By MILAN PAURICH

By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
ach year when the Oscar nominations are announced there's a collective sound of mass head-scratching in the Mahoning Valley.
Requiem for a what?
You can count on who?
Just because film or performers have been deemed among the year's best by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't necessarily mean they've got a high profile outside the coasts. And this year is no exception.
So, in the interest of getting Youngstowners up to snuff with what's what and who's who on the 2000 Oscar ballot, here's a rundown on the movies and performances that might not strike an immediate chord.
While everybody knows Tom Hanks (nominated once again for "Cast Away") and Russell Crowe (following his "Insider" bid last year with a nomination for "Gladiator"), the rest of the Best Actor slate -- coincidentally, all playing real people -- might draw a blank.
Not as famous: Geoffrey Rush, who previously won this award for 1996's "Shine" (another biopic), is back with his nomination for "Quills."
Rush chews so much scenery playing the Marquis de Sade in Phil Kaufman's overheated, half-baked adaptation of Doug Wright's play that I'd swear he was auditioning for the villain role in the next 007 flick.
Another less-than-stellar nominee is Spain's Javier Bardem for "Before Night Falls," the overrated screen biography of exiled Cuban novelist/poet Reinaldo Arenas. Bardem isn't bad, just unmemorable. He lacked the requisite larger-than-life charisma needed for such a challenging role.
No complaints about Ed Harris' surprise nomination for "Pollock," however. Harris (who also directed) really nailed the tortured, alcoholic modern-art pioneer Jackson Pollock in this superb, if largely unseen film. (Equally deserving is Harris' costar, Best Supporting Actress nominee Marcia Gay Harden, for playing Pollock's long-suffering artist wife Lee Krasner.)
Actresses: In the Best Actress race, Julia Roberts ("Erin Brockovich"), Joan Allen (terrific in the blink-and-you-missed-it "Contender") and 1996 "English Patient" Supporting Actress winner Juliette Binoche (for "Chocolat") are all known commodities.
Less familiar is my personal choice: Laura Linney for her superb work in the critically-lauded drama "You Can Count on Me." Ellen Burstyn (1974 Best Actress winner for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore") capped a brilliant career with her devastating performance as a diet pill junkie in the disturbing "Requiem for a Dream," based on the Hubert Selby, Jr. novel.
Neither film is standard multiplex fare, but Linney and Burstyn surely rank high among the best actresses of this or any year.
Even though the majority of supporting actor/actress nominees (Harden, Kate Hudson, etc.) aren't quite household names, only a few of their respective films bypassed area theaters. Willem Dafoe struck gold with his wickedly comic turn as actor Max Schreck in the fanciful "Shadow of a Vampire," which chronicled the making of F.W. Murnau's 1922 vampire movie classic "Nosferatu."
And Julie Walters' (1983 Best Actress nominee for "Educating Rita") scene-stealing portrayal of the chain-smoking dance teacher who turns a young boy's life around in "Billy Elliott" should have been more widely seen. Despite a $20 million-plus domestic gross, "Elliott" still has not opened in the tri-county area.
Recognize these? Don't feel clueless if you're unfamiliar with practically all the Foreign Film or Documentary candidates; almost everyone is -- although Foreign Film nominee "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is already the highest-grossing non-English language movie ever released in the United States. And Documentary Short contestant "Dolphins" was a favorite attraction at IMAX theaters last year -- including Cleveland's Great Lakes Science Center.
The only other mainstream categories with less-than-familiar titles up for awards are Music and Cinematography (the dual-nominated Italian coming-of-age saga, "Malena," by "Cinema Paradiso" director Giuseppe Tornatore); Song (Icelandic pop star Bjork's "I've Seen It All," from the unorthodox musical "Dancer in the Dark," which she also starred in); and Art Direction ("Vatel," a sumptuous Miramax historical drama set at the court of Louis XIV, starring Uma Thurman and Gerard Depardieu).