OSCAR PICKS 1998

Could those little golden men be contemplating hara-kiri with those swords? Perhaps, if they had any idea of the farce they seem poised to act out Monday night.

The key player in the farce? That bloated, hysterically overhyped ship which still shows no signs of sinking. Nor do the other major contenders alleviate the anti-Titanic moviegoer's gloom. This year's nominations are, by and large, a case study in the power of Hollywood hype. But hey, what else are the Oscars for? If it's recognition of creative force you're looking for, better check out the evening wear on Oscar night. If it's good taste, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

Titanic will most likely clean house among the smaller awards--the sole exception being, possibly, a well-deserved win for best cinematography for Kundun. As for the rest, there's no help for it; best just turn the TV off when Celine Dion comes on stage.

What do Tilda Swinton in Female Perversions, Debbi Morgan in Eve's Bayou, and Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacy in L.A. Confidential all have in common? Two things, actually. First, to my thinking, they are the deserving winners of the four acting awards at this year's Academy Awards.

Second, none of them are even nominated. [Author here rolls his eyes, or spits on the pavement, or blasphemes the gods who smiled on Geoffrey Rush and Marisa Tomei.]

But honestly, griping about the Oscars is not only a futile occupation, it's banal and overpracticed. Why waste the time or the print? Instead, accepting the nominees as given, here's my breakdown on who will, could and should walk off with the little Golden Guy.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The hands-down favorite here is L.A. Confidential, and it deserves to win; however, the competition is high-quality, including Donnie Brasco and The Sweet Hereafter.

Best Original Screenplay

This one's a sure bet: media darlings Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for Good Will Hunting. Hollywood simply can't get over the fact that two actors can actually write a successful movie script (and still be so darn cute!). Their screenplay is far from being as good as everyone's making it out to be, but the other nominees don't have that much more compelling a claim--though The Full Monty manages to balance its killingly funny physical gags with a surprisingly poignant, though too easily resolved, storyline.

Screenplays and Other Categories During Which You Run to the Bathroom

In the script adaptation race, L.A. Confidential has the dual virtue of both deserving to win and being assured of doing so. For original scripts, Good Will Hunting is a lock, but without the year's most deserving competitors--Eve's Bayou, The Apostle and In the Company of Men--it's a win for style over substance. Titanic should sweep the Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design awards, even though L.A. Confidential had crisper photography and The Wings of the Dove had more dramatically loaded sartorials. No gripes with the Art Direction win though; you break that much porcelain and flood your set three times, an Oscar is the least of what you deserve.

Best Actress

WILL WIN Count out Christie, whose film was barely seen (and not that great), and Winslet, who delivered lines like "I'd rather be Jack's whore than your wife!" In the Dueling British Ladies contest, Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown, who won the Golden Globe, has more momentum than The Wings of the Dove's Helena Bonham Carter. So the race is between Dench and Helen Hunt, also a Globe winner. Give Hunt the edge, since she won the Screen Actors Guild and is the only American nominee--that's how Tomei beat four Limeys in 1992.

SHOULD WINHunt, who overcame the reductive, implausible and emotionally dishonest script ofAs Good As It Gets to create a full-bodied, graceful, intelligent woman.

Best Supporting Actor

The supporting actor awards, it's generally agreed, are where new talent has the best chance of getting recognized, in which case Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets) has the advantage. However, the Academy also likes old stars who make noteworthy comebacks, and Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights) did win the Golden Globe.

WILL WINGreg Kinnear. He's relatively new, he plays a charming gay guy, and all of the odds are against As Good As It Gets for the other awards.

SHOULD WINRobin Williams. Good Will Hunting isn't his best performance, but it's one of his most heartfelt since Dead Poets' Society. People forget that he's not just the funniest man in movies; he's also a damn good actor.

Best Supporting Actress

WILL WINProbably Gloria Stuart, because she's old, likable, and has that Juliette Binoche-approved "Win on the Coattails of the Big One!" going. Her only threats are Moore, who alone in this group has the studio and indie crowds behind her, and Basinger, who won the Globe, tied with Stuart at SAG, and represents L.A. Confidential's only hope at a major score.

SHOULD WINMoore belongs on anyone's list of the five best actresses working today. In Boogie Nights, she finds not only the urgent maternalism but the delicacy of a porn industry queen. Don't try this at home.

Best Picture

WILL WINTitanic seems to have it locked up, and far be it from me to disagree. Remember, though, that in 1981, a great big historical epic called Reds, directed by Warren Beatty, showed up with 12 nominations and lost to a small British crowd-pleaser called Chariots of Fire, which had nothing going for it but humility and good will. That's a story that The Full Monty producers will be trying earnestly not to forget.

SHOULD WINI cried during Titanic almost as much as Kate Winslet did, but L.A. Confidential also encapsulated a precise cultural, moral and aesthetic moment from our past and did so with characters who were discernible (and dissectable) human beings.

Best Picture

The Academy goes ultra-lite this year, reveling shamelessly in feel-gooders to the tune of As Good As It Gets, Good Will Hunting and The Full Monty. Titanic is its idea of tragic ballast: never mind such trifles as lame dialogue, clunky plot contrivances and characters that are closer to caricatures.

WILL WINTitanic. The farce will happen. Grin and bear it.

SHOULD WINL.A. Confidential. A smart, taut throwback to the best tradition of noir, it far outranks its competitors in subtlety and style.

Best Director

WILL WINJames Cameron. I'm not going to take space from the other categories trying to explain why. Sure his lavish spending and tyrannical nature might turn off some voters. But, to paraphrase Cole Porter, if not Cameron, who?

SHOULD WINCameron's a pro and deserved one of these for Aliens. But this year, my vote's for Atom Egoyan, who communicated in The Sweet Hereafter an entire town's experience of a single event, exerting a rigorous, wide-ranging psychological acuity for which Cameron didn't even try.

Best Director

WILL WINJames Cameron for Titanic. Cameron does have a way with large-scale spectacle, but he also wrote a clunker of a script.

SHOULD WINCurtis Hanson for L.A. Confidential, who also had a hand in writing (or at least adapting) the script from Ellroy's classic novel--with much better success, complemented by crisp, savvy direction.

Best Actress

The British have invaded. Sole American Helen Hunt wowed many with her turn as the waitress-with-backbone (not to mention a great back) in As Good As It Gets, but she's too new a big-screen presence to win. Ditto for Kate Winslet(Titanic), who merits only compassion for her efforts to overcome a rotten script. Julie Christie(Afterglow) already has her Oscar dues; the showdown will likely be between Helena Bonham-Carter (The Wings of the Dove) and Judi Dench(Mrs. Brown).

WILL WINBonham-Carter. She's in the position Emma Thompson occupied just before winning for Howards' End: with ten years of well-received British films behind her, she seems poised for induction into the American club.

SHOULD WINBonham-Carter, who delivers her most intense and shaded performance yet as a manipulative yet sympathetic vixen.

Best Actor

WILL WINDamon (who will win one for his screenplay) and Hoffman (who already has two, doggonit), are easy to strike. I'm not convinced Peter Fonda's career ever impressed anyone enough to merit a "comeback" paean, so look for Robert Duvall to eke out a victory over SAG and Globe winner Nicholson, Duvall is much-admired and under-Oscared, and he wrote, directed, financed and starred in his picture...take that, Matt Damon!

SHOULD WINDamon may not multi-task as fully as Duvall, but he never showboats the way his competitor does and more effectively hid the weak spots in his own story.

Best Actor

Here the race is a deadlock between Robert Duvall's preacher from The Apostle and Peter Fonda's beekeeper from Ulee's Gold. Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets) and Dustin Hoffman (Wag the Dog) have already gotten more than their fair share of Oscars in the past; Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting) is too new to the game.

WILL WINTough call, but Duvall has the edge; it's about time he gained full equality with the other "greats" of his generation--Pacino, De Niro, Hoffman, etc.

SHOULD WINDuvall again. His performance is nothing short of a tour de force, and the most dynamic of this oddly chosen bunch.

Best Supporting Actress

Poor Gloria Stuart. As one of the few interesting things about Titanic, she's in the underdog position. Kim Basinger is all set up to take home the consolation prize for L.A. Confidential. And if Basinger doesn't win, then the one to look out for is not Stuart but Minnie Driver as the much put-upon love interest in Good Will Hunting.

WILL WINBasinger. The hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cops it.

SHOULD WINNone of 'em:still outraged at the fact that The Ice Storm was so egregiously ignored. Basinger's fine, but frankly the least of the outstanding cast of L.A. Confidential. (Then again, that's what I thought about Juliette Binoche and The English Patient last year.) The other contenders suffer from sketchily written parts, with the arguable exception of Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights).

Best Supporting Actor

WILL WINA two-horse race between Reynolds, who won the citation from the four of the five primary critics' groups who often foreshadow Oscars, and Robin Williams of Good Will Hunting, who has lost three times and now finds himself with a serious, broadly-appealing vehicle to recommend him. Edge to Robin Williams, who won from the Screen Actors Guild--the Actors Branch comprises by far the largest bloc in the voting Academy.

SHOULD WINRobert Forster--also the actor most certain of losing. His work on Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown was not only compelling on its own, but his love for Jackie brought us closer to her character than almost anything else in Pam Grier's own uneven performance.