4th Annual Alternative Academy Awards

>> The envelope, please...

The results of the Mirror's fourth annual Alternative Academy Awards race are in

This year's big Oscar-related news? Forget those lost ballots. Or the stolen statuettes. Or even the Wall Street Journal's printing of the first Academy exit-poll results for Oscar voting (which threaten to ruin any of this Sunday's surprises). The real buzz this year has surrounded our fourth annual Alternative Academy Awards race. And now, after a top secret ballot-collecting process, done under the strictest confines of confidentiality carefully overseen by qualified Mirror staff, here are the results of our own captivating contest to choose who the year's overlooked, overhyped and overexposed were!

1. Most overlooked performance

This one wasn't too hard to predict: though some contend Carrey's Man on the Moon performance favoured mere description over dimension, the sheer energy with which he brought Andy Kaufman to the big screen made many of our readers feel he qualified for something. Kidman and Cusack also scored neck-and-neck for their unthanked roles in two of the year's quirkier films.

30% Jim Carrey, Man on the Moon

23% Nicole Kidman, Eyes Wide Shut

20% John Cusack, Being John Malkovich

18% Sarah Polley, Go

5% Terence Stamp, The Limey

3% Matthew Broderick, Election

2. Movie most overlooked by the Academy

One can almost hear the sobs of Fight Club director David Fincher. His film was hyped so heavily by Fox, bolstered by an apparently unbeatable cast (Ed Norton, Meat Loaf, Helena Bonham Carter and the mighty Brad Pitt) and dubbed a prophetic film by some fawning critics. But then there were the detractors, who savaged the film--and, of course, the Academy, who, come nomination time, appeared not to know what the fight was all about.

31% Fight Club

28% Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

19% The Blair Witch Project

11% Dogma

9% American Movie

3. Best soundtrack

This can hardly be considered a surprise, seeing as Wim Wenders' documentary was inspired by a Grammy-winning album of the same name. Full of fantastic disco ditties, readers felt the Summer of Sam soundtrack a worthy runner up--and we couldn't agree more.

45% The Buena Vista Social Club

21% Summer of Sam

19% Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

11% Detroit Rock City

4% Bringing Out the Dead

4. Best male bod

A well-reasoned call, we think. Brad rules the day and with good reason. But our readers appear to have taken our joke candidate, Fat Bastard, a tad too seriously. Have so few of our readers caught Magnolia as to have missed Tom Cruise's striptease and handstand, wearing nothing but his undies? Get thee to the cinema!

27% Brad Pitt, Fight Club

21% Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley

20% Fat Bastard, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

14% Tom Cruise, Magnolia

10% Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

8% Iron Giant, Iron Giant

5. Best female bod

Not a lot of surprises, though some of our contestants might scream unfair costume advantage for Zeta-Jones, who got to wear an outfit so tight in this jewel-heist movie that it often appeared to be sprayed on. The boyish look appears to be on the outs, seeing as Swank tanked in this category.

37% Catherine Zeta-Jones, Entrapment

17% Nicole Kidman, Eyes Wide Shut

13% Mina Suvari, American Beauty

12% Mira Sorvino, Summer of Sam

12% Denise Richards, The World Is Not Enough

9% Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

6. Worst performance

Our readers have good taste in bad taste: Will Smith's wisecracking, music-video-tied-in performances have become as tired as all those special effects. And Schwarzenegger, who appeared dazed as he went through the motions for End of Days, seemed a ghost of his former action-hero self.

37% Will Smith, Wild Wild West

24% Arnold Schwarzenegger, End of Days

16% Robin Williams in anything

9% Pierce Brosnan, The World Is Not Enough

8% Sharon Stone, The Muse

6% Jodie Foster, Anna and the King

7. Most overhyped and/or overrated movie

George Lucas, are you reading? There's bad news for our ballot stuffers: sadly, sequels are planned for both Menace and Blair Witch. Batten down the hatches for more Jar Jar and jarring camera movement.

43% Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

35% The Blair Witch Project

6% The Sixth Sense

6% The Green Mile

5% The Cider House Rules

4% American Beauty

8. The movie that never should have happened

What had to be one of the strangest movies of the year was also considered, quite resoundingly, one of the very worst. The film included what must be the most embarrassing moment in Dom DeLuise's career, as he's hypnotized to stuff his face with a sandwich while turning around and around on the spot, as the baby geniuses look on and laugh. Now that's comedy!

33% Baby Geniuses

27% Runaway Bride

16% Big Daddy

15% 200 Cigarettes

9% Eyes Wide Shut

9. Worst animated or computer-generated character

George Lucas, are you still reading? Let dear Jar Jar die a painful, horrible death in the next entry. Either that, or just pretend the entire character was a bad dream, a la Dallas. Fans' obvious hatred of the character runs so high, we bet they'll be willing to suspend their disbelief.

38% Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

24% Pikachu, The Pokemon Movie

16% The Bats, Bats

14% Keanu Reeves, The Matrix

8% Stuart Little, Stuart Little

10. Most obnoxious teen movie

There's no one front runner here, implying that the entire genre of movie is getting on all of our readers' collective nerves. Memo to Hollywood: don't cut back on younger characters in movies, just give them something to work with.

22% American Pie

19% Cruel Intentions

18% She's All That

16% Never Been Kissed

13% Ten Things I Hate About You

12% Jawbreaker

And now for the real Oscars...

Here are what our readers said about the real thing. May the force be with you on Sunday night, and may these results help you win the party pool for the actual Academy Awards...

Best Picture: American Beauty, 75%; The Sixth Sense, 9%; The Green Mile, 6%; The Insider, 5%; The Cider House Rules, 4%. Best Actor: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty, 50%; Denzel Washington, The Hurricane, 26%; Russell Crowe, The Insider, 12%; Sean Penn, Sweet and Lowdown, 8%; Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story, 4%. Best Actress: Annette Bening, American Beauty, 39%; Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry, 38%; Julianne Moore, The End of the Affair, 14%; Meryl Streep, Music of the Heart, 7%; Janet McTeer, Tumbleweeds, 2%. Best Supporting Actor: Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense, 31%; Tom Cruise, Magnolia, 28%; Michael Caine, The Cider House Rules, 16%; Michael Clarke Duncan, The Green Mile, 13%; Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley, 12%. Best Supporting Actress: Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted, 51%; Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich, 18%; Chloe Sevigny, Boys Don't Cry, 16%; Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense, 8%; Samantha Morton, Sweet and Lowdown, 7%. Best Director: Sam Mendes, American Beauty, 57%; Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich, 16%; Michael Mann, The Insider, 12%; M. Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense, 10%; Lasse Hallstrom, The Cider House Rules, 5%. :

Commentary by Matthew Hays. Results compiled by Gemma Wilson. Winners of this year's contest will be announced next week