watch the awards show on Sunday . . . but not for ideological reasons. It just bores me. And it’s not just me. I think the vast majority of the American public tends to be bored by narcissism, arrogance, self-righteousness, and thinly veiled political agendas.

So I’ve decided to come up with my own private Oscars (nothing narcissistic or arrogant about that, is there?). And, while I can’t claim any great artistic sensitivity or intellectual brilliance like most people in Hollywood (as well as most movie reviewers), on the upside, I feel no need to impress anyone with my erudition, sophistication, or perspicacity (are you impressed yet?). I also suspect that my values, principles, and entertainment priorities are more like the great unwashed masses across this great nation than like those of Oliver Stone and Rob Reiner. Actually, there’s evidence for that in the annual gap (the size of the Grand Canyon) between the movies Hollywood likes (as evidenced by Academy Award nominations) and the movies the public actually likes (as revealed by box office receipts).

Even if I’m wrong, I’m still willing to take that risk. So, the winners of My Own Private Oscars are:

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Wouldn’t it be great if one of these years the Academy had the guts to say, “Sorry, there were no truly outstanding performances in this category this year.” I think this should be the year. See how great it is not to have a commercial axe to grind?

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Oh, this would definitely get the Academy’s knickers in a bunch, but Tyler Perry in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Just pick one of the three roles he played in that movie and give him the statue.

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Keira Knightley for Pride and Prejudice, the rare Oscar nomination with which I agree. But she won’t win, because her performance wasn’t cynical, gritty, trashy, or shocking. Just perfect.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: The Academy can’t afford to admit this, but little Dakota Fanning, in Dreamer, showed that she can act rings around every actor in Hollywood . . . except maybe Anthony Hopkins.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: March of the Penguins (but then, I’m a sucker for nature stuff). Runners-up: Memoirs of a Geisha and The New World (enchanting cinematography, disappointing movie).

BEST FILM EDITING: What do I know about film editing? Likewise, costume design, art direction, and directing. Among others.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Sorry, I can’t get my wife to go to animated films, so I have to catch them on DVD. Except for the upcoming Ice Age 2; that’ll have to be an exception.

BEST SURPRISE: Tyler Perry’s moving and delightful Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Its 2006 sequel, Madea’s Family Reunion, is similarly satisfying.

WORST MOVIE: I know, this isn’t an Oscar category, but it should be. Especially when Nicolas Cage pulls off a double play: Lord of War and The Weatherman. Maybe I should just give up on Nicolas Cage movies.

BEST MOVIE: I don’t know when it first began to dawn on me that by and large, Hollywood doesn’t have one sweet clue what it’s talking about when it gives the best movie award. For two or three years in a row, I went to see the top film because it had to be good, right? Big mistake. I’ll never do that again. The nominees: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The End of the Spear, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Pride and Prejudice. And the film of the year in my own private Hollywood is: The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It’s not a film for everyone, but it’s a true “moving picture”: gripping, frightening, thought provoking, unforgettable.

So those are my private awards. They may not reveal me to be a particularly urbane moviegoer. They may even reveal my poor taste. Or they may show the vast cultural distance between decent Americans and the Hollywood elite. Either way, I’m okay with that.

This article appeared in the March 5, 2006, edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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