Columnist: Oscars contain usual glaring injustices The envelope, please ’Tis the season for critical conde scension. Time for Rex Reed to an nounce that his “big succulent peach of a movie” didn’t get so much as a wink from Oscar, then go on to rave endlessly about fashion crimes com mitted during Monday night’s Acad emy Awards ceremony. Time for every critic from Joe Bob Briggs to Andrew Sarris to tell why Oscar is irrelevant, passe, rigged, insignifi cant, incestuous, too square, too fash ionable, dull, athcorclical and just flat-out wrong. But even after they’ve maimed Oscar’s potency by issuing their own pedantic top-10 lists (always includ ing some nine-hour-plus “film essay” on the color blue) and donned rented tuxedos to host their own “If we picked the winners” TV shows, they will watch the proceedings. They will watch through the flatulence and back-stabbing, the groveling thank yous, and the sickening pomp and glitter. They will titter at the faux pas and bow their heads in quiet rever ence while Oscar trots out some 101 year-old extra from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” who will, complete with shakes and sporadic fits of narco lepsy, misremember American cinema’s golden age. They will see the thing out until the final Oscar nominated song is wclped out by Sonny Bono or Robert Goulet, and the last envelope — sealed what seems like decades ago by Price-Water house — is peeled open by some un nominated, coke-fried anti-celebrity. IThis year’s Oscars contain the same glaring aberrations of justice as any previous year. Deserving maver ick films like “Raising Arizona” and Vrvsj^ “River’s Edge” were ignored, but then only the kind of idealist who wants to play a street-corner shell game more than three times (“Just one more time, but lemme get my specs on for this one...”) would give them any chance to begin with. “Angel Heart” was monstrously neglected for the cinematography nomination, but that was a film for weirdos who’ve actu ally plodded through Goethe’s “Faust.” Tom Waits’ performance in “Ironweed” makes those in the run ning for Best Supporting Actor look like walk-ins at the Stanislavski Matchbook University and was the only really lively thing about an oth erwise morose cinematic meditation. Barry Levinson’s “Tin Men,” one of the finest American films of the decade, was ignored completely by the Hollywood glitterati. The Acad emy did, however, nominate the star of Levinson’s far-inferior “Good Morning, Vietnam,” Robin Wil liams, as Best Actor for, once more, playing himself. He did do it well, though. For Best Picture predictions, it’s best to think like the Academy. For most people who follow film relig iously, mind-melding with the Acad emy is a frightening thought. “The Last Emperor,” Bernardo Bertolucci’s staggering, geo-erotic epic, was too big to be ignored by the powers that be, but the director’s name is Bertolucci. Also, the stars arc, except for roles too trivial to mention, from faraway places with strange sounding names. The main exception, Peter O’Toole (what’s making an epic without Peter O’Toole?), is,one, from England, and two, “not one of us, if you know what I mean” (remember, we’re thinking like the Academy now). Unless this is one of those fluke years where everyone in the Acad emy went to Cannes over vacation, “The Last Emperor” won’t take an Oscar. “Moonstruck” is a fine film, but it’s a little too quirky for the Acad emy. There’s too much over-the-top acting (blamed on the moon, of course) and the whole affair’s a bit stagey for Oscar’s finicky tastes. When there are safer films like “Fatal Attraction” and “Broadcast News” to John Bruce/Daily Nebraskan fall for, who needs “Moonstruck?” “Broadcast News” is my pick for the Best Picture. It’s a picture-perfect contemporary screwball comedy, and there’s a Hollywood camaraderie feel to it (blessed for all time by an unan nounced cameo by Academy favorite Jack Nicholson) that should make it a cinch for the big statue. “Fatal Attraction” might take it simply by virtue of being the “picture everybody’s talking about,’’and if the Academy’s in this kind of populist mood, this yuppie/AIDS fable should grab every category in which it’s nominated. The Film itself is nothing but well-executed hooey, of course, but it got mentioned in Time and Newsweek outside the entertainment page, so it must be important. “Hope and Glory” is a strange 1 ittle film memoir by a director who’s not exactly Oscar-prone, John Boorman. Also, as far as Hollywood goes, Eng land is as far away as Tibet. We let the limeys in as brothers, but we still won’t let our Oscar marry one. I think we can safely say “Chariots of Fire” was just the Academy’s version of affirmative action. The quota is probably filled for the next decade or so. The next big guess, of course, is who will sing the five nominated Best Original Songs during the ceremony. Usually the duties of singing these usually pathetic ditties arc split be tween people you haven’t heard sing since you raided your father’s record collection for something romantic to put on the stereo that weekend in high school when your parents were away, and atrocious top-40 stars just as bad as the ones who originally performed the songs in the films. Perhaps the most sinful omission in this categoi7 is 1987’s obvious musical highlight — Annette Fu nicello and Fishbone together at last in “Back to the Beach” singing “Jamaica Ska.” And then Pearl Bailey and Huey Lewis and the News singing it at the ceremony? Where is the Academy’s sense of adventure? The nomination of the song “Cry Freedom” as the song from “Cry Freedom” destroyed an age-old dream of mine — seeing Barbara Mandrell sing Peter Gabriel’s “Biko.” The other tunes are really too undistinguished for anyone to care who sings them. Bob Seger’s “Shakedown” done by Andy Williams maybe ... What a night, what a night. ! 'Yo^ like mg/ |gj You like ~ , Dr. Gamal Badawi l-1 Professor of Religion at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Professor of management at Halifax University Canada, a prominent Muslim scholar, Author of many articles and pamphlets on various suh- _ jects on Islam, and producer * of Islamic Educat ional TV pro grams.