ANALYSIS: ACADEMY CLEARS HURDLES, STILL FALLS SHORT WITH NOMINATIONS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Nominations for the 73rd annual Academy Awards represent the Oscar voters' split tendency to think progressively while clinging to retrograde tastes.

Most laudable is the recognition that film is indeed an international art form. The unprecedented 10 nominations for the Mandarin-language ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' - the second-highest total in the whole race - was accompanied by a best picture nomination for ``Traffic,'' a third of which is spoken in Spanish, and a supporting actor nod for that section's main player, Benicio Del Toro.

And even though they performed in English in, respectively, ``Before Night Falls'' and ``Chocolat,'' Spain's Javier Bardem and France's Juliette Binoche also bring a nice, beyond-borders element to the lead acting categories.

Also in the cool column is the academy's long-overdue acknowledgment of the nearly half-century-old auteur theory, the critical touchstone by which a movie's ultimate quality is attributed to its director.

Best picture nominations for ``Erin Brockovich'' and ``Traffic'' madeSteven Soderbergh the first director to garner two nominations in the same year since Michael Curtiz did it in 1938. For an organization that has failed to give directing Oscars to Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese, this can be viewed as progress.

There are a number of fine acting nominations, too.

Besides the aforementioned Bardem and Del Toro, we've got the surprise inclusion of Ed Harris' ferociously physical portrait of the artist ``Pollock,'' Geoffrey Rush's irrepressible De Sade in ``Quills,'' Ellen Burstyn's one-woman dementia derby from ``Requiem for a Dream,'' Laura Linney's lived-it-all ``You Can Count on Me'' everywoman, Willem Dafoe's ultimate undead act for ``Shadow of the Vampire,'' Joaquin Phoenix's lonely island of live-wire wit in ``Gladiator'' and Frances McDormand's obnoxiously concerned ``Almost Famous'' mom.

Even the superstar choices, Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, did some of their most interesting work ever in ``Brockovich'' and ``Cast Away.'' And while complaints about overlooking Michael Douglas' thoughtful turn in ``Wonder Boys'' are certainly justified, Oscars are about knee-jerk impressions as much as they are about artistic merit, so let's face it: This guy has had a good enough year already.

On a final positive note, the academy looks closer to hip than it probably ever has by nominating both a Bob Dylan and a Bjork song. If the organization were truly on the cultural ball, though, the Icelandic screamer's shattering ``Dancer in the Dark'' performance would occupy the best actress slot now taken up by Binoche's smiley face confectioneering.

Which brings us to the worrisome aspect of this year's best picture nominees.

Basically, they're all fundamentally fake, either outright fantasies or, in the case of the two Soderberghs, movies that place entertainment value ahead of probing their realistic stories' more difficult truths. For an instructive comparison, check out the depth and believability of the behavior in Soderbergh's first feature, ``sex, lies, and videotape.''

The two biggest nomination-getters, ``Gladiator'' and ``Crouching Tiger,'' are fundamentally escapist action movies gussied up with state-of- the-art digital effects. Sure, Ridley Scott's 12-nomination front-runner is at core a ``Death Wish''-grade revenge story done big and pretentious while Ang Lee's elegant martial arts extravaganza has universally astute things to say about the human condition between eye-poppingly impossible action sequences. But they're both still very much about swinging swords.

As for fifth wheel ``Chocolat,'' well, like its title indicates, whatever life lessons the film imparts are candy-coated in a scenario chunky with magical truffles and invisible kangaroos. I guess the best that can be said about the academy's sweet tooth for easily digestible sentiment is that it didn't also give a best picture nod to the equally sugary ``Billy Elliot.''

In a year when ``You Can Count On Me,'' ``Almost Famous,'' ``Before Night Falls,'' ``Quills,'' ``George Washington'' and, yes, ``Wonder Boys'' honestly illuminated the complex act of living in this world, you'd think that the best picture selectors could have gone for at least one true thing.