Perhaps I've sat through too many movies (for every one I review, I've watched five, and I'm not saying that to brag--actually, it's pathetic); it's the junkie dilemma--more! More! Maybe that's why the Chicago Reader's resident film freak Jonathan Rosenbaum continues to put titles on his 'ten bests' that I can't even pronounce: he has literally globetrotted in search of the bigger rush.

So, in my humble opinion, if the year that was was not as adventurous as we've been led to believe, the Academy's nominations were even more meat-and-potatoes, "Blame Canada" notwithstanding. Phil Collins' Tarzan ballad? Elevator music for the jungle. Rachel Portman's score for The Cider House Rules? Schmaltz and circumstance compared to Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke's pensive compositions for The Insider. (Actually, every category seems to suffer a missing nominee; the most egregious omission is Errol Morris' piercing documentary Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr..)-Bill

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BEST PICTURE
American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense

Each of these films has its own particular merit. Too many also have their own particular flaws. And in a year when so many near flawless works of art were released, it's a shame more of the true start-to-finish knockouts of 1999 didn't make the shortlist. P.T. Barnum threw it all at the wall with reckless abandon in Magnolia; he should be applauded for every stylistic risk and emotional excess. Spike Jonze makes an appearance in the Best Director camp, but his Being John Malkovich, easily the most striking and original film experience of the year, deserves recognition as a whole. Even wishful thinking wouldn't help a harsh and beautiful gut-punch like Boys Don't Cry get a Best Picture nom, but surely a glorious mainstream entertainment like The Iron Giant could have won over the Academy's hearts and consciences (especially in light of its shoddy treatment by Warner Bros marketing and subsequent failure to find an audience). In my perfect world, Best Picture would be a showcase for the most masterful, memorable, and innovative filmmaking of the year. And for 1999, it is this only in part.

Firstly, I cheer American Beauty. It's a real accomplishment to make such a direct attack on middle-class America and have it be so well received by the target. But it's such an easy target. Who doesn't suspect suburban professionals are leading unhappy lives? How can any indictment of their shortcomings seem anything but dated and obvious? And could Lester Burnham's emancipation from his shallow existence be any more conventional? If smoking pot and lusting after teenagers were the path to freedom and enlightenment, we'd already be saved. American Beauty has revolutionary fervour, but the only time it transcends the culture it seems to condemn is in Wes Bentley's character. His ability to find wonder in the random movements of a plastic bag in the wind is the one image that resonates and remains with me.

The more I think about it and the farther away from the movie I get, the more I like The Cider House Rules. There is a point in the story where something goes wrong and though I can't pinpoint it, I'm sure this is simply a side effect of translating a complex John Irving novel to celluloid. Even the man himself is bound to have some problems compressing the scope of a printed narrative into the more demanding constraints of a screenplay's structure. In spite of the resulting scattershot feel--the broad mix of issues, emotion, and travelogue--or perhaps because of it, The Cider House Rules seeps in and takes root. It's a movie experience that's hard to resist and hard to shake. Long after I'd walked back into daylight I was haunted by the crushing starkness of the orphanage, the bright optimism of Homer on the beach, and the earthy tang of the apple orchards. Perhaps most of all by Tobey Maguire's gentle, observant performance--one of his best in an already deeply distinguished career. So I must throw the kudos to him, and to Irving for the screenplay, and leave the movie itself out of the running for Best Picture.

I make no bones about it, Frank Darabont rules. He's directed two films and both have garnered Best Picture noms. Both are also prison dramas, and were made years apart. Given Darabont's talent and vision, I can't help but wonder what he could have done in the ensuing time after Shawshank instead of coming back to similar subject matter and tone for The Green Mile, which for me was the most overhyped and underwhelming project of the year next to Fight Club. I won't say I wasn't moved. I was. I won't say I didn't always feel like I was in the hands of a master filmmaker. I was. But this three-hour epic of sentimentality rolled over and off me in the time it took to sit through it. The Green Mile is nauseatingly conventional and possessed of a syrupy sweetness that's just too much to take. It's technically perfect and structurally sound (I have no problem with three hour epics, as you can deduce from my love of Magnolia), but had absolutely no impact on me while so many other 1999 films did. It shouldn't have been nominated.

And that brings me to the two films I do feel belong on the Academy's shortlist: The Insider and The Sixth Sense. Michael Mann's gritty and exhilarating look at the public castration of Brown & Williamson Tobacco is grounded entirely in character--Russell Crowe's amazing portrayal of industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand and Al Pacino's strong supporting turn as 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman. And from frame one through closing credits, I was completely entranced by Mann's sure-handed direction, Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke's pulse-pounding score, and Dante Spinotti's washed-out cinematography. The Insider is the finest example of controlled, professional, high-class filmmaking from 1999, embodied in every member of the cast and crew. No better team on the screen this year than Mann's. And playing the talented upstart to Mann's seasoned veteran is M. Night Shyamalan, who made a name for himself with The Sixth Sense. At 29, M. Night has demonstrated not only great talent as screenwriter, but also stunning confidence as first-time director. One half of the underdog sleeper hit team of the summer (reeling in audiences alongside fellow genre-bender Blair Witch), The Sixth Sense pulled off the best trailer, the most talked-about finale, the defining performance for an up-and-coming child actor, and the latest revival of Bruce Willis's career. If there's an upset victory this year at the Oscars, it's gonna go to M. Night's crowd pleaser. Me, I'd hand the award to Michael Mann's triumph of craft and character. But it's American Beauty that will most likely take home the statue.-Stephen

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Michael Mann, The Insider

BEST DIRECTOR
Lasse Hallstrom-The Cider House Rules, Spike Jonze-Being John Malkovich, Michael Mann-The Insider, Sam Mendes-American Beauty, M. Night Shyamalan-The Sixth Sense

Among these five auteurs, Lasse Hallstrom is the least deserving of an Academy Award. A Swede helmer, he ironically made the most American picture of the nominated lot, a chocolaty good weeper in which Very Big Issues are tackled one-by-one like a checklist at the service of an old-fashioned journey story; none of that's a problem--I enjoyed it immensely. (And Forrest Gump, too.) The Cider House Rules just seems dispassionately realized: there's a steady and sure but also impersonal hand behind the camera.

Stephen and I share an opinion of American Beauty, so it is out of no great love for the picture that I wouldn't choose Sam Mendes over the remaining three, though he commendably defied his theatre roots by crafting a handful of sincerely cinematic sequences. M. Night Shyamalan coaxed fine work from his cast in The Sixth Sense, however I'm inclined to believe the film owes its potent atmosphere of dread to cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. So we are left with Spike Jonze and Michael Mann, both of whom should have a shot at the statue.

Jonze, a veteran of rock videos funny and surreal, does with Being John Malkovich what we would never have expected of an MTV brat: he gets out of the way of the material. The strength of Charlie Kaufman's screenplay guides the action, and bland, dim visuals ground an otherwise fantastic identity crisis tale in reality, rendering it palatable for modern, jaded audiences. (I shudder to think how Terry Gilliam might have (over)played it.) Michael Mann, of course, has a specific, galvanizing style that he imposes on every story he tells, and it's perfectly suited to The Insider, a potentially dry corporate corruption thriller. For The Insider, his most fully realized effort to date, and for his electric, eclectic filmography, which has been overlooked for too long by too many influential people, he's my ultimate choice as Best Director.-Bill

There are three performances nominated in this category I'd be perfectly happy to reward, and I'd be just as pleasantly surprised if the Academy does so. First, a word about Richard Farnsworth. He makes The Straight Story. Yes, it's a lovely film, and yes, it belongs to director David Lynch, both as a departure from his past subject matter and as a new filter for his peculiar and wonderful approach to pathos and bathos. But without Farnsworth it wouldn't be half the movie. He invests every scene with a constant, gentlemanly warmth that ensures we'll follow him everywhere and through everything on Alvin Straight's cross-country lawnmower trek to reconcile with his brother. For that effortless chivalry alone, and for his years of work in the industry, Farnsworth is well deserving of recognition this year.

Also worthy of note is Sean Penn's impeccable work as gifted jazz guitarist Emmet Ray in Sweet & Lowdown. Some critics have described his performance as nothing more than broad comedy, but the truth is that Penn is a master of detail. Whether he's delivering a searing dramatic portrayal or something lighter, it's all about the little things--posture, gait, facial tics, vocalisation, the movement of his eyes--that define the character. Here Penn kicks ass as usual, erasing every last bit of himself until he is entirely Emmet Ray. It's an astounding, mannered, and totally convincing transformation. I'm thrilled he was even nominated, given the low visibility of this, Woody Allen's latest flick (an admirable return to form, by the way).

The best performance by an actor I saw in 1999 is Russell Crowe's in The Insider. Bereft as it is of any kind of grandstanding, scenery-chewing, or descent-into-madnessing, Crowe's turn as tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand doesn't scream Academy Award in the traditional sense, though he does eradicate any trace of his Australian accent, which feat always seems to draw Oscar attention. No, what you've got here is a perfect, internally consistent, emotionally accurate study of a man under enormous pressure. Crowe fumes his way through the movie and you can feel the weight of events sitting on every inch of him. It's there in his blunt hulk of a body. In his wounded, hooded eyes. In his fumbling, brutish attempts to survive character assassination by Brown & Williamson and the ugly collapse of his family. I can't remember ever being so compelled by a portrayal of frustration. I could not look away from Crowe. And so I peg him as most deserving of the statue.

Last two on the list shouldn't really be here. We've seen both of these performances before. It's Kevin Spacey doing what he does best (seething and releasing) and Denzel Washington doing what he does best (standing proud and stoic and determined). Both actors are unquestionably formidable talents, and both had plum roles in good movies of distinctly different tone (the deconstruction of American Beauty versus the affirmation of The Hurricane, Norman Jewison's feel-great tale of boxer Rubin Carter righting the wrongs perpetrated against him). But when it comes to the Best Actor award, it's more satisfying to see someone really stretch and really sweat to earn the honour. I don't think Kevin and Denzel did so by playing characters so perfectly matched to their established strengths. My guess is Spacey will grab the gold off American Beauty's obvious momentum, and conversely Denzel will be passed over for lack of momentum on The Hurricane's part. But again, ask me, it's Crowe who should be accepting the reward.-Stephen

I'll tell you who shouldn't get it: Tumbleweed's Janet McTeer, the most overrated turn of the past few years. As an irresponsible white trash mother, she's a Brit doing a Southerner, and the accent is flawless. And guess what: if you read her award coverage, that's what they talk about. And do you know why? Because Hollywood loves it when women do vocal gymnastics and men play handicapped--it's acting they can see and therefore believe in. Trust me, if her performance were really that swell, the movie would have been a major contender for Picture, because her character is the movie. (Conspicuously absent from Best Actress is Election's Reese Witherspoon, who kept you thinking about Tracy Flick even when she wasn't on screen.)

My choice is Hilary Swank, for Boys Don't Cry. And she'd have a shot at it, if it weren't for the Elisabeth Shue Factor, or ESF. Early praise of Swank's performance as gender-bending Brandon Teena and her subsequent Oscar campaign nearly mirrors that of Shue's Leaving Las Vegas period, and while both actress had paid their (remarkably similar) dues (Swank was "The Next Karate Kid"; Shue played the girlfriend of the first "Karate Kid") before indie talent came knocking, few acknowledge(d) this as fact, and if the elite hate doing one thing, it's handing the unestablished a major prize--especially for a low-budget labour of love. (Note that even the cover art of Boys Don't Cry's screening cassette reads "introducing Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevigny".)-Bill

Is Tom Cruise earning praise for his portrayal of a sexual advice guru in Magnolia because hearing him talk dirty is such an unforgettable shock? I admired Paul Thomas Anderson's epic character piece (an oxymoron, I know) and carry pieces of it with me always, but none of them contain Cruise's Frank T. J. Mackey--to reiterate, it's acting we see, and therefore easier to ("quietly") judge. In the Olivier tradition, one might argue. But his foul-mouthed bravado stirred only the twelve-year-old boy inside me who still giggles when he hears slang terms for the female anatomy. (If we're rewarding Mackey's dialogue, then Anderson should pick up the award for his intermittently acerbic screenplay instead.)

Michael Clarke Duncan moved me to tears in The Green Mile, especially when he said, "And that's how it's done, all over de world, people killin' each other with deir love." I'm a sucker for the gentle giant stereotype, racially suspect though it may be here, and Duncan embodies the best of both worlds. But I ruined all chance of loving The Green Mile by reading Stephen King's six-part novel beforehand, which is superior in every way despite the faithfulness of Frank Darabont's adaptation. (The differences between the book and the movie are subtextual.) And Duncan, for all his appeal, could not live up to the John Coffey of my imagination.

I'd vote for Haley Joel Osment, who delivered the most authentic, most unself-conscious performance of this group. He's also the only co-star to have chemistry with Bruce Willis since Cybill Shepherd. Heck, he should get it as compensation for the burden of having complete strangers approach him daily asking him to recite, "I see dead people."-Bill

Annually, the easiest bet: the most conventionally pretty nominee triumphs 50% of the time. Don't believe me? Try this on for size:

1992: Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny1995: Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite1996: Juliette Binoche, The English Patient1997: Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential

If I had a ballot in front of me, the decision to go with Keener or Sevigny could prove excruciating, because you see, they are equally excellent in their tricky roles. Sevigny is Boys Don't Cry's beating heart; she appears even more capable than Swank of filling in the details where none are provided. (In her brief career, Sevigny has also elevated Kids and Gummo beyond exploitation status.) I'm giving Keener the slight edge because she made me laugh uncontrollably and consistently as Being John Malkovich's acidic, bisexual schemer. I've admired Ms. Keener's work for almost ten years now and this is the very best of it. -Bill