CRYING FOR MADONNA

By BRUCE HANDY

Pedants who complain that Academy Awards don't really honor the year's best work in cinema because they ignore little, independent art-house movies--and hey, did you know that French toast isn't really from France?--must come to terms with what they have wrought now that the Academy has indeed honored a bunch of little, independent art-house movies. The result is a dull, nonglamorous contest with, alas, little prospect for Oscar-night silliness. Secrets & Lies' Brenda Blethyn is a wonderful actress, but don't expect her to show up dressed like Geena Davis.

Of the five nominees for Best Picture, only one, TriStar's Jerry Maguire, was produced by one of the major studios. Not that they didn't trot out their usual quota of ambitious and/or self-important "prestige" projects--films whose stars and makers might reasonably have felt they had a shot at winning heaps of major nominations. Why did so many of these offerings fail? Has Hollywood lost the knack for marketing serious pictures? Take blustery movies about killing Englishmen: Does anyone really think Braveheart (last year's Best Picture) is significantly better than Michael Collins (only two minor nominations this year)? TIME asked a pair of experts--a top studio publicist and a former studio head (and Academy member) to pick over the remains of some of this year's Oscar disappointments:

Michael Collins. Publicist: "I have no clue why this one didn't work." Former studio head: "I loved it, but it didn't do enough business. It's hard to sell any biography. Even Gandhi didn't do business."

Evita. Publicist: "There was Madonna backlash and maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber backlash--and the movie was horrible. This is the second year in a row the Golden Globe-winning actress--last year it was Nicole Kidman--didn't even get a nomination." Former studio head: "I don't think there was a backlash. If anything, I think there was sympathy for the movie. It took a lot of guts to make an all-out musical."

The Crucible. Publicist: "People perceived it as a history lesson, as something more didactic than they were interested in seeing." Former studio head: "Yeah, I didn't see it."

The Evening Star. Publicist: "My sense was that no one cared about a sequel to that movie [1983 Best Picture Terms of Endearment]." Former studio head: "Another half hour of Jack Nicholson might have helped."

The People vs. Larry Flynt. Publicist: "I thought its reputation was inflated, and the backlash hurt. The media were interested in Courtney Love because she hadn't acted before, but she didn't do anything that Valerie Perrine or Candy Clark couldn't do on automatic pilot." Former studio head: "I didn't want to see a picture about Larry Flynt the same way I wouldn't want to see a picture about Hitler."

And what about the movies that did get big nominations? The publicist says he wasn't surprised: "Those are the movies people are talking about." The former studio head doesn't disagree, but he is not pleased: "These pictures are a sad commentary on the state of our business. Years ago, not one of them would have been nominated for Best Picture. Look at the list from 1974. The Godfather, Part II. Chinatown. Lenny. The Conversation. And ... what was the fifth one? I can't remember." A quick trip to the reference shelf reveals the answer: The Towering Inferno, arguably the worst film ever nominated (and the only one starring O.J. Simpson). So maybe there is something to be said for including little art-house movies on Oscar night. And maybe Brenda Blethyn's closet holds something delightfully ill conceived.