Oscar post-mortem....

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AchtungBono

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Well, unfortunately the Hollywood wusses were too afraid to "legitamize" gay issues and therefore didn't award the best picture Oscar to Brokeback Mountain.

I guess its the same as what happened with The Passion Of The Christ......Hollywood playing it safe...*yawn*.

What are your thoughts?
 
I have no idea. There is so much politics involved in the Oscars, politics that in this instance could have had nothing to do with the homosexual issue. Maybe this article makes some valid points, who knows? When all is said and done I think Crash will be remembered for the upset, not as a film or achievement. I think Brokeback will be remembered as both of those things

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1170060,00.html?cnn=yes

Then, 3 hours 21 minutes into the telethon, Jack Nicholson announced the winner for Best Picture—which had at first been thought to be a lock, then a tight squeeze, for Brokeback. “And the Oscar goes to... Crash.” Those famous eyebrows editorialized surprise, and Nicholson mouthed a “Whoa.” Paul Haggis, the film’s writer-producer-director, geysered from his seat in joyous shock, and revelry exploded among what seemed like half of the 5,000 audience members at the Kodak Theater. One of the revelers did such ecstatic contortions, she nearly fell out of her gown. The rest hugged one another like brand-new Super Bowl champs.

Was this a long-shot triumph? Not exactly. The Crash upset simply certified what many football poolers know: bet on the home dog (the underdog playing on its own field). As we’ve been saying in the magazine and online the past few weeks, Los Angeles is the company town of the movie business, and Crash is the ultimate L.A. movie—anyway, the gaudiest freeway funhouse mirror. Besides, this huge ensemble effort employed close to a hundred L.A. actors. As Stewart urged the crowd in his opening monologue, “Raise your hands if you were not in Crash.”

The victory also validated the old rule that the Editing Oscar is the savviest predictor for Best Picture. The theory is that people, even Academy members, don’t know much about the craft of editing—the extent to which the cuts in a film are determined by the script—so they vote for the movie with the most stuff going on. Crash was certainly the busiest film nominated. And the noisiest. Whereas the other four nominees (Brokeback, Capote, Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck.) kept seeking reconciliation within their social and political conflicts, Crash let its arguments bubble over, like an overheated car radiator, into angry confrontations. The movie shouted, and the Academy heard it, over the urgent whispers of the other films.

It also hit plenty of nerves, in its collision of races and classes, and Hollywood loves issue movies that push the hot button. But what about Brokeback? Didn’t that film pioneer man-love in a pup tent? Sure, but homosexuality is just not an issue in Hollywood. The town was gay before gay was cool (that would be the summer of 2003, when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy became a brief TV sensation). Indeed, homosexual roles are prize-winning plums for actors—like Hoffman in Capote —as long as they aren’t gay, or, if they are, don’t admit it.
 
^ agreed.

it was more love for "Crash" created by living in LA than uncomfortableness with "brokeback."

also, BBM was a much more challenging film to watch -- far more subtle, far less dialogue, far more complex characters. it's an arthouse movie in every sense of the word.

we should be happy it did as well as it did.

and on a personal note, no film in recent memory has moved me as much as "brokeback." ultimately, that's all that should matter, not money or awards.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
Jack Nicholson announced the winner for Best Picture—which had at first been thought to be a lock, then a tight squeeze, for Brokeback.

:giggle:









In all seriousness, though, I stated in the other thread that of the three best pictures noms I saw (Brokeback, Munich, Crash) Crash was the weakest.

I would have loved Brokeback to win best picture, but I don't believe its failing to do so was due to the Academy being afraid to "legitimize" gay issues as much as them believing Crash was a better film. Don't get me wrong because I really loved Brokeback, but from the completely subjective stance of a straight guy, not winning best picture isn't the end of the film. It was still extremely groundbreaking and really got people talking, and, award or no award, it will continue to do so.
 
another good analysis

latimes.com

By Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer
March 5, 2006

Sometimes you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film "Brokeback Mountain" was more than its loss Sunday night to "Crash" in the Oscar best picture category.

Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theaters it made good money in, despite (or maybe because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable.

More than any other of the nominated films, "Brokeback Mountain" was the one people told me they really didn't feel like seeing, didn't really get, didn't understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.

In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed "Brokeback Mountain."

For Hollywood, as a whole laundry list of people announced from the podium Sunday night and a lengthy montage of clips tried to emphasize, is a liberal place, a place that prides itself on its progressive agenda. If this were a year when voters had no other palatable options, they might have taken a deep breath and voted for "Brokeback." This year, however, "Crash" was poised to be the spoiler.

I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made "Crash," and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they've made. It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was "one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history," but "Crash" is not an example of that.

I don't care how much trouble "Crash" had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.

For "Crash's" biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.

So for people who were discomfited by "Brokeback Mountain" but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, "Crash" provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what "Brokeback" had to offer. And that's exactly what they did.

"Brokeback," it is worth noting, was in some ways the tamest of the discomforting films available to Oscar voters in various categories. Steven Spielberg's "Munich"; the Palestinian Territories' "Paradise Now," one of the best foreign language nominees; and the documentary nominee "Darwin's Nightmare" offered scenarios that truly shook up people's normal ways of seeing the world. None of them won a thing.

Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force in the world. It is in the business of entertainment, in the business of making the most dollars it can. Yes, on Oscar night, it likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than actually do that job in the present.
 
AchtungBono said:

I guess its the same as what happened with The Passion Of The Christ......Hollywood playing it safe...*yawn*.

For the last time, Passion Of The Christ received mediocre reviews from critics (you know, people that see hundreds of films every year and actually have some sense of what they're talking about).

I think the real problem with the Best Picture winner is that it's the only award where everyone in Hollywood votes on it. Everything else is limited to specific groups (documentary makers vote for best documentary, etc...). And in a lot of cases, the people voting are actors/actresses that haven't even seen two of the nominated films.....

Not to mention that the Academy has a history of ignoring indie films simply because the people involved have no connection to Weinstein and his cohorts.....
 
Re: Re: Oscar post-mortem....

BigMacPhisto said:


For the last time, Passion Of The Christ received mediocre reviews from critics (you know, people that see hundreds of films every year and actually have some sense of what they're talking about).


Exactly. Passion of the Christ and Brokeback Mountain are not comparable. One got mixed reviews, the other won almost every major critics circle and award. Passion of the Christ not receiving an Oscar was expected, but Brokeback should have won.
 
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