The Jeffies

It is that time of year again, when Hollywood will gather to pay obsequious honor to Jack Nicholson (from his throne in the front row) and snub Martin Scorsese; when members of the Academy will pretend to honor art for one night before calling their publicists to whine about their air time on Entertainment Tonight; when Americans gather in living rooms to watch a spectacle that only confirms (again!) how small moving pictures seem to have gotten. Ah yes, there's Oscar in the air.

Since the Academy almost always botch it, I hold a concurrent awards ceremony that is uninfluenced by crass commercialism or nepotism (or importance, but that's another matter): the Jeffies. It's my chance to right a few wrongs, at least on this here blog.

(Wrongs? How about Robert Zemeckis beating Woody Allen, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Robert Redford for Forrest Gump in 1994? Or Kevin Costner's win over Coppola, Frears, and Scorsese in 1990?)

It was an off year for movies and for my enjoyment of them. I saw fewer films this year than at any time since I was in grad school, mainly due to my essential boycott of movies that show in Regal Cinemas, which have a near monopoly in town. Still, I was selective and tried to catch the best-reviewed and managed to do pretty well on that score. So look out, I plan to forge ahead. Next stop, Jeffies 2007.