E-Mail This Article to a Friend Ring leader Effects lord it over acting in this year’s Oscars BY PETER KEOUGH

Let’s call it The Lord of the Things.

Much can be said about Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, but acting isn’t one of them. The Lord of the Rings is one of the biggest cinema spectacles and box-office moneymakers ever. It combines the allure of pure fantasy and entertainment with the appearance of literary prestige. It is an open-ended allegory that can be interpreted according to one’s political inclinations (in the case of the perennially liberal Academy, Sauron is Bush and Frodo is anyone who can beat Bush). Its payroll includes just about everyone in the film industry except actors.

The Return of the King should win for Best Picture, and Jackson should be named Best Director, though this may be more a cumulative achievement award for the trilogy than a declaration that King is better than its two antithetical rivals — Clint Eastwood’s densely psychological Mystic River and Sofia Coppola’s winsomely poetic Lost in Translation. And if the film were to have received an acting nomination, it surely would have gone to the CGI-enhanced Andy Serkis for Gollum. That might explain why the Screen Actors Guild gave its Best Actor prize to Johnny Depp for his frantic tour de force in the effects-laden Pirates of the Caribbean. And why Charlize Theron took home the SAG Best Actress award for transforming herself into the vengeful, serial-killing sweet potato of Monster.

I don’t see Depp getting the Oscar; Theron, though, should be a shoo-in. The Academy has given Oscars to serial killers before — Anthony Hopkins won for 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs — but choosing such a character as a representative of what Hollywood does best (the alternatives include more likely role models like Diane Keaton’s accomplished and independent older woman in Something’s Gotta Give and Samantha Morton’s pillar-of-strength young mother in In America) suggests an underlying rage that’s due to more than just professional anxiety.

Well, it is an election year (Hopkins got his Oscar the same year another Bush was up for a second term). Last year, the Academy surprised (me, anyway) with its dignified (Michael Moore perhaps excepted) but defiant protests against the Iraq War. So perhaps this year Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor will go to the two biggest liberal loudmouths in Hollywood, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in Mystic River. I’m sure in any other year the Academy would love to give Best Actor to Murray’s brilliant turn in Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and no doubt Murray would give a far more entertaining acceptance speech. And in any other year, Djimon Hounsou for his hambone turn in In America or Ken Watanabe for his elegant outclassing of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai would take Best Supporting Actor, because this is the category that usually gives out the token minority award.

Instead, look for Best Supporting Actress to go to Shohreh Aghdashloo. Who? Well, that’s the nature of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar: it usually goes to someone you never heard of before and won’t hear from again. So maybe it was a break for young Keisha Castle-Hughes to get nominated for Best Actress for her extraordinary performance in Whale Rider. She doesn’t have a chance of winning, but it spares her the anonymity of the Best Supporting award.

Renée Zellweger, who was the SAG’s Best Supporting Actress, has a good chance too: her performance in Cold Mountain is big, blowsy, politically correct, and as phony as Andy Serkis’s. But Aghdashloo, a fine Iranian actress guaranteed to give a touching speech who makes the best of a bad role in a lousy movie, should take the prize.

No Hollywood triumphs are free of ambivalence. The Return of the King is a parable about overcoming evil not by wielding power but by relinquishing it. And Mystic River, the best picture in the lot, teaches that seeking vengeance against the wicked only makes one wicked in return. So why didn’t Clint Eastwood run for governor instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger?