Recall the Article!

"Entertainment Weekly" ran a "special" story a few weeks ago titled "And the Oscar Should Have Gone To..." as part of its "Recall the Gold" project. Given it's mention on the cover (though you can only see the promo text if you can avert your eyes from the amiable YET INTENSE gaze of departing "CSI" guy William Peterson) and the fact that the mag has done this before, I expected it to be a big deal.

It's a fun idea: Ask a bunch of people to go back 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years ago and "re-vote" in the major Academy Awards categories. This kind of thing goes on all the time in the Internet, and it can lead to spirited discussion and heightened awareness of a wide range of films and performances. "EW" stuck to the nominees that were given, which limited the scope of the exercise, but they surveyed "Hollywood," that is, "agents, producers, directors, actors, and other film professionals." That slant should have given this project some oomph. Each year, when "EW" publishes the ballots of several anonymous Hollywood big shots, the resulting article is one of the most entertaining and insightful pieces you'll see in the magazine all year; the voters really share some unique opinions, and the story gives them adequate space to explain their choices.

I guess I wanted something similar here, but as John Belushi (not nominated for "Animal House" in 1978) would say, "But nooooooooooooooo!"

The whole piece devotes one page to each year of re-voting, and most of each page is taken up by big photos. There's usually a nice, big full-page ad flanking each year, too. There are no comments from the voters and little analysis of any kind. Only one result gets any kind of accompanying written context, and that's merely a few sentences.

Now, at first I saw this as just the latest indication of the recent editorial approach of "Entertainment Weekly," which can be summed up as, "More pictures, less of those pesky words." Sure, the Oscars aren't the most serious enterprise in the world, but still, this kind of concept merited a bit more substance.

When I read the article, though, I quickly discovered another possible reason for the flimsy presentation: Hollywood voted again, and not much changed!

OK, so Geoffrey Rush beats James Coburn this time. Whoopee. Take 5 years times 6 major categories, and you get 30 total awards. Of those 30 re-votes, only 6 1/2 resulted in a different winner--hardly the shocking turnaround suggested by the phrase "Recall the Vote!" (I count 6 1/2 because one re-vote, the 1983 Best Supporting Actress, ended in a tie, with real winner Linda Hunt for "The Year of Living Dangerously" now sharing the honor with Cher for "Silkwood.")

Oh, yes, "EW" also "empowered" its readers by letting them vote online and publishing the winners in teeny print below the results from the Insiders. Maybe here we'd see a fascianting disconnect between the insular Hollywood community and the devoted fans. Uh, no, we wouldn't. Out of 30 winners of the re-vote, the online readers disagreed with 3--not that the story bothered to point that out.

So the whole exercise seems pointless, doesn't it? The vote accomplished nothing, and perhaps because of that lack of change, the article added nothing, and all we ultimately get is another reminder that "Shakespeare in Love" shouldn't have beaten "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998.

And now I'm continuing the cycle of pointlessness by contributing little with this post. But at least it does give me the chance to rip on the "Lord of the Rings" movies by writing that they are overlong bores and that the original voters, the re-voters, and the EW.COM readers are all nuts for picking "Return of the King" over "Mystic River."

If just one key grip had said something like that in this article, it might have been worthwhile reading.