Looking back at 2002, it seems to Ed Board the entertainment industry had a year chock full of a lot of hits but very few blockbuster phenomena.

With last night’s People’s Choice Awards signaling the start of the awards show season, music and movie critics alike have started throwing out their best guesses as to who will run away with top honors at the Golden Globes, the Grammys and, the most over-celebrated show of all, the Academy Awards.

Unlike 2001, when A Beautiful Mind and Alicia Keys’ “Fallin'” were shoe-ins for movie and song of the year respectively, this year is a toss-up.

The Grammys this year are dominated by a host of unknowns, including Raphael Saadiq and Dallas locals Norah Jones and Bowling for Soup.

Saadiq, formerly of the groups Tony Toni Tone and Lucy Pearl, was just dropped by Universal – but managed to garner a total of five nominations this year, three for his solo album Instant Vintage and two for his production on Dallas-local Erykah Badu’s “Love of my Life.” He’s the biggest success story of the year you’ve probably never heard of.

As for Hollywood, Academy Award nods haven’t been announced, but the annual Oscar-tease, the Golden Globes, listed About Schmidt, The Pianist, The Hours, Gangs of New York and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as their picks for best movie of 2002. But critics and movie-goers alike are having problems narrowing their “Best of” lists to 10 for 2002, let alone five for Oscar consideration.

But the lack of fore-runners on the movie and music fronts does not signal a decline in talent or production. Rather, it signifies a rise in entertainment output. 2002 was one of those rare occasions when quality and quantity increased contemporaneously. And the stars of 2002 were independent movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and young singer-songwriters Norah Jones, John Mayer and Vanessa Carlton.

Frankly, Ed Board couldn’t be happier that choosing a movie and song of the year for 2002 is such a difficult decision.

Rumor has it Roger Ebert once wrote something along the lines of “a movie designed for everybody to like can never be any good.”