Sex, Drugs and Narcissism

Illustration by Bob AulMovies may be a dead art form, but awards for overindulged actors? Those'll live forever. That's why God created the Calleys—Orange County's cherished annual awards for outstanding achievement in motion-picture depravity, aberration and decadence.

As a self-appointed film authority, I have carefully reviewed this year's nominations with help from the hyperactively opinionated personal-injury attorney Jan Rainbird and ex-Balboa Cinema projectionist Mike Kaspar.

Now in its fifth glorious year, ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration: the Nathan Callahan Motion Picture Awards.

[Clap, clap, clap. . .]

Cutthroat business and murder are interchangeable in this conspicuous-consumption classic based on Bret Easton Ellis' infamous 1991 novel. Reiff —executive editor of the Orange County Business Journal who, like Patrick Bateman (American Psycho's serial killer), sets his moral compass by free-market standards—did not attend the presentation . . . but sent his business card.

Ed Harris, Pollock

As alcoholic-asshole, abstract-expressionist, drip-artist Jackson Pollock, Harris flips over dinner tables, bangs out Gene Krupa on the family china and pees in the fireplace. What delightful company.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Traffic

We've heard of cocaine containers that resemble yams and stuffing ganja into pineapple cans, but Zeta-Jones hides the dope best in Traffic. One minute, she's an innocent caught in the drug trade; in the next scene, she's trying to deal a planeload of blow manufactured into tasteless, odorless, undetectable, hard-plastic toy clowns.

Kevin Costner, Thirteen Days

Costner's marketing degree from Cal State Fullerton didn't help him develop a believable Boston accent for this Kennedy Cuban Missile Crisis flick. Where did you pick up this West Coast brogue, Kevin? The Titan locker room?

"And for Best Actor, the Oscar goes to . . . Tom Hanks, Cast Away"

Hanks has already won two Best Actor Oscars for Forrest Gump and Philadelphia. But simply yelling, "I have created fire!" and undergoing a physical transformation (which most Academy members confuse with good acting) does not qualify him for an unprecedented third—the first in history. If he does win, De Niro, Nicholson and Brando ought to simultaneously knock the snot out of him.

Director David McNally's previous work included Budweiser's "Lobster" TV commercial—and it shows. Coyote Uglyis the supreme cock-tease, naked-tummy, teen titillation for the postpubescent, inflatable-chair, whassup crowd.

"If it's going to be, it's up to me." "Tough times never last, but tough people do." So sayeth the Crystal Cathedral's Reverend Robert H. Schuller. But Crouching Tiger gives the Rev a run for his banality. "A faithful heart makes wishes come true." "Sharpness is a state of mind." "Everything has an opposite." I'm feeling queasy. Pass the ginseng.

Trite, melodramatic and dull as dirt, Mel Gibson's soap-opera history lesson makes it hard to honor our forefathers.

Martin Sheen

Sheen was the honorary chairman of California's No on Proposition 36 campaign, leading the Drug War cranks who claimed that hard time is the best rehabilitation for addicts. About jailing his addicted son Charlie, the eloquent Sheen said, "I risked his hating me forever and put his ass away." Even The Orange County Register and Republican Senatorial candidate Tom Campbell had the good sense to snub Sheen and back 36. Fortunately, rehab won.

Karen Allen, The Perfect Storm

It was nice seeing Allen working again, but she should consider some SPF 15. You could upholster a booth with her hide.

John Pavlik

"We're not here to create a show that panders to our celebrity-driven culture," said Pavlik, a spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a Feb. 9 Wall Street Journal interview. That makes it official: the Academy has no idea what it's doing.

Irvine Mayor Christina Shea will forever be remembered for ignorantly leaving with a fellow council member a phone message that questioned the integrity of her own Irvine Police Department. The message was forwarded to the press, and the rest is local, bad political history. Perhaps she got her dumb idea from Croupier, whose lead character leaves a voice mail describing his upcoming crime. He's busted and run out of town. We can only hope the same fate is in store for Christina.

Pardon us for asking, but isn't the payoff to this movie whether Tom Hanks makes it off the island? And if it's not, shouldn't it be? Yet the Cast Away trailer walks us through the whole story in a couple of minutes, from snout to vent.

We pity the fool who saw this movie.

Björk, Dancer in the Dark

Rumor has it that the working title for this splendidly depressing musical was Dead Björk Walking.

If the '60s were as unfunny, stilted and overearnest as this biopic, the FBI would have found that Abbie Hoffman actually did put his penis in Spiro Agnew's daughter. Fortunately, they weren't and he didn't.