We Know Who Actually Won; Let’S Decide Who Should Have Won

This is the week that you video maniacs get to judge for yourself the validity of Oscar.

Did Jack Nicholson deserve to be named Best Actor over Robert Duvall, Peter Fonda, Dustin Hoffman and Matt Damon? Did Helen Hunt deserve her statuette over Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Christie, Judi Dench and Kate Winslet?

And what about poor Greg Kinnear?

Yes, “As Good As It Gets” - a title that elicited almost as many humorous comments as the forthcoming “Hope Floats” - is out on video this week (see capsule review below). So it’s time for last judgments about Hollywood’s 1998 fiesta of self-congratulation.

We all know that Nicholson and Hunt won the Oscar. We all know that Nicholson, at least, was the odds-on favorite. What we can’t say is if either of them deserved it.

So here’s what we’ll do. After watching the movie again, or for the first time, send us your opinion. Who deserved to win the Oscar in all four acting categories, who didn’t and why?

You can send your answer in by regular mail (Oscars Reconsider, c/o Dan Webster, PO Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210), by e-mail (danw@spokesman.com) or by phone mail (459-5483 after 6 p.m.).

Make sure to include a name and a phone number, for identification purposes. If you don’t want your name used, just say so. I’ll incorporate the results in a forthcoming column.

Fresh from the toaster

The call for Deanna Oliver came some three years ago. Disney was going to make a sequel to the 1987 animated film “The Brave Little Toaster,” and did she want to reprise her title role?

The answer was obvious, and now “The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars” is available on video. In fact, it went straight to video.

“The first one was so popular, so why not make a sequel?” said Oliver, the Rogers High School graduate (class of 1972), during a recent phone interview.

Many of the original voices are back, including Oliver, Tim Stack as Lampy and deep-voiced Thurl Ravenscroft as Kirby. Jon Lovitz sound-alike Roger Kabler took over the role of Radio.

Newcomers include Farrah Fawcett, Carol Channing, Wayne Knight, Alan King, Fyvush Finkel, Brian Dole Murray and DeForest Kelley.

Oliver, whose resume is growing as a screenwriter (“Casper,” “My Favorite Martian”), both acts and sings in the film. But she doesn’t even know what was left in and what ended up on the cutting-room floor.

“I haven’t seen it,” she said. “I keep saying, ‘Send me a copy.”’

The week’s major releases:

As Good As It Gets

**-1/2< Jack Nicholson plays an acid-tongued novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder who has a love-hate (mostly the latter) relationship with the world. His only connection to normalcy is a troubled waitress (Helen Hunt), who indulges his tantrums and, as a consequence, becomes involved with him as, for a variety of reasons (most of them selfish), he tries to help out his gay neighbor (Greg Kinnear). “As Good As It Gets” occasionally demonstrates clever, sharp-witted dialogue. And Nicholson’s character, for the most part, gets laughs even as he refuses to soften his stance (throwing out insults, tossing cute doggies down garbage chutes, etc.). In fact, the acting between the three principals is equally good. The problem is sloppy camera work, editing and a storyline that really has nowhere to go. Can these people end up happy? Not likely. And Brooks just isn’t brave enough of a filmmaker to admit that. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for “Broadcast News.” Nicholson and Hunt won acting Oscars. Rated PG-13

Starship Troopers

**-1/2

Based on Robert Heinlein’s 1959 science-fiction novel, this Paul Verhoeven (“Total Recall,” “Basic Instinct”) film is modern, sci-fi filmmaking at its most frenetic. Much of it is even enjoyable, in a mindless, hormone-laden, adolescent kind of way that prefers thrills over thought. That’s particularly true of the first half, which boasts a comic subtext that invites us to laugh at the bombastic sense of militarism that, as I recall, was also in Heinlein’s book. But then Verhoeven oversteps himself, forgets the humor and makes his film into the very kind of hate message that he seems to be trying to satirize - one that is racist, sexist, classist and, worst of all, neo-fascist. Is it any coincidence that the officers march around in uniforms resembling those worn by Hitler’s SS? “Starship Troopers” is one of those well-directed kind of “fun” films that appeals to the very worst in the audience it hopes to attract. Somewhere, Leni Reifenstahl is laughing. Rated R

An American Werewolf In Paris

**

Working from a concept dreamed up by John Landis in 1981 (“American Werewolf in London”), co-screenwriter and director Anthony Waller (“Mute Witness”) takes the werewolf story to France and peoples it with the likes of Tom Everett Scott (“That Thing You Do”) and Julie Delpy (“Before Sunrise”). The problem? As bad as he is as a director, John Landis (“Animal House”) at least has a sense of humor; his original film is a classic of sorts. Waller follows Landis’ formula: A young guy (Scott) comes to a foreign city (Paris), meets young beauty (Delpy) only to find himself struck by the werewolf curse. But he throws away Landis’ clever asides (Griffin Dunne as the buddy who wouldn’t die was a highlight of the original), and he opts for a feel-good ending. This film is a slight entertainment, thanks to the freshness of its principle actors, but the emphasis is on slight. Rated R