By Lubna Abdel-Aziz No amount of glimmer or glamour, gloss or glaze, could add the desired sparkle to this year's Academy Awards. Our annual rendez-vous with Oscar, usually brimming over with excitement and anticipation fell painfully flat Sunday night (February 24th). The serious movie buff cares little about the red carpet meat - parade of flimsy fashion and insipid remarks. Film is the star attraction -- the evaluation of the Academy's nominees and ultimate winners in all categories. With a dizzy thrill of perturbation and passion we await the sound of those famous words "And the Oscar goes to......." No other award in filmdom can come even close to Oscar's clout, but not his year. The reason is simple. Most of the films have not been widely seen, stirred no one's imagination, captured no hearts, created no admirers, sent no message. Why therefore should we care if honour is bestowed upon them, even if it is by Oscar himself? We are moved only by what we are familiar with. The unknown is uninteresting to us, and so it was with this year's choices. Too bad - since this year the Academy reached a landmark, celebrating 80 years of its existence, marked by a lacklustre birthday bash, at least for us viewers who were less in number than any previous year in history. Viewing was down 20% from last year, and last year was down 14% from the year before. Nonetheless, this is still Oscar, the oldest, richest, and most influential film award, and like it or not, it gets its due in the media as we all fall in line. A promise made and a promise kept, we are confused and disillusioned when the promise is broken, as it was this year. If the Best Picture category was a letdown, surely star studded Hollywood will compensate with a string of the world's most glamorous creatures. Not this year. All the nominees are good working actors, fully capable of splendid performances, but here's the catch. To be capable of a splendid performance shouldn't you first be cast in a splendid film! An Oscar performance should grab your heart and never let go, until it is etched permanently in your psyche, to make you laugh, cry, chill or thrill, again and again. It has been said that Oscar may be America's biggest export, and one must admit that Hollywoodians are a generous lot, considering that all the major awards in the actor's categories went to Europeans who never failed to intimidate Hollywood. Daniel Day Lewis well deserves his Oscar; in fact he deserves an Oscar for every one of his performances. One of the most brilliant actors of our generation and also one of the most intelligent, he is a rare breed on the Hollywood scene. His highly cerebral approach to his work, allows him to choose worthy projects, and his intense focus and total immersion in his roles, gives him that certain edge which singles him out, time and again. With his approach and dedication he is incapable of a bad performance. Lewis received his second Oscar last week. His first was for his role as the cerebral palsy stricken artist Christy Brown, in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989). Born in London in 1957 to Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, and actress Jill Balcon, whose father Sir Michael Balcon once headed the Ealing Studios, his early interest in acting encouraged him to drop out of school and devote his time to film and theatre. Recipient of many awards, Lewis' screen appearances have been sporadic of late. His comeback as the Butcher in Scorsese's Gangs of New York however, blew audiences away. Many critics believed he deserved the Oscar for that powerful performance. The Academy made it up to him this year for his portrayal of the madly ambitious Daniel Plainview in There Will be Blood. He garnered all the major awards, but a second Oscar is the cherry on the pie. One was hoping that the Academy members would be wise enough to see through the fallibility of other juries, and not to be pulled by the horn like sheep going to slaughter. But they too fell for the hype of confusing Miss Marion Cotillard for the fabulously poignant Edith Piaf, and they handed the French actress their coveted gold. Best Supporting Actress went to yet another Brit Tilda Swinten, who is very, very tall, very, very Scottish, with red, red hair, and green, green eyes. She looks more like a creature from fairyland. The Academy was impressed with her role in Michael Clayton. Best Supporting Actor honours went to Spain's very talented Javier Bardem portraying a 'freaky killer with a bad haircut' in the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, which also won the biggest prize of the night - Best Picture. The quirky Coen Brothers picked their subject based on Cormack McCarthy's masterpiece novel by the same name. The story takes place in a small Texas border town in 1980. Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee-Jones) has ruled the land for years without the use of a gun until a new brand of reckless lawlessness takes over his town. If it sounds vaguely familiar the Coen brothers won their first Oscar for another similar ambiance, Fargo. One of their most striking attributes is the masterly use of silence in order to create an almost unbearable level of tension. There Will be Blood is considered by some critics, not only as their best work, but an endeavour of filmmaking at its finest. Despite that, the film has not received wide showing out of the US; it still needs to be discovered by most of us. Watched by tens of millions worldwide, Oscar racks a good deal of publicity and many stand to profit from Hollywood's circus. Studios and production companies during Oscar season, run a vigorous and costly campaign for a nomination and a win. Much is at stake, for not only does an Oscar winner join an exclusive club, but is likely to get richer. One critic once called the Oscars "a good deal of rubbish." We strongly disagree, Oscar remains the greatest award that filmdom has to offer. There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous Napoleon I (1769-1821)
