Party Flavors

Like many others, I too believe this year the motion picture academy shamefully and egregiously ignored a worthy Oscar candidate. No, not “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” but rather “Big Night,” the charming cinematic love ode to Italian food. Never mind the disappointment of the spurned writers and directors--this plays heck with my Oscar party menu.

You see, my annual Oscar-watching party (soon to rival Dani Janssen’s as the hot private party ticket) is potluck. Guests are instructed to bring food eaten in or suggested by a nominated movie. And that’s nominated in any category, even documentary short subject, or those technical awards given out at that red-headed stepsister of a ceremony that gets a perfunctory summation during the real event.

Here, play along at home, and remember, bad puns earn extra trips to the table. For “Prince of Tides,” one brings shrimp. For “Pulp Fiction,” a Quarter Pounder With Cheese (or would that be a Burger Royale With Cheese?). For “Legends of the Fall,” Jolly Ranchers candy. (Memo to self: Remember this for the inevitable “Horse Whisperer” noms in the future. Memo to Redford: Make movie good enough to get nomination.)

Think really hard, and I bet you can come up with something for “Forrest Gump” and “Fried Green Tomatoes.”

All year, potential nominee movies are watched with intense scrutiny for any signs of food--c’mon, show me the honey!--so you can imagine the cries of joy that greeted Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s “Big Night.” Scene after loving scene of magnificent Italian food. For a preemptive food strike, there had been nothing like it since “Eat Drink Man Woman.” One critically acclaimed movie, one fully themed buffet.

Was it too much to ask for one stinking writing nomination for “Big Night”? I’ve been waiting months to try the famous timpano, and I think it’s the least the writers’ branch of the academy can do to bring some by anyway.

But wait--”The English Patient”’ was partly set in Italy! We’ve got a loophole--bring on the risotto!

But we get ahead of ourselves. Let’s have a recap of last year’s bill of fare.

Over the protests of vegetarians and folks with good taste, we had various cuts of “Babe.” For “Waterworld” there was plenty of fish, which we paid too much for, and yet was still kind of stinky. There were cookies so good they were “To Die For.” There was freeze-dried ice cream and Tang for “Apollo 13,” subs for “Crimson Tide,” two different pasta-ino dishes for “Il Postino” and a fully stocked “Leaving Las Vegas” mini-bar.

My friend An brought a double-whammy: human cookies with skull-bead heads (the potentially tooth-breaking latter became “Little Surprises” after the nominated short), ambling behind a wire cage, in honor of “Dead Man Walking”; call it a conceptual piece in dough. In the end, we honored “Casino” by slapping a $4.99 “All You Can Eat” buffet sign on the table.

So on to this year. “Big Night” wasn’t the only slighted food possibility: Though one would think Cruella DeVil’s splendiferously un-PC outfits warranted a nod, “101 Dalmatians” got precisely negative 101 nominations. So much for the delicatessen Black and White cookies and the Puppy Chow. (Which was also eaten by Elizabeth Berkley’s character in “Showgirls.” Wait, that was last year. Wait, it didn’t get nominated either. But then, you knew that.) And pay tribute to Madonna and Courtney Love with sour grapes.

The multinominated “The English Patient” inspires a multinational menu; between Italian, Hungarian, English, Canadian and Egyptian, it’s a veritable United Nations of dining. Bonus points awarded for anyone coming up with a dish combining all five. Don’t forget to have guests feed each other “plum plums.”

“Fargo’s” pregnant, perpetually ravenous heroine means little time goes by without something edible on screen; she practically lives at smorgasbords. And then there’s Sno-Kones and Hostess Sno-Balls--oh, yah, you betcha.

Last year, we had our first actual nominee contributor, Kathleen Quinlan, who suggested the ham and pineapple hors d’oeuvres her character served in “Apollo 13.” This year, we have “Jerry Maguire” director, screenwriter and producer Cameron Crowe. He proposes two slices of Jerry Maguire’s mission-statement-inducing bad pizza, preferably Tombstone, since it will mean death to your career. (Whoever delivers it gets 10%.) Recommended toppings include cracklings, fried pork rinds or some other pigskin-derived product. Chase it with some watered-down beer--be sure to spill half of it on the person sitting next to you.

In honor of the nimble pianist digits in “Shine,” serve finger sandwiches. Stock up on barbecue for “Ghosts of Mississippi.” For “Evita,” Argentine empanadas, and Skittles for the Rainbow Tour. Set a place with a dish featuring one lone, solitary and no doubt melancholy danish for “Hamlet.” Or perhaps a very small ham. (Get it?) And the truly culinarily adventurous will be feasting on chocolate-covered ants for “Angels and Insects.”

In the really obvious category, dominated in past years by the aforementioned “Tomatoes” and “Strawberry and Chocolate,” there are nuts for “The Nutty Professor” and peaches for “James and the Giant. . . .”--oh, you know.

But it wouldn’t be this particular Oscar party without dubious taste, and so we must think of the man-eating lions from “Ghost and the Darkness.” Not to mention the blood-drinking scene from “The Crucible.”

And speaking of tasteless (a food possibility in of itself), for “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” fried chicken. Breasts and thighs only, heavy on the skin.

For the gleefully insensitive, we present this year’s “Babe”: “Fly Away Home.” Bring out the goose liver pa^te and scrambled eggs. Hey, hey, hey, goose, goose, goose!

Yes, this is all well and good and even potentially delicious. But still, can’t we arrange for “A Chef in Love” (best foreign film nominee) to come by with the timpano?