CAN'T WE JUST... ...SKIP THE OSCARS?

Byline: Bob Strauss Staff Writer

Since 2005 was not a great year for movies, I'm just not jazzed enough to make my usual obsessive ``If I Ran the Oscars'' list. Instead, I'll focus on 10 races I can at least feel a little excited about, and try to tell you why (or, in some cases, why not). I promise to act more enthusiastic next year - if 2006 has better movies.

BEST ACTOR

Either one of the two guys who will win the academy's derby, ``Capote's'' wickedly untrustworthy Philip Seymour Hoffman or ``Brokeback Mountain's'' emotionally constricted Heath Ledger, is A-OK in my book. Ledger's co-star Jake Gyllenhaal is being positioned for the supporting actor race - he's got at least as big a role in ``Brokeback'' as already-won-it best actress candidate Reese Witherspoon does in ``Walk the Line'' - but that kind of electioneering is just one of 1,000 reasons why the Oscars aren't a serious gauge of quality. Regardless, Gyllenhaal was better as a wigged-out Marine in ``Jarhead'' than as rodeo Romeo anyway; better enough to deserve a spot in my final five. Terrence Howard may or may not get academy recognition for his politically incorrect but moltenly mesmerizing pimp with rap star aspirations in ``Hustle & Flow''; such a tough job, making a fundamentally despicable character so beguiling, done so well you wanted to run out and buy the guy's record. The lack of any campaign for ``Separate Lies'' means Tom Wilkinson's profoundly moving portrait of a wealthy British prig humbled and humanized by betrayal probably didn't make a blip on most academy voters' radar. Reason 1,001 ...

BEST ACTRESS

Don't believe the hype that there were so few good women's roles that this already-won-by-Reese Witherspoon race has to be padded out with half-baked characters played by Judi Dench, Felicity Huffman or Charlize Theron in lousy movies. Which isn't to say that the Already Won One doesn't deserve her June Carter statuette. But it would at least look like a real competition if the other nominees are Keira Knightley (thoroughly natural in the potentially stiff ``Pride & Prejudice''), Embeth Davidtz (too smart for her ``Junebug'' in-laws' guest room), Joan Allen (``The Upside of Anger's'' magnificent meanie) and Rachel McAdams (you try carrying half a movie stuck in the same seat, as she did in ``Red Eye,'' and still convince us you're scared out of your gourd; ain't easy).

SUPPORTING ACTOR

William Hurt's ironic, crazy mob boss spiel was the only thing about ``A History of Violence'' that felt alive rather than theoretical - that didn't involve sex or pain, anyway. Frank Langella's network boss was the only character in ``Good Night, and Good Luck'' who had more than one dimension. Michael Lonsdale's information merchant may not have been ``Munich's'' most believable character, but the French actor delivered the film's key thematic monologues with a worldly finesse that was both chilling and reassuring. Under acres of makeup, but mostly through the tender violence of his performance, Mickey Rourke in ``Sin City'' made us forget he was Mickey Rourke for a while. And if you have to put an almost-lead in the supporting field, Borje Ahlstedt's anguished father-son-widower-loser-user from ``Saraband'' is the strongest candidate around.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Always love Catherine Keener; of her four this year, I think the work in ``The Ballad of Jack and Rose'' outshone ``Capote,'' the one the academy is most likely to nominate. Learning to love Michelle Williams, though, I must admit that ``Brokeback's'' other better half, Anne Hathaway, did more for us straight males in the audience (but that was a different kind of performance than what we're discussing here). Usually love Diane Keaton, and her formidable mom in ``The Family Stone'' did nothing to diminish that, despite the gratuitous cancer turn. And I'd marry ``Wedding Crashers' '' five-alarm virgin clinger Isla Fisher in a minute. If she asked. None of these really cranked it up to the Amy Adams level, though. ``Junebug's'' pregnant Southern chatterbox was a figure you couldn't help make fun of, always had fun with and who ultimately, poignantly, commanded your respect.

DIRECTOR

To Ang Lee (``Brokeback Mountain''), for maintaining pitch-perfect tone, character integrity and specificity of setting on a project that would have most other directors freaking out five ways from Sunday. To Shane Black (``Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang''), for investing all the visual wit, storytelling sophistication and postmodern Hollywood smarts into his hard-boiled directing debut that went missing from the dumb action movies he used to write. To Joe Wright (``Pride & Prejudice''), another first-time feature maker, who from his very first shot convinced us that Jane Austen could still be a living, breathing entity instead of an effete literary display. To Christopher Nolan (``Batman Begins''), for understanding everything that's genuinely cool about the greatest comic-book character of all time. And insisting, for once, that it all be put on the screen. To Steven Spielberg (``Munich'') for the necessary, morally troubling discourse and, at last, refusing to give happy endings to stories that can't support them.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

``Junebug'' because it's so culturally perceptive. ``Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang'' because it's so darn clever. ``Wedding Crashers'' because it's so funny. ``The Squid and the Whale'' because if you've got to hate your parents, the least you can do is write about it with devastating specificity. ``The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'' because it doesn't get any weirder than this.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

``Brokeback Mountain'' - exquisitely extrapolated from an overrated short story. ``Munich'' - the author of the questionable ``nonfiction'' source doesn't like the script, probably because he didn't catch all the implications of his story and the screenwriters did. ``Capote'' - illuminated the real man and the monster behind the mannered pose. ``Pride & Prejudice'' - I was totally into it and I'm a guy; 'nuff said. ``Jarhead''- no heroics, no political stance, just the fundamental point that war is crazy. That people didn't like it is less a criticism of this rigorously focused story than of a culture so wedded to dramatic conventions that it can't appreciate sharp new viewpoints.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

The academy's ultra-limiting rules about what can be considered in this category make up a few hundred of the 1,000 reasons why we shouldn't take the Oscars seriously. Frankly, I don't know if any of last year's best foreign releases - Ingmar Bergman's ``Saraband,'' Wong Kar-Wai's ``2046,'' the Austro-Franco ``Cache,'' the Germano-Turkish ``Head-On,'' the (Iraqi? Iranian? Kurdish?) ``Turtles Can Fly'' - actually qualify for a naked swordsman. But they definitely make the cut for anyone who truly loves cinema.

ANIMATED FEATURE

Can't this category be canceled in a year when the only cartoon that didn't suck was that overpraised comedy about much-too-twee English twits and their mouthless dogs - ``Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit''? I know your kids liked other uninspired junk, but shouldn't an arbiter of taste, even one as suspect as the academy, have higher standards?

BEST PICTURE

This was the toughest category for me to fill out. Like most of the awards-giving entities, I recognize ``Brokeback Mountain'' as the most complete and credible emotional statement of a mediocre movie year. ``Junebug,'' which cut a few corners in that department, isn't far behind it. And even though it didn't make my top-10 list, I've got to hand this to ``Munich'': The more detractors complain about what they perceive as its naive worldview, the better it reflects their own moral myopia right back at them. And that's a great thing. But what of the last two spots? Except for Hoffman's performance, ``Capote'' didn't do much for me while I was watching it; but I did end up thinking about it for a week or two afterward, so ... I guess. ``Pride & Prejudice'' delighted me from first shot to last, and I haven't thought a whit about it since, so ... I dunno, can't the Academy Awards be canceled in years when there's just not much worth wasting all that campaigning, promotional money, media hoopla, egomania and angst on? Guess I just answered my own question, didn't I?

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

11 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Oh my!

There are so many choices, so many opinions about the Oscar race...

Now our critics weigh in

(2 -- 4) no caption (Oscar statute)

Getty Images

(5) Hoffman

(6) Huffman

(7) Rourke

(8) Lee

(9) Adams

(10) `Wallace & Gromit'

(11) `Brokeback Mountain'