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When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 2002 Oscar Nominations on Tuesday morning, director Rob Marshall's adaptation of the stage sensation Chicago won 13 nominations. Only Martin Scorsese's mediocre epic Gangs of New York came close, with eight. The Lord of the Rings—The Two Towers garnered only six, as the Academy snubbed it even in some of its strongest categories, like cinematography and makeup. Other favorites, like Denzel Washington's solid directorial debut, Antwone Fisher, and Phillip Noyce's marvelous epic of Aborigine children escaping persecution, Rabbit-Proof Fence, were completely ignored.

It was bound to happen. For a while, we were enjoying a generous variety of beautifully crafted films with profound stories about good versus evil, overcoming prejudice and abuse, anger management, and holding on to hope in the face of hardship. But in the final weeks, these fine works were upstaged by a wave of hype and hoopla over a big, flashy Hollywood production in which a leggy dancers and boastfully dishonest lawyers revel in promiscuous and scandalous behavior.

Chicago offers an ankle-deep satire about the cult of celebrity in America, but instead of showing up evil as evil, it ends up glorifying scandal-makers and ridiculing marriage and true love. All but one of the characters begin the film as greedy egomaniacs, and at the end they're just the same. The one character with a glimmer of virtue, the abandoned and broken-hearted husband, is mocked as a buffoon. While it is right to suggest that the scandal-loving American public is partly to blame for sustaining this amoral circus of celebrity, it is presumptuous and perverse to suggest that we should shrug off moral conviction and shame and just enjoy the razzle-dazzle amorality.

Anybody who keeps track of the Oscars knows that they have a tendency to overlook the most deserving films or artists. Everybody has their favorite complaint. Some of mine: "Best Director" awards have never been awarded to Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, or Martin Scorsese. Citizen Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley, Do the Right Thing to Driving Miss Daisy, Apocalypse Now to Kramer vs. Kramer, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring to A Beautiful Mind.

This current nomination list is full of head-shakers. Julianne Moore was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Hours, even though she was onscreen more than Nicole Kidman, who is nominated for Best Actress. (This same puzzle played out with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke last year for Training Day.) Did anybody really think that Spiderman, nominated for Best Special Effects, was better in that category than Minority Report, which was not nominated? Treasure Planet received some of the worst reviews ever for a Disney animated film, and there it is, competing with Spirited Away, one of the year's most highly-rated films … but it's unlikely that an animated film from Japan stands a chance to win anything (Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie wasn't nominated in the category). Dennis Quaid, who gave career-best performances in The Rookie and Far from Heaven, was ignored. The Time Machine was nominated for Best Makeup, but do you see Two Towers or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on the list? Their work was vastly superior.

Critics are not optimistic about who the winners will be. Most insiders predict that Chicago has the momentum to win Best Picture, even though most critics consider it inferior to its competitors. That's because the majority of Academy voters are Hollywood actors, not directors, writers, or critics. It is no secret that many voters do not even see all of the titles before they cast their votes. It is almost as if the Academy voters are trying to set themselves up for future regrets and embarrassment.

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47