When I reviewed the nominations for the Academy Awards, I could not find many that pleased me. I used to view the Oscars as a means of determining excellence in the world of film. Now I feel that the Oscars have become a commercial spectacle and the awards are given unjustly.

Before I begin to criticize, I would like to list the Best Picture nominees: "Born On The Fourth Of July," "Driving Miss Daisy," "My Left Foot," "Dead Poets Society," and "Field Of Dreams." I am already sure that the winner will be either "Fourth Of July" or "Miss Daisy." I was stunned that "Field" and "Dead Poets" were even mentioned, because these are films opened before the summer. It is usually customary that the best picture is released in December. I am not insisting that this is a pre-requisite to win the award, but the Academy has gone against tradition. It seems the only reason these two films were nominated was because they did rather well at the box office (which everyone knows is the real meaning of a successful film). If this is true, which I believe it is, then the whole idea behind the Oscars has turned into nothing more than a financial prize.

The ceremony itself has become much more a show than an awards banquet. There are dozens of costly productions during the show which are intended to please the television viewer, who may not be tuning in just to see who wins. The day after the awards are received, people are talking more about what the stars wore than what Oscars were given.

I do admit that some decent nominations were made including Woody Allen for Best Director, and Tom Cruise for "Fourth Of July," but there were also lots of lousy nominations such as Peter Weir for Best Director. Although it is known that these undeserving nominations will not walk off with the Oscars, it is still a thrill and an honor to be nominated. I think that other movies should have been nominated in their place. My replacement films would be: "When Harry Met Sally ..." and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

The Oscars seem to have come to symbolize the materialistic world that we live in. I think Humphrey Bogart put it best when he said, "We'll always have Paris."