So they announced the nominations for the Academy Awards last week. A bunch of independent, art films who nobody has bothered to see except for Jerry Maguire. These are the five best films of 1996, according to the Academy, and they represent all that we, as a movie-going audience and me especially as a movie critic should aspire to see.

I haven't seen most of 'em.

As a critically-acclaimed movie critic (Hey, I'm a critic, I acclaim myself, hence critically-acclaimed), it is my duty to see the best that the motion picture industry has to offer. It is my duty to see these much-heralded works of art.

So I saw Scream.

Young boys and girls getting sliced up by a psychopathic killer.

Cool.

Scream is the movie that has caught the industry in a headlock, given it a virtual noogie and made it take another look at Horror films. How does a Horror film, a genre which generally makes up to 50% of its money in the first week, spawn a movie that opens at $6 million, grow each week for over a month, even as it loses theaters, and have a current running total of about $80 Mil? How?

I'll tell you.

First the script is brilliant. It's more than a Scare-fest, it's an intelligent mystery. Who's the killer? Do you know? Did you know? I didn't. But more than that, this is a parody of all Horror films ever made. No, parody is not right, homage is better. This movie spells out the rules of the Horror genre and yet still plays with itself, taunting you left and right, breaking one rule, holding fast to the next. This is the Horror movie if you and your friends were in a Horror movie.

Old School Horror:

"Oh my God! There's a deranged killer stalking us!"

"Let's split up and blindly stumble into dark rooms."

New School Horror:

"Oh my God! There's a deranged killer stalking us!"

"Let's gather in a large crowd and leave all the lights on."

You see the difference?

Scream is totally frightening because the main characters AREN'T stupid. They do everything right and yet STILL get in trouble.

Oh yeah, let me get one thing straight. I don't like scary films. I don't go them. I'm a wimp. Sue me.

But the word of mouth was too good, the story too wonderful and box-office receipts more than you could possibly hope for. 1996 produced a lot of huge successes, and Hollywood will create a number of "throw the script to the wind and plug in the Special Effects" movies to reap the rewards of Twister and ID4, but perhaps the best thing that could have ever happened to the industry this year was Scream. A low-budget, no real stars, no special effects, brilliantly written, exciting, funny, marvelously paced film that beat all the odds to pull in huge amounts of cash. Scream is this year's Babe. Except this time, Farmer Hoggit eats the pig. And the duck. And one of the dogs and probably most of the singing mice.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to run out to see the next cool Horror film. It'll probably suck. Hollywood'll get the wrong idea and think we like all the blood and scary masks and just give us a gore-fest. That's not what we want. We want an intelligent murder-mystery/comic satire/slasher pic. And we ain't talking Striptease. That'd be a totally stupid child-custody-case/wanna-be funny/flasher pic. Big difference.

I give Scream 4 1/5 Babylons. This is one entertaining movie, and it deserves all the praise it can get. I mean it sure ain't gonna get any from the Academy.

Editor's Note:

Yeah, yeah very funny. He told us he was going to see one of them Oscar pics. He lied. Dork. Doesn't he know I have deadlines and stuff? He has to see all of them before he can accurately put out his big Oscar Special! The people have spoken and they have said, in one unwavering voice, "This year see all of them and don't skip one just because it's a total chick film!"

He never saw Sense and Sensibility. Almost put us out of a job.

Damn.

Anybody know anything about Secrets and Lies?