Sir,
I am in no position to debate whether or not the Awards shows are a sham. But I will debate whether or not your facts are stated correctly. You stated that you felt Shawshank Redemption should have beat out Philadelphia as being the best movie of that same year. That would be hard since Shawshank Redemption was put out the following year(1994) and didnt even compete against Philadelphia in the Academy Awards voting. Philadelphia wasn't even nominated for best picture in 1993. The Movies nominated were "SCHINDLER'S LIST", "The Fugitive", "In the Name of the Father", "The Piano", and "The Remains of the Day" with of course SCHINDLERS LIST winning. Tom Hanks did however win the award for best actor for his betrayal of the HIV stricken attorney in Philadelphia. Now for the reason Shawshank Redemption did not win many awards in the following year 1994. It went up against another Tom Hanks starred movie that won him his 2nd consecutive oscar and it was called FORREST GUMP. If you have questions about the Academy Awards and need to make sure your facts are correct you can go to
www.filmsite.org/oscars.html . It has the winners of the awards as well as who they competed against.