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The Movie & Story => News Coverage, Reviews & Awards => Oscars => Topic started by: ethan on Mar 06, 2006, 06:32 AM

Title: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 06, 2006, 06:32 AM

Please post your Oscar coverage in this topic.

Breaking no ground
Why 'Crash' won, why 'Brokeback' lost and how the academy chose to play it safe.

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.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/env-turan5mar05,0,5359042.story

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: aimi15 on Mar 06, 2006, 06:44 AM

Thank you for posting that ethan - makes you feel a little better  :-*

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: sisya on Mar 06, 2006, 07:52 AM

Plains talk from 'Brokeback' scribes

When asked whether some men were reluctant to see Brokeback Mountain, co-screenplay writer Diana Ossana said, “That’s just silly. I don’t know what they are so afraid of.”

“It’s just a movie. Go see it,” chimed in co-writer Larry McMurtry. “Whatever preconceived notions you have, you have to set them aside,” Ossana said.

McMurtry was asked whether Brokeback’s best-director Oscar was a way to recognize the gay-themed film without giving it the biggest award, best picture. His reply: “I’ve had four movies (nominated). The three rural ones (Hud, The Last Picture Show, Brokeback Mountain) lost; the one that was urban (Terms of Endearment) won. The members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We’re not a rural nation. It’s not easy to get a rural story made.” Asked whether Crash's Los Angeles setting helped its best-picture chances, McMurtry said, “Yeah, I do.”

McMurtry shared one other lesson from his Brokeback experience: “Americans don’t want cowboys to be gay.”  The homosexual angle also prolonged Brokeback's journey from page to screen, which took nine years. "The average movie takes seven years, Ossana said. “The obstacle for this one was the casting. Actors wouldn’t commit,” she said. -- C.P., B.K.

Posted at 12:49 AM/ET, March 06, 2006 in Oscars | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

http://blogs.usatoday.com/awardsnight/2006/03/red_states_blue.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: sisya on Mar 06, 2006, 07:54 AM

Lee comments on win, loss

Backstage, Ang Lee was asked about winning best director and not best picture. “It was a surprise,” he said and congratulated the filmmakers of Crash.

He thought the audiences were hungry for stories about love, acceptance and complexity. “I’m just glad the audience embraced it,” he said about Brokeback.

Asked about Brokeback star Heath Ledger, Lee said, “A lot of people told me his performance reminded them of a young Brando. I think he did a marvelous, marvelous, miraculous performance, so original.” -- B.K.

Posted at 12:05 AM/ET, March 06, 2006 in Oscars | Permalink

http://blogs.usatoday.com/awardsnight/2006/03/lee_comments_on.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 06, 2006, 08:17 AM

Kenneth Turan of the LA Times is the dean of their film critics and is also one of the critics on National Public Radio and I look forward to hearing his reviews.  HIs last sentence sums it up, "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."

Thanks Ethan for posting it.



   

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: *Froggy* on Mar 06, 2006, 01:47 PM

http://people.aol.com/people/articles/0,19736,1156049_1169105,00.html

Crash Wins in Oscar Upset
Sunday Mar 05, 2006 9:30pm EST
By Marla Lehner


Crash and Brokeback Mountain each took home three Oscars on Sunday, but it was Crash that scored an upset and won the top prize of the night, Best Picture, at the 78th annual Academy Awards.

Crash also won for Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

Meanwhile, Brokeback Mountain, which went into the night with a leading eight nominations, won for Best Director for Ang Lee, Adapted Screenplay and Original Score.

In his acceptance speech, Lee thanked Annie Proulx, who wrote the short story that the movie was based on, and said he made the film for his father, who passed away shortly before Lee starting filming Brokeback.

Reese Witherspoon and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who both went into the show highly favored, won for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively. They each played real-life people in their films; singer-songwriter June Carter Cash in Walk the Line and author Truman Capote in the biopic Capote.

Witherspoon thanked costar Joaquin Phoenix who "put his heart and soul into the performance" playing Johnny Cash and also thanked "my wonderful husband (Ryan Phillippe) and two children – who should be going to bed."

During his speech, Hoffman said, "I'm overwhelmed. I'm really overwhelmed." He then encouraged people to congratulate his mother, who accompanied him to the show. "She brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that."

George Clooney
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.timeinc.net%2Fpeople%2Fi%2F2006%2Fspecials%2Foscars06%2Fshow%2Fnews%2Fgclooney1.jpg&hash=4b7ad042d7fbd86f47dec6ed460ce60cce7ba605)

George Clooney and Rachel Weisz were some of the evening's early winners. Weisz was named Best Supporting Actress for The Constant Gardener, while Clooney picked up the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Syriana.

"All right, so I'm not winning Director," joked Clooney, who was also nominated in the director and screenplay categories for Good Night, and Good Luck. He is the first person in Oscar history to get a nod for acting in one movie and directing another.

Upon accepting his award, Clooney said that "Oscar winner" now will always be attached to his name, along with "Sexiest Man Alive 1997."

First-time Oscar winner Weisz thanked her "luminous acting partner" Ralph Fiennes, as well as writer John le Carre, who wrote the "unflinching and angry" story about "people willing to risk their own lives to fight injustice."

Crowd favorite March of the Penguins won for Documentary, and its French filmmakers all carried fake stuffed penguins onstage to accept the award.

Before any awards were handed out, Hollywood's biggest night kicked off with a homage to past Oscar hosts, including Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, David Letterman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Steve Martin who all made brief appearances – and each declined invitations to host this year.

The actual host, Jon Stewart (who woke up in a dream sequence next to Halle Berry – and then Clooney) began the evening by poking fun at his own big-screen career – most notably his role as "the fourth male lead in Death to Smoochy." He also joked that singer Bjork, who once famously wore a swan dress to the awards show, couldn't make it because "she was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

In the technical categories, King Kong took home Oscars for Visual Effects and Sound Mixing as well as Sound Editing, an award presented by Alias star Jennifer Garner, who tripped on her way to the podium then joked, "I do my own stunts."

Rachel Weisz
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.timeinc.net%2Fpeople%2Fi%2F2006%2Fspecials%2Foscars06%2Fshow%2Fnews%2Frweisz1.jpg&hash=b2dbbd76e4de916427bec2990a52480012048167)

Memoirs of a Geisha won for Costume Design, Cinematography and Art Direction. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe nabbed the trophy for Makeup.

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was named the best Animated Feature, while Six Shooter won in the Short Film (Live Action) category.

In the music category, Hustle & Flow's "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," won for Original Song. The enthusiastic, and nearly unintelligible, acceptance speech by members of Three 6 Mafia was one of the highlights of the show.

Legendary director Robert Altman, who has been nominated for seven Oscars but has never won one, was presented with an honorary Oscar by veteran actresses Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, who star in his upcoming Prairie Home Companion.

Altman compared making films to building a sandcastle at the beach. You build it, then "watch the tide come in and the ocean just takes it away, but that sandcastle lives in your mind."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 06, 2006, 02:14 PM

Breaking no ground

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/env-turan5mar05,0,5359042.story

Why 'Crash' won, why 'Brokeback' lost and how the academy chose to play it safe.Winning duo: Co-writer and director Paul Haggis basks in the Oscar glow with producer Cathy Schulman.
(AMPAS)
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.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 06, 2006, 02:16 PM

You could also see the photo gallery on:

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/galleries/photo/redcarpet/env-oscarredcarpetmar05-pg,0,6140195.photogallery

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 06, 2006, 02:18 PM

From The Times (London UK)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19133-2072301,00.html

Critics attack Academy for Brokeback snub
By Simon Crerar and Philippe Naughton

Chris Ayres: So LA weblog 
 
Leading US critics have questioned whether Hollywood is yet ready to give its biggest prize to a gay love story after the race drama Crash grabbed the Best Picture Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards last night.

Brokeback Mountain, the story of unfulfilled love between two gay cowboys that was nominated in eight categories, had been the runaway favourite for the award after cleaning up in the Golden Globes and Baftas.

But although it won three Oscars, including the Best Director award for the Taiwanese Ang Lee, the year's most talked-about film ended up losing on the final prize of the night.

"Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don’t want cowboys to be gay," said Larry McMurtry, the veteran Western writer who shared the award for best adapted screenplay.

Crash, a complex jigsaw about the lives of six ethnically-diverse people whose lives collide in a Los Angeles car accident, also won the Original Screenplay prize for its Canadian director, Paul Haggis.

Crash's ensemble cast includes Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock and the British actress Thandie Newton. Its producer Cathy Schulman said the film had a message "about love, about tolerance, about truth".

It was a good night for the lovingly crafted films King Kong and Memoirs of a Geisha, which matched Brokeback’s achievement by picking-up three technical Oscars each, despite being overlooked in the acting categories.

British talent was well rewarded. Rachel Weisz picked up Best Supporting Actress, Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit won Best Animated Feature Film (his fourth Oscar), and Six Shooter took the Best Animated Short for its director Martin McDonagh, the London-born playwright of Irish parents.

Weisz, 34, was rewarded for her performance in The Constant Gardener. The London-born actress, who is six months pregnant, called it a "tremendous, tremendous honour".

In the film, a political thriller set in Africa based on the novel by John Le Carre, Weisz played the wife of a British diplomat, played by Ralph Fiennes. She thanked her "luminous" co-star and Le Carré: "He wrote this unflinching, angry story and he really paid tribute to the people who are willing to risk their own lives to fight for justice. They are greater men and women than I."

But the Oscars saved their big surprise for the end. There were astonished gasps around Hollywood's Kodak Theatre as Jack Nicholson announced Crash's victory in the Best Picture category over hot favourite Brokeback.

No overtly gay love story had ever won a Best Picture statue and the critics immediately asked whether Oscar votes had not backed off from breaking that taboo.

"Film buffs and the politically minded will be arguing this morning about whether the Best Picture Oscar to Crash was really for the film’s merit or just a cop-out by the Motion Picture Academy so it wouldn’t have to give the prize to Brokeback Mountain," said Tom Shales of the Washington Post.

The Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan saw Brokeback’s failure as a sign that Hollywood was not yet ready to grant the topic of homosexual love mainstream respectability.

"Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theatres 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 realising that Brokeback Mountain made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable," Turan said.

"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 harbour."

Accepting his Best Director award, Brokeback’s Ang Lee thanked the film's two lead characters, Ennis and Jack. "They taught all of us not just about gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but most importantly the greatness of love itself," he said.

Crash's win was the first time that an independent studio had picked up the top Oscar since Gladiator won for DreamWorks in 2001. The film was made by the Canadian-owned Lionsgate, costing about $6.5 million to produce and has already earned $53 million at the box office.

The award more than vindicated Lionsgate's decision to post DVDs to all 120,000 members of the Screen Actors' Guild, who account for more than a fifth of Academy voters.

But some of the film's backers are tied up in legal action over its profits and credits. Cathy Schulman and Tom Nunan, two of the film's producers are suing the financier Bob Yari, alleging in part that he withheld millions in profits.

Mr Yari, a real estate developer, has filed separate suits against the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for allegedly denying him a fair procedure when they ruled against his producing credit on the film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of the writer Truman Capote in the biopic Capote. Collecting the award, Hoffman said he was "overwhelmed, really overwhelmed".

Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for her portrayal of Jonnie Cash’s wife June Carter in biopic Walk The Line - beating two British hopes, Keira Knightley and Dame Judi Dench. The 29-year-old also picked up the award for the evening's longest, most gushingly emotional speech.

"Oh my goodness, I never thought I would be up here in my whole life," she said. "My grandmother was my inspiration, and she taught me to have strength and self-respect and never to give those things away."

Not only did Witherspoon and Weisz win acting statues, they also fared well in the most competitive, and arguably most important, category: Best Frock.

Witherspoon caused a fashion flap at the Golden Globes in January when she turned up in a glittery Chanel cocktail dress that she told reporters was vintage, only to find out afterward that it was actually in from Chanel's 2002 collection and had already been worn out by Kirsten Dunst.

But Witherspoon set exactly the right tone of high style and retro glamour last night with an original Christian Dior gown from 1955 of heavily-embroidered shell pink silk with satin details and silver-threaded beading.

"I found it in a vintage store in Paris, and it’s mine! I worked with some wonderful people and they helped repair it and bring it back to its original condition," she confided backstage.

But there was no fashion shocker reminiscent of singer Bjork's bizarre "swan dress" several years ago. "She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her," joked Jon Stewart, the host.
 
 
 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: cara1158 on Mar 06, 2006, 02:29 PM

ethan -- Thanks for posting this article.  It pretty much sums up what we all know to be true. 

If I were the producer or otherwise participant in "Crash" my joy would be seriously dampened knowing that it did not "win fair and square" -- that it won because my Hollywood peers are spineless and gutless.  A shallow victory at best.

cara

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: afhickman on Mar 06, 2006, 02:31 PM

I think this article makes a good point about "Crash."  People tend to applaud at concerts when they hear a musical passage they recognize.  The Academy's members live mostly in L.A.  Where I live, of course, "Brokeback" is still the winner.


Comment: Academy's highbrow taste is not shared by the public
By James Christopher, Film Critic, for Times Online

The Oscar nominees and winners show the Academy's taste for gritty, real issues, but the public is going the other way
 
 


The Oscars have a duty to surprise. But Crash? Best Film? How the hell did that happen?

Brokeback Mountain was long the pink-hot favourite. Ang Lee won Best Director. The top film honour seemed a simple nab. But Paul Haggis’s loose bag of LA stories, most central of which is a racist cop who sexually abuses a traffic accident victim (Thandie Newton), crushed the competition. Why?

The script is clever, and the editing just sublime. But more importantly, it touches issues close to home. The racial theme is worthy of Newsnight. Sod’s law and a gut hatred of strangers is the tragi-comic glue. The film fondles an entire country’s most insular fears.

 
 
In short, Crash won the Academy’s most precious award partly because it is a local hero - so many of the Academy's voters are LA-based, after all - but also because after so many years of Hollywood playing at being the Dream Factory, it is choosing to deal with real issues, real people. The remarkable feature about the awards this year is the height of the nominees' brow. There are no popcorn sellers, and no clean sweeps.

Most of the films have almost too much to say. Brokeback Mountain taps sexual hypocrisy and blue-collar lies. Reese Witherspoon (Best Actress for Walk the Line) takes a musical legend to task. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s exquisite performance as Capote won Best Actor for an icon who is exposed as a bastard. Rachel Weisz plucked the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing an activist in The Constant Gardener (banishing somewhat the shame of this terrific film not winning any of the major Baftas). George Clooney won the male equivalent for the political thriller Syriana.

None of these films will ever mint commercial gold. But I’m inspired rather than alarmed. Films audiences are clearly growing up. Even Nick Park, who scooped the Animation Oscar for Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit thought big enough to admit that he would rather his films pitched for the big prizes (Best Film) than win an endless crop of ghetto awards.

I guess the deep point is this: the cutting edge of film is becoming increasingly public, and stars are starting to pick and choose subjects as carefully as directors. It’s simply not enough to face up a multi-million dollar franchise. If you want the serious prizes and respect you have to sacrifice the perks, or do projects under your own steam.

Clooney is the most fascinating example this year. He’s gambled all his chips on films that are fiendishly political, and, amazingly enough, he’s managed to drag fans and Academy voters into the cinema.

Despite his success with Syriana and increasingly statesman-like demeanour, I feel desperately sorry that he failed to pick up an award for Good Night, and Good Luck – a gripping account of media solidarity during Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witchhunts.

He deserved more. The interesting detail is how his film commitments have exactly mirrored a wider change of taste. Clooney has no qualms about tackling the status quo, and no fear about the size his opponent. The most significant result of Oscar’s creeping appetite for issues will depend entirely on box office faith. This is a first.

What worries me is how long anyone can sustain a political or artistic agenda amidst all the fuss and glamour. People - thinkers, I should say - like Clooney are rare. These strange films need events like the Oscars.

But they are flirting with shrinking audiences. The television figures are falling by millions, year on year. There is little patience for three-hour ceremonies. After numbing hours of reality TV, viewers think they have a right to vote. They can’t understand why they can’t vote for the Best Actor by simply pushing a button.
 
 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 06, 2006, 02:38 PM

Some more stuff from The Times:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14929-2072364_2,00.html

Times Online March 06, 2006


Did the Academy wimp out?
Following its success at the Golden Globes, which prompted Christian groups to criticise Hollywood for promoting films with gay or leftist themes, Brokeback Mountain won only three Oscars. It failed to pick up any acting awards or the award for Best Picture, which went to the race drama Crash. Did the Academy wimp out - did Ang Lee's film deserve more success? Do you agree with the choice of other winners? Read the article and Chris Ayres's verdict, and visit our Oscars site for the full list of winners. Then send us your view using the form below. Your replies will be posted here
 
 




Did the Academy wimp out for Best Picture? Yes. Crash was the safe, liberal choice. It was a well-meant film but had a heavy-handed and clumsy plot. It hammered it's message home. Brokeback Mountain was subtle and moving. It simply told it's story. The awards BBM has won, the glowing reviews... Crash received far fewer of those. That is why it's win looks so strange. BBM has affected the lives of many people. I doubt Crash has. Crash is a film that you watch, feel worthy for watching, and then more-or-less forget. In the end the Academy could not vote for a film about men in love and voted against BBM but using anti-racism as a cover which I think is disgusting. As a black person  I feel used. A poor, manipulative film about race was used to out vote a good film about true gay experience. Vicky Hartell, London

I do genuinely believe that the Best Picture win for Crash was motivated by Hollywood's discomfort of the central theme of Brokeback Mountain. Why else would they choose not to celebrate and fully embrace a widely-admired, beautifully crafted film that has also had a wide, popular appeal? Why choose not to give the Best Director winner the Best Picture award too which happens almost every year? Hollywood simply found it was unable to lead the way, be brave and fully recognise the power of Brokeback Mountain. Hollywood has proven that, yet again, other people will have to fight the artistic and social battles - they're quite happy with maintaining the status quo and ossifying in their back-slapping ignorance. Tandy Arti, London

Why should any one doubt that the Academy genuinely thought Crash to be a better movie? The decision  shows that the Academy is not influenced by recent awards, is independent in its thinking and does not blindly follow trends. Vinay Mehra, Purley

I feel that the Academy brought out the tyre irons and hit us all in the face. I feel horrible for living in a country that does not respect or care who or what I am. I feel like all the work I do with developmentally disabled and the work as assisting to raise two daughters has been a waste of my time and effort.  Here they had the chance to show the world that the United States is ready to show people that homosexuals are not just the queens and the limp-wristed type but real men and to show what damage it has done to entire families by making these men hide.  But, again the United states proves we are really not that progressive or free as we like to say.  This is an almost worse day then the day after that stupid president got elected again in this country. How do I transfer citizenship to the UK? Joseph Geppert, Erie, USA

I applaud the Oscars for giving the awards to those who actually deserve them and not just giving them to Brokeback Mountain because everyone else was doing so in fact comparing the Oscars to the Baftas it was the Baftas which sold out and not the Oscars, personally I think that Brokeback Mountain is one of the worst films I have ever seen. Jason Coral, Cambridge

"Wimp" is not a strong enough word for what the Academy did. For a group who like to consider themselves liberal,open, accepting, the voters gave in to their underlying homophobia. Who will ever do a serious movie about gay love now? "Will and Grace"? Fine. "Ennis and Jack"?  Go back in the closet! Gerard Connolly, Bloomfield, NJ, USA

I was shocked and disappointed when Crash won best picture.  Brokeback Mountain was the better film, which was proven to me by the numerous other awards it has won around the world.  It comprises everything the Academy normally seeks in its best film category: grand, epic love story, great acting and script, and beautiful cinematography. This choice was a slap in the face to all gay people.  I am gay, and this year the Academy was too scared to honor a film that tells my story. Larry Andrews, Portland, OR, USA

Of course Brokeback Mountain deserved more success, but in a country as homophobic as the US the film was doomed to be judged not on its merits as a work of art but on its place in the so-called culture wars. The Academy is full of rather timid, rather dull and rather conventional people - not so very different from the middle America they claim to despise - who understand that they are in fact the puppets of their public rather than its puppeteers.  Michael Cull, Paris, France

There has been far too much emphasis on the homosexual love-plot of the film. This has led to it being pigeonholed as a "gay cowboy movie", and has removed the need for people to seriously analyse it as a film in its own right. Perhaps what happened was that the judges analysed which was best on the basis of cinematic criteria and decided that Crash was the better film. Ken Keir, Aberdeen

There were rumours that Academy Award voters were not even viewing Brokeback Mountain because they didn't want to see "that gay cowboy" movie. Tony Curtis, one of the Academy voters said as much in an interview. In view of the fact that Brokeback has received the highest number of awards for any film this year, I find it extremely strange that it lost the best picture award to Crash a fine film in itself, but one which had all but been dismissed as a front runner some time ago. I believe that the reason for this film's win was that it allowed the Academy's voters to be homophobic while still allowing them to play the "liberal" race card. I really find it hard to believe that they serious thought Crash was the better movie. Keith Anthony, Nottingham

I have asked many film industry people what made Crash so good. Direction? Acting? Cinematography? Technical excellence? They had to say "No" to all of those - after all, in those areas it got just one Oscar (editing), and it was the director's first effort. It has had few other awards, received no special critical acclaim. Its box office was low. On this basis, it was no better than any of the other best film nominees. It scored in only one area - its story. A superficially progressive race-relations yarn. But it has been clear for many weeks that it was the only way to stop Brokeback. If that's not why it won, I would love to hear why it did. Charlie Bourne, Leamington Spa

Both the movies Crash and Brokeback Mountain deal with highly controversial topics "racism" and "opressed sexuality/homophobia" (maybe thats three topics). Yet myself and most of my friends (straight and gay) have seen both films and all agree that Crash (although good) is a pretty unmemorable movie, but Brokeback Mountain is one of the most powerful movies we have ever seen. Judging by the amount of awards BBM received at the Baftas, I reckon the British Acadamy think so too. Although Ang Lee won Best Director, the Acadamy did wimp out, they played safe. BBM should have won in the Best Picture category. There is only one word I can think of Hollywood and their Acadamy and that is "homophobic". BBM has changed peoples minds and attitudes all over the world. It is one of the most memorable movies I have ever seen and has affected me in a way that no other movie ever has.  Cliff Street, Reading

Crash is a much better crafted movie than the overhyped and formulaic Brokeback Mountain. But way ahead is the South African film Tsotsi, which deservedly  won the award for Best Foreign Film.  John O'Byrne, Dublin, Eire
 
I believe Crash won at the Oscars because it was the lesser of two evils in the mind of "liberal" Hollywood.  Furthermore, I believe Crash won best picture because most of the Academy voters viewed it on DVD and didn't even see Brokeback Mountain which is still playing in theatres. Shame on you Academy. Lydia Nowak, Shannon, IL, USA

I watched both Crash and Brokeback Mountain, and Brokeback Mountain made the bigger impact by far. This is coming from a straight, African American female who people think would have liked Crash better. No way. Brokeback Mountain was gypped by the same biased attitude it is trying to fight. Crash wasn't awful; it's just that Brokeback Mountain was a much better movie and the fact that they deserved Best Picture is obvious to anyone. The Academy is full of elder people with old, traditional values... the other awards Brokeback Mountain received were just compromises to avoid peoples' outrage. They were given just so the Academy could say: "Why are you complaining? You won [insert award]!" I was totally shocked last night and sad for the people who worked so hard on that movie. Gabrielle Alighieri, Philadelphia

 
 
This was the most embarrassing possible outcome for the Academy and its voting party. Their should be no pride taken in this loud of a slur. I am gay and black and see more honesty and truth in the gay ranch hands then the racist caricatures. Votes can be bought and the academy is easily corruptable. The Academy has proven it is deeply flawed as a subculture and cannot see beyond the microcosm of Los Angeles. No one is cheering but in Los Angeles. Brokeback Mountain will forever be remembered as a milestone, Crash will be forgotten as quickly as it was when it was released. Alex Pierre, USA

This morning I was completely speechless. I shed several tears of disappointment. There was a movie that moved millions all over the world in an unprecedented way, being spoken about by many. The storyline touched people in their hearts and kept their minds occupied for days, forcing them to think and feel, sometimes forcing them to watch this movie again and again. This movie has a very artistic perfectionistic director and actors who played the stars down. A low budget movie, with an impact of an atom bomb. And then Crash wins.... a sort of documentary on a riot in LA, stuffed with all kinds of actors. Yeah, I slightly heard about it. No, nobody I knows ever mentioned it here. Its just another typical American production (i.e. lots of drama, shouting, action) apparently on an American race issue. A bit like the evening news, but two hours long. Does this movie urge you to go again and again? Will this movie be remembered? Despite all the feelings of disappointment, we've still got the movie: Brokeback Mountain. We have Ang Lee, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anna Hathaway who gave us their best, and who we will enjoy for many years to follow. Fitz Usmany, Rotterdam, Netherlands

There is no doubt that Brokeback Mountain was snubbed for the Academy Awards because of homophobia, which is has become almost fashionable in the USA because of the arrogance shown by the religious right after the debacle of the Bush re-election. If Los Angeles really cared about racism, why not do something concrete about the rampant poverty and racial slaughter in that city rather than vote for a movie that should never have even been nominated, let alone win. Thanks to the UK for not only showing its support in the Baftas but in putting before us Stephen Fry's unashamedly witty hosting. Name and address withheld

 
 
 
 
 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: karind1 on Mar 06, 2006, 02:50 PM

Thanks to the UK for not only showing its support in the Baftas but in putting before us Stephen Fry's unashamedly witty hosting. Name and address withheld

oh to that and the rest of the post above   AMEN!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jakeofrome on Mar 06, 2006, 02:55 PM

The post-Oscars debate: Why Brokeback lost

By Arthur Spiegelman - Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-03-06T082553Z_01_N04161595_RTRUKOC_0_US-OSCARS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13)


The Oscars opened the closet door to gay-themed films but shut it almost as quickly.

"Brokeback Mountain," the much-ballyhooed favorite about two gay cowboys, won best director for Ang Lee on Sunday but stunningly lost the best picture prize to race drama "Crash." Additionally Philip Seymour Hoffman won best actor for playing gay novelist Truman Capote in "Capote."

The victory for "Crash" suggested Oscar voters were more comfortable with a tale that exploited the seamy underbelly of racial conflict in contemporary Los Angeles than with a heartbreaking tale of love between two married men.

"Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don't want cowboys to be gay," said Larry McMurtry, 69, who shared an Oscar for best adapted screenplay with Diana Ossana for "Brokeback."

No overtly gay love story has ever won a best picture award and, as of Monday morning, none has. The big question going into the Oscars was whether Hollywood, often in the forefront of social issues, would break another taboo.

"Film buffs and the politically minded will be arguing this morning about whether the Best Picture Oscar to 'Crash' was really for the film's merit or just a cop-out by the Motion Picture Academy so it wouldn't have to give the prize to 'Brokeback Mountain,'" said Washington Post critic Tom Shales.

Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan saw "Brokeback's" failure as a sign that Hollywood was not yet ready to grant the topic of homosexual love mainstream respectability.

"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 'Brokeback Mountain' made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable," he said, adding:

"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."

BROKEBACK, CRASH WIN 3

"Brokeback" led the field with eight nominations and ended up with three prizes, also winning for original score.

Hoffman won for playing Truman Capote in "Capote," a story of the archly gay writer going to Kansas to report on the murder of a family of four for his classic book "In Cold Blood." Hollywood sweetheart Reese Witherspoon won best actress for her performance as country singer June Carter in the Johnny Cash biographical film, "Walk the Line."

"Crash," which covers a 36-hour period in Los Angeles as the lives of people of many races collide in a way that highlights bigotry, was a close second to "Brokeback" in Oscar handicapping. "Crash" writer/director Paul Haggis said he was "shocked, shocked" with the victory. It also won three prizes.

"We're still trying to figure out if we got this," he said, clutching his golden trophy in his hand. "None of us expected it. You hope, but we had a tiny picture ... this was a year when Hollywood rewarded rule breakers."

Following the plots of many of its message-themed movies, Oscar took a decidedly political tone with winners noting causes, and freshman show host Jon Stewart making wisecracks.

Stewart's performance seemed to divide the TV critics.

"It's hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year's Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by," said the Post's Shales.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Kindred on Mar 06, 2006, 03:09 PM

There is a Macromedia Flashplayer slide presentation at Washingtonpost.com, the first picture is a very nice shot of Heath and Michelle on the red carpet.  Picture #16 is of Jake.  Here is the link to the page, click on the "Oscar Fashion" link. (Sorry, didn't know how to copy the picture directly): 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/movies/features/2006/academyawards/index.html


A Bang-Up Night for 'Crash'
Drama Is Surprise Winner as Best Picture; 'Brokeback's' Lee Is Top Director
By Hank Stuever and William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 6, 2006; A01

HOLLYWOOD, March 5 -- "Crash," an ensemble story about underlying racial tensions across Los Angeles, won Best Picture on Sunday night at the Academy Awards. Its surprise win proved true the eleventh-hour buzz that surrounded the film, which touched a nerve among people who live in and around the endless, multicultural sprawl of the city and intuit its character from behind the wheels of their cars.

"Crash" has been controversial, with critics saying that it oversimplifies race issues and that some of the characters were stereotypes -- a notion that director Paul Haggis again batted aside during a backstage interview. "My favorite kind of film is the kind where you argue when you walk outside after the film, and break up with your date."

Haggis, who co-wrote the "Crash" script, which also won for Best Original Screenplay, noted that "a lot of people made this film. We owe a lot of people for being here." (Fourteen people share producing credits on "Crash," which has prompted two lawsuits over money and credit.)

Some cultural critics also complained during the awards season that "Crash" and the other Best Picture nominees -- voted on by the 6,000-plus-member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- all were somehow out of touch with the mainstream.

Another Best Picture nominee, "Brokeback Mountain," the ranch-hands-in-love story that further stoked a national debate about gay rights, won three awards, including Best Director for Ang Lee.

"I wish I knew how to quit you," Lee quipped as he accepted his award, acknowledging that the movie's famous line had become something of a punch line. But he also very quickly thanked "two people who don't exist -- Ennis and Jack," the film's doomed couple. "They taught all of us who made 'Brokeback Mountain' about . . . the greatness of love itself." Asked backstage whether "Brokeback" lost Best Picture because of its subject matter, or some discomfort on the part of Academy voters, Lee answered simply, "I don't know."

In a year in which no Best Picture nominee captured a big audience or boffo receipts, the 78th annual dispensations of Oscar statuettes were similarly scattered among the year's films. "Crash," "Brokeback Mountain," "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "King Kong" each had three wins.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for his portrayal in "Capote" of the shyly flamboyant writer's quest to tell his best-selling story of murders in Kansas. "I'm really overwhelmed," Hoffman said. "You know that Van Morrison song, 'I love, I love, I love,' and he keeps repeating it?" The actor also thanked his mother profusely: "We're at the party, Ma, ya know?" he said. "She took me to my first play. . . . Her passions became my passions. Be proud, Mom, we're here tonight and it's so good."

Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line," and she also thanked her parents: "I'm so blessed to have my mother and my father, for being so proud of me it didn't matter whether I was making my bed or making a movie. My grandmother taught me to be a real woman, to have strength and self-respect and never give those things away. . . . I'm just trying to matter, and live a good life and make something that means something to somebody."

The show's host, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" -- tapped to step in to what has become an ongoing search for a celebrity who can click with Oscar-host duties -- brought the show his trademark blend of cheeky, faux-everything humor. "Man, we are cruising tonight -- we are going to get home in time to watch 'Desperate Housewives,' " Stewart said of the 3-hour 22-minute program. (The show was about 10 minutes longer than last year's -- still, the four-hour Oscar broadcast is becoming a thing of the past.)

"Crash" also won for film editing. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana won Best Screenplay Adaptation for "Brokeback Mountain," which was originally a short story by E. Annie Proulx.

George Clooney won Best Supporting Actor for his role as a rogue CIA agent in "Syriana." Clooney, who also was nominated for Best Director, offered a defense, in his acceptance speech, against the criticism that Hollywood puts out provocative, but unpopular and left-leaning, movies. "This Academy, this group of people, gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 [for her role as Mammy in "Gone With the Wind"] when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters," he said. "I'm proud to be . . . part of this community, proud to be out of touch."

Rachel Weisz won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a humanitarian worker in Africa in "The Constant Gardener."

"March of the Penguins," a French-made love story about penguins' annual journey from the frigid sea to parenthood in Antarctica, won Best Documentary Feature. "A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin" won the short-subject prize.

"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," the anthem from "Hustle & Flow," won Best Original Song. Winners Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard of the group Three 6 Mafia took the stage and gave as many overjoyed shout-outs as time allowed.

"How come they're the most excited people out here tonight?" asked Stewart, who mused that things just got a lot easier for a pimp. "That's how you accept an Oscar!"

The buildup to Sunday night's big awards was about a lot of smaller awards for movies that made a bigger dent in the box office and pop culture, for the way those movies looked and sounded: "King Kong" won Oscars for sound mixing, sound editing and visual effects; "Memoirs of a Geisha" won for cinematography, art direction and costume design; "The Chronicles of Narnia" won for makeup.

Best Original Score went to Gustavo Santaolalla for his work on "Brokeback Mountain"; the Best Animated Feature was "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500363.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: BADBRAD on Mar 06, 2006, 03:31 PM

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Kindred on Mar 06, 2006, 03:42 PM

Copied here for easy reading:

Oscar misfire: ‘Crash’ and burn
The Academy takes yet another step toward irrelevance with its latest pick

COMMENTARY
By Erik Lundegaard
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 3:09 p.m. ET March 6, 2006


Talk about ruining a perfect evening.

Jon Stewart was funny, George Clooney was sharp, Salma Hayek looked to-freakin’-die-for, Philip Seymour Hoffman won in humble-but-lovable fashion and Ang Lee, the director of one of the best movies of the year, became the first non-Caucasian to win the Academy Award for best director.

Then Jack Nicholson, presenting the best picture winner, ruined everything. He didn’t say “Brokeback Mountain”; he actually said…“Crash.”

No, he didn’t. Did he? He did.

My god.

This is the worst best picture winner since “The Greatest Show on Earth” in 1952. It may be worse than that. “Greatest Show” was a dull, bloated romance set against the backdrop of a three-ring circus but at least it didn’t pretend to be important. “Crash” thinks it’s important. “Crash” thinks it’s saying something bold about racism in America.

But what is it saying?

That we all bear some form of racism. That we all “stereotype” other races. That, when pressured, racist sentiments spill out of us as easily as escaped air.

Here’s my take. Yes, we all bear some form of racism — that’s obvious. Yes, we all “stereotype” other races in some fashion — that’s obvious. (Particularly obvious in the Los Angeles of “Crash,” where so many characters are stereotypes.) But, no, we don’t easily give voice to our racist sentiments. And that’s why “Crash” rings so false.

Last month I wrote an article on the best picture nominees (called  “Anything But ‘Crash’”) in which I talked about how the most potent form of racism in this country is no longer overt but covert. Once upon a time, yes yes yes, it was overt, which is another reason why “Crash” sucks. It’s doing what simple-minded generals do: It’s fighting the last war.

The “Crash” quiz
Here, let’s take a little quiz. Say you’re an Asian woman who has just rear-ended the car in front of you. What do you do? Do you…

Wait in your car until a police officer arrives
Exchange licenses with the driver of the other car
Notice that the driver of the other car is someone who looks like Jennifer Esposito, immediately assume she’s Mexican-American (as opposed to, say, Italian-American), and then tell the African-American police officer that “Mexicans no know how to drive.”
How about this one? You’re talking to a bureaucrat on the phone about getting extra care for your father who is having trouble urinating, and she is not helpful. You ask for her name and she tells you: Shaniqua Johnson. You still need her help. What do you say?

“Shaniqua. That’s a beautiful name.”
“Shaniqua. You could do a better job of helping my father, who is in pain.
“Shaniqua. Big f---ing surprise that is.”
One last one. You’ve just been told by your hot, hot girlfriend, with whom you’re lucky to be sleeping in the first place, that she is not Mexican as you presumed; that her mother is from Puerto Rico and her father is from El Salvador. What do you say?

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m surprised I didn’t know that. Now come back to bed.”
“Really? How did they meet?”
“Who took [all Latinos] and taught them to park their cars on their lawns?”
And on and on and on. Every scene. Put a little pressure on somebody and they blurt simplistic racist sentiments. Right in the face of someone of that race.

Worse, none of it feels like sentiments these characters would actually say. It feels like sentiments writer/director Paul Haggis imposed upon them to make his grand, dull point about racism, when a more telling point about racism might have emerged if he’d just let them be. “Crash” is like a Creative Writing 101 demonstration of what not to do as a writer. To the Academy this meant two things: Best screenplay and best picture.


The Sandra Bullock/Ludacris scene
A few readers objected to my column last month — and will no doubt object to this one. They felt “Crash” taught them something important about race. More’s the pity. They said they learned that even good people do bad things, and even bad people have moments of compassion. Sorry they didn’t already know this. They felt like “Crash” was a movie the average person could support. “Average,” I guess, is the key word here.

Some agreed with me that the most potent form of racism today is covert rather than overt; but they added that this was a movie, after all, not a book, and in a movie you can’t show characters thinking.

Ah, but you can. Paul Haggis even did it in “Crash” — in the scene where Sandra Bullock's character grabs her husband's arm as two black men approach. Her move toward her husband is silent and instinctive, and Ludacris’ character suspects she does what she does because he’s black, and she’s scared of him, but he has no evidence. We only get the evidence later, from her, when she argues with her husband about the Latino locksmith. And even this scene is handled ineptly. She should have argued with her husband upstairs, away from the help. But Haggis wanted her to complain about the Latino locksmith within earshot of the Latino locksmith — because apparently that’s how we all do it. Lord knows if I don’t trust someone because of their race and/or class I raise my objection within earshot of them. Doesn’t everyone?

The main point is that you can dramatize our more covert forms of racism. But here’s how bad “Crash” is. Even though the Bullock/Ludacris scene is one of the more realistic scenes in the movie, it is still monumentally simplistic. I have a white female friend who lives close to the downtown area of her city. Usually she walks home from downtown. If she does this after dark, and two men are walking towards her, she’ll cross to the other side of the street to avoid them. But if the two men are black? She won’t do this, because she’s afraid of appearing racist. That’s how much of a conundrum race is in this country. “Crash” didn’t begin to scratch that surface.

Losing Jim
So why did it win?

There are rumors that older Academy members shied away from even viewing “Brokeback Mountain” for the usual homophobic reasons. Lionsgate also pushed “Crash” on Academy voters; it handed out a record number of DVDs and advertised heavily. I don’t know which explanation bothers me more. All I know is I feel sick. It feels like the ’72 Olympic basketball finals, when the Russians cheated and won; it feels like the ’85 World Series when a blown call in game six tilted the balance towards the Royals. It feels like the good guys wuz robbed.

My friend Jim is more interested in the Academy than anyone I know who isn’t involved in the industry. (He’s a chauffeur in Seattle.) By early summer he’s already talking up possible nominees. The discussion reaches a fever pitch in November and December when the prestige pictures are rolled out and critics make their “best of” announcements. He goes to see these films. He talks about them. He actually cares.

Not anymore.

“Crash’s” win did him in. The Academy, he said afterwards, “is not a serious body of voters who vote rationally. If they’re influenced by a DVD sales pitch, they’re not worth my time.”

Are they worth anyone’s time? Once again, they showed themselves susceptible to something other than a legitimate search for “the best.” Once again, marketing appears to have won. The Academy is 78 years old and acting every bit of it, and last night they took another doddering step towards irrelevancy.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

© 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/page/2/

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 06, 2006, 10:20 PM

Thanks again Ethan for posting Kenneth Turans "post mortem" of the Best Picture award.  Erik Lundegaard's article is good, but Kenneth Turan's is better crafted.  I even passed it around at work today.  In a non-confrontation way he points his finger at all those surface-liberals who acted like reactionaries.  I'd take it a step further and say that many didn't vote for Crash as their "feel good" movie but just wanted to stop BBM.  They may regret their vote.

 



   

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Cowboy Cody on Mar 06, 2006, 10:38 PM

Ethan thanks for posting those. It reminds me there is still some good left out there. I needed that today.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 06, 2006, 10:42 PM

You are welcome, everyone. We, BBM fans, are not alone. What is wrong is *wrong* no matter how you look at it.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: karind1 on Mar 06, 2006, 11:21 PM

  MSNBC.com

Oscar misfire: ‘Crash’ and burn
The Academy takes yet another step toward irrelevance with its latest pick

COMMENTARY
By Erik Lundegaard
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 3:09 p.m. ET March 6, 2006


Talk about ruining a perfect evening.

Jon Stewart was funny, George Clooney was sharp, Salma Hayek looked to-freakin’-die-for, Philip Seymour Hoffman won in humble-but-lovable fashion and Ang Lee, the director of one of the best movies of the year, became the first non-Caucasian to win the Academy Award for best director.

Then Jack Nicholson, presenting the best picture winner, ruined everything. He didn’t say “Brokeback Mountain”; he actually said…“Crash.”

No, he didn’t. Did he? He did.

My god.

This is the worst best picture winner since “The Greatest Show on Earth” in 1952. It may be worse than that. “Greatest Show” was a dull, bloated romance set against the backdrop of a three-ring circus but at least it didn’t pretend to be important. “Crash” thinks it’s important. “Crash” thinks it’s saying something bold about racism in America.

But what is it saying?

That we all bear some form of racism. That we all “stereotype” other races. That, when pressured, racist sentiments spill out of us as easily as escaped air.

Here’s my take. Yes, we all bear some form of racism — that’s obvious. Yes, we all “stereotype” other races in some fashion — that’s obvious. (Particularly obvious in the Los Angeles of “Crash,” where so many characters are stereotypes.) But, no, we don’t easily give voice to our racist sentiments. And that’s why “Crash” rings so false.

Last month I wrote an article on the best picture nominees (called  “Anything But ‘Crash’”) in which I talked about how the most potent form of racism in this country is no longer overt but covert. Once upon a time, yes yes yes, it was overt, which is another reason why “Crash” sucks. It’s doing what simple-minded generals do: It’s fighting the last war.

The “Crash” quiz
Here, let’s take a little quiz. Say you’re an Asian woman who has just rear-ended the car in front of you. What do you do? Do you…

Wait in your car until a police officer arrives
Exchange licenses with the driver of the other car
Notice that the driver of the other car is someone who looks like Jennifer Esposito, immediately assume she’s Mexican-American (as opposed to, say, Italian-American), and then tell the African-American police officer that “Mexicans no know how to drive.”
How about this one? You’re talking to a bureaucrat on the phone about getting extra care for your father who is having trouble urinating, and she is not helpful. You ask for her name and she tells you: Shaniqua Johnson. You still need her help. What do you say?

“Shaniqua. That’s a beautiful name.”
“Shaniqua. You could do a better job of helping my father, who is in pain.
“Shaniqua. Big f---ing surprise that is.”
One last one. You’ve just been told by your hot, hot girlfriend, with whom you’re lucky to be sleeping in the first place, that she is not Mexican as you presumed; that her mother is from Puerto Rico and her father is from El Salvador. What do you say?

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m surprised I didn’t know that. Now come back to bed.”
“Really? How did they meet?”
“Who took [all Latinos] and taught them to park their cars on their lawns?”
And on and on and on. Every scene. Put a little pressure on somebody and they blurt simplistic racist sentiments. Right in the face of someone of that race.

Worse, none of it feels like sentiments these characters would actually say. It feels like sentiments writer/director Paul Haggis imposed upon them to make his grand, dull point about racism, when a more telling point about racism might have emerged if he’d just let them be. “Crash” is like a Creative Writing 101 demonstration of what not to do as a writer. To the Academy this meant two things: Best screenplay and best picture.


The Sandra Bullock/Ludacris scene
A few readers objected to my column last month — and will no doubt object to this one. They felt “Crash” taught them something important about race. More’s the pity. They said they learned that even good people do bad things, and even bad people have moments of compassion. Sorry they didn’t already know this. They felt like “Crash” was a movie the average person could support. “Average,” I guess, is the key word here.

Some agreed with me that the most potent form of racism today is covert rather than overt; but they added that this was a movie, after all, not a book, and in a movie you can’t show characters thinking.

Ah, but you can. Paul Haggis even did it in “Crash” — in the scene where Sandra Bullock's character grabs her husband's arm as two black men approach. Her move toward her husband is silent and instinctive, and Ludacris’ character suspects she does what she does because he’s black, and she’s scared of him, but he has no evidence. We only get the evidence later, from her, when she argues with her husband about the Latino locksmith. And even this scene is handled ineptly. She should have argued with her husband upstairs, away from the help. But Haggis wanted her to complain about the Latino locksmith within earshot of the Latino locksmith — because apparently that’s how we all do it. Lord knows if I don’t trust someone because of their race and/or class I raise my objection within earshot of them. Doesn’t everyone?

The main point is that you can dramatize our more covert forms of racism. But here’s how bad “Crash” is. Even though the Bullock/Ludacris scene is one of the more realistic scenes in the movie, it is still monumentally simplistic. I have a white female friend who lives close to the downtown area of her city. Usually she walks home from downtown. If she does this after dark, and two men are walking towards her, she’ll cross to the other side of the street to avoid them. But if the two men are black? She won’t do this, because she’s afraid of appearing racist. That’s how much of a conundrum race is in this country. “Crash” didn’t begin to scratch that surface.

Losing Jim
So why did it win?

There are rumors that older Academy members shied away from even viewing “Brokeback Mountain” for the usual homophobic reasons. Lionsgate also pushed “Crash” on Academy voters; it handed out a record number of DVDs and advertised heavily. I don’t know which explanation bothers me more. All I know is I feel sick. It feels like the ’72 Olympic basketball finals, when the Russians cheated and won; it feels like the ’85 World Series when a blown call in game six tilted the balance towards the Royals. It feels like the good guys wuz robbed.

My friend Jim is more interested in the Academy than anyone I know who isn’t involved in the industry. (He’s a chauffeur in Seattle.) By early summer he’s already talking up possible nominees. The discussion reaches a fever pitch in November and December when the prestige pictures are rolled out and critics make their “best of” announcements. He goes to see these films. He talks about them. He actually cares.

Not anymore.

“Crash’s” win did him in. The Academy, he said afterwards, “is not a serious body of voters who vote rationally. If they’re influenced by a DVD sales pitch, they’re not worth my time.”

Are they worth anyone’s time? Once again, they showed themselves susceptible to something other than a legitimate search for “the best.” Once again, marketing appears to have won. The Academy is 78 years old and acting every bit of it, and last night they took another doddering step towards irrelevancy.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

© 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bokano on Mar 06, 2006, 11:55 PM

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/movieawards/oscars/2006-03-06-oscar-moments-cover_x.htm

What you saw: Surprise! Crash takes best picture.

What you didn't see: Backstage workers gasp as Crash wins over favorite Brokeback Mountain. When presenter Jack Nicholson is asked if he is surprised by the win, he says, "I didn't expect it because you heard so much about Brokeback," before confiding, "and that's who I voted for." But he cheerfully escorted Crash director Paul Haggis away. (Related items: Thirty-second Oscar recap | Get even more backstage dirt in our Awards Night report)

Oscar giveth — and taketh

What you saw: Ang Lee becomes the millionth or so person to use the catchphrase "I wish I knew how to quit you," while accepting his directing Oscar for Brokeback Mountain.

What you didn't see: Nobody in the darkened wings looks more surprised about Crash's win than Lee. He silently walks away as the Crash producers begin their acceptance speech, a wan smile on his face.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 06, 2006, 11:55 PM

The Raw Story "Oscar the Chicken"
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Oscar_chicken_0306.html

New York Times “Who Won?”
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/redcarpet/2006oscars.html?hp

LA Times “Breaking No Ground”
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/env-turan5mar05,0,5359042.story

MSNBC: “Crash and Burn”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/

CNN: “Mixed Oscar results for gay/transgender themes”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/06/oscars.gay.films.ap/index.html

CBS News: “Viewers Split on Oscars Top 6”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/06/oscar/main1373957.shtml

Deadline Hollywood “Clueless AMPAS Board”
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/clueless-academy-board/

Fox News: “How did Brokeback end up Crashing?”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187005,00.html

Reuters: “Why Brokeback Lost”
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2006-03-06T082553Z_01_N04161595_RTRUKOC_0_US-OSCARS.xml

NY Times “Crash walks away with top prize”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/movies/redcarpet/06osca.html?ei=5094&en=2f4f29873c5ad4e6&hp=&ex=1141707600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

AOL News “Crash lands best picture”
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/movies/article.adp?id=20060305232209990006

Variety “Party Crashed Big Time”
http://www.variety.com/ac2006_article/VR1117939293?nav=news&categoryid=1985&cs=1&s=h&p=0

E-Online “Spirit Awards go for Broke”
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,18491,00.html?fdnews

Rotten Tomatoes story on Crash:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/crash/

Miami Herald “Stars are Human”
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/movies/14026328.htm

Winipeg Sun “Not Broke – We’d Fix it”
http://winnipegsun.com/SundayFocus/2006/03/05/1473338-sun.html

Washington Post “A Bang up Night for Crash”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500363.html

Chicago Sun Times Roger Ebert “Crasing a Joyous Oscar party
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/OSCARS/60306001

Guardian UK “Crash lands surprise win”
http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1724519,00.html

This is London “Academy Shuns the Blockbuster”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/films/articles/21894249?source=Evening%20Standard

San Francisco Chronicle “Crash Breaks Through”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/06/OSCARS.TMP

Fox News “Crash Causes near Cultural Earthquake”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186929,00.html

Times Online “Did the Academy Wimp Out?”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,564-2072364,00.html

GLAAD “How Brokeback Did It – 3 Academy Awards”
http://glaad.org

FENNEC “The Worst Best Picture in History”
http://awards.fennec.org/

Huffington Post “Hollywood Hardly Hearts Homosexuals”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-stone/hollywood-hardly-hearts-h_b_16886.html

Huffington Post “Sore Losers”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-robinson/sore-loser-mountain_b_16879.html

Sandra Bullock Fansite (Homophobic crap…)
http://www.sandra.com/brokeback_crash

Daily News “Life Lessons From the Oscars”
http://dailynews.com/redcarpet/ci_3572798

Gawker.com – “Google Can’t Hide its Dissapointment”
http://www.gawker.com/news/oscars/google-cant-hide-its-oscar-disappointment-158614.php

TimesOnline “Critics attack Academy for Brokeback Snub”
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19133-2072301,00.html

MagicKetchup.com “Ang Lee wins but Brokeback gets Snubbed…”
http://www.magicketchup.com/blog/?p=53

Slate “On the Oscars”
http://www.slate.com/id/2137284/entry/0/?nav=tap3

The Advocate “The Dark Side of Brokeback Mountain”
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid26588.asp

LA Times “And the Winner is, Homophobia?”
http://goldderby.latimes.com/

BBC “A Film that Crashed the Oscars”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4777808.stm

Times UK Online “Uneasy Hollywood Chooses Race Relations over Gay Cowboy Drama”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2072699,00.html

365 Gay.com “How did Brokeback Lose? Theories Abound”
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/03/030606brokeback.htm

Monster Works “Brokeback’s McMurtry Accuses Academy of Rural Discrimination”
http://contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/brokebacks%20mcmurtry%20accuses%20academy%20of%20rural%20discrimination_06_03_2006

Hollywood Hotline “Ratings drop for Academy”
http://hollywoodhotline.typepad.com/watcher/

National Review “Brokeback to the Future”
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bennett200603061142.asp

Rush Limbaugh.com “Hollywood knows they are out of touch”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030606/content/the_oscars.guest.html

Advocate “Maybe Brokeback was too controversial after all”
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid26549.asp

Entertainment Tonight Academy Awards Round up
http://et.tv.yahoo.com/newslink/14102/

New York Times “Los Angeles retains custody of Oscar”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/movies/redcarpet/07osca.html?hp&ex=1141707600&en=f9bcd4f56177090d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 07, 2006, 09:21 AM

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/05/oscar/main1369442.shtml

Interesting video and article.
Ang Lee talk about win and lost of Brokeback Mountain.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 10:13 AM

[size=12]Brokeback's' Oscar Bust[/size]

Kevin Naff, Washington Blade  March 6, 2006


It’s hard out there for a gay film fan. First, “Brokeback Mountain’s” Jake Gyllenhaal lost to George Clooney for Best Supporting Actor. Then Michelle Williams was beat by Rachel Weisz in the Best Supporting Actress category. The unsinkable Dolly Parton lost to something called Three 6 Mafia for Best Song. Heath Ledger lost the Best Actor award to Philip Seymour Hoffman. Then Felicity Huffman, an accomplished stage actress nominated for “Transamerica,” lost to the ever-grinning and unthreatening Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress.

Perhaps those results didn’t come as much of a surprise. But it was what happened at the end of last night’s Academy Awards telecast that left the audience stunned and gasping.

When Jack Nicholson announced “Crash” as Best Picture, the guests at a gay-hosted Oscar party I attended went silent. Not a person in the room picked “Crash” to win. Odds makers, film critics and pundits didn’t either. So what happened? Was there too much “Brokeback” hype? Did the buzz peak too early? Were Academy voters, many of whom live in Los Angeles, predisposed to support a film about their hometown? Or did anti-gay bias creep into the balloting?

Most likely the answer is a combination of all of the above. And it’s a huge disappointment because the best film of the year didn’t take home the Oscar. “Brokeback Mountain,” by far the year’s most celebrated film, lost to an unoriginal retread of a movie about intersecting lives in Los Angeles.

“The everyday lives of a number of Los Angeles residents are the subject of this loosely-knitted collection of short stories.” Does that tagline sound familiar? It sounds a lot like a description of “Crash,” but it was actually written 13 years ago about the brilliant Robert Altman film “Short Cuts.” Like “Crash,” “Short Cuts” also featured an ensemble cast of big Hollywood stars in cameo or supporting roles. Even the title of the winning film isn’t original — it was recycled from a 1996 film about car crashes.

As London Free Press columnist Dan Brown pointed out, “Hmmm … a troubled L.A. cop. You mean like the nervous cop played by John C. Reilly in ‘Magnolia?’ Or was he more like the crooked cop played by Tim Robbins in ‘Short Cuts?’ Granted, there’s nothing new under the sun. But repainting the same horse ridden by previous directors is not the mark of a strong storyteller.”

Unlike “Brokeback,” which won near-unanimous praise and swept the earlier awards, “Crash” received decidedly mixed reviews. The Miami Herald wrote, "Contrived, obvious and overstated, ‘Crash’ is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on."

The Boston Globe concurred, "Characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do."

The hometown newspaper, the L.A. Times, described “Crash” as, "A grim, histrionic experiment in vehicular metaphor slaughter."

There were a few highlights for gay film fans. Hoffman’s portrayal of gay author Truman Capote was a deserving win. Ang Lee, who was named Best Director, mentioned gays in a long-overdue shout-out during his acceptance speech.

"[Ennis and Jack] taught all of us who made 'Brokeback Mountain' so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself," Lee said.

“Brokeback” also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, begging the question: How does a movie win awards for director and screenplay but lose Best Picture?

Maybe “Brokeback” was a victim of its own hype, but it’s more likely that too many straight Academy members either didn’t vote for the film or didn’t even bother to see it because of the overt gay love story and much-talked-about pup tent sex scene.

As “Brokeback" screenwriter Larry McMurtry told reporters backstage, "Americans don't want cowboys to be gay," Sadly, the groundbreaking film was slighted and its powerful message reduced to a series of tired, predictable gay jokes during the telecast.

It was an unfortunate finish for a film that will be remembered by many filmgoers — gay and straight alike — as the best of 2005.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jakeofrome on Mar 07, 2006, 10:32 AM

Was There a 'Brokeback' Backlash?

We chatted about it, joked about it, argued about it, spoofed it. "Brokeback Mountain" was everywhere in our popular culture - yet it lost the big Oscar it was supposed to win.

Was there a "Brokeback Backlash," or was "Crash" just the worthy contender that came on strong in the final Best Picture stretch? There were as many theories being offered up Monday as there are "Brokeback" parodies on the Internet.

One theory was that, despite the hoopla, the endless late-night monologues and the clever imitations, people (Academy voters, that is) didn't really love the soulful saga of two gay cowboys - and perhaps even felt uncomfortable with its themes.

"Sometimes people pretend to like movies more than they actually do," said Richard Walter, who heads the screenwriting program at UCLA's film school. "But this film wasn't really THAT good. What it tried to do was great, sensational. But what it actually accomplished wasn't so great. You can't really buy the love story."

Film critic Kenneth Turan, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said the problem wasn't with the film's quality. Rather, he said, "you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made people distinctly uncomfortable."

"In the privacy of the voting booth ... 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.'"

Gay activists did not necessarily agree.

"I don't think it has anything to do with the subject matter," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay rights group. He noted that "Brokeback" and "Crash" both dealt with "tough issues like indifference and intolerance."

"I was certainly disappointed," Solmonese said. "But I would trade that Oscar for all the positive conversations that this movie spurred between parents and their gay children, or between employees and their gay co-workers. That impact transcends any accolades."

Some people focused on the demographics of the typical Academy voter: older, and city-dwelling. Author and "Brokeback" co-screenwriter Larry McMurtry thought that was key to his film's loss.

"Members of the Academy are mostly urban people," McMurtry, who won the adapted screenplay prize with Diana Ossana, said backstage at Sunday night's ceremony. "We are an urban nation. We are not a rural nation. It's not easy even to get a rural story made."

McMurtry could have added that not only are Academy voters urban, they also are from Los Angeles - the city that is the heart of "Crash," a racial drama depicting the intertwining experiences of an array of characters over 36 hours. The film, featuring a huge and accomplished cast ("Raise your hand if you're NOT in `Crash,'" host Jon Stewart quipped to the crowd), also won for original screenplay and film editing.

"Brokeback" director Ang Lee, who won the directing prize, said he hadn't a clue why the film didn't take the best-picture award. "They didn't vote for it," he said. "I don't know. You asked me one question, and I don't know the answer."

But his brother had an opinion. Lee Kang, speaking in Tapei, Taiwan, suggested American bias was involved. "When the locals are voting, they will have this, whether you call it nationalism or something else," he said.

"Crash" writer/director Paul Haggis, for his part, said he hadn't "for a second" believed the whispers, which grew louder as Oscar night approached, that "Crash" had the momentum to overtake "Brokeback."

"I didn't believe any of that nonsense," he said. "In fact, we were so shocked. I mean, we're still trying to figure out if we got this."

"Crash" came out to mixed reviews in May, considered much too early for a film to stay in voters' minds. But Lionsgate Films reminded voters and critics of the movie's potency by flooding them with copies of the DVD late in 2005.

In winning over the heavily favored "Brokeback," the film evoked major upsets of the past, most recently the 1999 triumph of "Shakespeare in Love" over "Saving Private Ryan." Another famous underdog champ was "Chariots of Fire," which in 1982 beat both Warren Beatty's historical epic, "Reds," and the family story "On Golden Pond."

One disturbing difference for the Academy: a lot more viewers tuned in to see those upsets. An estimated 38.8 million people watched Sunday's telecast on ABC - down 8 percent from last year and the second-worst showing in nearly two decades, according to Nielsen Media Research. Except for the 2003 count of 33 million viewers - when "Chicago" took the best-picture award - viewership hadn't dipped below 40 million since 1987.

So what is to be learned from Sunday night's upset result? Not much, says Walter, the film professor. You just really never know what Academy voters are going to do.

"It's just a crapshoot," Walter said. "You go to Vegas and you put your money on number 17.

"There is NO lesson to be learned from all this. It doesn't mean a thing."

(The Associated Press) (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OSCAR_UPSET?SITE=NYNYD&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: rabjr1 on Mar 07, 2006, 10:40 AM

It's interesting to note that in one report it says that the producers of "Crash" sent out 120,000 videso to voting members of the Academy while BBM is still in theaters.  The backhanded politicing of films in Hollywood must be ruthless. 

Most critics and I guesssome Hollywood bigwigs were surprised about "Crash" win.  Looing agina at Jack Nicholson's reaction I guess he say he voted for BBM putting to rest my thinking he was homophic.

"Crash" hopes to generate more dollars with their dvd sales, we'll see.  If the people on this forum can see BBM multible times I'm sure the dvde sales of the movie will be the same.  I know I am going to buy several copies of the dvd one or two to watch and about 2 to keep in safe storage.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Kindred on Mar 07, 2006, 11:01 AM

    Non-scientific poll results of WashingtonPost.com readers:

Which was the biggest snub at this year's Academy Awards?
   
11482 responses so far:

Giamatti Losing to Clooney              (17.1%), 1962 votes
No Oscar for Heath Ledger              (6.2%), 710 votes
No Best Picture for 'Brokeback'    (42.6%), 4886 votes
No Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix          (26.5%), 3045 votes
Williams Losing to Weisz                  (7.7%), 879 votes

(While the 42.6% for BBM didn't surprise me, the 26.5% for Joaquin did.)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 11:43 AM

Quote from: Kindred on Mar 07, 2006, 11:01 AM

   Non-scientific poll results of WashingtonPost.com readers:

Which was the biggest snub at this year's Academy Awards?
   
11482 responses so far:

Giamatti Losing to Clooney              (17.1%), 1962 votes
No Oscar for Heath Ledger              (6.2%), 710 votes
No Best Picture for 'Brokeback'    (42.6%), 4886 votes
No Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix          (26.5%), 3045 votes
Williams Losing to Weisz                  (7.7%), 879 votes

(While the 42.6% for BBM didn't surprise me, the 26.5% for Joaquin did.) 

Very interesting.  Remember Washington, DC is just north of Virginia and Southerners have fond memories of Johnny Cash.  If the poll was taken by the New York Times it might be different. The loss for BBM appears to be widespread which is positive.

Almost all the major awards prior to the Oscars set a pattern of who deserved awards and even at the Oscars the awards were fairly predictable.  That was until the end and the big prize. Something doesn't smell right.

   

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 11:54 AM

Ok, take a deep breath and make sure your blood pressure isn't too high.  This is in effect Roger Ebert's response to Kenneth Turan's article.  Ebert and his chum Richard Roeper were both big "Crash" supporters.   


The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash[/b]

BY ROGER EBERT / March 6, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- One of the mysteries of the 2006 Oscar season is the virulence with which lovers of "Brokeback Mountain" savaged "Crash." When the film about racism actually won the Oscar for best picture Sunday, there was no grace in their response. As someone who felt "Brokeback" was a great film but "Crash" a greater one, I would have been pleased if either had won.

But here is Ken Turan in the Los Angeles Times, writing on the morning after: "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."

And Nikki Finke, in the LA Weekly: "Way back on Jan. 17, I decided to nominate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Bunch of Hypocrites. That's because I felt this year's dirty little Oscar secret was the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about hetero members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences being unwilling to screen 'Brokeback Mountain.' For a community that takes pride in progressive values, it seemed shameful to me that Hollywood's homophobia could be on a par with Pat Robertson's."

Yes, and more than one critic described "Crash" as "the worst film of the year," which is as extreme as saying John Kerry was a coward in Vietnam. It means you'll say anything to help your campaign.

What is intriguing about these writers is that they never mention the other three best picture nominees: "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich." Their silence on these films reveals their agenda: They wanted "Brokeback Mountain" to win, saw "Crash" as the spoiler, and attacked "Crash." If "Munich" had been the spoiler, they might not have focused on "Crash." When they said those who voted for "Crash" were homophobes who were using a liberal movie to mask their hatred of homosexuals, they might have said the same thing about "Munich."

This seems simply wrong. Consider Finke's "anecdotal evidence" that puts Hollywood's homophobia on a par with Pat Robertson's. Pat Robertson? This is certainly the most extreme statement she could make on the subject, but can it be true? How many anecdotes add up to evidence? Did anyone actually tell her they didn't want to see the movie because it was about two gay men?

My impression, also based on anecdotal evidence, is that the usual number of academy voters saw the usual number of academy nominees, and voted for the ones they admired the most. In a year without "Brokeback Mountain," Finke, Turan and many others might have admired "Crash." Or maybe not. But it's a matter of opinion, not sexual politics.

It is not a "safe harbor," but a film that takes the discussion of racism in America in a direction it has not gone before in the movies, directing attention at those who congratulate themselves on not being racist, including liberals and/or minority group members. It is a movie of raw confrontation about the complexity of our motives, about how racism works not only top down but sideways, and how in different situations, we are all capable of behaving shamefully.

"Good Night, and Good Luck," "Capote" and "Munich" were also risky pictures -- none more so, from a personal point of view, than "Munich," which afforded Steven Spielberg the unique experience of being denounced as anti-Semitic. "Good Night, and Good Luck" was surely a "safe harbor" for liberals, with its attack at a safe distance on McCarthyism -- although it carried an inescapable reference to McCarthyism as practiced by the Bush administration, which equates its critics with supporters of terrorism.

"Capote" was a brilliant character study of a writer who was gay, and who used his sexuality, as we all use our sexuality, as a part of his personal armory in daily battle.

It is noticeable how many writers on "Hollywood's homophobia" were able to sidestep "Capote," which was a hard subject to miss, being right there on the same list of best picture nominees. Were supporters of "Brokeback" homophobic in championing the cowboys over what Oscarcast host Jon Stewart called the "effete New York intellectual"?

Of course not. "Brokeback Mountain" was simply a better movie than "Capote." And "Crash" was better than "Brokeback Mountain," although they were both among the best films of the year. That is a matter of opinion. But I was not "discomfited" by "Brokeback Mountain." Read my original review. I chose "Crash" as the best film of the year not because it promoted one agenda and not another, but because it was a better film.

The nature of the attacks on "Crash" by the supporters of "Brokeback Mountain" seem to proceed from the other position: "Brokeback" is better not only because of its artistry but because of its subject matter, and those who disagree hate homosexuals. Its supporters 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 "Crash" had to offer.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 07, 2006, 12:12 PM

Let this tiresome duo burn in hell.  I am tired of listening to them.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: dirtbiker on Mar 07, 2006, 12:22 PM

This only reinforced my hatred for that fat bozo.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: sweetlilg on Mar 07, 2006, 12:27 PM

thanks everyone for posting these awesome articles!! they all spoke the truth!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 12:40 PM

Hollywood Isn't Being Straight with Gay Community[/b]

Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe   |  March 7, 2006


The crash you heard late Sunday night was not only Jack Nicholson announcing the best-picture Oscar winner. It was the sound of lots of closet doors slamming shut in a huff. ''Brokeback Mountain," the so-called gay cowboy movie, lost to ''Crash," a drama about the shrieking, teary, hateful, and guilty people who refuse to stop running into each on the streets of Los Angeles.

Some movies are born political, and others have politics thrust upon them.  Poor ''Brokeback Mountain" was such a movie.  Ang Lee's adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story was not out to attack us with a statement.  It really is just an unhappy love story that happens to have enormous social relevance because its protagonists are two men.  Yet the movie's biggest supporters may have turned an otherwise innocent film into a cause that got on voters' nerves. The dialogue became quotable, and the poster was mocked, lessening the emotional seriousness and making for a once-in-a-lifetime pop-culture phenomenon.

''Crash," which many Los Angelenos have come to regard as gospel, was the logical beneficiary.

As Oscar host Jon Stewart pointed out, half of Hollywood acted in ''Crash," and actors make up the Academy's largest branch.  Plus, the average age of voters is rumored to be 60-something, which means that ''Crash" might have triggered a civil-rights hot flash in the Academy.

Despite the interlocking story lines, ''Crash" is in its way a conventional social-problem drama that also appealed to voters' sense of laziness. The movie is set in their backyard. And the depiction of nonstop racial strife might have tapped into some voters' guilt about their own wealth and their own prejudices.

Sandra Bullock, as a pampered politician's wife, and Matt Dillon, as a racist LAPD officer, follow particularly improbable trajectories from bigotry to enlightenment: Each dares to hug a person of color. In the case of Bullock's character, it's her Latina maid, who exists solely for this grotesque expression of guilt.

''Crash" edges to the brink of insanity then assures you, ''If we can't all get along, the least we can do is try." Maybe the puppets in the Broadway musical ''Avenue Q" said it best when they sang, ''Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes." ''Crash" turns that declaration into volcanic melodrama.

Oddly, the characters doing all the colliding in ''Crash" are straight. Director and co-writer Paul Haggis was sure to populate his movie Noah's Ark-style, with two or three members of various races, ethnicities, and social classes represented.  Homosexuals didn't make the cut.

Thus the win for ''Crash" makes an interesting point about where Hollywood stands on the whole gay issue -- less ''I wish I knew how to quit you" and more ''not that there's anything wrong with that."

Throughout Oscar night, winners gave eloquent shout-outs to tolerance. George Clooney pointed out that Hattie McDaniel won her award at a time when it was dangerous and unfashionable to reward talented African-Americans.

A truly bracing acceptance speech, though, would demand acceptance of openly gay actors instead of congratulating a breakthrough that goes back six decades. Yes, there might not be a Halle Berry without Hattie McDaniel. But suddenly it's more reasonable to wonder when we'll ever see a gay McDaniel.

It's fine for Hollywood to urge gay tolerance. But it should give America an actual homosexual to tolerate first.

The defeat of ''Brokeback" exposes this blind spot all too clearly.  Best-director winner Ang Lee praised the fictional ''cowboys" in his movie for their bravery.  But the real -- and truly audacious -- Truman Capote went unthanked in best actor winner Philip Seymour Hoffman's acceptance speech.

The culture of the movie business isn't all that different from the military or sports. An accusation of homosexuality can turn a star litigious or, in some cases, relentlessly straight. Obviously, the movies are in the business of illusion. And anything that shatters the illusion is bad for business.

As this year's Oscars demonstrated, Hollywood will find a way to produce or distribute ''Capote," ''Brokeback Mountain," and ''Transamerica," but fosters an environment in which the lead parts in those movies have to be played by ostensibly straight actors. There are no gay film stars. We all know the gay actors go to Broadway (they want Tonys!) or come from England. Seriously people, Ian McKellen can't do all your work for you.

In any case, ''Brokeback Mountain" might not have been stridently political enough for Academy voters. The heroes never even say the word ''gay." ''Crash" throws all its issues up on the screen; of course it won. The Academy can congratulate itself from the bottom of its heart, while claiming to have searched its soul for solutions to decades of African-American neglect. Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, and now Three 6 Mafia are recent winners. There are lots of African-American stars and producers. Black is pretty normal in the movies.

Homosexuality? Not so much.

In an attempt to ''normalize" ''Brokeback Mountain" during Sunday night's broadcast Stewart trotted out a montage of great homoerotic moments in Westerns. It put the movie in an irreverent cinematic context, and it was very funny until you realized that, because the men in the montage aren't truly gay, all that clip reel actually does is reinforce paranoia about what seems gay. Just like the ''Brokeback" parodies sprouting all over the Internet, it was a backhanded compliment -- progressive, yet misleading, true but false, distancing and distorted.

In the very same way that straight Stewart happily woke up in bed with straight Clooney during one of Sunday night's skits, it was more insidiously coy illusion. Smirking and winking pussyfoots around the issue. Waking up beside Harvey Fierstein and loving it -- that's pushing the envelope.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 12:54 PM

How Did 'Crash' Cash In?[/b]

ANALYSIS - Jack Matthews, New York Daily News - March 6, 2006


The thing to do after a sudden "Crash" is make sure everyone's okay, then try to figure out what happened.

There are plenty of theories being used to explain that last turn at Sunday's Academy Awards, the one that left Ang Lee and the rest of the "Brokeback Mountain" gang with whiplash.

One is that enough Academy voters found the gay subject matter of "Brokeback Mountain" too uncomfortable to sit through, meaning they abandoned their professional responsibility and didn't watch all five nominated films.

Another, more logical explanation is that Lions Gate Entertainment, which distributed "Crash," simply bought the grand prize by outspending everyone else in a $4 million campaign that included mailing DVDs to each of the 130,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild.

Only a relative handful of SAG's members are also in the actors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but SAG's Best Ensemble award cut "Crash" out of the herd and burnished it with a peer review that made certain all Academy members watched it.

Maybe it was a combination of everybody seeing "Crash" and some refusing to watch "Brokeback Mountain." But I think the main reason "Crash" pulled off the upset is because its subject matter - racism, fear, and intolerance on the streets of L.A. - hit Academy members where most of them live.

Many critics from other parts of the country found the movie's criss-crossing characters and storylines unrealistic, and indeed they are - if you're taking the film literally. "Crash's" director, co-writer, and co-producer Paul Haggis intended it as an allegorical snapshot of a city in the midst of demographic change, and as an L.A. native, I can tell you that's how most of us saw it, too.

Having said that, and admitting that I would have cast my vote for "Goodnight, and Good Luck," I'm disappointed that "Brokeback Mountain" didn't win. It's the movie that will be best remembered from 2005, and the one that could have done the most with a Best Picture Oscar.

"Brokeback," with more than $70 million in ticket sales, has already performed better than anyone imagined in the red states, but it might have even been seen by a few rednecks if it came bearing gold. From the e-mail I've had from homophobes, I know "Brokeback" isn't going to separate many people from their prejudices, but it would have had a better chance with the Oscar.

Aside from "Crash's" win, I thought the Academy did right by most of the nominees. I wish they had found a better way to honor George Clooney's work as co-writer and director of "Goodnight, and Good Luck" than give him an Oscar for his supporting role in "Syriana." There were four more deserving actors on that ballot and one of them got screwed.

And happy as I am to see Ang Lee win Best Director for "Brokeback," I find it weird, if not disconcerting, that the Academy voters are suddenly splitting their votes for director and best picture. Three times in this decade, the director of the Best Picture was overlooked for someone else. That had only happened four times in the previous 72 years.

But, overall, three Oscars each for "Crash" and "Brokeback Mountain" underscores the tightness of this year's competition, and the three each for "King Kong" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" reminds us why movies still need to be seen on the big screen.

If "Memoirs'" story had been told better, and "King Kong" made shorter, they might have both been nominated, and Sunday's Oscars would have been a very different show.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jasonx on Mar 07, 2006, 01:17 PM

I try to convince myself that those Oscars don't matter (and they really don't.. we and the the most ppl, except those damn academy awards ppl offcourse  >:( , know it's the best movie).. and still... when I think of it I get upset...

Maybe I shouldn't read these "after Oscar" articles they bring up sad feelings  :'(

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jeddd on Mar 07, 2006, 01:33 PM

Stephen King on the Oscars.  from an email, so I don't have a link

I know what you're thinking: You need another column on this year's Oscars, especially at this late date, about as much as Dick Cheney needs a few more jokes about hunting quail in Texas. But bear with me; this is, after all, the only Oscar postmortem you'll read from a guy who put The Devil's Rejects on his 2005 Ten Best List. Besides, this year I actually picked most of the big winners, although I admit there were some surprises - a rap crew wins for Best Song? Slap my tail and call me stinky. I don't know if Academy voters were trying to show their kids (make that grandkids) that they're still hep (make that hip), but Three 6 Mafia's performance - and exuberant acceptance - lit up the evening. And the ''clean'' version went over pretty well; my elderly ears detected only a single ABC bleep.
> I thought Jon Stewart was fine. The negative reviews of his performance suggested to me that there have been so many hosting changes in the last 10 or 15 years that it's hard to get comfortable with any new face. More to the point, hosting the Academy Awards is a pretty damned thankless job. It's almost like being a janitor in a tuxedo - you bring on the talent with a joke and a wave, then sweep 'em out again after they've made their little speeches and torn open their little envelopes. I thought Stewart was sweeter-natured than Chris Rock, and let's face it: The gay-cowboy montage was a hoot.
> What I liked best about this year's show was that the cumbersome, usually unfunny repartee between presenters was almost completely gone. Good! Good! As for the hosting part, it may be that the job is as dispensable as those tiresome jokes between presenters. If the Academy can't settle Jon Stewart in for a nice long cozy run - and certainly he's smart enough and talented enough to grow into the job and make it his own - I'd love to see the show's producers test-drive the No-Host Option. If it did nothing else, it might cut the still-too-long show down to three hours.
> But back to why I did so well with my picks this year: I had Brokeback Mountain shut out of every major category except for the screenplay adaptation, which I figured they had to give to Larry McMurtry (they did - and he was ballsy enough to show up in jeans). There's been a fair amount of talk about Brokeback being a breakthrough, but that's nonsense. A check of Brokeback parodies on Google should convince anyone with half a brain that the American pop culture is intent on passing this passionate, well-meant, and well-made movie like a kidney stone. And how does the American pop culture pass what it cannot stand? Easy. It laughs that s--- right out of its system.
> You can say Hollywood has been here before, awarding gold to Midnight Cowboy in 1970, but that's also bull - Midnight Cowboy is a movie about a make-believe cowpoke (Jon Voight) who hustles to keep himself and his ailing buddy (Dustin Hoffman) from starving. The movie's major moment of catharsis comes when Joe Buck (Voight) beats a harmless homosexual half to death. Cowboy is a well-made male weepie about friendship. As such, it was rewarded with a Best Picture Oscar. Brokeback is about enduring love and fierce sexual attraction between two men. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at bottom as conservative as the current U.S. House of Representatives, gave Ang Lee one Oscar (which surprised me), the writing team of McMurtry and Diana Ossana another...and with those bones thrown, felt free to move on.
> To Crash, of course.
> Crash was the perfect alternative, and - ahem - I had it picked for Best Picture the whole way. It's the sort of flick the Hollywood establishment loves best and will always embrace, if given the chance, one where the complexities are all on the surface; its issues should come stamped GOOD FOR 2 SLICES OF PIZZA AFTER THE MOVIE (OR) 1 COCKTAIL PARTY. > Crash says we have problems. Crash says we have troubles. It says this modern life of ours is certainly a pain in the ass, especially this modern urban life. People keep ''crashing'' into each other (heavy symbolism at work, better wear a hard hat). But in the end - this is the part Academy voters like best - we can all get along if we rilly, rilly TRY!!! You almost expect to hear ''Why Can't We Be Friends?'' over the closing credits.
> And you know, until I read that last paragraph over, I didn't realize how bitter I've become about this process. Because I liked Crash. I did. I happen to believe we can get along if we really try, that coincidences do happen from time to time in the great Manhattan Transfer of city life, and people sometimes do change. It's a valid point of view, a decent theme, and Paul Haggis made the most of it. But was it the best film of the year? Good God, no. Brokeback was better. So were Capote and The Squid and the Whale, for that matter.
> But let's let it go, okay? The lights are off in the Kodak Theatre for another year. The set has been struck. The Academy sent the same soothing message it almost always sends: Everything's all right, everything's okay, the right movie won - the good movie, not the gay movie. Go to sleep, and sleep tight. Next year we'll do it all again.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: *Froggy* on Mar 07, 2006, 01:35 PM

Thank you all so much for posting all those articles and links.

x Froggy

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 07, 2006, 01:37 PM

I echo Froggy's thanks.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Icarus512 on Mar 07, 2006, 01:40 PM

Thanks everyone for the articles posted in this thread...

I read 2 of the big national newspapers here in Holland today and what I found interesting was this:
One had a huge photo of Ang Lee with the article covering the oscars and only two lines in the article devoted to crash winning and the other had another article explaining the importance of Brokeback, right next to a small one in which all the winners were named...

I found it interesting how they really couldn't pay any less attention to Crash while still mentioning it  ;D

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: dirtbiker on Mar 07, 2006, 02:02 PM

Yes, even though we can discount the Oscars and find it irrelevant in our minds now, the general public does look at the outcome of the Oscars,and conservatives may begrudgingly use that as a vehicle to watch the movie out of curiousity.  The fact that it didn't win Best Picture pretty much dashed those hopes IMO.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Cowboy Cody on Mar 07, 2006, 02:51 PM

Stephen King can kiss my Irish ar**!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: dirtbiker on Mar 07, 2006, 02:59 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 07, 2006, 02:51 PM

Stephen King can kiss my Irish ar**!

No more Stephen King movies for me.  They sucked anyways!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jasonx on Mar 07, 2006, 03:00 PM

Quote from: Icarus512 on Mar 07, 2006, 01:40 PM

Thanks everyone for the articles posted in this thread...

I read 2 of the big national newspapers here in Holland today and what I found interesting was this:
One had a huge photo of Ang Lee with the article covering the oscars and only two lines in the article devoted to crash winning and the other had another article explaining the importance of Brokeback, right next to a small one in which all the winners were named...

I found it interesting how they really couldn't pay any less attention to Crash while still mentioning it  ;D

Yeah. I read the dutch newspaper "Metro" and didn't mention "Crash" alot... It had a half page (lots off adds around it) about Ang lee with a large picture of Jack and Ennis in it (the scene with Jack sleeping on his feet). Another dutch paper only mentioned crash won from BBM and that was it.. the rest of the article was about the Capote guy.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chrissy323 on Mar 07, 2006, 03:34 PM

FWIW

I don't know if this was mentioned before somewhere on this forum or not. I noticed the ommission right away. This is from the Defamer site:

Ang Lee Thanks Billions, But Not Heath Or Jake

Two Washington Post staff writers were granted golden tickets to both the Vanity Fair and Elton John Oscar parties, and take us along on their Roald Dahlesque adventures. At VF they spot Madonna ("...she was heard to say 'oy' after experiencing a press photobarrage going in"), Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller sprawled on couches, J-Lo begging Marc Anthony to dance with her (he does not), Paul Haggis being gracious at a urinal (next movie: "Flush?"), and an affable, smoking Joaquin Phoenix; at Elton's: a bored George Lucas, alone but for his security guards, Pamela Anderson, and a "sea of women with Duck Face," including the world's reigning duck-faced monarchs, Amanda Lepore and Lisa Rinna.

Spirits overall were high; but there's always the exception:
Oscar-winning "Brokeback Mountain" screenwriter Diana Ossana, in a tight blue gown, kittens up to her sheepherding cowboys (mixed animal metaphor? Hello, we've been drinking?) and she has a long, serious conversation with Heath Ledger, and the only snippet we overhear is this: "He didn't even thank the cast," Ledger says.

While he could have been talking about anyone, a review of Ang Lee's acceptance speech revealed the director managed to thank the fictional characters of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, short story writer Annie Proulx, screenwriters Ossana and Larry McMurtry, a long list of Focus executives, and closed with a thank you to his family, and "everyone in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China." Not mentioned: Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, or any Brokeback Mountain actor for that matter. And while the entire population of China undoubtedly was thrilled to get their Oscar night due, let's face facts: it was Ledger and Gyllenhaal who really did the heavy lifting here, and probably deserved a tip of the gay cowboy hat.

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/oscars/ang-lee-thanks-billions-but-not-heath-or-jake-158919.php

The entire article from the Washington Post, they categorized Heath's statement as as "carping", is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601897.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 07, 2006, 03:42 PM

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/snub.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jasonx on Mar 07, 2006, 03:46 PM

Quote from: chrissy323 on Mar 07, 2006, 03:34 PM

FWIW

I don't know if this was mentioned before somewhere on this forum or not. I noticed the ommission right away. This is from the Defamer site:

Ang Lee Thanks Billions, But Not Heath Or Jake

Two Washington Post staff writers were granted golden tickets to both the Vanity Fair and Elton John Oscar parties, and take us along on their Roald Dahlesque adventures. At VF they spot Madonna ("...she was heard to say 'oy' after experiencing a press photobarrage going in"), Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller sprawled on couches, J-Lo begging Marc Anthony to dance with her (he does not), Paul Haggis being gracious at a urinal (next movie: "Flush?"), and an affable, smoking Joaquin Phoenix; at Elton's: a bored George Lucas, alone but for his security guards, Pamela Anderson, and a "sea of women with Duck Face," including the world's reigning duck-faced monarchs, Amanda Lepore and Lisa Rinna.

Spirits overall were high; but there's always the exception:
Oscar-winning "Brokeback Mountain" screenwriter Diana Ossana, in a tight blue gown, kittens up to her sheepherding cowboys (mixed animal metaphor? Hello, we've been drinking?) and she has a long, serious conversation with Heath Ledger, and the only snippet we overhear is this: "He didn't even thank the cast," Ledger says.

While he could have been talking about anyone, a review of Ang Lee's acceptance speech revealed the director managed to thank the fictional characters of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, short story writer Annie Proulx, screenwriters Ossana and Larry McMurtry, a long list of Focus executives, and closed with a thank you to his family, and "everyone in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China." Not mentioned: Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, or any Brokeback Mountain actor for that matter. And while the entire population of China undoubtedly was thrilled to get their Oscar night due, let's face facts: it was Ledger and Gyllenhaal who really did the heavy lifting here, and probably deserved a tip of the gay cowboy hat.

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/oscars/ang-lee-thanks-billions-but-not-heath-or-jake-158919.php

The entire article from the Washington Post, they categorized Heath's statement as as "carping", is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601897.html

drama drama drama... omg stupid gossip.. probably ment nothing or was taken out of context.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 03:52 PM

Quote from: chrissy323 on Mar 07, 2006, 03:34 PM

Spirits overall were high; but there's always the exception:
Oscar-winning "Brokeback Mountain" screenwriter Diana Ossana, in a tight blue gown, kittens up to her sheepherding cowboys (mixed animal metaphor? Hello, we've been drinking?) and she has a long, serious conversation with Heath Ledger, and the only snippet we overhear is this: "He didn't even thank the cast," Ledger says.

Sorry, but I don't put much stock in gossip columnists.  That late at night with the booze flowing I wouldn't take anything as gospel.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 03:55 PM

Thanks to Ethan for the link to Gene Stone's article on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-stone/hollywood-hardly-hearts-h_b_16886.html

Quote

There's no point in Brokeback fans getting angry and upset, however. In the long run, Brokeback will win -- its esteem will grow and its message will spread. Keep in mind that the Academy seldom selects the best movie of the year for an Oscar. "Citizen Kane" lost to "How Green Was My Valley", "Grand Illusion" lost to "You Can't Take It With You", "High Noon" lost to "The Greatest Show on Earth", and "A Place in the Sun" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" lost to "An American In Paris". "GoodFellas" lost to "Dances With Wolves". And in one year three of the greatest movies ever made -- "All the President's Men", "Taxi Driver", and "Network" -- were all nominated. They lost. To "Rocky".

"Citizen Kane" is on every "greatest movies" list I've seen in either 1st or 2nd place. All the other great but "didn't win" films he mentions are the ones that are still discussed in film classes because they are the best.


 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: jeddd on Mar 07, 2006, 04:24 PM

WOW

I really need to stay off the Sandra Bullock message boards!



QUOTE:  The media is going ape over this upset by "Crash" and I'm thrilled about it. I've never seen "Brokeback Mountain" and if it won every award in the book I still wouldn't see it. It's a movie that glorifies sodomy and portrays despicable homosexual acts in vivid detail (according to the review on ScreenIt [1]). I don't care to see that. Quite frankly I'm shocked that it's been so critically acclaimed. Then again, given the highly amoral Hollywood society, it's not much of a surprise. The critics need to be critiqued. :UNQUOTE

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bbmfan13 on Mar 07, 2006, 05:28 PM

http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1725204,00.html

"Did gay politics sink Brokeback Mountain? Awards for best director and best adapted screenplay were absolutely right, but was the academy keeping an arm's length from the story itself? The acting and best film Oscars, which would imply a more direct endorsement of gay love, were not forthcoming. A conspiracy theorist might make a few bales of hay from that. "

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: JerBear418720 on Mar 07, 2006, 05:33 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 07, 2006, 02:51 PM

Stephen King can kiss my Irish ar**!

Move over, CC, and make room for mine too!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 07, 2006, 05:49 PM

I really need to stay off the Sandra Bullock message boards!

Same here i I jts let her know to stop acting like a Fagghag and let kenu Reeve out of the closet, and that I can hardly wait to read what Tony Pelliconi has to say about her

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: JerBear418720 on Mar 07, 2006, 05:53 PM

Quote from: tpe on Mar 07, 2006, 12:12 PM

Let this tiresome duo burn in hell.  I am tired of listening to them.

Ebert touts out his opinions like they are Holy Scripture in this article.  "Crash is a better film" - so sayeth Roger - and THEN he has the nerve to attack those that disagree and smell the rat that was hiding in the Best Picture envelope (surprised it didn't bite Jack Nicholson).  OK, this windbag is off my Christmas card list for good.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 06:15 PM

Crash Plus Cash Equals Oscar[/b]

The formula that gave an independent studio the edge over the majors

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles  |  The Guardian
Tuesday March 7, 2006 


The studio behind Crash, the surprise best picture winner at Sunday night's Oscar ceremony, spent a total of $4m (£2.3m) promoting the film ahead of the ceremony with a targeted campaign to woo academy members. The film itself only cost $6.5m to make.

Released in the US last May by independent studio Lions Gate, the movie trounced the clear favourite, Brokeback Mountain.

Lions Gate gave a clue as to how when it warned last month that its profits would be lower than forecast. The main reason, it said, was that it had spent an additional $2m promoting Crash during the run-up to Sunday night. That was on top of the $2m it had already spent. While the figures for Crash may be small by comparison with other years, the effort was nevertheless effective.

By January, before the Oscar nominations were announced and with attention focused on the Golden Globes and a flurry of other awards, Lions Gate had spent $2m promoting the film, offering screenings to members of the various voting academies and urging voters to back the film with the time-honoured phrase so redolent of the pomposity of Hollywood, "For your consideration".

To make sure that everyone who counted got to see its film, Lions Gate sent out 130,000 DVD copies to members of the Screen Actors Guild, which holds a minor but influential awards ceremony. It was a surprisingly economical move, costing just 60 cents for each DVD, and it worked. Crash became the only film that SAG voters were guaranteed to have had the opportunity to see. The buzz about the film reignited, more than six months after its release, and just in time for the Oscar nominations. "The SAG mailing is something nobody had ever done," Lions Gate president Tom Ortenberg said. "It was a very effective and cost-efficient opportunity."

In early January, Lions Gate set aside a further $500,000 to promote the film, and after the announcement of the six Oscar nominations on the last day of January, a further $1.5m.

All this is small change to the major studios, which routinely spend $10m-$20m promoting films for Oscars. In 1999, at the high point of campaigning, Miramax outspent DreamWorks to ensure Elizabeth beat Saving Private Ryan at the Oscars. This year Universal, owned by cash-strapped General Electric, is thought to have spent $5m-$10m promoting Munich and Cinderella Man. But with none of the other majors in the running for the big awards this year, the field was left open for Lions Gate.

The investment in awards is worthwhile for any studio because of the kudos it brings, a point made by Ortenberg. "The branding that goes into a best picture nomination is really what helps attract filmmakers and acting talent," he said recently. Feel-good ensemble Crash, showing actors caring about the world while performing in what is a fairly conventional Hollywood movie, is precisely the sort of low-budget project to bring bring talent to Lions Gate's door.

And then there was Oprah Winfrey factor. "Hey everybody!," she wrote on her website last summer. "I just saw Crash. Go see this movie. It's superb! I'm on 'vacay' - otherwise I'd be on the show telling everybody to GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It's so well done. So thought-provoking. I saw it a week ago ... and I can't stop talking about it!"

The film's writer-director-producer Paul Haggis duly appeared on Oprah's TV show to tell how his real-life carjack drama led to the film, while the key members of the cast also appeared to ask: "Are you a racist?" Oprah's O magazine also ran articles on the film. "I believe everybody should have this in their movie collection," Oprah told viewers.

Despite being described by one distributor as "a made-for-TV film", Crash has done well at the box office. On its opening weekend it took $9.1m. By the time it ended its run in the US in September, it had taken $55.4m. Worldwide, including Britain, where it was released in August, it has taken $83.4m.

When the awards season started, Crash was already out on DVD in the US, selling 20,000 units a week. With the nominations, sales leapt to 50,000. The Oscar win is expected to generate several hundred thousand extra sales, as well as increasing the price for TV sales and rights. From its $6.5m investment, Lions Gate can expect to see Crash revenues pass the $100m mark.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: glacier1 on Mar 07, 2006, 06:41 PM

This LA Times column/blog by Steve Pond, "If Picking Brokeback was Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right" contains about 19 responses....all of which will offer some solace.   I don't think the link requires a password.

http://oscarbeat.latimes.com/awards_oscar/2006/03/if_picking_brok.html#comments

Here's just one of them:

I appreciate all of the insightful analysis of the fiasco fthat was the best picture award this year, especially Don's comments. I had no idea that there was that much hostility from such a large number of Academy voters. How naive I really am, after all. I thought that this was the one place where a movie like BBM would be warmly embraced.
For me, seeing this movie the day before the Academy Awards was an incredibly emotional, cathartic experience. I found myself finally able to get beyond my own problems with understanding gay people and I became completely involved with these two men to the point that I could see them just as two people caught up in a love affair that could not possibly end happily. I rejoiced in their expression of love and I found myself wanting them to be together, realizing that they were only happy and alive when they were with each other.
What a marvelous thing it is to have a voyage of self discovery while watching a true masterpiece of brilliantly crafted moviemaking. I was overcome at the end and I couldn't get the images of this marvelous movie out of my mind. I will always remember Ennis Del Mar, played with such skill and subtlety and utterly hearbreaking poignancy by Heath Ledger. He touched my soul and my heart and I am grateful that I was able to understand what both he and this movie are really about.
I feel sorry for those who felt that they needed to shun or back away from what this movie was depicting. I also am afraid that maybe its distributors underestimated the skill and zeal of the people behind Crash, and therefore, maybe snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But I do not blame them nor do I hold them ultimately responsible for this travesty.
It was the cowardice and the hypocrisy of those members of the Academy who could not get beyond their own fears and prejudices to embrace a true work of art. Yes, Don, the story and the movie did make me cry, and yes, when it lost, I cried again for all the wrong reasons.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 07, 2006, 08:42 PM

Glacier, the comment is good but I copied Steve Pond's article and will include it below.  If Steve Pond and Tom O'Neil the two "Oscar experts" at the LA Times didn't see the crash cart ready to hit, we shouldn't feel so bad. 

Quote

If picking "Brokeback" was wrong, I don't want to be right

Steve Pond, LA Times

All along, I'd been convinced that the talk about a "Crash" upset was just wishful thinking on the part of people desperate to make the race more interesting. "Brokeback Mountain" did seem as if it might be vulnerable — but not to the other films in contention this year, not after all the previous awards it had swept, and not after it won a trio of acting nominations as compared to a single acting nod for "Crash," which was being touted as the presumed favorite of the actors branch.
Crash

Because of that — and, let's face it, because I happen to believe that "Brokeback" is a very good movie and "Crash" is not a very good movie — I ignored the omens. I shrugged off reports that "Brokeback" was not playing well at its final academy screenings, rationalizing that members who waited until late February to see it probably weren't going to vote for it anyway.

I figured that Roger Ebert was wrong, that the anecdotal evidence was meaningless, that Tony Curtis' reluctance to even see "Brokeback" meant nothing.

I managed to ignore all the omens until about 8:10 last night, when I left my usual spot in the wings of the stage and walked into the lower-lobby bar of the Kodak Theatre. The bar was crowded as Uma Thurman prepared to hand out the award for original screenplay. She read the nominees, mentioned "Crash," and the room erupted.

The ruckus got even louder when Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco won. That's when it finally clicked: this "Crash" thing might be a lot bigger than I thought.

About 15 minutes later, I was back on the side of the stage. Haggis was standing a few feet away with a dazed look on his face.

"I've got a (bleeping) Oscar in my hand!" he yelled.

My thoughts exactly.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:06 PM

Paul Ryan on OutQ just said that Ernest Borgnine refused to see BBM, too. He's 89. So maybe many of the older voters behaved the same way.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: rabjr1 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:54 PM

Quote from: bnjmn3 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:06 PM

Paul Ryan on OutQ just said that Ernest Borgnine refused to see BBM, too. He's 89. So maybe many of the older voters behaved the same way.

                Ernest Borgnine is still alive? 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 08, 2006, 12:03 AM

Quote from: rabjr1 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:54 PM

Quote from: bnjmn3 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:06 PM

Paul Ryan on OutQ just said that Ernest Borgnine refused to see BBM, too. He's 89. So maybe many of the older voters behaved the same way.

                Ernest Borgnine is still alive? 

Barely!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 08, 2006, 12:08 AM

Quote from: chameau on Mar 08, 2006, 12:03 AM

Quote from: rabjr1 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:54 PM

Quote from: bnjmn3 on Mar 07, 2006, 11:06 PM

Paul Ryan on OutQ just said that Ernest Borgnine refused to see BBM, too. He's 89. So maybe many of the older voters behaved the same way.

                Ernest Borgnine is still alive? 

Barely!the average age of the Academy members is aprox 148 years old, their from old scholl, let be happy that soon they'lle bite the dust or Crash

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 08, 2006, 04:14 PM

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fus.news3.yimg.com%2Fus.i2.yimg.com%2Fp%2Fap%2F20060308%2Fcapt.45605fde687743e18307488e0052b00f.oscars_arrivals_ny107.jpg%3Fx%3D267%26amp%3By%3D345%26amp%3Bsig%3DnVF3OUrXX6ti9RpfLJHKQw--&hash=3d560e76cecb0f140153c5f3682feb998b60f6b8)

Congratulations, Ang Lee and thank you for making BBM possible.

Lee Disappointed Over 'Brokeback' Loss
By MIN LEE, AP Entertainment Writer Wed Mar 8, 9:54 AM ET

Ang Lee said promoting his Oscar-winning gay romance "Brokeback Mountain" was an arduous process and it was a disappointment not to win Oscar best picture.

"We've won every award since September, but missed out on the last one, the biggest one," Lee said in a post-Oscar news conference in Los Angeles that aired in Hong Kong Wednesday.

But he added that feeling disappointed "is human nature. And it wasn't for myself. I led a whole team of people."

"Brokeback Mountain" won Lee the best director Oscar, making him the first Asian winner of the prize. The film also won best musical score and best adapted screenplay, but lost the best picture award to "Crash" — a result considered a big upset.

Among the accolades "Brokeback" has racked up are the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, four Golden Globes, including best drama motion picture, and four British Academy Film Awards, also including best picture.

The Oscar best picture win by "Crash," which addresses racism, has stirred speculation that the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the voting body for the
Oscars, has an American bias or that it wasn't prepared to give its top honor to a movie about gays.

Lee said the process of marketing "Brokeback" was tough.

"My work was really hard. I had to fight many battles. Personally, I don't like doing press, but once a film is on the Oscar track, for half a year you're fighting the same battle," he said.

Lee said he wasn't trying to make a social statement with "Brokeback," the love story between two ranch hands set in conservative Wyoming.

"For me, 'Brokeback' isn't rebellious at all. It's a very ordinary movie. People call it groundbreaking or what not. It puts a lot of pressure on me. But I didn't feel this way when I was making the movie. This is the way gays are. It's just that they have been distorted. When two people are in love and are scared, that's the way they are," Lee told reporters.

However, Lee said he is somewhat of a rebel at heart.

"I had to fight with my background ... but I also had to live in the general environment. People have to be categorized. That's very annoying. Don't you find that annoying? Life shouldn't be like that. The world isn't like that. There's a lot of complexity. There are exceptions," Lee said.

Lee faced resistance for pursuing a career in film when growing up in his native Taiwan, a traditional, academically oriented society that looks down on the entertainment business.

He said movies are a form of dissent.

"That's why we make movies. Otherwise, we just have a leader issue an order and we all follow. Why else would there be filmmakers like us? Why else would people lock themselves in a dark room and watch a movie together?" Lee said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_en_mo/as_a_e_mov_ang_lee

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: stephan on Mar 08, 2006, 04:19 PM

Thank you so much, Ethan, for this last post, and all the others, too. S

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 09:56 PM

Ernest Borgnine is still alive? YIKES.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 10:17 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 09:56 PM

Ernest Borgnine is still alive? YIKES.

...so are Olivia de Haviland, Deborah Kerr, and Celete Holm.  Kerr is 94.  Holm is in her 80s.  I don't know how old de Haviland is.  There are probably at lot more.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 08, 2006, 10:27 PM

Quote from: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 10:17 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 09:56 PM

Ernest Borgnine is still alive? YIKES.

...so are Olivia de Haviland, Deborah Kerr, and Celete Holm.  Kerr is 94.  Holm is in her 80s.  I don't know how old de Haviland is.  There are probably at lot more. 

Olivia de Haviland is 89.  She's the last of the major cast members of "Gone With the Wind" - she was Melanie Hamilton later Wilkes in the movie. 

Ernest Borgnine is sitting in God's waiting room.   ;D

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 10:37 PM

I love Olivia De Haviland (I was surprised to learn years ago that Joan Fontaine was her sister).

Celeste Holm is AWESOME!

Deborah Kerr - I can live without.

God's waiting room...what the HEAD of Ernest Borgnine?

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 10:41 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 08, 2006, 10:27 PM

Quote from: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 10:17 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 09:56 PM

Ernest Borgnine is still alive? YIKES.

...so are Olivia de Haviland, Deborah Kerr, and Celete Holm.  Kerr is 94.  Holm is in her 80s.  I don't know how old de Haviland is.  There are probably at lot more. 

Olivia de Haviland is 89.  She's the last of the major cast members of "Gone With the Wind" - she was Melanie Hamilton later Wilkes in the movie. 

Ernest Borgnine is sitting in God's waiting room.   ;D

Odd, but Mr. Borgnine seems to have forgotten that he won Best Actor in 1955 for a "break-out" role in Marty.  He portrayed a schluby, pathetic meat cutter who found love for the first time in middle age.  Back then, glam was a given, and he broke from the herd....

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 10:43 PM

I wonder what he thought of his co-stars and such that were gay? The hypocrite.

ps. they should have killed him off in the Poseidon Adventure!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 11:28 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 10:37 PM

I love Olivia De Haviland (I was surprised to learn years ago that Joan Fontaine was her sister).

Celeste Holm is AWESOME!

Deborah Kerr - I can live without.

God's waiting room...what the HEAD of Ernest Borgnine?

Holm is the last surviving major cast member of All About Eve.  Loved de Haviland in The Heiress with Monty Clift (he was so....DAMN!). 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 09, 2006, 12:22 AM

Quote from: JerBear418720 on Mar 08, 2006, 11:28 PM

Quote from: Cowboy Cody on Mar 08, 2006, 10:37 PM

I love Olivia De Haviland (I was surprised to learn years ago that Joan Fontaine was her sister).

Celeste Holm is AWESOME!

Deborah Kerr - I can live without.

God's waiting room...what the HEAD of Ernest Borgnine?

Holm is the last surviving major cast member of All About Eve.  Loved de Haviland in The Heiress with Monty Clift (he was so....DAMN!).   

Yeah Celeste Holm was a fine actress.  I always remember her in "Come to the Stable" with Loretta Young.  Before my time but a great B&W film.  I forgot about "All About Eve" - a tremendous movie.   Yeah Monty Cliff was so very handsome but the car accident damaged him physically and emotionally.

And Deborah Kerr, in addition to "The King and I", "From Here to Eternity" and "An Affair to Remember", I always associate her with "Tea and Sympathy".

You're right, de Haviland and Fontaine were sisters. 

_____________________

Back to topic, thanks Ethan for the article on Ang.  I'm sure the Oscar loss has affected all of the cast. 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: squall on Mar 09, 2006, 12:34 AM

NO link for this one.  Just text.

Oscars Post Script with Junior Oscar Guru "Squall"

The Crash Heard ‘Round The World Was More Like A THUD
 

To say mouths were dropping throughout Hollywood when Jack Nicholson announced the best picture winner on March 5th would be an understatement.  Jaws were unhinging.  If you watch the replay on tivo you’ll see Jack was as shocked as the rest of us - as he later admitted.  Nicholson’s vote went to Brokeback and he assumed what most of the country if not world assumed would be the outcome, but as history has proven Academy members love to shake things up.

In 1941 How Green Was My Valley won best picture over Citizen Kane.  In 1951 An American in Paris beat A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1980 Ordinary People trumped Raging Bull and in 1975 Taxi Driver lost to Rocky.  It’s not that I’m comparing Crash to How Green Was my Valley, I mean come on. Crash wasn’t THAT good.   So what do we have here - another Academy misfire that has sparked the most controversial post Oscar climate ever. 

If you’ve been surfing the net or watching the news you’ve witnessed the backlash.  Scathing letters and complaints are amassing at the Academy.   “Trash” posters like the ones above are all over the internet.  The very popular awards site Fennec.com has officially shut down due to “The incompetence of the Academy”.   Headlines in the LA Times, Time, MSNBC and the NY Times read as “Crash and Burn” - “Did the Academy Wimp Out?” - “Breaking No Ground” - “Clueless AMPAS” - “Crash Causes Cultural Earthquake” - “The Worst Best Picture in History” - “And the Winner is…Homophobia”.   Even Google got into the mix.  If you type in “I’m really glad Crash won” what comes up is:  did you mean “I’m really glad Trash Won?”  I am not kidding.  I saw it myself.  Even Tony Curtis is catching sh** because of his homophobic remarks about Brokeback.  He probably hasn’t gotten this much fan mail in 50 years.   And here is something interesting. Variety will be publishing a full page, $10,000 ad congratulating Brokeback Mountain on winning the most awards in film history.  The ones coughing up the dough?  Fans from around the world.  WOW!  I don’t recall The Aviator getting this much attention last year.  Yes folks, it’s AWN.

Top critics, bloggers and writers across the globe have been trashing Crash and the Academy this week because it’s the year of a major “first”.  No other film in 78 years has won so many best picture precursors and lost the Oscar.  No film in 78 years has won as many awards period.  AND no film with so few precursors has ever won best picture.  How did this happen?  We were inundated with statistics for a month telling us Brokeback Mountain CANNOT lose.

What was confirmed on March 5th is something we’ve known for a long time but now only emphasized - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a joke.  We’ve known the Oscars have been for sale since its inception.  It wasn’t until the mid nineties, thanks to the Weinsteins, that it was brought to the surface.  The trophy is more symbol than truth.  Oscars are only often based on merit. They are about money and visibility.  The Academy has long been considered the stronghold of film quality as though winners were chosen by some divine entity.  No, it’s decided by a group of fallible elitists.  Were they swayed this year?  Was there some sort of plot against the frontrunner?  A Chinese publication reported that Ang Lee was tipped off about the film’s loss before the results were ever revealed.  Ang was quoted as saying “When I knew early in the show we wouldn’t get it, I really did flare up.”  He also added there were whispers of an Academy conspiracy against Brokeback and that made him angry.   
It might be time the world finds out about this dirty little club.       

Now back to Crash.  Is it the best movie of the year?  If you base it on its box office, reviews or precursors the answer is no.  But hey, Lionsgate did a great job and secured the win with 4 million dollars in advertising and DVD’s.  Crash is just lucky producer Bob Yari didn’t file his lawsuit against the Academy before ballots were due.  If you didn’t know, there is a massive legal battle brewing on team Crash and the Academy is in the line of fire.  Would the votes have gone the same way if the Academy knew they were being sued by a Crash producer?  We’ll never know.  I do know this, sitting a few rows behind Jake Gyllenhaal was Academy president Sid Ganis.  When Crash won best picture and the Crash people were jumping out of their seats, there was Ganis, not clapping.  Hmmm.  This is turning into a Lifetime movie.  Just like Crash.
       
As far as I’m concerned, my boy Ang Lee won.  Paul Haggis didn’t which is another beef I have about the real best film.  Most of the time those two awards go hand in hand - most of the time.  If the Academy really felt the way they did about Crash then Paul Haggis should have won Best Director.  But we all know there was something else going on because Capote, Good Night and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain are far superior films.  Read the reviews.  And the irony is that more people are talking about Brokeback being snubbed rather than Crash winning.  I think Kenneth Turan said it best in his March 6th LA Times article- “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”.   Well said, Kenneth.   

Let’s face it, a little homophobia and a lot of Green is what turned Crash’s Valley to Gold

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 09, 2006, 12:41 AM

Welcome in squall, thanks for posting.  ;)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 09, 2006, 12:41 AM

Good article Squall, thanks for posting it.  And Welcome - first post!!!!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 09, 2006, 12:46 AM

Who wrote this? WQhere did it come from. It is fabulous. Ang knew ahead of time of the Crash win? Academy president not clapping for Best Picture Winner. Maybe this is the end of the Academy Awards.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: scruffy on Mar 09, 2006, 04:01 AM

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/snub.html

The Brokeback Mountain Oscar Snub
by Michael Jensen, March 7, 2006
 Sunday night, Hollywood spent over three hours congratulating itself for its tolerance and progressiveness. But when it came to awarding the Best Picture, Hollywood's cowardly actions proved louder than its pretty words.

Two days after Crash's history-making upset over Brokeback,
a debate rages over why the upset happened. Was it homophobia? Was Crash simply a better movie? Did the far right's attack on Hollywood's morals frighten the voters? Or did Brokeback simply peak too soon?

First, the facts.
 

During the awards' season leading up to Sunday night's Oscars, Brokeback Mountain became the most honored movie in cinematic history. It had more Best Picture and Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List and Titanic combined. Just to name a few, Brokeback won various awards at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA's, Venice Film Festival, NY Film Critic's Circle, LA Film Critics, National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Awards. (Click here for a complete list.)

Meanwhile, of the major awards, Crash managed to win only the SAG Award, the Chicago Critics award, and an Image Award. And Crash won the Chicago honor mostly because Chicago-area film critic Roger Ebert relentlessly pushed it. Even then, Brokeback was the runner-up. How did Crash fare in all of the awards Brokeback won? It mostly didn't, rarely even showing up as a nominee. In fact, before the SAG awards, Crash barely merited mention as an Oscar contender.

Before Sunday night's upset, no film that had won the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild, and Producer's Guild awards did not go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additionally, the film with the most total Oscar nominations almost always wins the top prize; only four times in the past twenty-five years has the Best Picture winner not also been the film with the most nominations. This year Brokeback had the most nominations

Along with all these awards, Brokeback had also won the Golden Globe, all but assuring that it would win at the Oscars too. Only once, in 1973, did a film not even nominated for the Golden Globe's Best Picture go on to win the Academy Award (that movie was The Sting, and it wasn't nominated because of a mix-up at the Golden Globes). Crash did not receive a Golden Globe nomination.

Like most eventual Best Picture winners, Brokeback Mountain was by far the highest grossing film of the five nominees. It has earned $120 million worldwide, while Crash has taken in less than half that. Box-office performance has always been a factor in how the Academy votes.

One other fact: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a conservative institution. It is not necessarily conservative in the political or religious sense of the word, but rather in that its members are firm believers in tradition and precedence. By every measure of previous Oscar winners, Brokeback should have been the movie announced by Jack Nicholson. Since it wasn't, there must be a very compelling reason for Crash to have won instead.

Was it Crash's critical acclaim? To be fair, Crash did come out quite some time ago and it is common knowledge that Oscar favors, or at least remembers, movies released late in the year. Was it possible that Crash's earlier critical acclaim had been overlooked by virtually every others arts organization that dispenses awards? Perhaps once Academy voters were reminded of Crash's critical acclaim, they felt compelled to give it the Best Picture.

Turns out that can't be the case. Here again, Brokeback was clearly the frontrunner. Every year, both Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly rank the year's movies according to the reviews they received. Brokeback came in first on both lists. Three other Best Picture nominees—Good Night, and Good Luck, Capote, and Munich —also placed in the Top Ten on both lists. Meanwhile, Crash ranked number thirty-six on Premiere's list, and down in the fifties on EW's. A half-dozen critics even gave it outright pans, saying it was a movie to be avoided.

Not exactly a critical darling, eh?

That means that in order for the Academy voters to have chosen Crash over Brokeback, they had to overlook the fact that Brokeback was the favorite by almost every measure the Academy has used for seventy eight years. And they had to be willing to overturn decades of Academy tradition as well. Let's be clear about something else: this disregard for tradition and precedence didn't happen because of a changing of the guard. It's not a case of new, fresh blood forcing the Academy to change their old, tired ways. Indeed, it is the old guard that upended their traditions in order to propel Crash past Brokeback.

Nor is this a discussion about the merits of Brokeback Mountain versus Crash. Art is subjective, and a Crash fan's opinion is every bit as valid as someone who loved Brokeback. What isn't subjective are the facts stated above.

The question remaining then is why did they Academy pass over Brokeback for Crash? Given the facts, there seems to be only one answer: good old-fashioned homophobia, or at least Hollywood 's fear of being perceived by Middle America as too tolerant of gay people, which is another kind of homophobia. Or perhaps it was some combination of the two things. But nothing else seems to fit the facts.

If rank homophobia was the reason, it seems Tony Curtis apparently spoke for many voters when he said he had no intention of seeing the movie and that it offered nothing “unique.” Since he hadn't seen it, it's hard to know on what basis Mr. Curtis made his claim. But clearly many Academy voters did not see anything particularly unique about it either.

Everyone watching knew this was a chance for the Academy to take a stand on what is arguably one of the most controversial issues of our time. Battles are being fought at ballot boxes, in courtrooms, schools and homes all around the country. Sunday night offered a chance for Hollywood to weigh in with their support.

Up until Jack Nicholson opened that envelope virtually everyone -- even the Las Vegas odds-makers, felt it a near certainty Hollywood do just that.

But at the last second, the Oscar voters blinked. Or perhaps like a white person publicly professing their support for a black candidate, only to then vote for their white opponent in the privacy of the voting booth, Academy voters never intended to vote for Brokeback.

Some Crash supporters have argued the Academy had to choose between honoring two very worthwhile movies, one confronting racism, one homophobia, both subjects the Oscars have overlooked in the past. And while it was a difficult choice, they argue, it was a fair decision.

Hogwash. Hollywood has already honored numerous movies that confront racism. In the Heat of the Night won back in 1967, nearly forty years ago. Schindler's List won in 1993. Other previous winners depicting racism have included Gandhi, Driving Miss Daisy, and Westside Story. And Halle Berry's Best Actress win was supposed to be the final nail in Hollywood's racist past. The point isn't to argue that racism is no longer worthy subject-matter, only that it is not groundbreaking, especially not nearly enough to overcome Brokeback's reasons for winning.

Indeed, a gay story, much less a love story, has never even been in serious contention for an Oscar. Hell, there hasn't even been a mainstream movie about a gay love story. Given just how groundbreaking Brokeback is, its being passed over for Crash -- a movie few cared about until six weeks ago -- only heightens the fact that homophobia is one of the obvious reasons for the Academy having done so.

Professional awards analyst Tom O'Neil thought he saw something unusual brewing in Hollywood over the past several weeks. “Something weird is going on among Oscar Voters,” O'Neil wrote in The Envelope, an online site run by the Los Angeles Times. "Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck have their passionate supporters who gush their honest love of those best-picture nominees, but most non-Brokeback votes I hear from Oscar voters are really anti-Brokeback." And that translates to anti-gay.

Kenneth Turan, also of the Los Angeles Times, sees something similar in the aftermath of Crash's upset. “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.”

In retrospect, it's hard not to feel a little stupid for hoping that Brokeback would emerge victorious. America truly seemed to be changing on the issue of homosexuality. For every joke that ridiculed the “gay cowboy” movie, there was a joke mocking the guys who wouldn't see it. Only things haven't progressed as much as thought.

Some argue Hollywood can't be antigay since the top acting prize went to Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. But I put that right up there with Tom Hanks' wins for Philadelphia (as a dying gay man) and William Hurts' win for Kiss of the Spiderwoman (arguably not even gay, since Hurt's character says he wants to be a woman). This is not meant to take anything away from Hoffman, but nonetheless it sure appears that Hollywood, like America, has a much easier time accepting gays when they confirm all their stereotypes of effete, lisping, asexual men. But a movie about two masculine guys in love? That's apparently a different story.

Some might even argue that not giving Hoffman the Oscar would have been a travesty, given that he had won virtually every other Best Actor award leading up to the Oscars. How could the award be denied to the man who was so clearly the frontrunner?

But that certainly didn't stop Academy voters when it came to selecting the Best Picture.

There is a second, more nuanced explanation for the Brokeback snub. As the presenters made clear during the telecast, Hollywood is feeling defensive about declining box-office revenue. And since the nominations were announced in January, much has been made about Hollywood supposedly being “out of touch” with mainstream America. Indeed, the day of the Oscars, CNN ran a piece called “Out of Touch” wherein a reporter visited a small town in rural America to ask if anyone had seen, or would see, Brokeback. The answer for most, of course, was an indignant, “No!”

Folks in Hollywood may fear the competition presented by today's varied entertainment choices. Perhaps they were feeling uncomfortable with being seen as so different from the heartland. Or maybe it is the confluence of the two. Whichever the reason, it was Brokeback and the gay community they sacrificed to “save” themselves.

No doubt, had Brokeback won, the media would be reporting that Hollywood had proven they were wildly out of touch. Now the story is that even Hollywood isn't crazy enough to give an Oscar to “that” movie. For gay men, that makes us damned if we'd won and damned that we didn't.

What's so disappointing about this for so many gay men is that Brokeback was our movie. For years, we've been presented as prancing, mincing stereotypes, pathological killers, or suicidal depressives. Mel Gibson even threw us out of a tower in Braveheart. But with Brokeback, we had finally been given a movie that reflected the real experience and emotions of many of our lives, even if those reflections weren't happy. And we were even led to believe that our movie had crossed over and would be honored as Best Picture.

In retrospect, it's arguable that winning final prize was never really an option, at least not at this time and place in history.

But the story isn't likely to end here. Like the Democrats trying to negotiate the tricky waters of gay rights, Hollywood 's snub of Brokeback is likely to please no one. Fundamentalist Christians are unlikely to suddenly decide Hollywood does share their values. And by selecting Crash, Hollywood alienated legions of fair-minded Americans who know a cop-out when they see it.

Nor is gay America taking this lying down. Indeed, a backlash against the backlash is already brewing. Come back tomorrow and we'll talk about it.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 09, 2006, 04:17 AM

very enlighting and truthfull article, there is now a wide variety of anti Academy site perking up from all over this planet, let them become the precussor to our undying love that Brokeback Mountain will not lie dormant and neither shall we anymore!  thank you

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 09, 2006, 09:33 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/03/07/hollywood_isnt_being_straight_with_gay_community?mode=PF

Hollywood isn't being straight with gay community

by Wesley Morris, Globe Staff  |  March 7, 2006

The Boston Globe

The crash you heard late Sunday night was not only Jack Nicholson announcing the best-picture Oscar winner. It was the sound of lots of closet doors slamming shut in a huff. ''Brokeback Mountain," the so-called gay cowboy movie, lost to ''Crash," a drama about the shrieking, teary, hateful, and guilty people who refuse to stop running into each on the streets of Los Angeles.

Some movies are born political, and others have politics thrust upon them. Poor ''Brokeback Mountain" was such a movie. Ang Lee's adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story was not out to attack us with a statement. It really is just an unhappy love story that happens to have enormous social relevance because its protagonists are two men. Yet the movie's biggest supporters may have turned an otherwise innocent film into a cause that got on voters' nerves. The dialogue became quotable, and the poster was mocked, lessening the emotional seriousness and making for a once-in-a-lifetime pop-culture phenomenon.

''Crash," which many Los Angelenos have come to regard as gospel, was the logical beneficiary.

As Oscar host Jon Stewart pointed out, half of Hollywood acted in ''Crash," and actors make up the Academy's largest branch. Plus, the average age of voters is rumored to be 60-something, which means that ''Crash" might have triggered a civil-rights hot flash in the Academy.

Despite the interlocking story lines, ''Crash" is in its way a conventional social-problem drama that also appealed to voters' sense of laziness. The movie is set in their backyard. And the depiction of nonstop racial strife might have tapped into some voters' guilt about their own wealth and their own prejudices.

Sandra Bullock, as a pampered politician's wife, and Matt Dillon, as a racist LAPD officer, follow particularly improbable trajectories from bigotry to enlightenment: Each dares to hug a person of color. In the case of Bullock's character, it's her Latina maid, who exists solely for this grotesque expression of guilt.

''Crash" edges to the brink of insanity then assures you, ''If we can't all get along, the least we can do is try." Maybe the puppets in the Broadway musical ''Avenue Q" said it best when they sang, ''Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes." ''Crash" turns that declaration into volcanic melodrama.

Oddly, the characters doing all the colliding in ''Crash" are straight. Director and co-writer Paul Haggis was sure to populate his movie Noah's Ark-style, with two or three members of various races, ethnicities, and social classes represented. Homosexuals didn't make the cut.

Thus the win for ''Crash" makes an interesting point about where Hollywood stands on the whole gay issue -- less ''I wish I knew how to quit you" and more ''not that there's anything wrong with that."

Throughout Oscar night, winners gave eloquent shout-outs to tolerance. George Clooney pointed out that Hattie McDaniel won her award at a time when it was dangerous and unfashionable to reward talented African-Americans.

A truly bracing acceptance speech, though, would demand acceptance of openly gay actors instead of congratulating a breakthrough that goes back six decades. Yes, there might not be a Halle Berry without Hattie McDaniel. But suddenly it's more reasonable to wonder when we'll ever see a gay McDaniel.

It's fine for Hollywood to urge gay tolerance. But it should give America an actual homosexual to tolerate first.

The defeat of ''Brokeback" exposes this blind spot all too clearly. Best-director winner Ang Lee praised the fictional ''cowboys" in his movie for their bravery. But the real -- and truly audacious -- Truman Capote went unthanked in best actor winner Philip Seymour Hoffman's acceptance speech.

The culture of the movie business isn't all that different from the military or sports. An accusation of homosexuality can turn a star litigious or, in some cases, relentlessly straight. Obviously, the movies are in the business of illusion. And anything that shatters the illusion is bad for business.

As this year's Oscars demonstrated, Hollywood will find a way to produce or distribute ''Capote," ''Brokeback Mountain," and ''Transamerica," but fosters an environment in which the lead parts in those movies have to be played by ostensibly straight actors. There are no gay film stars. We all know the gay actors go to Broadway (they want Tonys!) or come from England. Seriously people, Ian McKellen can't do all your work for you.

In any case, ''Brokeback Mountain" might not have been stridently political enough for Academy voters. The heroes never even say the word ''gay." ''Crash" throws all its issues up on the screen; of course it won. The Academy can congratulate itself from the bottom of its heart, while claiming to have searched its soul for solutions to decades of African-American neglect. Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, and now Three 6 Mafia are recent winners. There are lots of African-American stars and producers. Black is pretty normal in the movies.

Homosexuality? Not so much.

In an attempt to ''normalize" ''Brokeback Mountain" during Sunday night's broadcast Stewart trotted out a montage of great homoerotic moments in Westerns. It put the movie in an irreverent cinematic context, and it was very funny until you realized that, because the men in the montage aren't truly gay, all that clip reel actually does is reinforce paranoia about what seems gay. Just like the ''Brokeback" parodies sprouting all over the Internet, it was a backhanded compliment -- progressive, yet misleading, true but false, distancing and distorted.

In the very same way that straight Stewart happily woke up in bed with straight Clooney during one of Sunday night's skits, it was more insidiously coy illusion. Smirking and winking pussyfoots around the issue. Waking up beside Harvey Fierstein and loving it -- that's pushing the envelope.
 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 09, 2006, 10:31 PM

Crash: Worst Movie of the Year[/b]

Richard Kim, The Nation,  March 6, 2006

The Nation -- As a film studies major I've been trained to sit through any cinematic experience -- from Andy Warhol's 8-hour long Empire (yes, 8 consecutive hours of the Empire State Building in real time) to Derek Jarman's Blue (an hour plus of an unchanging blue screen dramatizing Jarman's AIDS-related blindness) -- and never abandon ship (incidentally I loved both films). It took all this training and more to endure this year's Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Crash, which I saw this summer in, alas, its entirety. I've already written about how I'm not a huge fan of Brokeback Mountain, the other Oscar contender, but it's definitely a better film than Crash, which I would have walked out on had it not been for my stalwart companions.

White critics like Roger Ebert, who proclaimed it the best film of the year, and David Denby of the New Yorker loved it. Denby wrote that it "makes previous movie treatments of prejudice seem like easy and self-congratulatory liberalizing."

I couldn't disagree more; easy and self-congratulatory liberalizing is the epitome of the film. To my mind, Crash's central message is: There's a lot of racism in the world, but it's all rendered meaningless by a magical force. This force is called sheer coincidence. I'll happily spoil the denouement for anyone who hasn't seen it. The racist white cop (Matt Dillon) sexually molests a black women (Thandie Newton), but is really a good guy because he saves her from a car crash (oh, and because he loves his ailing poppy). His partner's (Ryan Phillipe) anti-racist protests are really irrelevant because he ends up killing an innocent black teenager (Larenz Tate). Meanwhile, a rich, racist white woman (Sandra Bullock) unfairly suspects a Latino locksmith (Michael Pena) of being a crook, but it's okay because her Latino maid (and best friend) takes care of her when she injures herself. And on and on and on through a "compassionate conservative" rainbow of cast members each with their own neatly moralistic (but totally individualized) racial melodramas. As with the well-awarded musical Avenue Q, the moral of Crash is: Don't worry, everyone's a little bit racist.

Anyway, my amateur film criticism aside, you'll find a good dissection of Crash by sometime Nation writer Jeff Chang and Sylvia Chan over at Alternet. LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas called it the worst film of the year. I agree.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 09, 2006, 10:35 PM

Gay-themed films riding 'Brokeback' coattails[/b]

By Gregg Goldstein   Associated Press  March 10, 2006

"Brokeback Mountain" might not have earned the best picture Academy Award, but with three Oscars to its name, including Ang Lee's win as best director, the gay-cowboy romance may have more impact on Hollywood than any other of this year's nominees.

Having already earned $127 million worldwide, the Focus Features release is expected to pave the way for more gay-themed films, and in its wake, other projects about gay characters that have long languished in development are suddenly looking more viable.

"'Brokeback' tells people who are risk-phobic that you can get good actors to appear in your film and you can make money," said novelist Peter Lefcourt, who is attempting to revive one such gay project. "If they're convinced of that, they'll finance the movie."

Patricia Neil Warren's 1974 novel "The Front Runner," about a track coach's affair with a team member, is one of the longest-gestating gay-themed projects in Hollywood. Although the novel has sold more than 10 million copies, the film version has had a tortured history ever since Paul Newman optioned it for a year in 1975. Since then, a series of producers held the rights, which returned to Warren three years ago.

"People in the industry look at gay-themed films as low budget, but the problem with 'The Front Runner' is it's set at the Olympic games," said Warren, who's been offered budgets of $2 million or less for the project. "That would reduce the story to one little college track meet and the love scene," she said, while looking for a "Brokeback"-size $13 million-$15 million budget. But now, she's getting the most interest she's seen in more than 32 years, she said. "As the box office figures (for "Brokeback") grow, we get more calls," she said.

Two other projects in the development stage for about 15 years are the biopic of slain San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk, "The Mayor of Castro Street," and an adaptation of Lefcourt's 1992 novel "The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story," a satirical look at two baseball players who fall for each other.

"Mayor" has been shepherded by producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who at one point had gotten director Oliver Stone to commit and set it up at Warner Bros. Pictures, with Robin Williams attached to star. "Then Oliver got attacked by gay groups over his portrayal of gay characters in 'JFK' and said, 'I just can't go into another project and go through that again,"' Zadan said.

Williams soon left, too, and the project bounced from such directors as Gus Van Sant to a host of screenwriters. "We were never really able to crack the script, and we finally realized it was more important not to make the movie if it wasn't right," Meron said.

Helmer Bryan Singer came onto the project last year. According to Zadan, Singer's now interviewing "very high level" screenwriters and should have one on board within a month. Although Singer joined the project before "Brokeback" came to life, "You feel there's a new energy around movies of this ilk."

Lefcourt had a similarly rocky road with his best-seller. Two producers at the Walt Disney Co. picked it up almost immediately after its publication. It was dropped, then picked up again at Disney, where, Lefcourt suspects, its chances were hurt because Disney owned the California Angels "and the story turns Major League Baseball into a villain." Reps from Jodie Foster and Barbra Streisand's production companies expressed interest before director Betty Thomas got 20th Century Fox to option it. But Fox eventually let it go, and Thomas took the project to New Line Cinema, where, according to Lefcourt, Ben Affleck was set to star before deciding to make "Pearl Harbor" instead.

The project remained quiet until a few months ago, when producer Andrew Lang picked up the option, with Lefcourt now writing a new script. "From conversations we've had, there's no apprehension from studios or agencies," Lang said. "The success of 'Brokeback' has opened a lot of doors. People are realizing gay themes aren't as much of an issue as they once thought."

On the horizon, Meron and Zadan also are producing out baseball player Billy Bean's autobiography "Going All the Way" with TV producer/director Alan Poul.

The project was set up at Showtime but dropped as the pay network focused more on series development. The producers are now in active negotiations with another cable network, talking with stars and directors, and anticipate filming this year.

More mainstream projects with gay and lesbian themes are coming soon, from the spring's Miramax Films cross-dressing comedy "Kinky Boots" to Universal Pictures' Adam Sandler-Kevin James comedy "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," about a pair of straight firefighters who pose as domestic partners to get health benefits, set for production in August.

With "Brokeback" at the heart of this year's awards race -- the movie's infamous pup tent even served as a setup for the opening joke of Sunday's Oscar broadcast -- Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation spokesman Damon Romine said of the movie's impact, "We're visible in a way we've never been before. Even if you haven't seen 'Brokeback,' the conversation has begun. It's gotten people to debate, and at the end of the day, it's changing hearts and minds."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 10, 2006, 12:54 AM

The Year that Oscar Blinked[/b]

This year's mystifying awards for Best Picture and Best Original Song are signs that Hollywood's artistic compass is broken.

Syl Jones, Minneapolis Star-Tribune   March 10,2006

Now that Paul Haggis' film "Crash" has captured Oscars for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, African-Americans across the nation will have to endure inane conversations with naïve whites that begin, "Oh, I just loved that movie!" The scornful response, "Yeah, and I hated it because the movie engineers a paint-by-the-numbers view of racial prejudice," is further proof that Hollywood remains the bastion of left-footed, hoof-in-mouth liberalism it has always been.

2006 will forever be remembered as the year that Oscar blinked. "Crash" is artistically inferior in virtually every way to "Capote,"Good Night and Good Luck" and of course "Brokeback Mountain." But because that carefully crafted film made the homoeroticism of the cult of the cowboy explicit, Hollywood didn't want to go there.

By contrast, "Crash" is a sloppy piece of workmanship, a kind of PowerPoint presentation about race that is absurd on its face. But "Crash" is also cleverly constructed to reassure white audiences that all people have racial and ethnic biases and that white America bears no special historical racial burden. This naively balanced view of race relations is the film's main conceit. However, there can be no bona fide balanced view of race relations in America, where generations of white privilege have embedded a special kind of race-based dominance into our culture and history.

But let's do what most Americans do -- let's forget about our history. Let's begin inside this film with the near-hysteria of the character played by Thandie Newton, an upper-middle-class black woman who comes apart at the seams when she is groped by a racist police officer. White audiences seemed to think her response was credible, but most African-American audiences know better. No upper-middle-class black woman in her right mind would react by screaming and swearing at an armed member of the Los Angeles Police Department in that situation. Newton's hysterical black female caricature is simply this generation's version of Prissy, ripped from yet another fantasy about race called "Gone With the Wind."

Turns out that the racist cop in "Crash" is not only nursing a sick old dad at home (bless his soul), but also ends up risking his life in a rescue involving the same black woman he previously groped. Isn't that incredible? It's as if there's only one squad car in the entire LAPD, one hysterical black woman, one racist cop with a heart of gold, and one giant agenda driving the film toward its inevitable rear-ending.

That's just the beginning of the film's problems. Each of the set pieces has a pretentiousness all its own. We are asked to believe that Sandra Bullock, who treats her Latina maid with derision throughout the picture, somehow sees the light and embraces her as a friend at the end. We're asked to accept the idea that two young black men would hijack a Lincoln Navigator in broad daylight because, hey, that's what they do when they're not having profound conversations about black-on-black crime.

The film also intentionally blurs the line between personal prejudice and systemic racism. When the black detective character played by Don Cheadle is offered a promotion and a clean record for his petty criminal of a little brother if he will simply withhold crucial evidence in another case, the offer is made by a white superior on the basis of affirmative action. This pivotal scene is cynically presented as "just another example" of everyday racism when it's a much more sophisticated and systemic hustle than that. Assuming you can believe that it might have happened, which I don't.

As if all of this weren't enough, Hollywood's political correctness agenda got an extra boost when it awarded the Best Original Song Oscar to "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp," a rhythm track masquerading as a song. Dolly Parton's "Travelin' Through" clearly deserved the honor, but Academy members weren't basing these particular judgments on artistic merit.

Both of these awards send strong messages that Hollywood's artistic compass is busted but good. "Brokeback Mountain" is an enduring story that accurately portrays the problems inherent in any love relationship: It's hard, it's painful, and the social context in which we love may lead to death and disillusionment. Long after we are gone, future audiences will wonder how such a stunning achievement could have been overlooked for the Best Picture award.

Meanwhile, here's a warning for those who think they have learned a thing or two about race relations now that "Crash" has schooled them: Please don't try to test the white male fantasy at the core of this movie in the real world. You're likely to quickly discover that Hollywood is a lot closer to Disneyland than you think.

Syl Jones, Minnetonka, is a playwright, journalist and corporate communications consultant.


 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 10, 2006, 01:06 AM

hidesert, thanks so much for posting these articles. So interesting to read.  :D

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 10, 2006, 09:08 AM

You're welcome Ethan.   

Roger Ebert has been defending "Crash" for a long time.  Earlier Ebert criticized Scott Foundas of LA Weekly for tagging "Crash" as one the worst films of 2005.  This is Foundas's reply to Ebert:


Roger and Me[/b]      

Written by SCOTT FOUNDAS    January 18, 2006    

Scott Foundas responds to Ebert’s critic-bait
   
Dear Roger:

Save for the storied contretemps between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, film critics are generally far too busy reviewing the new movies that open each week to spend much time reviewing each other. So I was understandably surprised to read your January 8 Chicago Sun-Times editorial “In Defense of the ‘Worst Movie of the Year,’” in which you lambasted my opinion of Crash, a movie you have repeatedly praised as being the best of 2005. Specifically, you were referring to comments I made in the recent Movie Club forum at Slate.com — a discussion about the past year in film that also included contributions by critics A.O. Scott of The New York Times, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader and Slate’s own David Edelstein. As your headline suggests, I wrote in the forum that Crash was among my least favorite movies of 2005 and called it “one of those self-congratulatory liberal jerk-off movies that roll around every once in a while to remind us of how white people suffer too, how nobody is without his prejudices, and how, when the going gets tough, even the white-supremacist cop who gets his kicks from sexually harassing innocent black motorists is capable of rising to the occasion.”

I stand by those words and, as you point out, I am not alone in such sentiments. Your essay quotes negative Crash reviews by MSNBC critic Dave White and even the editor of your own Web site, Jim Emerson. To which I would add that, upon its release back in May, Crash received mixed-to-negative reviews from Edelstein in Slate and Scott in The New York Times, as well as from many other critics writing in the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and The New Republic, among other publications. In the 2005 Village Voice poll of more than 100 major North American critics, Crash was cited by only four participants as one of the year’s ten best films, for an overall 66th-place showing in the survey. And lest anyone surmise that this amounts to some sort of contrarian backlash against a widely praised film, I should note that way back during the 2004 Toronto Film Festival, three-quarters of a year before Crash arrived in commercial cinemas, Variety critic Todd McCarthy wrote that the movie offers “a narrow, ungenerous and, finally, unrepresentative view of the world, one that suggests people are correct in suspecting others as having only the worst motives.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself, but maybe you, Roger, could have. In describing Crash, you’ve written: “A white racist cop sexually assaults a black woman, then the next day saves her life. His white partner, a rookie, is appalled by his behavior, but nevertheless later kills an innocent man because he leaps to a conclusion based on race. A black man is so indifferent to his girlfriend’s Latino heritage that he can’t be bothered to remember where she’s from. After a carjacking, a liberal politician’s wife insists all their locks be changed — and then wants them changed again, because she thinks the Mexican-American locksmith will send his “homies” over with the pass key. The same locksmith has trouble with an Iranian store owner who thinks the Mexican-American is black. But it drives the Iranian crazy that everyone thinks he is Arab, when they should know that Iranians are Persian. Buying a gun to protect himself, he gets into a shouting match with a gun dealer who has a lot of prejudices about, yes, Arabs.” That, in a nutshell, is as succinct a summary as I’ve read of everything that’s wrong with this picture. If only you’d managed to mention that the two carjackers who, when they’re not perpetrating grand theft auto, engage in animated debates about black-on-black racism and hip-hop as “music of the oppressor” — scenes aptly described by the name of one of the actors featured in them: Ludacris. (To answer your rhetorical question, Roger: If I were carjacked at gunpoint by these two guys, I wouldn’t “rise to the occasion with measured detachment and sardonic wit.” I’d merely wait for Ashton Kutcher to appear and tell me I’d been punk’d.)

I’ve said that Crash, which was co-written and directed by Paul Haggis, doesn’t accurately reflect the city of Los Angeles as I’ve come to know it after more than a decade of living here (during which time I’ve made lots of meaningful connections with others, none of which have been the result of a car accident). But as I think back on the film, I’m not even sure that it reflects life as we know it on planet Earth. The characters in Crash don’t feel like three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human beings so much as calculated “types” plugged by Haggis into a schematic thesis about how we are all, in the course of any given day, the perpetrators and the victims of some racial prejudice. (Nobody in Haggis’ universe is allowed to be merely one or the other.) They have no inner lives. They fail to exist independently of whatever stereotype they’re on hand to embody and/or debunk. Erudite carjackers? A man who can’t remember his own girlfriend’s ethnicity? You may see such things as “parables,” but I call it sloppy, sanctimonious screenwriting of the kind that, as one colleague recently suggested, should be studied in film classes as a prime example of what not to do.

But then, Roger, perhaps all of us detractors are simply, as you put it, “too cool for the room.” According to you, we critics must bear in mind “the ways in which real people see real films,” the same people who you say enjoy paying to be manipulated. (And who’s to argue, when the officials currently holding our nation’s highest elected offices offer living proof that many of us enjoy being manipulated for free?) You go on to say that you’ve talked to dozens of viewers who were touched by Crash, and while I don’t deny that, I have had my own conversations about Crash with plenty of “real people” who feel less touched by the film than manhandled by it. Among e-mails I’ve received from Slate readers, one goes so far as to speculate that people are afraid to admit they don’t like Crash for fear of being considered racists themselves — and I think the film is engineered to make viewers feel that way — while another, somewhat more charitable correspondent quotes Oscar Wilde’s maxim that “all bad art is sincere.”

Finally, you express surprise that anyone could feel contempt toward a movie like Crash in the same year that witnessed the release of Chaos and Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo. But as I stated in Slate, by calling Crash the worst movie of the year, I don’t mean to suggest that it’s entirely incompetent or even a catastrophic all-star debacle on the order of The Bonfire of the Vanities or Town & Country. No, Crash asks (and expects) to be taken much too seriously for that kind of rote dismissal. So, why contrast Crash against two unrepentant, bottom-of-the-barrel stinkers — one a no-budget horror movie that took pride in using bad reviews as part of its promotional campaign and the other a lowbrow Rob Schneider comedy — rather than placing it in the context of those other movies from 2005 that so much more subtly and intelligently (and no less sincerely) grappled with the effects of race and class on our daily lives? I’m thinking, of course, of Michael Haneke’s brilliant Caché — my own pick for the best film of last year — and also about George Romero’s Land of the Dead, both of which are studies in how (mostly white) people of privilege attempt to seal themselves off from society’s “undesirable” elements (who just so happen to be people of color). And while we’re on the subject, I might as well mention Lars von Trier’s soon-to-be-released Manderlay, which premiered at festivals in 2005, and is about the very kind of psychological enslavement that might lead a group called the African-American Film Critics Association to present Crash with a best-picture award.

Haggis is right about one thing: None of us is without prejudice. You’re right that in my notes on Crash, I neglect to mention the name of the actor who plays the Mexican-American locksmith; in your editorial, you say with the utmost certainty that “when two white cops stop you for the wrong reason and one starts feeling up your wife, it is prudent to reflect that both of the cops are armed and, if you resist, in court you will hear that you pulled a gun, were carrying cocaine, threatened them, and are lying about the sexual assault.” These are indeed troubled waters, but if Crash is what qualifies as “a bridge towards tolerance,” excuse me while I phone my auto-insurance agent and increase my premium.

Sincerely, Scott Foundas

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 10, 2006, 09:27 AM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 10, 2006, 09:08 AM

You're welcome Ethan.   

Roger Ebert has been defending "Crash" for a long time.  Earlier Ebert criticized Scott Foundas of LA Weekly for tagging "Crash" as one the worst films of 2005.  This is Foundas's reply to Ebert:


Roger and Me[/b]      

Scott Foundas, thou art a mirror of wit... and truth.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: quentin751 on Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM

ive seen "crash" and really like it! I dont remember thandie newton going mad when she was touched by the racist cop( matt dilon) so i dont understand the post above.. i dont see steroetypes there, or if is welle let s admit we are sometimes sterteotypes!
i know its not the subject here but if anyone had seen "crash" and disliked it please help me to understand...

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 10, 2006, 02:07 PM

Quote from: quentin751 on Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM

ive seen "crash" and really like it! I dont remember thandie newton going mad when she was touched by the racist cop( matt dilon) so i dont understand the post above.. i dont see steroetypes there, or if is welle let s admit we are sometimes sterteotypes!
i know its not the subject here but if anyone had seen "crash" and disliked it please help me to understand...

I did not like it.  Because it is not subtle.  It is not life.  It is not art.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 10, 2006, 04:27 PM

Premiere : Please Vote !  ;)

http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?article_id=2629&page_number=7&section_id=5&poll_id=463
http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?article_id=2629&page_number=1&section_id=11&poll_id=464
http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?article_id=2629&page_number=2&section_id=5&poll_id=458
 (http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?article_id=2629&page_number=2&section_id=5&poll_id=458)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 10, 2006, 04:35 PM

I voted...

Michelle is equal to Rachel  :o
Jake beats them all  8)
Heath is number one  8)
Ang is number one  8)
BBM is number one  8)

Yesss!  ;D

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bbmlover on Mar 10, 2006, 04:51 PM

Quote from: tpe on Mar 10, 2006, 02:07 PM

Quote from: quentin751 on Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM

ive seen "crash" and really like it! I dont remember thandie newton going mad when she was touched by the racist cop( matt dilon) so i dont understand the post above.. i dont see steroetypes there, or if is welle let s admit we are sometimes sterteotypes!
i know its not the subject here but if anyone had seen "crash" and disliked it please help me to understand...

I did not like it.  Because it is not subtle.  It is not life.  It is not art.

i'am with you on this - tpe. Count my vote.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 10, 2006, 05:05 PM

You reference to Thandie is when she is in the flipped car.  If you really want to see BAFTA Winner Thandie in action get a copy of Beloved.
I just sat through Crash for the first time...I am preparing to discuss the film in detail. I will look for the appropriate thread.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 10, 2006, 05:07 PM

Quote from: bbmlover on Mar 10, 2006, 04:51 PM

i'am with you on this - tpe. Count my vote.

Thanks bbmlover for concurring.  And I am sure we are not the only ones...

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 10, 2006, 08:29 PM

Quote from: quentin751 on Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM

I've seen "crash" and really like it! I dont remember thandie newton going mad when she was touched by the racist cop( matt dilon) so i dont understand the post above.. i dont see steroetypes there, or if is welle let s admit we are sometimes sterteotypes!
i know its not the subject here but if anyone had seen "crash" and disliked it please help me to understand... 

It's toward the beginning of the film, Quentin.  Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe are partners and stop the SUV with the African-American couple, Terence Howard and Thandie Newton.  Dillon is searching the wife (Thandie) and does it very thoroughly.   

Later in the film, Dillon's character just happens to respond to a vehicle accident and guess who the victim is in the car - Thandie's character and he saves her life when gas starts leaking.  Another coicidence, another contrivance - the film is full of it.   

A stupid film.  Don't waste your money renting it - we don't want to give Lion's Gate any more revenue. 

To quote that brilliant response by Kenneth Turan:

Quote

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.

[/b]

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 10, 2006, 10:36 PM

From E!Online
http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Awful/Daily2006/060308.html
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences member who requested anonymity, when asked at the big shoo if she had voted for or against the defeated Brokeback Mountain: "[Several Academy members] didn't see it. We won't vote for a movie like that." GLAAD, you online right now?

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 10, 2006, 10:42 PM

Collection of Articles or Critics Objecting to Brokeback Snub (from IMDB)



Kenneth Turin, LA Times, "Breaking no ground" (March 6, 2006):
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/oscars/env-turan5mar05,0,5359042.story

Awards Tracking Database, "A Smudge on Oscar History" (March 6, 2006):
http://www.awardstracking.com/

Erik Lundegaard, MSNBC, "Oscar misfire: ‘Crash’ and burn" (March 6, 2006):
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/

The Brokeback Snub, Afterelton.com (March 7, 2006)
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/snub.html

The Gold Derby, "And the Winner is . . . homophobia?" (March 6, 2006)
http://goldderby.latimes.com/

Stephen King, Analyzing Oscar, Entertainment Weekly (March 9, 2006)
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1170378_1_0_,00.html

Gene Stone: Hollywood Hardly Hearts Homosexuals (March 7, 2006)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060307/cm_huffpost/016886;_ylt=A86.I2ABuA1EszAAsAP9wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere, Different Enough?
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/03/for_shame_i_wan.php

Hollywood isn't being straight with gay community, Boston Globe (March 7, 2006)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/03/07/hollywood_isnt_being_straight_with_gay_community/

San Francisco Chronicle, OSCAR ANALYSIS: Theories abound on why 'Crash' won best picture (March 7, 2006)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/07/OSCARS.TMP

Industry insiders comment on the result, NY Times, March 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/movies/redcarpet/07osca.html?hp&ex=114170760\%3Cbr%3E0&en=f9bcd4f56177090d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

More casual commentary, USA today "Intersection of events helped Crash" (March 6, 2006)
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/movieawards/oscars/2006-03-06-crash-postmortem_x.htm

General Associated Press Coverage, Was There a 'Brokeback' Backlash? (March 6, 2006)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060306/ap_en_mo/oscar_upset_3;_ylt=An9NcwRDxysmU1aCSR0Hyzt8FxkF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--

London Times, "Uneasy Hollywood chooses race relations over gay cowboy drama" (March 7, 2006)
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19133-2072699,00.html

David Poland Blog on the subject, Hot Button (March 6, 2006)
http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2006_thb/060306_mon.html

A blog on the subject (March 5, 2006):
http://clydestuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-final-thoughts-about-academy-awards.html#links

Ebert's defenses of "Best Picture" Crash:

Roger Ebert lashes out at critics of Crash and names names! (March 6, 2006)
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060306/OSCARS/603070301

Strangely, Ebert seems to have taken Crash on as a cause. Earlier this year he again defended the movie against critics (January 18, 2006):
http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=12416&Itemid=47

Historial Perspective on Oscar mistakes:

This is far from the first "Academy" blooper. London Telegraph (March 4, 2006):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/03/04/bfoscars04.xml

And from earlier, bias and bigotry among "Academy" members:

Nikki Finke, LA Weekly, How Gay Will Oscar Go?" (February 1, 2006):
http://www.laweekly.com/deadline-hollywood/12564/how-gay-will-oscar-go/

Gore Vidal, in an Interview pre-Oscar, on Brokeback and other subjects (March 3, 2006):
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060303_gore_vidal_sex_oscars/

For reference, here are the two original New York Times reviews of the films:

Original New York Times Reviews of the two films:

Original NY Times review of Crash (May 6, 2005)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/movies/x06cras.html?ex=1146888000&en=ab9c464bf3c29946&ei=5083&partner=Rotten%20Tomatoes

Original NY Times review of Brokeback Mountain (December 9, 2005)
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/movies/09brok.html?ex=1141880400&en=7757846e4a2865f9&ei=5070

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 10, 2006, 10:52 PM

Thanks frenchcda, my printer will be melting when I will be done with all those links  :P

Don't get me wrong, just thank you!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: scruffy on Mar 11, 2006, 01:36 AM

The surprise that Jack dealt
By Xan Brooks

The 78th annual Academy Awards will be remembered as the Animal Farm Oscars. It was an event that decreed that four films were equal but one was more equal than the others.

Judged on numbers alone, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong and Memoirs of a Geisha were the night's big winners - all crammed onto the victor's podium with three statues apiece. But the moral victory belonged to Crash, Paul Haggis's potent yet portentous race relations drama. In the night's closing moments it conspired to sneak the crowning best film Oscar out from under the nose of heavy favourite Brokeback Mountain. If nothing else, this ensured that an otherwise sedate and soothingly predictable ceremony went out with a bang. Jack Nicholson, who presented the night's final award, looked momentarily lost for words.

Before the event kicked off, the word was that these would be - in the words of our own John Patterson - the Gayest Oscars Ever, a celebration of radicalism that would position Hollywood in direct opposition to Bush's America. Certainly the nominated movies were more explicitly political than anyone could remember, tackling everything from the oil industry (Syriana) to homosexuality (Brokeback Mountain, Capote) to racism (Crash) to right-wing demagoguery (Good Night, and Good Luck). Moreover, the Oscars had - in host Jon Stewart - a man who had made his reputation by poking fun at the current administration. The omens were intriguing, but the event fell flat. These Oscars were almost too well-behaved for their own good.

This year's Academy Awards were liberal in structure but not in content. They took pains to distribute their wealth as evenly as possible across the broadest number of films. They let Memoirs of a Geisha and King Kong have free rein with the technical awards. They split the four acting awards between four different films (Capote, Walk the Line, The Constant Gardener and Syriana). They installed a quartet of movies in joint first place. If it was hard to take offence at the choices, it was also hard to be excited by them.

For all that, I would still like to have seen Brokeback Mountain win the Oscar for best film. I think it is a far better picture than Crash. And yet I am forced to admit that, had this happened, it would have deprived us of the lone moment of drama in an otherwise uneventful night. So the final result was probably for the best. The Hollywood establishment rarely makes the right choices, but they certainly know how to spring a twist ending. When even a national institution like Jack Nicholson seems taken aback, you know you've been bamboozled by the experts.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 02:26 AM

Thanks so much E&J for the link to Annie Proulx's article in The Guardian. 

Why let the Academy which is a self-perpetuating group of reactionaries dictate what is "Best" in motion pictures.  We all know it's money, politics and prejudice that dictates the Academy Awards and not the "best" in any category.  A group of self-perpetuating reactionaries don't reflect my views about films.  We should shun it in future years.

The Academy has been severely brused by the "Crash" affair.  Looking at their past patterns of voting, the Academy will try to make amends by honoring some gay themed film in the next few years. After all they see themselves as "liberal" and don't want their "liberal card" pulled, even though we know they are closet reactionaries.  The problem is that any gay themed films they honor to "make amends" for this year won't be BBM, the one film that deserved it. 

The academy is a totally irrelevant organization. They should do themselves a favor and disband.  I agree with Annie, the Independent Spirit Awards are the ones to follow.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 11, 2006, 09:39 AM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 02:26 AM

Thanks so much E&J for the link to Annie Proulx's article in The Guardian. 

Why let the Academy which is a self-perpetuating group of reactionaries dictate what is "Best" in motion pictures.  We all know it's money, politics and prejudice that dictates the Academy Awards and not the "best" in any category.  A group of self-perpetuating reactionaries don't reflect my views about films.  We should shun it in future years.

The Academy has been severely bruised by the "Crash" affair.  Looking at their past patterns of voting, the Academy will try to make amends by honoring some gay themed film in the next few years. After all they see themselves as "liberal" and don't want their "liberal card" pulled, even though we know they are closet reactionaries.  The problem is that any gay themed films they honor to "make amends" for this year won't be BBM, the one film that deserved it. 

The academy is a totally irrelevant organization. They should do themselves a favor and disband.  I agree with Annie, the Independent Spirit Awards are the ones to follow.

The Independent Spirit Awards are schizophrenic: they honor and introduce the audience to truly independent films that we would never hear of in the first place, and I appreciate that part. But, the show spends alot of time mocking Hollywood while maintaining the same format of the other awards shows (e.g., lame host, inane introductory remarks prior to handing out awards, and really insipid song parodies ). There appears to be a segment of the Independent Film audience who only want to send the big F**k You to the AMPAS. But, I think there are some sour grapes on their part, too. Honestly, Capote (Sony Pictures) and BBM (Universal) are questionable as independent Films anyway. GNGL and The Squid and the Whale seemed to be more of a match for that organization. The Independent Spirit Awards needs to define itself clearly, stop bitching about Hollywood, and behave with dignity--if you want the viewing audience to embrace your films, do not denigrate your own awards show. The Golden Globes did fall out of favor then reinvented itself. Also, don't forget to check out all of the Film Festivals..Venice out BBM on the map in a big way!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Sitaram on Mar 11, 2006, 10:12 AM

http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1727312,00.html

You most likely have this already, but I noticed it posted at http://www.annieproulx.com, so if you do not yet have the interview, the carpe diem!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 10:44 AM

Quote from: bnjmn3 on Mar 11, 2006, 09:39 AM

The Independent Spirit Awards are schizophrenic: they honor and introduce the audience to truly independent films that we would never hear of in the first place, and I appreciate that part. But, the show spends alot of time mocking Hollywood while maintaining the same format of the other awards shows (e.g., lame host, inane introductory remarks prior to handing out awards, and really insipid song parodies ). There appears to be a segment of the Independent Film audience who only want to send the big F**k You to the AMPAS. But, I think there are some sour grapes on their part, too. Honestly, Capote (Sony Pictures) and BBM (Universal) are questionable as independent Films anyway. GNGL and The Squid and the Whale seemed to be more of a match for that organization. The Independent Spirit Awards needs to define itself clearly, stop bitching about Hollywood, and behave with dignity--if you want the viewing audience to embrace your films, do not denigrate your own awards show. The Golden Globes did fall out of favor then reinvented itself. Also, don't forget to check out all of the Film Festivals..Venice out BBM on the map in a big way! 

Ironic that the two biggies in films, Cannes and the Oscars - the first and last events of the film year, snubbed BBM in their own way.  Perhaps they have become too conservative - more the guardians of the establishment than groundbreaking.  The future of movies is with independent films.  When the big movie studios saw this trend years ago, they bought or developed branches   
that encouraged independent films.  Don't know if there is a definition of "independents" other than they are small budget films not that they necessarily have an "independent" streak.  Capote and BBM were small budget films.

I don't work in films so I can express my opinion about the irrelevancy of the Academy.  But to many people in the industry it is important recognition for their work, though I would think that the guild awards would have more value to them since they are from their peers.  Actors are the largest branch of the Academy and remember BBM got no awards from SAG - Crash got best ensemble.  Since BBM won other guild awards, it appears that its problem was with the acting branch of the Academy.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 11:18 AM

Hollywood Circles the (unBroke) Wagons[/b]

Mar. 10, 2006  Peter Howell | The Toronto Star

Sunday's selection of Crash over Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture was the first time in memory that fear seemed to be the guiding impulse for awarding Oscar's top prize.

Faced with the choice between a feel-good movie about the evils of racism and a troublesome film that challenged prejudices about homosexual love, Academy voters grabbed their security blankets and started sucking on their thumbs.

They figured they were being progressive, as George Clooney so smugly stated Sunday night, but in fact they shunned anything that smacked of subversion. In an era of cowboy conservatives, they wanted real Marlboro men, not sensitive males who collected dirty shirts as love mementoes.

Steven Spielberg's Munich, a brave and honest look at the roots of Middle East troubles, didn't get a single award because it was wrongly judged to be soft on terrorism — and probably wouldn't have been nominated at all, had it been made by anyone whose last name wasn't Spielberg.

David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, a rich and nuanced appraisal of the insidious nature of our baser human impulses, was also shut out of the winner's circle. Expressing justifiable frustration with the Oscars in an interview with me this week, Cronenberg voiced the opinion that perhaps the movie's message was too "ambiguous" for the limousine liberals of Hollywood. How could a film be anti-violence, while at the same time recognizing the deep human attraction to it?

"It's hard for me to feel that they didn't get it," Cronenberg said. "Maybe they did get it and they didn't like what they got, you know?"

Exactly. And there's more at play in Hollywood than the disturbing homophobia at the root of Brokeback Mountain's defeat by Crash. The fact is the entire town is in ostrich mode, its pampered denizens terrified of many things: dwindling audiences; technological change; runaway productions; and the possibility many of their cherished preconceptions aren't as sure as they once seemed.

Another of the reasons why Crash triumphed is that it provided so much job security to so many Academy voters in a time of economic uncertainty, being the only film amongst the five Best Picture nominees to be shot entirely in Los Angeles and area. Oscar host Jon Stewart wasn't kidding when he looked out at the multitudes inside the Kodak Theatre and asked for anyone who hadn't worked on Crash to raise their hand.

Filmmaking is supposed to be an art, but that increasingly seems to be less of a concern even to people who normally champion the ideal. I had an email argument last week with American critic Jeffrey Wells, a usually sensible guy, who commended Lionsgate for denying critics an advance look at Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, the urban comedy that shook off the February blahs and found a big audience.

Wells stated in his Hollywood-Elsewhere.com blog that Lionsgate would have been "dumb" to pre-screen Madea's Family Reunion because it "would have gotten killed by critics." His argument struck me as not only completely wrong — there are many easily pleased scribblers out there — but also rather sad. Has the business of making movies turned into such a factory enterprise that even critics are now applauding their own irrelevancy to the assembly-line tide of flickering widgets?

When Lionsgate started up a few years ago, with its roots in Canada, I wrote a story about how fearless the company was in taking on such controversial projects as Dogma, American Psycho and O, all films that other distributors had been reluctant or too fearful to handle. Has Lionsgate now joined the herd of braying sheep?

It would seem so, and the flock is growing. There have been more of the Friday Dreadfuls this year than in years past — films like Aeon Flux, Grandma's Boy, Date Movie and last week's Ultraviolet — that were released straight to theatres without advance critical scrutiny. More and more these days, studios are judging their wares to be so awful as to be unable to garner a rave even from the likes of Larry King, a wannabe critic who'd applaud the opening of a car door.

They seem to think the Friday Dreadfuls strategy is a smart business move, contemptuously believing that the audience is also composed of sheep that will happily bleat their way into anything that comes with popcorn.

I beg to differ. Making your product look cheap, disposable and not worthy of serious critical attention is a dangerous way to proceed in an industry that relies on the collective belief that movies are more than just another form of entertainment.

Movies matter, or so we keep telling ourselves on Oscar night — and perhaps the sharp drop in Academy Awards viewership reflects disillusionment with Hollywood's breach of faith.

Imagine how directors and actors feel about having their films dumped on the market without advance critical screenings. The sci-fi thriller Aeon Flux starred Academy Award winners Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand, and it was directed by Sundance sensation Karyn Kusama. Yet Paramount had so little confidence in their work, it dumped the film sight unseen upon the masses, fearful of a critical backlash.

The ironic thing is that critics are more likely to champion a difficult movie than anyone else. I don't have to resort to Google to know that somewhere out there in cyberspace, someone is extolling Aeon Flux as a misunderstood cinematic masterpiece. Which is similar to what happened with Blade Runner back in 1982, which was famously panned by Siskel & Ebert (who later recanted), back in the day when Chicago thumbs didn't jerk skywards quite so obligingly or often.

Blade Runner did disappointing initial box office, but it went on to become a classic of sci-fi cinema. Entire books have been written about films that were panned by critics but later became popular or cult favourites.

And whatever happened to the brave notion that a bad review could be used for positive spin? When the first Scary Movie came out in 2000, I recall ads listing all the negative comments (mine included) that were published about this disgusting-but-amusing hybrid of horror and humour. The movie was designed to offend people, and it worked so well, the Scary Movie factory is about to belch out Scary Movie 4.

But the same people were afraid to let critics see the romance spinoff Date Movie last month, losing the considerable grudging kudos they would have collected for being daring enough to thumb their noses at the thumb jerkers.

The Friday Dreadfuls strategy is backfiring. In the age of the Internet and the blog, it is impossible to keep word from getting out on opening weekend. And all attempts to do so merely flag to increasingly jaded moviegoers that studios don't respect them enough to make informed choices about which movies to see. Last summer's failure of the aptly named Stealth was an example of the audience refusing to swallow obvious garbage, a trend that is sure to accelerate.

Hollywood is fearful about the many threats it faces, and understandably so. Yet the choice of Crash as Best Picture and the peek-a-boo release strategy for problem films suggest that the pursuit of excellence is no longer a virtue in a Tinseltown, where dreams aren't quite as big as they once were.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 11, 2006, 11:31 AM

thanks Hidesert, very good article.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 11:59 AM

What Did I Tell You?

Nikki Finke's Deadline Daily
LA Weekly  | March 5, 2006

Way back on January 17th, I decided to nominate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Bunch of Hypocrites. That’s because I felt this year’s dirty little Oscar secret was the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about hetero members of the Academy of Motions Picture Arts and Sciences being unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain. For a community that takes pride in progressive values, it seemed shameful to me that Hollywood’s homophobia could be on a par with Pat Robertson’s. So in the February 1st issue of LA Weekly, I warned that, despite the hype you saw in the press and on the Internet about Brokeback, with its eight nominations, being the supposed favorite to take home the Best Picture Oscar, Crash could end up winning.

Well, turns out I was right. Hollywood showed tonight it isn’t the liberal bastion it once was. That’s pitiful if you’re a progressive, and pleasing if you’re a conservative.

After my column came out, it was picked up by the Drudge Report. Hundreds of angry emailers accused me, and Hollywood, of trying to promote “the homosexual agenda” by somehow “forcing” them to see a movie they found sexually reprehensible. What those emailers failed to comprehend was that the Oscar voters shared their distaste for it.

At the time, I explained that the real Best Picture issue wasn’t which film was better. The real issue was which movie was seen by the Academy. I found horrifying each whispered admission to me from Academy members who usually act like social liberals that they were disgusted by even the possibility of glimpsing simulated gay sex.

The forces that hate Hollywood salivated for Brokeback to win Best Oscar. But that it wasn’t the favorite was foreshadowed at the Screen Actor Guild awards, when Crash topped it for best picture and Philip Seymour Hoffman won over Heath Ledger. The excuse given was that Crash only won that award because the producers had sent the film to every SAG member, which is something of a rarity. But, still, Brokeback fever continued unabated. It became part of America’s lexicon, it generated a nightly joke or two on Leno and Letterman, it spawned innumerable parodies. But just how did it measure up as a movie? I found Crash and Brokeback both good, if flawed, films. Oscar-worthy since they were about something, a prerequisite. Crash makes up in aesthetic bleakness what it lacks in subtlety — Los Angeles is a city of minorities divided but colliding, duh! — but it’s also gripping and powerful. Brokeback gives us closet-case sheepherders tastefully presented so they redefine the notion of love. But it’s also slow and ponderous.

I sounded a note of extreme caution about Brokeback’s Oscar chances because, in Hollywood, the cowboy has been an iconic figure in motion pictures through the ages. Many geriatric Academy members not only worked on oaters, but also worshipped Audie Murphy, Gene Autry, John Wayne and other saddle-sore celluloid heroes. And I noted that only an equally iconic figure like Clint Eastwood could redefine the genre in Unforgiven in a way that didn’t turn off the old-timers. I wasn’t just talking geezers. I was talking baby boomers and younger Academy members sketched out about seeing Brokeback.

I knew there was a chance that, even without seeing the movie, Oscar voters could feel guilt-tripped or succumb to a herd mentality to vote for the “gay-cowboy” movie and strike a blow against Republican wedge politics and extremist religious hatemongering. But they didn’t, and Brokeback lost for all the Right’s reasons.

So, red-staters licking their lips to give Hollywood a verbal ass-whooping will be chagrined tonight. I’ve been keeping a running tally on just how political were the 78th Academy Awards. And the answer is overwhelmingly hardly at all. GOP politicos hoping to use that old saw of “Boy hidey, those show-biz folk are just a homo-promotin’, liberal-media-embracin’, minority-lovin’, devil-worshippin’, pimp-hustlin’, terrorist-protectin’ bunch of pansies, commies and traitors” are going to have to find another way to discredit Hollywood’s actor activists when they campaign come the midterm elections in November.

Turns out Hollywood is as homophobic as Red State country. In touch, not out of touch.

I was right about Rachel Weisz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, Ang Lee, and Crash. Only Clooney’s win I didn’t anticipate. I thought the ugly guy, Paul Giamatti, would bag it. Damn that Supporting Actor category: trips me up.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: scruffy on Mar 11, 2006, 12:37 PM

After flirting with diversity, Oscar goes back to the closet
By Joe Williams
POST-DISPATCH FILM CRITIC
Friday, Mar. 10 2006

"Stop the presses!"

If the interview room at the Oscars had been a movie set, that's what you would
have heard on Sunday night when "Crash" was named best picture. Instead, there
was a collective gasp and then the mad clacking of a hundred reporters
e-mailing revised versions of their stories to newspapers around the globe.

Many of the reporters backstage at the Oscars had already written that the gay
love story "Brokeback Mountain" would win best picture. That's not because it
was their personal favorite - although in my case it was - but because the
bookies who do this stuff for a living said so.

And that's why I was already starting to analyze what that victory meant when
the prediction came crashing down. I was going to write that the storyline at
this year's Oscars was diversity. Ang Lee was the first non-white guy to win
best director. "Tsotsi" was the first South African production to win best
foreign-language film. Another contender in that category was from a new
country called Palestine.

And while an Oscar for a rap tune was diversity of the low-brow sort, I was
heartened that an actor acquaintance of mine named Grant Heslov, who's been
typecast as a swarthy sidekick or an Arab terrorist, had been nominated for his
brainpower, as the co-writer and producer of "Good Night, and Good Luck."

But the Academy Awards are decided by a vote of a specialized electorate, and
it seems that enough of the 5,800 members of the academy were squeamish about
giving their top prize to a movie in which two men make love. If all those
voters had actually seen "Brokeback Mountain" and still preferred "Crash," an
overcooked drama about racism in contemporary LA, I would have to respect that
decision. But it's been reported that many of the older voters opted not to see
"Brokeback Mountain," while DVD copies of "Crash" were mailed to every member
of the Academy as well as all 110,000 members of the influential Screen Actors
Guild.

Even in Hollywood, a place that wouldn't exist without the gay community,
there's still an unease about homosexuality that can't be discounted.

Last year, on the day before the Oscars, I stopped for a beer at the Snow White
Cafe, a bar on Hollywood Boulevard decorated with murals painted by Disney
animators. The old gent on the stool next to me introduced himself. He was a
retired fireman named Frank. After a couple beers, Frank revealed that he had
just buried his wife of 30 years. She was his best friend, he said. And in all
that time, she never knew he was gay. In a few days, Frank was going to visit
their grown daughter in Florida, and he wondered how much longer he would have
to keep his secret.

I didn't have an answer for him, but I suggested that on his drive east he
should visit New Orleans, a city with a tradition of tolerance.

I thought about Frank after New Orleans was wiped off the map, and again after
I saw "Brokeback Mountain" and started getting letters from readers denouncing
a movie that they refused to see. The assertion in many of the letters was that
you had to be a pervert to even watch the movie - and you had to be a member of
the international gay cabal to write about it in the newspaper.

Which will come as a big surprise to my fiancee.

Even though the Oscars are still the biggest television event outside of the
Super Bowl in the United States, even though thousands of people line the
limousine route to cheer for the passing celebrities, the TV news was filled
this week with stories asking "Is Hollywood out of touch with America?"

Maybe by picking a movie like "Crash," with a self-evident message like "racism
is bad," Hollywood can sidestep that question for another year.

But as I was leaving the ceremony and walking toward the Snow White Cafe, I
looked back at the red carpet and saw a man who might know the answer. Standing
alone in a tuxedo jacket and blue jeans, waiting for a ride home, was Larry
McMurtry. He had just won an Oscar for writing "Brokeback Mountain" with his
partner, former St. Louisan Diana Ossana. In the backstage interview room, they
said the award was bittersweet because the film itself had been bypassed.
Maybe, McMurtry said, some people in America still need to cling to our myths,
even when they're hurtful. But he figures that good stories will always have
the power to open doors and soften hearts. That's why he's building one of the
world's largest bookstores, in tiny Archer City, Texas.

You can find it on the way to New Orleans.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: quentin751 on Mar 11, 2006, 12:48 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 10, 2006, 08:29 PM

Quote from: quentin751 on Mar 10, 2006, 02:03 PM

I've seen "crash" and really like it! I dont remember thandie newton going mad when she was touched by the racist cop( matt dilon) so i dont understand the post above.. i dont see steroetypes there, or if is welle let s admit we are sometimes sterteotypes!
i know its not the subject here but if anyone had seen "crash" and disliked it please help me to understand... 

It's toward the beginning of the film, Quentin.  Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe are partners and stop the SUV with the African-American couple, Terence Howard and Thandie Newton.  Dillon is searching the wife (Thandie) and does it very thoroughly.   

Later in the film, Dillon's character just happens to respond to a vehicle accident and guess who the victim is in the car - Thandie's character and he saves her life when gas starts leaking.  Another coicidence, another contrivance - the film is full of it.   

A stupid film.  Don't waste your money renting it - we don't want to give Lion's Gate any more revenue. 

To quote that brilliant response by Kenneth Turan:

Quote

I

[/b]

thx for answering but still i do remeber the scene with the two cops int the street, but unlike what a critic said, the character played by t.newton didnt go mad when she is been searched so i think the scen was very good and credible ( believable?)...anyway i like this film very much ( altough i LOVVE bbm)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: rikcub on Mar 11, 2006, 01:11 PM

Hey Brokies....just found this link throught boxofficemojo.com.....check it out....some interesting thoughts and ideas.

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/movies/boxoffice/env-box-office-analysis,0,1331899.columnist

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 01:45 PM

[size=11]Good Show, Silly Controversy says Sid Ganis[/size]

LA Times, March 9, 2006


"I think this is the nonsense of all time," says Sid Ganis. "The academy, homophobic? It's beyond absurd, in my opinion."

Ganis, the first-term president of the academy, was responding to the widespread criticism that the best picture victory of "Crash" over the more critically acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain" was a sign that Oscar voters were at best conservative, at worst homophobic.

"The academy is made up of 6,000 artists of one craft or another," says Ganis. "These are men and women who love and appreciate art, and if they voted for 'Crash' over 'Brokeback Mountain,' it's not about the fact that 'Brokeback' deals with a couple of gay guys."

Ganis even bristles at the idea that the academy might be a cautious body: "The last thing you would say, from looking at the artistic expressions of these members, is that they're conservative."

The remarks came a couple of days after "Brokeback" director Ang Lee told a press conference of Chinese journalists that he didn't see his film as rebellious or groundbreaking, but simply as "a very ordinary movie" about two scared people in love.

For Ganis, the tempest over "Brokeback" hasn't spoiled an Oscar ceremony that left him, he says, "spent, but absolutely satisfied."

The president liked Jon Stewart's performance, loved the enthusiasm 13-time producer Gil Cates brought to the job, liked the large number of film clips ("My guideline going in was 'let's make it a show about the movies'"), and is pleased with the comments he's been hearing since Sunday night.

"Professional critics aside, the feedback I'm getting is that the show sparkled," he says. "We're 78 years old. Nobody expected us to sparkle."

Sitting in the theater, Ganis didn't hear the much-criticized music that was played during acceptance speeches. "If it was a problem, that's easy to solve," he says. "We won't do it next year."

Now he's back to work on the lot at Sony Pictures, where he's readying the film "Akeelah and the Bee," among other things. And he's finding the aftermath of the Oscars to be a completely new experience.

"This is the first TV show I've been involved with, and it's very different from anything I've ever done," he says. "When you finish a movie, you still have to market it, and open it, and then you have video.… At the end of the Oscars, it's the end."

He laughs. "The end."

_________________________________________


Ok, Ganis has to tow the party line in public and defend everyone. I'm just wondering what is being said by the Governors behind closed doors - shift their PR department into high gear to defend them, order a recount, award a special Oscar to BBM as co-Best Picture.  Most likely is  that they're just praying that all the controversy goes away and will be forgotten by next year.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 02:02 PM

The Best Picture Misses the Big Picture[/b]   

Steve Lopez, LA Times | March 8 2006


Standing cautiously but bravely at the intersection of Beverly and Normandie, I could feel the racial tension in the air.

The place was about to blow.

A white woman walked into Video Hot, which is run by Koreans, and an Asian man bought flowers from a Guatemalan woman. Given the boiling hatred that pumps through L.A.'s veins, as depicted in the Oscar-winning movie "Crash," could ethnic violence be far behind?

I used to think we could all get along, more or less. I believed that despite its many flaws and obvious divisions by race and class, Los Angeles was one of the more successfully integrated cities in the world. And so to me, "Crash" felt like an artless, dated and manipulative morality tale on the evils of the sprawling metropolis, shot with a long lens from behind the bars of a gated seaside community.

But that was before the all-knowing wizards of the academy set me straight, choosing "Crash" as the best picture of the year. Could so many kabbala and Bikram yoga practitioners have been wrong, even if it's been years since any of them ventured east of Robertson except to hand out Oscars or cruise for hookers?

I think not. All I can figure is that in my own travels across the city, I must have sped past one powder keg after another without seeing the fuses. And so I ventured back out there to see what I could see.

Beverly and Normandie. Can you get any more L.A. than that?

The corner businesses tell the story: Subway, Chinatown Express, Tokyo Sushi Academy, Pizza Hut, Chicken Wok, El Chipilin Salvadoran and Honduran restaurant, Green Village Acupuncture & Herbs Clinic, La Nueva Flor Blanca Salvadoran and Guatemalan restaurant, Yoshinoya, Dr. Julio Guzman Medical Group and Pacific Market, owned by a brother and sister from India.

As I pulled into the parking lot, Latino, Asian, white and black patrons were coming and going without apparent incident, but it was early.

I got out of my car, looked both ways, and dived for cover when I saw an Asian driver enter the parking lot.

Whewwww!

Still in one piece, I spied a suspicious black man standing in the parking lot next to a car.

Burglar?

Or was it worse? Was he reaching into the glove box for a pistol, planning to knock off Yoshinoya and pistol-whip customers for their teriyaki chicken bowls?

You know it's hard out there for a pimp.

I walked into Hermano's Flowers, where Ana Ramirez claimed she has gotten along with her neighbors for 10 years, no problems. A man walked in to say hello. They chatted amiably. He walked away.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"A friend of mine."

"He wasn't Latino," I said.

"No. He's Japanese."

"And you get along?"

Two Latinos walked in after that. Gangbangers? I left the store for my own safety.

Kyung Suh, 34, was getting into his car when I asked where he lived.

Koreatown, he said. He moved there from Korea 10 years ago.

And where does he work?

South-Central L.A., he said. He's got a cellphone shop, and his customers are black and Latino, and against all odds, none of them have attacked each other or beaten him over the head. If you can believe him.

At Pacific Market, Micky, who grew up in India, sells her customers phone cards so they can call home to Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Africa and the Philippines.

"Crash?" she asked. Never heard of it.

I saw a white woman walk into Subway and followed her inside to make sure she wasn't mugged. She got a sandwich and made it out OK. I got a soda, and when the Latino clerk took my money, he said, "Thank you, señor."

Kyle Anderson, a black pharmaceutical rep, was visiting the office of Dr. Guzman just upstairs from Subway. Anderson lives in Mid-City, where his nearest neighbors are black, white and Persian. He's traveled far and wide in the United States and feels more comfortable in Los Angeles than anywhere else.

"You can go where you want," he said. "It's a multicultural environment. In the city of Los Angeles, you can visit a different country every day."

Sure, if you enjoy being carjacked.

Nick Shipp, a chef, walked into Dr. Guzman's office for a checkup. "I Love Lucy" was on TV, and most of the clients were Latino.

I pointed out to Shipp that he happens to be white.

He shrugged.

I mentioned the movie "Crash."

"My experience in L.A.," he said, "is the complete opposite."

Maybe so, but Lucy and Ricky looked like they were about to have a fight on TV. Those interracial marriages are doomed from the moment they cut the cake.

In the parking lot, I worked up the nerve to approach the black man standing near the BMW, which he couldn't possibly own. He claimed he was sealing holes in the cloth roof with a silicone gel.

What did he take me for, a nitwit?

"Where you from?" I asked the stranger.

Cameroon, George Louis said, calling himself an accountant and resident of Hollywood. Yes, he said, he did see "Crash."

"You do have problems in Los Angeles, but not as big as that," he said. "People aren't looking for trouble. They're too busy working and trying to make it."

Negative media influences are a dark force and a distraction, Louis said. He frees himself from those influences by focusing on positive energy and trying to live a spiritual life.

He shook my hand firmly and gave me a warm gaze, and I felt like Sandra Bullock in "Crash." I didn't buy her sudden transformation when she embraced the Latina maid she had repeatedly insulted, but now I could see the truth in it.

I realized the black man is not my enemy, but my friend.

Thank you, "Crash."

Thank you, Academy.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 11, 2006, 04:49 PM

Ballots for different palates

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2006/030906/aaa.html

>> Readers choose their favourites in our 10th annual Alternative Academy Awards   


Welcome to the 10th annual Mirror Alternative Academy Awards. In this parallel universe, Tom Cruise can’t hide behind studio spin doctors, Quebec talent is acknowledged, and well-endowed women named Jessica get the props they so desperately deserve. Here’s the rundown of how Mirror readers voted...

Movie Most Overlooked by the Academy

No big surprise here. Shutting out Jean-Marc Vallée’s masterpiece was a f***-you to Canada that outraged moviegoers nationwide. And the Academy should know: Giving Ontario-native Paul Haggis an undeserved Oscar for best film in no way makes up for this injustice.
47% C.R.A.Z.Y.
21% Sin City
12% Kung Fu Hustle
12% Mysterious Skin
8% The Aristocrats

Most Overlooked Performance

Jeff Daniels may be tops here. But if he wants to impress the real Academy, he’s gonna have to play a legend, preferably a dead one with leftist leanings and/or with multiple addictions. Good luck.
36% Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale
24% Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson, Wedding Crashers
18% Emily Mortimer, Match Point
16% Paul Kaye, It’s All Gone Pete Tong
6% Harry Reems, Inside Deep Throat

Best Soundtrack

Britpop, crunk, Ibiza rave and southern-fried rock can’t hold a candle to outlaw country. But we already knew this.
58% Walk the Line
24% Hustle & Flow
12% It’s All Gone Pete Tong
4% 9 Songs
2% The Dukes of Hazzard

Best Male Bod

Nothing says sexy like using a big Santa hat as a loincloth. This could explain why Pitt’s pecks, Chiklis’s biceps, Usher’s abs and Brosnan’s gunt all came up short against Jake’s snake.
55% Jake Gyllenhaal, Jarhead
25% Brad Pitt, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
9% Pierce Brosnan, The Matador
8% Michael Chiklis, Fantastic Four
3% Usher, In the Mix

Best Female Body

Our polling results prove what the scientific community has been saying for years now: Women named “Jessica” are inherently sexy. Anyone here remember that scorching-hot scene in Cocoon where Tandi strips down to a one-piece? We rest our case.
44% Jessica Alba, Into the Blue
23% Jessica Lange, Broken Flowers
14% Elisha Cuthbert, House of Wax
11% Jessica Simpson, The Dukes of Hazzard
8% Jessica Biel, Stealth

Worst Performance

Apparently, pretending to stomach Tomcat’s nauseating shenanigans wasn’t Katie Holmes’s only unconvincing performance of 2005.
31% Katie Holmes, Batman Begins
22% Orlando Bloom, Elizabethtown
22% Dakota Fanning, War of the Worlds, Hide and Seek and Dreamer
16% Jim Carrey, Fun With Dick and Jane
9% Heath Ledger, Casanova

Most Overhyped/Overrated Movie

These results may have less to do with the War of the Worlds as a movie and more to do with its star. See above.
29% War of the Worlds
26% Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
17% King Kong
17% Brokeback Mountain
11% Batman Begins

Movie That Never Should Have Happened

Considering Monster-in-Law is the first film that Jane Fonda has made in almost 15 years, this category could also be renamed the worst comeback for a once-respected actress. Not even the sight of Jennifer Garner roller-blading around in red pleather horrified our readers as much as J.Lo and J.Fo’s two-hour cat scrap.
35% Monster-in-Law
25% Elektra
17% The Pacifier
16% Be Cool
7% Memoirs of a Geisha

Best/Most Gratuitous Violence

This is a bit of an upset. Oldboy comes in at a disappointing third place, this despite a scene in which its star Min-sik Choi slowly and graphically cuts off his own tongue. There’s just no accounting for taste.
47% Sin City
34% Saw II
11% Oldboy
5% The Devil’s Rejects
3% Land of the Dead

Best Choreographed Sex Scenes

The competition was stiff here: an NC-17-rated threesome, some lesbian love scenes, spurting cocks and a little Toronto softcore. Still you can’t deny that Maria Bello more than earned this top honour. According to the History of Violence star, all that crashing and banging around on the stairwell with co-star Viggo Mortensen left her badly bruised.
51% A History of Violence
14% My Summer of Love
12% Where the Truth Lies
12% 9 Songs
11% Lie With Me

Most Annoying Non-Human

Poor Mr. Binks. You can’t say you didn’t see that one coming.
34% Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
27% Herbie, Herbie: Fully Loaded
22% The Fog, The Fog
9% Foxy Loxy, Chicken Little
8% Fender, Robots

Worst Performance by a Pop Star

Even with all eyes on her Daisy Dukes, Simpson couldn’t detract attention away from her abominable attempt at acting.
43% Jessica Simpson, The Dukes of Hazzard
19% 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’
15% Lindsay Lohan, Herbie: Fully Loaded
15% Hilary Duff, The Perfect Man
8% Usher, In the Mix

And now for the real Oscars...

Not surprisingly, only one Mirror reader earned a perfect score in our Oscar contest this year. Olivier D’Amour correctly predicted the winners in the following six categories: best actor, best actress, best supporting actress, best supporting actor, best director and best film (how he guessed that one without hacking the Price Waterhouse database, we’ll never know). For his efforts, D’Amour wins first prize, 12 Ex-Centris/Parc movie passes. Nice work Olivier!

For second place, dozens of people guessed five out of six categories. However, only one contestant can walk away with the coveted runner-up prize, eight Ex-Centris/Parc movie passes. So the Mirror tabulation department drew a name from a hat of the people who guessed five of six. And the winner is.... Samantha Young. Congratulations!

Ballots compiled by Chloé Roubert, pithy commentary provided by Sarah Rowland

 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 11, 2006, 07:14 PM

http://articles.news.aol.com/movies/article.adp?id=20060310030609990002&ncid=NWS00010000000001

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 11, 2006, 08:15 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 02:26 AM

Thanks so much E&J for the link to Annie Proulx's article in The Guardian. 

Why let the Academy which is a self-perpetuating group of reactionaries dictate what is "Best" in motion pictures.  We all know it's money, politics and prejudice that dictates the Academy Awards and not the "best" in any category.  A group of self-perpetuating reactionaries don't reflect my views about films.  We should shun it in future years.

The Academy has been severely brused by the "Crash" affair.  Looking at their past patterns of voting, the Academy will try to make amends by honoring some gay themed film in the next few years. After all they see themselves as "liberal" and don't want their "liberal card" pulled, even though we know they are closet reactionaries.  The problem is that any gay themed films they honor to "make amends" for this year won't be BBM, the one film that deserved it. 

The academy is a totally irrelevant organization. They should do themselves a favor and disband.  I agree with Annie, the Independent Spirit Awards are the ones to follow.

To Annie Proulx:  I have always loved your work.  And I love everything that you stand for.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 08:46 PM

Quote from: Lost_Girl on Mar 11, 2006, 07:14 PM

http://articles.news.aol.com/movies/article.adp?id=20060310030609990002&ncid=NWS00010000000001

I don't feel sorry for her.  She's a big girl and walked into these business arrangements on her own two feet and will have to live with the consequences.   I hope she's thanked Bob Yari for not filing his law suit until Oscar voting ended or she might not have an Oscar statuette.  If she can't handle her own finances she should hire someone who can or not play in the big leagues.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 09:33 PM

I just looked at the Oprah BBM cast interview again.  Someone mentioned earlier in one of these threads that Oprah didn't gush over BBM like she does when she's strongly behind a movie or a book. I don't watch Oprah so I didn't comment at the time, but it now reminds me of a piece in an article in this thread (Crash Plus Cash Equals Oscar):

Quote

And then there was the Oprah Winfrey factor. "Hey everybody!," she wrote on her website last summer. "I just saw Crash. Go see this movie. It's superb! I'm on 'vacay' - otherwise I'd be on the show telling everybody to GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It's so well done. So thought-provoking. I saw it a week ago ... and I can't stop talking about it!"

The film's writer-director-producer Paul Haggis duly appeared on Oprah's TV show to tell how his real-life carjack drama led to the film, while the key members of the cast also appeared to ask: "Are you a racist?" Oprah's O magazine also ran articles on the film. "I believe everybody should have this in their movie collection," Oprah told viewers.

While she didn't give BBM the kiss of death, she didn't give it the support she gave to Crash.  Hmmm...like she damned BBM with faint praise.     

Oprah and Roger Ebert are both in Chicago - wonder if it's a conspiracy.   ::)

 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 11, 2006, 11:02 PM

HIDESERT I couldn't agree more with you, she the lady O surely went out of her way in praising  "Crash " and little to propegate the greatness of BBM, you know why and wont say it, but I am thinking in the same mannerWhile she didn't give BBM the kiss of death, she didn't give it the support she gave to Crash.  Hmmm...like she damned BBM with faint praise.     

Oprah and Roger Ebert are in Chicago - wonder if it's a conspiracy.   

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 11, 2006, 11:45 PM

Quote from: frenchcda on Mar 11, 2006, 11:02 PM

HIDESERT I couldn't agree more with you, she the lady O surely went out of her way in praising  "Crash " and little to propegate the greatness of BBM, you know why and wont say it, but I am thinking in the same mannerWhile she didn't give BBM the kiss of death, she didn't give it the support she gave to Crash.  Hmmm...like she damned BBM with faint praise.     

Oprah and Roger Ebert are both in Chicago - wonder if it's a conspiracy.

Thanks frenchcda.  I'll just say that every race and both genders have racists and every race and both genders have homophobes.   

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 11, 2006, 11:50 PM

Thanks for posting these articles. We are witnessing the history and it is all because of BBM.

Title: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Post by: jerasjr on Mar 12, 2006, 06:31 AM

3/10 In the Opinon Exchange, Syl Jones has a piece that trashes Crash as best picture.  At the end of his column he writes:

"Brokeback Mountain is an enduring story that accurately portrays the problems inherent in any love relationship: It's hard, it's painful, and the social context in which we love may lead to death and disillusionment.  Long after we are gone, future audiences will wonder how such a stunning achievement could have been overlooked for the Best Picture Award."

That is where our emphasis should be, making certain that BBM endures, not only in ourselves, but in others.

Title: Re: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 12:29 PM

Quote from: jerasjr on Mar 12, 2006, 06:31 AM

3/10 In the Opinon Exchange, Syl Jones has a piece that trashes Crash as best picture.  At the end of his column he writes:

"Brokeback Mountain is an enduring story that accurately portrays the problems inherent in any love relationship: It's hard, it's painful, and the social context in which we love may lead to death and disillusionment.  Long after we are gone, future audiences will wonder how such a stunning achievement could have been overlooked for the Best Picture Award."

That is where our emphasis should be, making certain that BBM endures, not only in ourselves, but in others. 

Yes jerasjr, Sly Jones is right BBM will endure as have all those classic films that never won Best Picture.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 12:32 PM

After Oscar Night, My Back’s Broke[/b]

The Academy is more comfortable when we’re doing their hair and keeping our lives out of their sight.

By TONY BRASWELL, The Washington Blade
Mar. 10, 2006

NOTHING KILLS AN Oscar party faster than an unexpected ending.

Whether a pleasant surprise or a shocking announcement, which customarily is credited to the disconnect between Hollywood and "the rest of America," most of the awards are telegraphed well in advance of March by the pre-Oscar orgy of award shows, studio hype and critical comment.

Oscars 2005 featured an abundance of gay characters and film themes. It was finally a year when gay women and men all over the world could revel in the unprecedented role of "favorite."

We didn’t have just one token award on which to place all our bets. We had multiple movies, roles and nominees to cheer. In almost every category we had a favorite, in some we had more than one nominee to support.

My God, they even told us that penguins affiliate with the same gender, and among the limited choice for Best Original Song, we had Dolly. What more could we ask for?

The movie that led the charge, "Brokeback Mountain," was not just our film, it was the odds-on favorite to win it all. Eight nominations, strong story and breathtaking cinema.

According to the pundits and odds makers it’s an excellent, star-studded and beautifully crafted film that happened to tell a gay story and would be named "the best." An Oscar winner, right up there beside "Gone With The Wind," "Sound of Music," "The Godfather" and "Titanic."

AS IS OFTEN the case in the movies, the story doesn’t end how we hope or expect. When Jack Nicholson gleefully announced "Crash" as Best Picture, in one moment my dream crashed.

I sincerely felt that Oscar would reward a movie that finally showed my life to the world, without use of a stereotyped supporting character, without brutality, pity, religious judgment or token acting that adapted to preconceived conceptions of homosexuality.

Finally, gays weren’t just there because we did great hair or wrote great music. We were on the front row. Hell, we held most of the first three rows!

What happened? I want to believe that I missed something. That "Crash" was the better movie. That, as will be stated over and over again, it was a year of great movies and all five pictures were truly Oscar worthy.

But I don’t believe that. In the end, the Academy, like much of America, is more comfortable if we’re doing their hair, building or decorating their houses, staying in our world and keeping our personal lives out of their sight.

Granted, if "Brokeback Mountain" had taken Best Picture, it would be construed as "gays and lesbians taking over Hollywood," or a "blue-state thing" or "further proof that Hollywood is out of touch with America."

But this was the year that momentum, sentiment and a very well made movie were on our side. Finally, we would be able to look at the list of 78 best pictures and say to generations to come that someone told our story.

WHO KNOWS IF that chance will come again in my lifetime. And if it does, can I still enjoy it? In one very shocking moment Sunday night, my back broke.

The party plummeted to earth. Funny how such a party ends. The gay people started trying to rationalize a "Crash" victory, and the straight people quickly leapt to statements that clumsily ended in, "I really thought ‘you’ should have won."

Many won’t understand my disappointment. Why did I need validation of a gold statue and a spot on the wall at the Kodak Theater? Because I’ve never had it.

Year after year, I keep taking partial acceptance of my history and my life "the best I can get." I want more. I am no longer satisfied with nominations, critical acclaim and straight people portraying my life.

After 40 years you would think I could wake up tomorrow and forget it all, blend back into the world. Not this time. Because for once I honestly believed it was going to happen. The landmark portrayal of a gay life would win. Immortalized with an Oscar. This "once in a lifetime" moment was my lifetime. And it didn’t happen.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 12:46 PM

DID HOMOPHOBIA STEAL 'BROKEBACK' OSCAR?[/b]

By David Bleiler, Centre Daily | March 10,2006

THERE WAS only one big surprise in Sunday's Academy Awards ceremonies - "Crash" winning best picture over favorite "Brokeback Mountain."

Gasps from Oscar parties across the country could be heard in unison with those attending the show. Even presenter Jack Nicholson looked stunned. (Not to mention apologetic.) He had good reason to be, as did everyone else.

How could a movie that had won more awards, been named on more 10-best lists, and had won the screenplay and directing awards been overlooked for the big prize of the night?

In newspapers and blogs from Boston to L.A., talk of homophobia is rampant, that many voters just couldn't give a "gay" movie its coveted best-film award. Anecdotal evidence, precedents and results certainly make it look that way.

Of course, film criticism is subjective, as is award-giving. But there is history and conventional wisdom to guide and give clues as to what usually will win best picture, what the academy and national critics are thinking, what a nation is thinking.

"Brokeback Mountain" was named on more 10-best lists than any other film in 2005 (twice as many as "Crash"). Critics from liberal cities, moderate suburbs and conservative rural areas gave "Brokeback" best-film honors. This long list includes the Utah Film Critics (the country's most conservative state), Dallas-Fort Worth Critics, Florida Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics, St. Louis Gateway Critics, Iowa Critics, Las Vegas Film Critics. No hotbeds of liberalism here, this is the heartland. These are all red states.

Add to that awards from film associations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, the Golden Globes, British Film Awards, Independent Spirit, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, Writers Guild - and praise for "Brokeback" is unanimous. Surveying the top awards from critics across the United States, no other film was mentioned as best film more than once.

There can be no debate that "Brokeback" was the most critically acclaimed film of its year. Financially, it certainly wasn't close as one of the biggest grossing films, but it was the highest-grossing film nominated and returned a huge profit on its relatively small cost. ("Crash" grossed $53 million. In terms of ticket sales, it is the least-popular best film in the academy's 78 years.)

"Brokeback" looks to end its run with about $90 million, a respectable gross for either an indie or Hollywood film. But there was a problem in getting many more patrons to the theaters to see it - and many were academy members themselves.

Prominent journalists like Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, Nikki Finke of L.A. Weekly and Tom O'Neill of The Envelope from the L.A. Times reported before and after the show that they had heard comments from academy members that they had no interest in seeing a film about gay cowboys in love or voting for it.

CAN YOU IMAGINE if they had said they had no intention of seeing "Hustle & Flow" because it as about African-Americans, or "Munich" because it was about Jews?

It is the duty of an academy member to see all the films nominated in a category, and if they hadn't, they shouldn't be voting in that category. Someone forgot to tell this courtesy to many, many academy members.

What about "Crash" itself? Reviews were mixed (most critics found it ambitious, sincere but flawed), but its subject matter and storytelling grabbed many.

There is a substantive case to be made that "Brokeback" was robbed of its best-film Oscar by a big dose of homophobia.

It's sad that Hollywood, which has always prized itself on being on the cutting edge of social issues (emphasized by George Clooney in his acceptance speech), could have gone one step further then it ever has.

And it is doubly sad that "Brokeback," which explores in heartbreaking detail the effects of homophobia, would lose its recognition as best picture to that same homophobia.

If you are gay, you have a right to feel bashed. If you're straight, and a film fan, don't think you haven't been bashed, either.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 12, 2006, 01:20 PM

hidesert, thank you for posting the last two great articles. I really like the one which I quoted below. It sums well and speaks how I really feel.

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 12:32 PM

Many won’t understand my disappointment. Why did I need validation of a gold statue and a spot on the wall at the Kodak Theater? Because I’ve never had it.

Year after year, I keep taking partial acceptance of my history and my life "the best I can get." I want more. I am no longer satisfied with nominations, critical acclaim and straight people portraying my life.

After 40 years you would think I could wake up tomorrow and forget it all, blend back into the world. Not this time. Because for once I honestly believed it was going to happen. The landmark portrayal of a gay life would win. Immortalized with an Oscar. This "once in a lifetime" moment was my lifetime. And it didn’t happen.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 01:49 PM

Quote from: ethan on Mar 12, 2006, 01:20 PM

hidesert, thank you for posting the last two great articles. I really like the one which I quoted below. It sums well and speaks how I really feel.

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 12:32 PM

Many won’t understand my disappointment. Why did I need validation of a gold statue and a spot on the wall at the Kodak Theater? Because I’ve never had it.

Year after year, I keep taking partial acceptance of my history and my life "the best I can get." I want more. I am no longer satisfied with nominations, critical acclaim and straight people portraying my life.

After 40 years you would think I could wake up tomorrow and forget it all, blend back into the world. Not this time. Because for once I honestly believed it was going to happen. The landmark portrayal of a gay life would win. Immortalized with an Oscar. This "once in a lifetime" moment was my lifetime. And it didn’t happen.

Good selection Ethan.

Many have said that there were two gay themed movies this year BBM and Capote, but I don't see Capote as a gay themed film.  Sure Truman Capote was gay but his homosexuality was not the focus of the film, the focus was the making of his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood". 

George Clooney mentioned in an interview that they discovered in their research for "Good Night, and Good Luck" that Edward R. Morrow was gay.  I've never read that anyplace, but again the focus of that film was not sexuality, but a meglomaniac and the mass paranoia he created in the US.

Ironic that BBM was gay themed, though the two characters would never identify themselves as gay.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 12, 2006, 02:32 PM

http://community.livejournal.com/wranglers/728050.html#cutid1
 (http://community.livejournal.com/wranglers/728050.html#cutid1)
This article from Advocate

Homophobia? Hogwash!

Who isn’t bummed that Brokeback didn’t mosey away with the Best Picture Oscar? But if fingers must be pointed, blame the loss on gays for not standing up to endless parodies and jokes about the film

By Karel


“And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to Crash…”

Even before Jack Nicholson handed the naked gold statue to the movie’s producers, cries of homophobia echoed from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. What? No Brokeback Mountain? How could this be? There is no doubt that Brokeback was the favorite to win, and one would think a film that had just won for Best Score, Best Adapted Screenplay (go, Diana and Larry!), and Best Director would, in fact, be the Best Picture. Well, not according to Oscar.


Obvious homophobia again, right? The Academy just couldn’t stomach awarding an unashamed love story with gay sex, right? Those damn cultural elitists caved to the pressure of Middle America and the religious right and played it safe by awarding a movie about racism in the LAPD, right?

Say it with me: “Poppycock!”

That’s too easy an answer and one to which we all too often defer when things like this happen. So what happened?

First, Brokeback burnout, and for that we are all to blame. In fact, gays are probably more to blame for Brokeback not winning than almost any other group (if there is one to blame). Why? Because we allowed it to become a national joke. Oh, sure, the parodies are funny. Oh, yeah, the jokes, including Billy Crystal and Chris Rock at the beginning of the Oscar show, got laughs. But at what expense? Simple—ours.

Brokeback Mountain is a tragic story with a tragic ending. I have yet to hear anyone explain to me what is funny about two people who can never really admit they’re in love, a society that wouldn’t accept them if they did, and the possibility that one of them dies by fag bashing (oops, was that a spoiler?). It seemed like a laugh riot on paper, right?

But most gays and lesbians have allowed Brokeback parodies to flourish. Where was GLAAD when all the jokes were being made and all the clips were being produced? Oh, no, it’s cool to laugh at gay people. Look how funny they are. And the thought of gay love? Hysterical! Let’s make it a joke. In fact, in 2006, “Brokeback” became the “Hollywood Word of the Year” as reported by the nonprofit Global Language Monitor group. Hey, it’s good for the box office, right?

The problem is that Academy members may not have wanted to vote for a joke, and unfortunately that’s what the media, comics, and Hollywood have done—turned Brokeback into a giant joke, a comedy skit. It’s a shame, because Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry’s script is anything but funny and Heath Ledger’s and Jake Gyllenhaal’s performances are worthy of praise more than parody.

And then there’s Brokeback fatigue. By the time Academy members got around to voting, they were probably tired of hearing about the movie, especially in the new, lighthearted way it’s been presented. There was no balancing voice from any gay group or organization to refocus them or the nation on how important and serious the discussions about this movie should be.

Dialogues that should be happening are not, and that’s a shame. For instance, no one stood up and said, “Stop calling this a gay movie!” Capote is far more gay than Brokeback, including the characters. I believe Ennis to be straight and the affair to be situational. What a great dialogue to have: that sexuality isn’t cut-and-dried, that sometimes you can fall in love with a person and not a gender, and that just because you’re straight and have sex with the same gender doesn’t make you gay. Just as if you’re gay and have sex with the opposite gender doesn’t make you straight. I’m legally married to a woman and haven’t had sex with anyone of any gender since July 2005. Does that make me straight? Trust me, no one believes that.

Why not talk about how being gay is a way of life, a lifestyle, an essence of being, and not about gay sex? There are gay celibates, for goodness’ sake. Straight men have gay sex. I know—I’ve had it with them. And gay men have straight sex (yes, I’ve had that too). Sexuality is complex, love is unexpected, and sometimes we enter into unexpected relationships. That’s the thing to be talking about. Talk about breaking down barriers so straight men might feel more at ease to explore their sexuality. But instead, we get a Brokeback to the Future parody—and laugh.

And then there’s the question of which nominee is simply a better movie. But gays don’t want to address that because Brokeback is a holy grail now.

Look, you can’t compare art. Van Gogh or Cézanne? And the winner is? Please, I’d take a work by both or either. Each film is unique. But in terms of complexity of story line, the way the story was told, subject matter, and all that goes in to a film, if pressed, I’m forced to admit that Crash and Capote were actually better films. I love Brokeback and all it says and does, and I can’t thank everyone enough for their labor of love, a labor that will lead to much better things in Hollywood for gays and lesbians when it comes to film. But when you compare it to the other nominees, while it certainly deserves to be nominated and deserves every single award it has gotten, was it the best picture made last year? Well, the Academy didn’t think so, and in reality, many nongay people don’t think so either. We must remove ourselves from our emotional attachment to the film and simply judge it as any other piece of celluloid. How many of you even saw Crash, Capote, or Munich? We run a very dangerous risk of blind allegiance to anything, films included.

The star of the night was Brokeback, no doubt. It got three statues. Why can’t that be enough? The fact is that 10% (or so, depending on whether or not there’s alcohol involved, or in this case, isolated men with sheep) of America loved this film. Ninety percent of America didn’t have that much of an investment, so they liked it. Many liked it a lot. But many also couldn’t relate. Racism, on the other hand? We’re still fighting that, as we have for thousands of years as humans. Everyone has a stance on that. And a troupe of talented actors weaving multiple story lines that all collide in one explosive place is not that easy of a feat. In this case the Academy thought it made for a better movie.

Brokeback Mountain is a serious, wonderful movie about serious, forbidden issues. If it’s your best picture of the year, fine. But leave Oscar alone. As an icon with no genitalia, he’s got enough problems. And not everything that happens to gay people or gay-themed products has a direct relationship to homophobia. As a mainstream talk-show host, I’ve had to learn that. We have to be more than gay; we have to be good. Being fired because you’re gay is wrong, but being fired because the straight guy next to you is just a little better at your job isn’t homophobia; it’s just a fact of life.

So the Academy didn’t think Brokeback was the brilliant work millions of others thought it to be. To scream homophobia is to yet again prove that we want to blame everything on something else and take no responsibility. Maybe if we took ourselves—and our movies—more seriously, others would too. Maybe things would be different if in our quest for acceptance, we didn’t allow ourselves or our media to become a parody. Not just on the Oscar stage, which is all make-believe anyway, but in real life.

I was fine with the Oscars. Every movie won something, and as a gay person, I’m willing to share. Congratulations to all the winners, and especially Ang Lee, Diana Ossana, and Larry McMurtry. And congratulations to Paul Haggis and his wonderful group that raised important social questions as well. We’re not the only ones struggling for equality: blacks, Hispanics, Persians, women…hell, almost every minority still is. And I’m glad Hollywood tackles it all.

Oh, and by the way, it’s an award, not a social statement. Which film won Best Picture last year? Bet you had to think, or maybe you don’t even remember. But when Crash is in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart or Target it will still be a great film, while Brokeback will, in fact, become a classic spoken about for many years to come. So we win after all.


Karel (Charles Karel Bouley II) is a talk-show host for KGO AM 810 in San Francisco and is heard Saturday and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. or online at kgo.com. He is a columnist for Advocate.com and In Magazine Los Angeles, and his book of essays, You Can’t Say That, is published by Alyson Books. He maintains a blog, podcasts, and message boards at karelchannel.com and can be reached at showcomments@karelchannel.com.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 12, 2006, 02:34 PM

Annie Proulx

Saturday March 11, 2006

Guardian

On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping toward the Kodak Theater for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred.


The red carpet in front of the theatre was larger than the Red Sea. Inside, we climbed grand staircases designed for showing off dresses. The circular levels filled with men in black, the women mostly in pale, frothy gowns. Sequins, diamonds, glass beads, trade beads sparkled like the interior of a salt mine. More exquisite dresses appeared every moment, some made from six yards of taffeta, and many with sweeping trains that demanded vigilance from strolling attendees lest they step on a mermaid's tail. There was one man in a kilt - there is always one at award ceremonies - perhaps a professional roving Scot hired to give colour to the otherwise monotone showing of clustered males. Larry McMurtry defied the dress code by wearing his usual jeans and cowboy boots.

The people connected with Brokeback Mountain, including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy awards, it would get Best Picture as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture. Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.

After a good deal of standing around admiring dresses and sucking up champagne, people obeyed the stentorian countdown commands to get in their seats as "the show" was about to begin. There were orders to clap and the audience obediently clapped. From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from "the show" which, as the audience was reminded several times, was televised and being watched by billions of people all over the world. Those lucky watchers could get up any time they wished and do something worthwhile, like go to the bathroom. As in everything related to public extravaganzas, a certain soda pop figured prominently. There were montages, artfully meshed clips of films of yesteryear, live acts by Famous Talent, smart-ass jokes by Jon Stewart who was witty and quick, too witty, too quick, too eastern perhaps for the somewhat dim LA crowd. Both beautiful and household-name movie stars announced various prizes. None of the acting awards came Brokeback's way, you betcha. The prize, as expected, went to Philip Seymour Hoff-man for his brilliant portrayal of Capote, but in the months preceding the awards thing, there has been little discussion of acting styles and various approaches to character development by this year's nominees. Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don't know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?

Everyone thanked their dear old mums, scout troop leaders, kids and consorts. More commercials, more quick wit, more clapping, beads of sweat, Stewart maybe wondering what evil star had lighted his way to this labour. Despite the technical expertise and flawlessly sleek set evocative of 1930s musicals, despite Dolly Parton whooping it up and Itzhak Perlman blending all the theme music into a single performance (he represented "culchah"), there was a kind of provincial flavour to the proceedings reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night. Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this. There came an atrocious act from Hustle and Flow, Three 6 Mafia's violent rendition of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", a favourite with the audience who knew what it knew and liked. This was a big winner, a bushel of the magic gold-coated gelded godlings going to the rap group.

The hours sped by on wings of boiler plate. Brokeback's first award was to Argentinean Gustavo Santaolalla for the film's plangent and evocative score. Later came the expected award for screenplay adaptation to Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, and only a short time later the director's award to Ang Lee. And that was it, three awards, putting it on equal footing with King Kong. When Jack Nicholson said best picture went to Crash, there was a gasp of shock, and then applause from many - the choice was a hit with the home team since the film is set in Los Angeles. It was a safe pick of "controversial film" for the heffalumps.

After three-and-a-half hours of butt-numbing sitting we stumbled away, down the magnificent staircases, and across the red carpet. In the distance men were shouting out limousine numbers, "406 . . . 27 . . . 921 . . . 62" and it seemed someone should yell "Bingo!" It was now dark, or as dark as it gets in the City of Angels. As we waited for our number to be called we could see the enormous lighted marquee across the street announcing that the "2006 Academy Award for Best Picture had gone to Crash". The red carpet now had taken on a different hue, a purple tinge.

The source of the colour was not far away. Down the street, spreading its baleful light everywhere, hung a gigantic, vertical, electric-blue neon sign spelling out S C I E N T O L O G Y.

"Seven oh six," bawled the limo announcer's voice. Bingo.

For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 04:56 PM

Thanks Lost Girl.  I saw that article "Homophobia? Hogwash!" and debated with myself about posting it.  I disagree with the writer on so many of his statements that I guess I didn't want to raise my blood pressure, but since you posted it, I'll reply.

1- The gay community has no say in how people respond to a film.  Comedians will always make jokes and ordinary straight people especially straight men respond with jokes when a topic makes them uncomfortable - it's human nature. And BBM made many many people uncomfortable.  Karel's statement that Academy members didn't vote for BBM because it was a joke makes no sense. 

Of course homosexuality should be taken seriously.  Race (Crash), the murder of Jewish athletes (Munich), multiple murder (Capote) and McCarthyism (Good Night and Good LUck), were not the subject of jokes during the lead up to Oscars and at the Oscar ceremony, but gay cowboys were.  Hollywood has always taken homosexuality humorously - just look at American TV, "Will and Grace", "Straight Guy" etc.  There are quite a few gay writers in Hollywood who have contributed to these shows and other TV shows and films.  BBM fans could not stop the gay cowboy jokes because it's part of our homophobic culture.       

2- As I posted before in this thread, Capote isn't a gay film.  The subject of the film is a gay writer but the movie is not about his sexuality. There are no sex scenes.  It's like stating that a movie about John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missle crisis is about his Catholicism, because Kennedy just happened to be Roman Catholic.

3- Undoubtedly there were Academy members and movie critics who saw Crash as a better film.  Everyone including Roger Ebert are entitled to their opinions.   

4- I do agree with part of his last two sentences, "But when Crash is in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart or Target ... Brokeback will, in fact, become a classic spoken about for many years to come. So we win after all."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ennisandjack on Mar 12, 2006, 05:53 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 04:56 PM

Thanks Lost Girl.  I saw that article "Homophobia? Hogwash!" and debated with myself about posting it.  I disagree with the writer on so many of his statements that I guess I didn't want to raise my blood pressure, but since you posted it, I'll reply.

1- The gay community has no say in how people respond to a film.  Comedians will always make jokes and ordinary straight people especially straight men respond with jokes when a topic makes them uncomfortable - it's human nature. And BBM made many many people uncomfortable.  Karel's statement that Academy members didn't vote for BBM because it was a joke makes no sense. 

Of course homosexuality should be taken seriously.  Race (Crash), the murder of Jewish athletes (Munich), multiple murder (Capote) and McCarthyism (Good Night and Good LUck), were not the subject of jokes during the lead up to Oscars and at the Oscar ceremony, but gay cowboys were.  Hollywood has always taken homosexuality humorously - just look at American TV, "Will and Grace", "Straight Guy" etc.  There are quite a few gay writers in Hollywood who have contributed to these shows and other TV shows and films.  BBM fans could not stop the gay cowboy jokes because it's part of our homophobic culture.       

2- As I posted before in this thread, Capote isn't a gay film.  The subject of the film is a gay writer but the movie is not about his sexuality. There are no sex scenes.  It's like stating that a movie about John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missle crisis is about his Catholicism, because Kennedy just happened to be Roman Catholic.

3- Undoubtedly there were Academy members and movie critics who saw Crash as a better film.  Everyone including Roger Ebert are entitled to their opinions.   

4- I do agree with part of his last two sentences, "But when Crash is in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart or Target ... Brokeback will, in fact, become a classic spoken about for many years to come. So we win after all."

I agree with you especially about the issues around humour, which is clearly a mainstream tactic used to ridicule gays and trivialize gay issues. The fact that the film deals with gay bashing and other painful subjects makes it even more appalling. However, I'm sure if glaad or anyone else criticised people making jokes like jay leno they would have just used it against us.

The other thought that hit me when I read this article is how in denial people can be about the reality of homophobia. We all know that the academy wouldn't honour black actors and actresses because of racism. Its reality. However, when it comes to homophobia no-one seems to want to call it for what it is. Ever other excuse possible is conjured in its place despite documented proof that academy voters were refusing to even watch the film, were voting against brokeback so it wouldn't win and that the outcome for BP went against 77 years of academy history.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 12, 2006, 07:12 PM

Quote from: ennisandjack on Mar 12, 2006, 05:53 PM

I agree with you especially about the issues around humour, which is clearly a mainstream tactic used to ridicule gays and trivialize gay issues. The fact that the film deals with gay bashing and other painful subjects makes it even more appalling. However, I'm sure if glaad or anyone else criticised people making jokes like jay leno they would have just used it against us.

The other thought that hit me when I read this article is how in denial people can be about the reality of homophobia. We all know that the academy wouldn't honour black actors and actresses because of racism. Its reality. However, when it comes to homophobia no-one seems to want to call it for what it is. Ever other excuse possible is conjured in its place despite documented proof that academy voters were refusing to even watch the film, were voting against brokeback so it wouldn't win and that the outcome for BP went against 77 years of academy history. 

You're right E&J, telling people not to joke about gay cowboys would have backfired and caused negative publicity for BBM.  I just wish that the comedians and the Oscar show would have been equal opportunity jokers and given us some jokes about the other Best Pic nominees.  Somehow race and religion are off limits for most humor, but jokes about homosexuality like those about sex in general are almost always acceptable.  A double standard.

Your comment about the extent of homophobia is right on.  Karel is in the San Francisco Bay Area and some people in that liberal area see things through rose colored glasses.  I lived there. It's not representative of the whole US.   Much of the homophobia is caused by religion - such a shame because religion should be comforting and healing but it is the cause so much emotional pain.

Karel has an ego problem and isn't a great writer, but I agree with some of his statements.

"We have to be more than gay; we have to be good. Being fired because you’re gay is wrong, but being fired because the straight guy next to you is just a little better at your job isn’t homophobia; it’s just a fact of life." 

What he should have said is that job performance has nothing to do with being gay - it's about competency.  It's the same argument that woman have used in asserting their rights - gender should not be a factor, only job competency.  And racial minorities use the same valid argument.   

His second sentence should have been that if you're fire because of incompetence and replaced by a straight guy, don't blame it on homophobia.  It had nothing do with it. 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ennisandjack on Mar 12, 2006, 08:22 PM

I think Karel is a little biased against Brokeback anyway. He also wrote this piece:

"It's very brave of them"

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail.asp?id=23334

Everyone who’s tired of the media—and Madonna—calling Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger “brave” for acting in Brokeback Mountain, please raise your hands. Then say it with me: “poppycock”

By Charles Karel Bouley II

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 13, 2006, 02:52 PM

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/affair.html

A Harrowing Affair: Commentary From a Brokeback Mountain Fan
by Mark Salamon, March 13, 2006

During the run-up to the Academy Awards Tony Curtis told Fox News that he hadn't yet seen Brokeback Mountain and had no intention of doing so. He claimed he wasn't alone in the sentiment and other Academy members felt the same way.

Furthermore, Curtis contended, his contemporaries no longer alive to speak for themselves wouldn't have cared for the highly acclaimed Best Picture nominee either." Howard Hughes and John Wayne wouldn't like it," Curtis said in an interview.

I am not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but I have seen Brokeback Mountain, and I did like it tremendously—as did millions of others. Our bewilderment over its defeat at the Oscars has been misinterpreted. Would you humor us by considering the following analogy that better explains our position?

Let's simply recast Brokeback Mountain as the story about the intolerance faced by a white woman and her black husband in rural Wyoming in the 1960s. At the end of the film, her husband is murdered in a brutal hate crime because of others disgust over miscegenation.

Now imagine that, before this film even premieres, it is the butt of racist jokes. Conservative news commentators decry its very existence as a mistake, calling it a profane plea for acceptance of the sin that is a mixed marriage. They repeatedly predict--and hope for--its failure at the box office.

The movies opens and critics rave that it is an exquisite, poignant, and supremely-well crafted film. The actors are ideally cast in their parts and play their roles with pitch-perfect honesty and involvement. The screenplay is sublimely spare and genuinely evocative of the American west of the recent past. The cinematography, the musical score, the landscapes, the set-pieces: together, they achieve perfection, or something close to it.

Nonetheless, all during its cinematic run, talk show hosts, humorists and live comedy-ensemble network programs can't seem to let a day go by without satirical reference to that "jungle fever cowboy movie." Black and white celebrities play out creepy parodies of "BrokeBlack Mounting." Often these skits are done in whiteface and blackface.

Award season commences and Brokeback Mountain wins almost every precursor "Best" award bestowed by the most prestigious film institutions. It also has the greatest box-office take of all the likely Best Picture nominees, and, by most accounts, is the best reviewed film of the year. And when the Oscar nominations are announced, Brokeback Mountain receives the highest number of nominations for all of the Best Picture nominees.

Shortly thereafter, an Academy member proudly proclaims he has no intention of watching the film because he and his contemporaries don't care for mixed marriages. Their reasoning is,"D.W. Griffith (or insert the name of a famously racist Hollywood Golden Age actor here) would be rolling over in his grave." Consider, too, it is also likely that a significant proportion of Academy members are silently acting out this same bigotry by failing to see Brokeback Mountain before marking their own ballots.

No one objects to these glaring violations of the Academy's own rules, or the institution's ethics. Nonetheless, it is widely predicted Brokeback Mountain will win Best Picture. Even Las Vegas odds-makers make it the overwhelming favorite.

Then Brokeback Mountain  loses to Crash in what, almost everyone agrees, is one of the—if not the —most shocking upset ever. Is it unreasonable that some might ask if racism had been a factor?

This example is not an overstatement of the abuse that has been hurled at Brokeback Mountain, nor have its accolades been exaggerated. Merely substitute "gay male relationship" into the analogy provided above and you will have an accurate picture of the scathing climate Brokeback Mountain has had to endure.

Consider another scenario. Imagine the gay themes of Brokeback Mountain were received with benign acceptance and treated with quiet respect during its run in the theaters. Reviews were mixed and it did so-so at the box-office. Meanwhile, the issues of race relations in Crash were the subject of daily derision, culminating in an announcement by a prominent Academy member he would not be viewing the movie because it was about “colored people.”

Then, suppose that leading up to the Oscars, Crash received more "Best" awards, not only among all pictures in 2005, but among all movies in history.

Don't you think there might have been a tiny tempest if, under those circumstances, Brokeback Mountain had then won "Best Picture" over Crash? Wouldn't questions of racism within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences be asked legitimately? Accusations of unfairness within the Academy's voting procedure and the uproar would continue until heads rolled and changes occurred. Spike Lee and the NAACP might well be in the forefront of the campaign.

But Brokeback Mountain is a tale of the love between two male ranch hands. Mr. Curtis--and who knows how many other Academy members--flouted the long accepted conventions of their own guild by dismissing Brokeback Mountain without ever screening it. Is there really a problem with that? Or are those homosexuals just "sore losers," who are "pushing an agenda?"

Homophobia--yes, there's that "h" word--is still so ingrained in Hollywood and within American culture that disdain for gay relationships is accepted as "normal" and "natural". So much so, that the Tony Curtises of this world express it as if by right, feeling no shame and fearing no censure from their colleagues or the public.

In his column entitled "The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash" Roger Ebert concludes by writing: "The nature of the attacks on Crash by the supporters of Brokeback Mountain seem to proceed from the other position: Brokeback is better not only because of its artistry but because of its subject matter, and those who disagree hate homosexuals. Its supporters 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 Crash had to offer."

Let us overlook the fact that Ebert succumbs to the slippery temptation to misrepresent our point, and then finds fault with that misconstruing of our position. What he seems to be suggesting is that "supporters of Brokeback Mountain" are "attacking" Crash because we failed in our attempts to turn the Oscar for "Best Picture" into a competition for "Worthiest Oppressed Minority".

I, and those who agree with me, will freely admit to being Brokeback Mountain supporters, yet let us please speak for ourselves. Few of us have argued Brokeback Mountain deserved the Oscar because it is about gay love. That has nothing to do with it.

What's done is done. Crash won this year's Best Picture Oscar and there is no taking that back. Nor should it be. But given the facts outlined above, is it really asking too much to admit that homophobia may very well have played a part in that outcome?

Title: Should have seen signs of 'Crash' coming
Post by: ethan on Mar 13, 2006, 04:57 PM

March 08, 2006

Should have seen signs of 'Crash' coming

By Martin A. Grove

Oscar outcome: Looking back at how "Crash" climbed over "Brokeback Mountain" on Sunday night, the question isn't "Why didn't we see it coming?" but, "Why didn't we believe we were seeing it coming?"

Despite the fact that "Brokeback" had swept the most meaningful best picture races from December through February, the buzz was that "Crash" was gaining momentum while "Brokeback" was losing steam. Nonetheless, most Hollywood handicappers (including yours truly, sorry to say) just weren't willing to believe the Oscar outcome would differ from all those earlier votes by members of the Producers Guild of America, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., the Broadcast Film Critics Assn. and the British Academy.

What some insiders are saying privately is that many Academy members felt so threatened by "Brokeback's" gay cowboy romance they couldn't bring themselves to view it even on DVD. As a result, many votes reportedly were cast much later in the game than is usually the case -- by which time "Crash" was being perceived as a worthy alternative that Academy members could be more comfortable celebrating as the year's best picture. There also may have been fewer votes to count if reports are true that as many as 20% of Academy voters didn't send in their ballots.

If that's what happened -- we'll never know, of course, since the Academy's not about to let us audit the voting -- it becomes easier to understand how "Brokeback" got trumped by "Crash." With 6,188 voting members of the Academy, if 20% of them abstained from voting that would remove 1,238 votes from the mix and leave just 4,950 to determine the outcome. In a race where every vote typically counts, that alone could dramatically alter the results.

Moreover, insiders are also pointing to a little known piece of Oscar trivia -- which I'm happy to say I pointed out here last Friday -- which is that not since 1980's "Ordinary People" has a film won the best picture Oscar without also having had a nomination for best film editing. As we now realize but weren't thinking about pre-Oscars, "Brokeback" wasn't a film editing nominee this year. "Crash" was. In fact, "Crash" film editor Hughes Winborne wound up taking home the Oscar for his work on the picture. Insiders claim that film editors don't vote for best picture nominees that aren't also best film editing nominees. There are 239 members of the Academy's Film Editors branch. If we add their votes to the 1,238 votes that quite possibly weren't cast at all, that's a total of 1,477 votes -- nearly 24% of the total Academy membership -- that didn't go to "Brokeback."

And let's not forget that actors make up the Academy's biggest branch. There are 1,359 actors who vote and they represent nearly 22% of the Academy's membership. While we don't know for sure who the actors voted for, it's a safe bet that they preferred "Crash" to "Brokeback" since the Screen Actors Guild stiffed "Brokeback" in late January and gave "Crash" its Best Ensemble Cast award, the Guild's equivalent of a best picture honor. The SAG contest was the only important best picture vote that "Brokeback" missed out on, but it sent a signal at the time that the movie wasn't resonating with actors.

By sending about 110,000 "Crash" DVDs to SAG's full membership, Lionsgate made sure that all of the guild's members had an opportunity to watch the film at home. This was the first time anyone had ever sent DVDs of an Oscar contender to the full SAG membership. Because this marketing technique worked so well, other distributors are likely to adopt the same approach next year. It's worth noting, however, that the reason Lionsgate was comfortable doing this was that "Crash" had opened in theaters last May and had gone into DVD in September. The DVDs sent to SAG members didn't need to be specially watermarked or encrypted because awards season piracy wasn't something Lionsgate was worrying about at that point. In future campaigns, however, studios with films opening in November or December will find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those whose contenders opened theatrically earlier in the year and arrived in DVD release a few months later. Year-end theatrical releases have a much greater risk of being turned into pirated DVDs and sold on street corners worldwide. Their distributors will have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of sending them on DVD to all SAG members.

"Crash" had an additional advantage with SAG and other guild members because it was shot in the Los Angeles area. Unlike "Brokeback," which filmed in Canada, "Crash" provided jobs for actors and other L.A. based workers, who are increasingly frustrated by runaway productions that travel to far-flung locations where cheaper costs and tax deals are increasingly helping producers stretch their budgets.

Moreover, because "Crash" was a story dealing with complex racial relations in Los Angeles, it was something that L.A.-based Academy members could easily relate to. Nearly 80% of the Academy's membership lives in the L.A. area and Lionsgate was very perceptive to recognize how important a constituency that could be for "Crash."

All of these were factors that should have told Hollywood handicappers that "Crash" was a very strong contender that would give "Brokeback" real competition for best picture. But that message didn't really get across. Insiders were regarding "Crash" as having a better shot of winning than "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich," but not until Oscar weekend were they starting to predict that it could knock "Brokeback" out of the ring.

Wandering around the Weinstein Co.'s pre-Oscars party at the Pacific Design Center last Saturday evening, I ran into several media friends who were just starting to focus on the potential of a "Crash" victory. Mostly, they arrived at this view after talking to people they knew who are Academy members and being told that not only had they voted for "Crash" themselves, but that all of their friends had done the same. These were, of course, small anonymous samplings and that made it difficult to judge how reliable they were.

On the other hand, what "Brokeback" had going for it was a steady stream of big victories over the entire awards season. In past years, that level of success would typically have translated into Oscar gold for "Brokeback." Not so this time around. Beyond the film's sensitive subject matter and the possibility that it was more of a problem for Academy members than it had been for other awards givers, it's also possible that Oscar voters rebelled at the prospect of looking like the last group to jump on the "Brokeback" bandwagon.

The Academy's made no secret of the fact that it wishes there were far fewer awards shows in the marketplace. By moving the Oscars from late March to late February (but going to March 5 this year to avoid competing for ratings with the Winter Olympics) it tried but failed to put an end to some of those other awards shows. In applauding "Crash" over "Brokeback" Academy members were saying, in effect, that you can't take their votes for granted. Even though we may think that we've already seen the Oscar results played out on other televised awards shows and that we've already seen the Oscar winners walking down other red carpets, what "Crash's" best picture win really tells us is that at the Oscars it's not over till it's over.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/grove_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002117648
----------------------------

Well, it is over for me.  :D Bye bye oscar.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 13, 2006, 05:06 PM

Thanks for posting this Ethan, very interesting

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 14, 2006, 04:08 AM

Have you guys seen this? It was posted at Steve Pond's Oscar Beat:

http://oscarbeat.latimes.com/awards_oscar/2006/03/the_academys_ma.html#comments

Academy gets lashed by another anti-"Brokeback" sentiment
When Oscar Beat called Bruce Davis to ask about voters who refused to see "Brokeback Mountain," the academy's executive director was unaware of the dozens of angry comments we'd received from readers lambasting Oscar voters for failing to give the film the best picture award.

He hasn't noticed, because he's been too busy reading angry mail from people who are furious at the academy for saluting "Brokeback" with eight nominations and three Oscars.

An hour after we first spoke, Davis called back, in the interim having perused the invective on our comments pages.

"In our mail, we've gotten maybe two dozen emails and letters along the lines of your responses," he said. "But we've gotten more than 1,000 responses from people who are outraged that we gave 'Brokeback Mountain' anything at all."

Those responses, he says, have come not from academy members, but from "all over the place. From red states, I betcha. I understand that some people are upset that 'Brokeback Mountain' didn't win best picture, but our perspective has been colored by this onslaught from people who didn't want to see it nominated, much less win anything.

"It's a perfect no-win situation for the academy. Some people are condemning us for not giving the film our highest award, and many, many more are condemning us for giving it anything."

What the hell? They only received two dozen responses from BBM fans?Huh I don't believe that. Maybe we should all send another letter to AMPAS addressed to Bruce Davis. Maybe they need to see several hundred over the next couple of days.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: scruffy on Mar 14, 2006, 06:01 AM

FrenchCda -- Well, Bruce Davis finally answered but I'm not sure I like what he had to say...


AMPAS policy: If you skipped 'Brokeback,' you shouldn't have voted

In the continuing furor over the upset in best picture race, one constant among "Brokeback Mountain" fans is their anger due to the perception that some academy voters voted without seeing all five best picture nominees.

There's no way to tell how many voters fall into this category, but we know that a couple of high-profile members skipped "Brokeback." Tony Curtis, for instance, told Fox News that he hadn't seen the film and had no intention of doing so, and that he knew other members who felt the same way.

And the night of the ceremony, Ernest Borgnine told Entertainment Weekly, "I didn't see it and I don't care to see it.… If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."

Neither Curtis nor Borgnine stated that they cast ballots, though many readers were quick to assume that they had.

Asked about the comments this week, AMPAS Executive Director Bruce Davis said that academy guidelines are unmistakable: Members who skipped any of the nominees should not have voted in the best picture race.

"The ballot contains a very clear instruction that you're not supposed to vote in the categories in which you haven't seen every nominee," he says. "So we assume that the people who haven't seen all five of the films don't vote for best picture."

Photo: Paul Haggis greets Jack Nicholson, one of many who were surprised by the best picture win for "Crash"
(AMPAS)

Davis wouldn't speculate on how many members ignore the ballot guidelines. "All I can say is that we hope that the people who haven't seen everything leave those categories blank."

When told that Rick Rosas, one of the two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners who supervise the count, recently told Oscar Beat that very few voters leave any categories blank, Davis paused.

"Rick told you that?" he said. "That's odd, because we've asked them about it in the past. They've told us that there has been quite a difference in the total number of votes cast between the different categories listed on the main ballot."

As for the idea of requiring voters to document attendance at all nominated films to vote in a category — which is currently done in the foreign film, documentary and shorts categories — Davis dismisses it as logistically impossible.

"We can tell with a fair degree of certainty who's seen the five foreign film nominees, but it's difficult to verify," he says. "And to do it in every category is just not possible."

It's also not something the academy feels an impetus to do, despite the controversy over the "Crash" best picture victory.

"It's important to point out that 'Brokeback Mountain' got more nominations than any other film, and won Oscars in three major categories," he says. "And clearly, the best picture race was close, because Ang Lee won for best director."

In other words, the academy will not be scrutinizing this year's result any more closely than they would any other year.

"I think it's interesting," Davis adds, "that any time there's an upset like this, people analyze it in political and sociological terms: 'This must be at work, or that must be at work.' It's never that more people liked picture A than picture B.

"In this case, I think you had a very close race in which more people liked picture B."

Davis also addressed an assertion made on the "Live with Regis and Kelly" television show the morning after the Oscars ceremony, in which "an academy source" suggested that this year saw an abnormally low voter turnout, with the usual return rate of close to 100% falling to about 80%.

"First of all, we have never had a year in which there was a 100% return, or anything like it," he says. "We have a good rate of return, but it's never 100%, or even 90%."

As for this year's exact rate, he says, nobody inside the academy knows the figures. "PricewaterhouseCoopers have standing instructions to report to us if anything unusual happens with the voting patters, and they have not reported anything this year," he says.

"They would consider a 20% drop a very unusual occurrence — in fact, they'd consider a 10% drop unusual. They haven't said anything to us, so we know that the turnout was similar to other years."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 14, 2006, 08:20 AM

Davis is a bare-assed hypocrite.  Let him drown in his own dog vomit.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 14, 2006, 08:25 AM

Gays: Oscar Betrayed Us[/b]

Tom O'Neil, LA Times  | March 14, 2006


The reason gay people are so eye-popping furious over what happened to "Brokeback Mountain" at the Academy Awards is more than just disappointment that a gay-themed movie lost best picture. To put it in classic Hollywood terms, many gays believe that Oscar — ruthlessly, deliberately and mercilessly — plunged his sword into the backs of those who love him most.

Who the heck does he think he is, anyway? Bette Davis?

If the Oscars gold derby is regarded as the sporting event that it really is, there's no doubt who the cheerleaders are: gay guys.

If you don't believe that, you haven't been paying attention to who organizes your office Oscars pool every year. Don't those chaps all seem to be a little too well groomed and well-spoken?

Go ahead and ask any gay man you know if he's ever fantasized about winning an Oscar and he'll instantly blurt out his acceptance speech. Even the part — a la Julia Roberts — where he warns the orchestra conductor not to dare interrupt him because he may never make it up to the podium again and there's so much to say.

Of course, Chris Rock wasn't kidding when he notoriously said last year, "What straight guy that you know cares? Who gives a f---?"

So "Brokeback's" loss was more than just mere disappointment by a group of people who rooted for it to win. Finally, gay people — who'd been unofficially in charge of whipping up Oscars ballyhoo nationwide forever — had their own horse in the derby. And it wasn't another one of those pity-poor-us-because-we're-dying-of-AIDS films starring Tom Hanks.

The "Brokeback" pony had similar hopelessly straight guys in the saddle, yes, but it was a love story. If it won best picture, its victory would be a milestone moment in showbiz history as important and validating to gays as the "In the Heat of the Night" best picture win was to African Americans and the "Schindler's List" victory was to Jews.

Imagine gay people's excitement and glee throughout this Oscars race! Even better, it looked like "Brokeback" was the easiest bet in any Oscars pool because it could not be denied. It led with the most nominations, which almost always assures triumph, and it had previously been rubber-stamped the best pic of the year by 23 other award groups, including the Producers Guild, BAFTA, Indie Spirits, Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., New York Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Assn. and Golden Globes (where "Crash" wasn't even nominated).

Its subsequent Oscars loss was "blatant homophobia" according to Ann Northrop, cohost of "Gay U.S.A.," the nationally syndicated TV news show. "Come on! It won every other best picture award in the world, but I don't think they wanted to give it to us!"

Her cohost Andy Humm added with sad resignation, "It's the typical conservatism of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which is composed of old straight guys."

More than two-thirds of respondents to a poll at gay news site Advocate.com agree, blaming homophobia for "Brokeback's" loss. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan concurred, too, writing, "In the privacy of the voting booth, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices…. And at least this year, that acting out doomed 'Brokeback Mountain.'"

Meantime, more and more actual evidence of bias mounts. No longer is Tony Curtis alone among older academy members who publicly admitted that they refused even to consider "Brokeback." Oscar's best actor of 1955 Ernest Borgnine ("Marty") told Entertainment Weekly: "I didn’t see (‘Brokeback Mountain’) and I don’t care to see it. I know they say it’s a good picture, but I don’t care to see it." Then he added the most ridiculous, illogical, slam ever uttered against the gay cowboys: "If John Wayne were alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave!"

Perhaps we can no longer assume that apparently hip Sarah Jessica Parker isn't homophobic. She made a shocking confession to Conan O'Brien and his national TV audience: she voted for best picture at the Oscars without watching "Brokeback Mountain." Instead, she accepted input about it from her three-year-old son who watched about 20 minutes of the DVD screener out of curiosity. Presumably, Sarah ended up voting for something else.

How can gay people not feel betrayed by Oscar when so many voters publicly admit that they never even gave "Brokeback" a chance? Worse, that didn't stop them from giving "Brokeback" all of the other Oscars it was expected to get: best director, screenplay and musical score. But they just couldn't go that last step, just couldn't install such a historic milestone on a financially successful and critically acclaimed film — worthy of Academy Awards for writing and direction — and place it in Oscar's best pic pantheon.

Can gay people ever forgive Oscar? If not, just think of what the Academy Awards will be like in years to come without their cheerleading? Will anybody care?

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 14, 2006, 08:38 AM

Quote from: scruffy on Mar 14, 2006, 06:01 AM

AMPAS policy: If you skipped 'Brokeback,' you shouldn't have voted


Asked about the comments this week, AMPAS Executive Director Bruce Davis said that academy guidelines are unmistakable: Members who skipped any of the nominees should not have voted in the best picture race.

"The ballot contains a very clear instruction that you're not supposed to vote in the categories in which you haven't seen every nominee," he says. "So we assume that the people who haven't seen all five of the films don't vote for best picture."

Davis wouldn't speculate on how many members ignore the ballot guidelines. "All I can say is that we hope that the people who haven't seen everything leave those categories blank."

When told that Rick Rosas, one of the two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners who supervise the count, recently told Oscar Beat that very few voters leave any categories blank, Davis paused.

"Rick told you that?" he said. "That's odd, because we've asked them about it in the past. They've told us that there has been quite a difference in the total number of votes cast between the different categories listed on the main ballot."



Davis also addressed an assertion made on the "Live with Regis and Kelly" television show the morning after the Oscars ceremony, in which "an academy source" suggested that this year saw an abnormally low voter turnout, with the usual return rate of close to 100% falling to about 80%.

"First of all, we have never had a year in which there was a 100% return, or anything like it," he says. "We have a good rate of return, but it's never 100%, or even 90%."

As for this year's exact rate, he says, nobody inside the academy knows the figures. "PricewaterhouseCoopers have standing instructions to report to us if anything unusual happens with the voting patters, and they have not reported anything this year," he says.

"They would consider a 20% drop a very unusual occurrence — in fact, they'd consider a 10% drop unusual. They haven't said anything to us, so we know that the turnout was similar to other years." 

The best reason to get rid of all of the secrecy surrounding the voting process and publish the vote totals.   Who is going to make Academy voters do anything - it's useless to have regulations as they are a paper tiger.  Davis and PWC are not even on the same track with their information.

The Academy is a joke.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 14, 2006, 10:37 PM

It's apparent that AMPAS Exec Dir Bruce Davis is clueless. In effect he's saying,  We don't talk to PWC unless they tell us there is a problem because we don't look at any of the ballots.  And PWC undoubtedly collects a big fee for all of their services.  I'm not hearing Davis say that the Academy recognizes that there may have been irregularities and they will investigate.  Or even better, that an outside auditor will investigate and make their report public.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: BBM Obsessed on Mar 14, 2006, 11:14 PM

Nice, yet too brief, article on Annie Proulx's reaction to the Oscar loss for Best Picture:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=218583&GT1=7701

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: BBM Obsessed on Mar 14, 2006, 11:17 PM

Here's the write-up on Annie Proulx's reaction:

'Brokeback' Author Peeved About Oscar Loss
Mar 14, 6:01 PM EST

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Annie Proulx, whose 1997 short story inspired the film "Brokeback Mountain," has penned a scattershot blast in a British newspaper unleashing her anger over the film's best-picture Oscar loss.

Proulx criticizes Oscar voters and the Academy Awards ceremony in the 1,094-word rant, which appeared in Saturday's issue of The Guardian, a liberal paper boasting 1.2 million readers daily.

The best-picture Oscar went to "Crash," which focuses on race relations in Los Angeles.

Academy members who vote for the year's best film are "out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city," Proulx writes.

The 70-year-old Pulitzer-prize winning author points out that "Brokeback," which was nominated for eight Academy Awards, was named best picture at the Independent Spirit Awards one day before the March 5 Oscars.

"If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices," Proulx advises.

She even lashes out at Lionsgate, the distribution company behind "Crash."

"Rumour has it that Lionsgate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash — excuse me — Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline," Proulx writes.

She decries the "atmosphere of insufferable self-importance" inside the Kodak Theatre, the Oscars site, and describes the audience as a "somewhat dim LA crowd." The show, she writes, was "reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night."

"Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this," Proulx writes. She notes that "Brokeback's" three Oscar wins, for original score, adapted screenplay and direction for Ang Lee put it "on equal footing with King Kong."

When Jack Nicholson announced "Crash" as the best-picture winner, "there was a gasp of shock," Proulx writes.

"It was a safe pick of `controversial film' for the heffalumps," she writes, using the elephant-like "Winnie the Pooh" character to describe academy voters.

"For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant," Proulx concludes, "play it as it lays."

Calls by the Associated Press to Proulx's Wyoming home and her literary agent, Elizabeth Darhansoff, were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Toadily on Mar 14, 2006, 11:24 PM

Quote from: BBM Obsessed on Mar 14, 2006, 11:17 PM

Here's the write-up on Annie Proulx's reaction:

'Brokeback' Author Peeved About Oscar Loss
Mar 14, 6:01 PM EST

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Annie Proulx, whose 1997 short story inspired the film "Brokeback Mountain," has penned a scattershot blast in a British newspaper unleashing her anger over the film's best-picture Oscar loss.

Proulx criticizes Oscar voters and the Academy Awards ceremony in the 1,094-word rant, which appeared in Saturday's issue of The Guardian, a liberal paper boasting 1.2 million readers daily.

The best-picture Oscar went to "Crash," which focuses on race relations in Los Angeles.

Academy members who vote for the year's best film are "out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city," Proulx writes.

The 70-year-old Pulitzer-prize winning author points out that "Brokeback," which was nominated for eight Academy Awards, was named best picture at the Independent Spirit Awards one day before the March 5 Oscars.

"If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices," Proulx advises.

She even lashes out at Lionsgate, the distribution company behind "Crash."

"Rumour has it that Lionsgate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash — excuse me — Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline," Proulx writes.

She decries the "atmosphere of insufferable self-importance" inside the Kodak Theatre, the Oscars site, and describes the audience as a "somewhat dim LA crowd." The show, she writes, was "reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night."

"Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this," Proulx writes. She notes that "Brokeback's" three Oscar wins, for original score, adapted screenplay and direction for Ang Lee put it "on equal footing with King Kong."

When Jack Nicholson announced "Crash" as the best-picture winner, "there was a gasp of shock," Proulx writes.

"It was a safe pick of `controversial film' for the heffalumps," she writes, using the elephant-like "Winnie the Pooh" character to describe academy voters.

"For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant," Proulx concludes, "play it as it lays."

Calls by the Associated Press to Proulx's Wyoming home and her literary agent, Elizabeth Darhansoff, were not immediately returned Tuesday.

YeahI read that it's great!  I love when old broads go off, she is right too.  I love the self importance line.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 14, 2006, 11:25 PM

Quote from: BBM Obsessed on Mar 14, 2006, 11:14 PM

Nice, yet too brief, article on Annie Proulx's reaction to the Oscar loss for Best Picture:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=218583&GT1=7701

Annie Proulx's article in the Guardian was published on Saturday or Sunday and most of the mainstream press are just now commenting on it - it's old news now.    Interesting commentary on the American press.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 14, 2006, 11:28 PM

Annie Proulx is correct. The greatest truth of her argument is that Crash is not worthy. Richard Roeper says the best film winner is NOBLE. I wish more media would just focus on Crash as a film and not as a message. When you look at Crash on its own merits without baptizing it as a treatment of racism, it is clear the Academy (and some media and critics who blast BBM fans for complaining or who attack Annie) leapt to the safest choice.  This article is for them!

Racism is worthy of much discussion---especially since our President was playing golf the day after Katrina hit--Crash is not worthy of a Best Picture nod, not to mention Best Picture. Looking at Crash on its own without comparing it to  BBM or GNAG reveals Crash to be a terribly weak film. Furthermore, the Academy voted against Good Night and Good Luck because of it's politics of nailing crooked Republicans.
Please, there were only two towering great films from 2005..Good Night and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain. Great films have three elements. 1. GREAT STORY/MESSAGE 2. GREAT SCREENPLAY, and 3. GREAT FINAL RESULT ON SCREEN. CRASH only has #1. You can say there are great actors---I agree---but the things they say and do are for the most part unbelievable!!!

Film is a Director's medium. Only on rare occasions do actors (Clooney, Redford, Streisand, Beatty) serve as the makers of a film.
The only positive thing anyone can say about Crash is that it deals with racism. That is it. The screenplay is ludicrous and the technical aspects are nothing special. Notable is the somber music and slow motion photography---both elements remind you that this is a SERIOUS film.
 Remember the Director said in his acceptance speech at the Oscars that Art is Hammer. He hits hard, but his hammer is made of Jell-O.
The opening line..."We just Crash into each other so we can touch each other." Are you kidding me? Ever heard of DWI, sleeping, talking on the phone, etc.? The characters are only caricatures that the screenplay earnestly screams, cries, chats, or whines through.
The DA's wife does channel Driving Miss Daisy with the "your my best friend" line she delivers to her maid..which is delivered with no motivation at all. Did you notice how both the Detective and TV Producer (both African-American) sacrifice their integrity by the end of the film? The former sacrifices his professional integrity to be blackmailed with his brother's freedom and a new job to get the DA a black hero to pin a medal on at a news conference! The TV producer sublimates his integrity by having the African-American TV character sounding "authentic" to keep his boss happy. 
The European-Americans get everything or away with everything they want. The racist cop doesn't get his Dad to the ER, he just cries with him in the bathroom! There's your Oscar moment---not waiting in the ER. The racist cop doesn't pull his molestation victim from the car the first time..he goes back in again since it is more dramatic and in the nick of time, too! Why didn't he go through the Driver's side? The camera angle would not have been so effective!!! Not to mention the young rookie who kills then burns his car..no problem for him!
How sweet that we all need those Patron Saints of travel on our dashboards! Have you ever heard more intellectual carjackers? Well, it is great the magic cloak worked, but the Locksmith does not call the police about the store owner trying to murder him or his daughter??? How many people say I Love you whilst the snow falls purifying the LA smog?

The "aw shucks" smile of Ludikris as he drives away in the stolen, human trafficking van (whose driver he ran over earlier) is exactly what Crash expects us to feel as we leave the theater. We are sooooo wonderful to see that racism is still a problem, that even racists can be super special people, and we should congratulate ourselves for thinking about racism..at least at the movie theater. There have been better treatments of racism...Spike Lee films, 70s films such as Sounder, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and the Learning Tree. Even Lear sitcoms like All in the Family and the Jeffersons have more integrity in dealing with racism than Crash. The truth is 2005 was not a great year for film: The artistry of Brokeback and Good Night and Good Luck were voted against by the Academy because of gay sexual content and liberal politics, respectively. The only other option was Crash. Period. Other than referring to  Racism and the great actors, how can  anyone who think that Crash is anything more than a feel good, tear jerking, contrived, retreading, oversimplified, self congratulatory film experience?
"You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself". (Can you believe a carjack victim would have the time or thought processes to say that in such a situation where he is at gun point?) Laughable.
 
You know, lots of critics rewrote their reviews for other "controversial" films like Bonnie and Clyde. Its never too late for Roger and Richard.
 
When Roeper rants and call BBM a film about two gay cowboys, he really shows how dismissive he can be. He plays right into the hands of the Academy homo-backlash feeding frenzy.
Everyone,spend some quality time looking at Crash: the Lifetime Movie on its own (lack of) merits--not its so-called message: racism. 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 15, 2006, 12:20 AM

A Harrowing Affair: Commentary From a Brokeback Mountain Fan[/b]

by Mark Salamon, March 13, 2006   afterelton.com


During the run-up to the Academy Awards Tony Curtis told Fox News that he hadn't yet seen Brokeback Mountain and had no intention of doing so. He claimed he wasn't alone in the sentiment and other Academy members felt the same way.

Furthermore, Curtis contended, his contemporaries no longer alive to speak for themselves wouldn't have cared for the highly acclaimed Best Picture nominee either." Howard Hughes and John Wayne wouldn't like it," Curtis said in an interview.

I am not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but I have seen Brokeback Mountain, and I did like it tremendously—as did millions of others. Our bewilderment over its defeat at the Oscars has been misinterpreted. Would you humor us by considering the following analogy that better explains our position?

Let's simply recast Brokeback Mountain as the story about the intolerance faced by a white woman and her black husband in rural Wyoming in the 1960s. At the end of the film, her husband is murdered in a brutal hate crime because of others disgust over miscegenation.

Now imagine that, before this film even premieres, it is the butt of racist jokes. Conservative news commentators decry its very existence as a mistake, calling it a profane plea for acceptance of the sin that is a mixed marriage. They repeatedly predict--and hope for--its failure at the box office.

The movies opens and critics rave that it is an exquisite, poignant, and supremely-well crafted film. The actors are ideally cast in their parts and play their roles with pitch-perfect honesty and involvement. The screenplay is sublimely spare and genuinely evocative of the American west of the recent past. The cinematography, the musical score, the landscapes, the set-pieces: together, they achieve perfection, or something close to it.

Nonetheless, all during its cinematic run, talk show hosts, humorists and live comedy-ensemble network programs can't seem to let a day go by without satirical reference to that "jungle fever cowboy movie." Black and white celebrities play out creepy parodies of "BrokeBlack Mounting." Often these skits are done in whiteface and blackface.

Award season commences and Brokeback Mountain wins almost every precursor "Best" award bestowed by the most prestigious film institutions. It also has the greatest box-office take of all the likely Best Picture nominees, and, by most accounts, is the best reviewed film of the year. And when the Oscar nominations are announced, Brokeback Mountain receives the highest number of nominations for all of the Best Picture nominees.

Shortly thereafter, an Academy member proudly proclaims he has no intention of watching the film because he and his contemporaries don't care for mixed marriages. Their reasoning is,"D.W. Griffith (or insert the name of a famously racist Hollywood Golden Age actor here) would be rolling over in his grave." Consider, too, it is also likely that a significant proportion of Academy members are silently acting out this same bigotry by failing to see Brokeback Mountain before marking their own ballots.

No one objects to these glaring violations of the Academy's own rules, or the institution's ethics. Nonetheless, it is widely predicted Brokeback Mountain will win Best Picture. Even Las Vegas odds-makers make it the overwhelming favorite.

Then Brokeback Mountain  loses to Crash in what, almost everyone agrees, is one of the—if not the —most shocking upset ever. Is it unreasonable that some might ask if racism had been a factor?

This example is not an overstatement of the abuse that has been hurled at Brokeback Mountain, nor have its accolades been exaggerated. Merely substitute "gay male relationship" into the analogy provided above and you will have an accurate picture of the scathing climate Brokeback Mountain has had to endure.

Consider another scenario. Imagine the gay themes of Brokeback Mountain were received with benign acceptance and treated with quiet respect during its run in the theaters. Reviews were mixed and it did so-so at the box-office. Meanwhile, the issues of race relations in Crash were the subject of daily derision, culminating in an announcement by a prominent Academy member he would not be viewing the movie because it was about “colored people.”

Then, suppose that leading up to the Oscars, Crash received more "Best" awards, not only among all pictures in 2005, but among all movies in history.

Don't you think there might have been a tiny tempest if, under those circumstances, Brokeback Mountain had then won "Best Picture" over Crash? Wouldn't questions of racism within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences be asked legitimately? Accusations of unfairness within the Academy's voting procedure and the uproar would continue until heads rolled and changes occurred. Spike Lee and the NAACP might well be in the forefront of the campaign.

But Brokeback Mountain is a tale of the love between two male ranch hands. Mr. Curtis--and who knows how many other Academy members--flouted the long accepted conventions of their own guild by dismissing Brokeback Mountain without ever screening it. Is there really a problem with that? Or are those homosexuals just "sore losers," who are "pushing an agenda?"

Homophobia--yes, there's that "h" word--is still so ingrained in Hollywood and within American culture that disdain for gay relationships is accepted as "normal" and "natural". So much so, that the Tony Curtises of this world express it as if by right, feeling no shame and fearing no censure from their colleagues or the public.

In his column entitled "The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash" Roger Ebert concludes by writing: "The nature of the attacks on Crash by the supporters of Brokeback Mountain seem to proceed from the other position: Brokeback is better not only because of its artistry but because of its subject matter, and those who disagree hate homosexuals. Its supporters 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 Crash had to offer."

Let us overlook the fact that Ebert succumbs to the slippery temptation to misrepresent our point, and then finds fault with that misconstruing of our position. What he seems to be suggesting is that "supporters of Brokeback Mountain" are "attacking" Crash because we failed in our attempts to turn the Oscar for "Best Picture" into a competition for "Worthiest Oppressed Minority".

I, and those who agree with me, will freely admit to being Brokeback Mountain supporters, yet let us please speak for ourselves. Few of us have argued Brokeback Mountain deserved the Oscar because it is about gay love. That has nothing to do with it.

What's done is done. Crash won this year's Best Picture Oscar and there is no taking that back. Nor should it be. But given the facts outlined above, is it really asking too much to admit that homophobia may very well have played a part in that outcome?

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 15, 2006, 01:11 AM

Petition on : Oscar Voters Who Have Not Viewed All Nominees Should Be Disqualified From Voting


NOTE: The COUNTRY of CANADA is not listed on this petition, I have sent them a notice to that effect, hoever the rest of the world can sign up for this petition



                                                  http://www.gopetition.com/region/237/8222.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Italian_Dude on Mar 15, 2006, 01:33 AM

Quote from: frenchcda on Mar 15, 2006, 01:11 AM

Petition on : Oscar Voters Who Have Not Viewed All Nominees Should Be Disqualified From Voting


NOTE: The COUNTRY of CANADA is not listed on this petition, I have sent them a notice to that effect, hoever the rest of the world can sign up for this petition
                                                  http://www.gopetition.com/region/237/8222.html

Canada is listed in the petiton, its listed at the top as "CA" and Australia and France have similar titles

France "FR" and Australia "AU"

their names can't be found in full in the list, its just their abbreviations! thanks for this petition though !

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: frenchcda on Mar 15, 2006, 01:41 AM

it would be nice if this petition be kept up and front on this board, they have only 242 signatures, it be nice to have millions so we can imput our will in some meaningfull manners

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: BBM Obsessed on Mar 15, 2006, 11:08 AM

With my signature it's up to 258 and I also sent notices to a bunch of friends to sign it too.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 15, 2006, 03:49 PM

http://towleroad.typepad.com/towleroad/2006/03/annie_proulx_ra.html
 (http://towleroad.typepad.com/towleroad/2006/03/annie_proulx_ra.html)

Annie Proulx Pelts the Academy with Sour Grapes

With her typically brash economy of language, Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx offers up her Academy Award experience, "three-and-a-half hours of butt-numbing sitting" which ended, as we all now know, with a shocker.

Proulx spins her Pulitzer Prize-winning prose into a no regrets diatribe directed at Tinseltown in this Guardian commentary.

On entering the venue:

"On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping toward the Kodak Theater for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred."

On "the Academy":

"Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good."

On the Best Picture:

"And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline."

And on choosing a Best Actor:

"Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page?"

Proulx ain't happy. And she calls her bitterness as others might see it, signing out: "For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Lost_Girl on Mar 15, 2006, 03:52 PM

http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1727309,00.html
 (http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1727309,00.html)
Blood on the red carpet

Annie Proulx on how her Brokeback Oscar hopes were dashed by Crash

Saturday March 11, 2006
The Guardian

On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping toward the Kodak Theater for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred.

The red carpet in front of the theatre was larger than the Red Sea. Inside, we climbed grand staircases designed for showing off dresses. The circular levels filled with men in black, the women mostly in pale, frothy gowns. Sequins, diamonds, glass beads, trade beads sparkled like the interior of a salt mine. More exquisite dresses appeared every moment, some made from six yards of taffeta, and many with sweeping trains that demanded vigilance from strolling attendees lest they step on a mermaid's tail. There was one man in a kilt - there is always one at award ceremonies - perhaps a professional roving Scot hired to give colour to the otherwise monotone showing of clustered males. Larry McMurtry defied the dress code by wearing his usual jeans and cowboy boots.

Article continues
The people connected with Brokeback Mountain, including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy awards, it would get Best Picture as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture. Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.

After a good deal of standing around admiring dresses and sucking up champagne, people obeyed the stentorian countdown commands to get in their seats as "the show" was about to begin. There were orders to clap and the audience obediently clapped. From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from "the show" which, as the audience was reminded several times, was televised and being watched by billions of people all over the world. Those lucky watchers could get up any time they wished and do something worthwhile, like go to the bathroom. As in everything related to public extravaganzas, a certain soda pop figured prominently. There were montages, artfully meshed clips of films of yesteryear, live acts by Famous Talent, smart-ass jokes by Jon Stewart who was witty and quick, too witty, too quick, too eastern perhaps for the somewhat dim LA crowd. Both beautiful and household-name movie stars announced various prizes. None of the acting awards came Brokeback's way, you betcha. The prize, as expected, went to Philip Seymour Hoff-man for his brilliant portrayal of Capote, but in the months preceding the awards thing, there has been little discussion of acting styles and various approaches to character development by this year's nominees. Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don't know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?

Everyone thanked their dear old mums, scout troop leaders, kids and consorts. More commercials, more quick wit, more clapping, beads of sweat, Stewart maybe wondering what evil star had lighted his way to this labour. Despite the technical expertise and flawlessly sleek set evocative of 1930s musicals, despite Dolly Parton whooping it up and Itzhak Perlman blending all the theme music into a single performance (he represented "culchah"), there was a kind of provincial flavour to the proceedings reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night. Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this. There came an atrocious act from Hustle and Flow, Three 6 Mafia's violent rendition of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", a favourite with the audience who knew what it knew and liked. This was a big winner, a bushel of the magic gold-coated gelded godlings going to the rap group.

The hours sped by on wings of boiler plate. Brokeback's first award was to Argentinean Gustavo Santaolalla for the film's plangent and evocative score. Later came the expected award for screenplay adaptation to Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, and only a short time later the director's award to Ang Lee. And that was it, three awards, putting it on equal footing with King Kong. When Jack Nicholson said best picture went to Crash, there was a gasp of shock, and then applause from many - the choice was a hit with the home team since the film is set in Los Angeles. It was a safe pick of "controversial film" for the heffalumps.

After three-and-a-half hours of butt-numbing sitting we stumbled away, down the magnificent staircases, and across the red carpet. In the distance men were shouting out limousine numbers, "406 . . . 27 . . . 921 . . . 62" and it seemed someone should yell "Bingo!" It was now dark, or as dark as it gets in the City of Angels. As we waited for our number to be called we could see the enormous lighted marquee across the street announcing that the "2006 Academy Award for Best Picture had gone to Crash". The red carpet now had taken on a different hue, a purple tinge.

The source of the colour was not far away. Down the street, spreading its baleful light everywhere, hung a gigantic, vertical, electric-blue neon sign spelling out S C I E N T O L O G Y.

"Seven oh six," bawled the limo announcer's voice. Bingo.

For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ennisandjack on Mar 16, 2006, 05:18 PM

March 15, 2006

http://www.oscarwatch.com/moveabletype/archives/afterwards/index.html#000754#more

Hit & Run - What's the Real Reason for Crash's Oscar Upset?
Matt Brunson
Creative Loafing

At this point, I figured I'd be through with the Oscars and ready to concentrate on upcoming summer popcorn flicks such as the X-Men and Mission: Impossible sequels. After all, my annual modus operandi is to cover the nominations, offer predictions and then be done with it -- leave the reviews of the actual broadcast, the acceptance speeches and the cleavage-enhancing gowns to the rest of the media world. But that was before Crash upset Brokeback Mountain for the Best Picture Oscar at last week's ceremony.

In the decades that I've been following the Academy Awards, I have never before seen a Best Picture selection generate such immediate controversy as this year's selection. Of course, there have been upsets before -- Shakespeare In Love over Saving Private Ryan -- as well as plenty of dubious selections -- Titanic over L.A. Confidential. But in all past cases, the choices could be rationalized with the usual reasons: box office too great to ignore, a movie tapping into the national zeitgeist, bullying campaign tactics by Harvey Weinstein, etc. One of the reasons that arguably influenced this year's choice is different from usual -- and far more disturbing.


We're talking, of course, about the love that dare not speak its name
-- apparently even in open-minded Hollywood. Homosexuality. At a time when anti-gay initiatives are spreading like wildfire across the US, here comes the Academy -- with its headquarters in the bluest of Blue States, no less -- to smack down a groundbreaking drama as if it were a pesky gnat there for the sole purpose of causing the members irritation and discomfort. Instead of Brokeback, the Academy awarded a different "message" movie, one that wouldn't ruffle anyone's feathers.

First, a confession: I didn't hate Crash like so many other critics and audience members did. Yes, it was easily the weakest of the five Best Picture nominees and didn't deserve its lofty nomination. But despite its flaws, I gave it a soft 3-star review, stating that it "would be even better had [writer-director Paul Haggis] eased up on the gas every once in a while: For all its relevant themes and clever plotting, the film's overly didactic nature and moments of whopping coincidence dilute some of its impact."

For people passionate about cinema, Oscar season becomes tricky when movies we somewhat enjoy inexplicably become top-tier award contenders, beating out more deserving titles and souring our own memories.
Gladiator was a decent example of popcorn escapism, but watching it take the Best Picture Oscar over the likes of Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was infuriating. Similarly, while Life Is Beautiful devolves into an extended episode of Hogan's Heroes, I enjoyed the first half of the film (pre-concentration camp material) enough to give it a modest recommendation; today, in the wake of its Oscars for Best Actor (Roberto Benigni) and Best Foreign-Language Film, I can't hear the title without doubling over with stomach pains. Now, Crash has joined this dubious company.

Thinking back to this year's Oscars, most people will recall the names of winners like Reese Witherspoon and George Clooney. Yet the two names that for me will always be synonymous with this year's contest are Roger Ebert and Nikki Finke.

Ebert, of course, named Crash the best picture of the year and tirelessly championed the film. A veritable one-man publicity machine, he wrote extensively about the movie -- even comparing Haggis to Charles Dickens -- and pooh-poohed the opinions of those who didn't share his enthusiasm. In one of his columns, he stated, "More than one critic described Crash as 'the worst film of the year,' which is as extreme as saying John Kerry was a coward in Vietnam." (Huh?)

While practically every critics' group was handing its top prize to Brokeback, Ebert and his sycophant/TV co-host Richard Roeper were strong-arming the Chicago Film Critics -- tellingly, the sole critics'
organization to name Crash the best film of 2005. And the ink wasn't even dry on the Oscar nomination list when Ebert proclaimed Crash would upset Brokeback for the Best Picture Oscar. I can't help but believe his blessing helped steer some Academy members afraid to vote for Brokeback (more on that later) to check Crash on their ballots. As for now, Ebert's continuing post-Oscars tirade against the Crash critics marks him as the biggest "sore winner" since James Cameron watched his Titanic earn 11 Oscars and still felt the need to lambast those who didn't jump on his bandwagon.

Nikki Finke, meanwhile, is a writer for LA Weekly, and she predicted a Brokeback loss and Crash victory all the way back in January, before the nominations were even announced. She insisted both then and in a post-nom column that, based on her conversations with various industry insiders, Academy members weren't nearly as liberal as they pretended to be and that there was no way in heaven, hell or Hollywood that people would vote for a movie about homosexuals. At the time, it appeared that maybe Finke was just fulfilling the expected role of an alternative journalist and trying to stir things up; now, she looks like a psychic. After the Oscars, Finke noted that "Brokeback lost for all the Right's reasons."

Is Finke correct? Did Brokeback lose because of homophobia lurking deep within the Academy's bowels? It's one of several theories and, sad to say, it's the one that makes the most sense to me. Other theories have been advanced, some more credible than others. The most absurd is that the Academy voted against Brokeback because it didn't want to vote for the front-runner. Come on. The Academy has a history of voting for the front-runner: Schindler's List, Chicago, The Return of the King, you name it. In fact, it's rare when the group doesn't vote for the odds-on favorite.

Easier to accept -- though also filled with holes -- is that Crash won because it's set in Oscar's hometown of Los Angeles, and members could more easily relate to its story about big-city travails than to a story about sheep-tending cowboys in the middle of nowhere. Of course, by that logic, movies set in distant times or distant lands -- The Last Emperor, Out of Africa, The English Patient -- should have lost to their respective years' more geographically friendly flicks, while non-nominated titles like The Player, Short Cuts and L.A. Story should have been automatic winners.

Easiest to accept is the long-standing argument that Academy members prefer bombast to subtlety. While the other four Best Picture nominees are far more low-key in terms of either shooting style or the presentation of narrative themes -- even Munich, for all its Spielbergian flash, remains morally ambiguous and therefore immune to easy absorption -- Crash is about as subtle as a hatchet to the forehead, repeatedly shouting its hardly revelatory message that Racism Is Very, Very, Very Bad.

What these arguments ignore, and what makes homophobia the most likely reason for Brokeback Mountain's Oscar loss to Crash, is the overwhelming support Brokeback got before the ceremony. It isn't as if Brokeback and Crash were neck-to-neck throughout awards season, in the manner of, say, Million Dollar Baby and The Aviator the previous year.

Brokeback completely dominated. It won a dozen critics' awards. It won the Golden Globe (Crash wasn't even nominated). It won the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards. It even won top honors from the BAFTAS (the British Oscars) and the Independent Spirit Awards, two groups that often deviate from the norm. As the cherry on top, it grossed the most of the five nominees.

I'm not saying the Academy should adopt a pack mentality (though the irony is that it always has in the past). But that Brokeback won everything but cinema's most visible prize says less about the merits of the movie than the hypocrisy of the Academy. It looks like the organization especially went out of its way not to honor the cowboy flick, giving credence to the rumors that some members not thrilled by either Brokeback or Crash voted for the latter simply because it had established itself as the most likely candidate to topple the former.

A constant complaint about the Academy is that because members are there for life (like the Supreme Court), the fogies in the establishment tilt the awards toward more conservative choices. Every once in a while, something hip wins ("It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp,"
anyone?), but for the most part, it's the old-timers who control the debate. This year apparently was no exception. Tony Curtis, now 80 years old, doubtless spoke for this vast voting bloc when, during an interview with FOX News, he stated that he had no intention of watching Brokeback Mountain and that he knew most of his friends in the Academy also had no plans to pop the screener into the DVD player. He objected to the idea of gay cowboys ("Howard Hughes and John Wayne wouldn't like it"), and this strain of intolerance is especially disappointing since it comes from a man who starred in that classic cross-dressing comedy Some Like It Hot. (For the record, Curtis' favorite movie of 2005 was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.) And Entertainment Weekly quoted 89-year-old Ernest Borgnine as saying, "I didn't see it and I don't care to see it ... If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave." Forget Borgnine's muddied thinking for a moment (if Wayne were alive, he wouldn't be in a grave suitable for rolling): This time around at least, it appears Curtis and Borgnine -- two presently irrelevant actors hardly typical of the current Hollywood scene though probably typical of Academy membership -- are the organization's poster boys.

Other industry insiders lend support to the anti-gay initiative. LA Weekly's Nikki Finke wrote, "I found horrifying each whispered admission to me from Academy members who usually act like social liberals that they were disgusted by even the possibility of glimpsing simulated gay sex ... Turns out Hollywood is as homophobic as Red State country." LA Times critic Kenneth Turan noted that "you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that [Brokeback] made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable." And in David Carr's wrap-up in the New York Times, filmmaker David Cohen was quoted as saying that "Brokeback took on a fairly sacred Hollywood icon, the cowboy, and I don't think the older members of the Academy wanted to see the image of the American cowboy diminished."

"Diminished." Cohen's selection of this word speaks volumes as to the Academy viewpoint: Homosexuals are viewed as less than human, and by opening up a classic American genre to new interpretations, the makers of Brokeback Mountain were forcing LA faux-liberals to confront their own buried prejudices.

Clearly, it's the Academy's standing that's been "diminished" by this controversy. As I noted in a column two weeks ago, a victory by Crash would immediately place the film on the list of the all-time worst Oscar choices, sharing space with the likes of The Greatest Show On Earth, Mrs. Miniver and Gladiator. Yet, what's lost in all the brouhaha is that the subject they did honor -- the specter of racism -- is one which does warrant serious attention. Yet as usual, the Academy's effort is too little, too late.

In his acceptance speech, George Clooney, an outspoken liberal whose sincerity I don't doubt, eloquently stated that the supposedly "out of touch" Hollywood industry -- and, by extension, the Academy -- was among the first to raise its collective voice on the issues of AIDS and civil rights. He also noted that the Academy gave an Oscar to Hattie McDaniel (for 1939's Gone With the Wind) during a time when blacks were forced to sit at tables in the back of the room. What Clooney didn't mention was that at the very ceremony at which she was honored, she wasn't allowed to sit with white co-stars Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, but instead had to (yup) sit at a table in the back. (Additionally, the studio had written her acceptance speech beforehand rather than allow her to speak in her own words.)

McDaniel's victory hardly meant that the film industry suddenly surged ahead of the rest of the nation in terms of equal treatment for blacks:
Many performers of color who had been forced to perform under degrading monikers like Stepin Fetchit (real name Lincoln Perry), Sleep 'n' Eat (Willie Best) and Snowflake (Fred Toones) continued to do so, and even McDaniel was frequently criticized by other blacks for what they viewed as demeaning portrayals (the poor woman countered in her defense that she had to make a living). And while the Academy loves to honor old-timers with career achievement awards, where were the Oscars for Afro-American pioneers like Oscar Micheaux (who died here in Charlotte in 1951) and Gordon Parks (who passed away last week at the age of 93)?

As for honoring films that touch on race relations, 1967's solid In the Heat of the Night did manage to snag a Best Picture Oscar -- yet for all its merits, that movie was as interested in its standard murder-mystery as in making headway in racial matters. And as I noted in my Oscar story a couple of weeks ago, the patronizing (if well-made) Driving Miss Daisy won the Best Picture prize in the same year that the more challenging films Do the Right Thing and Glory weren't even nominated.

Also not nominated in the top category were John Sayles' sprawling 1991 drama City of Hope and Tony Kaye's 1998 American History X (with a fabulous performance by Edward Norton as a reformed neo-Nazi), two titles whose treatment of the racial divide resonates far more deeply than the button-pushing antics of Crash. Oh, but in its infinite wisdom, the Academy did nominate 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, an especially shameless and simplistic piece of progressive enlightenment masquerading as serious cinema.

So here we are in 2006, and the Academy finally decides to take a stand against racial intolerance ... by honoring a film that, as its critics argue, reduces all of its characters (black and white) to easily digestible stereotypes. Who knows, maybe a movie like Brokeback Mountain -- or, more likely, a movie inferior to Brokeback Mountain -- will eventually break through the anti-gay climate and win the top award. But when that time will come, no one can say. In its typically irreverent style, slantmagazine.com previewed the ceremony and wrote, "Everything's coming up homo at this year's Oscars." Maybe they were looking ahead and commenting on the 2025 Oscar race.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ennisandjack on Mar 16, 2006, 05:22 PM

Link to interview with Ebert about Oscar BP outcome on Afterelton.com

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/ebert.html

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 16, 2006, 05:40 PM

ennisandjack!

Thank yo so much for all those great articles  ;)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 10:31 AM

Brokeback Breakdown[/b]
 
John Moore
National Post, Canada | Thursday, March 16, 2006


Brokeback Mountain's loss to Crash at the Oscars is not a scandal. Nor is it a slap in the face of gays, or a flash-bulb view into America's dark homophobic heart. Given the hand-wringing, Irish-wake-worthy keening and on-line recriminations that have abounded since the upset pick, I feel it's my duty as a movie-goer to tell my fellow cineastes: get a key grip.

The influential Kenneth Turan, film critic for The Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, wrote that "In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, [Academy members were] 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." The Boston Globe mawkishly posited "better to give the award to the people who clean our closets than to the men who live in them." Stephen King sniffed in response to Crash's pick that "American pop culture is intent on passing this passionate, well-meant, and well-made movie like a kidney stone." One Advocate magazine online columnist even went so far as to say that when Brokeback, comes out on DVD, he'll buy two -- as if stuffing more money into the pockets of producers will teach all those alleged Hollywood haters a good lesson.

The normally reserved Annie Proulx, author of the short story that was adapted for Brokeback, waited a week to enter the post Oscar fray. But she made up for the delay with shrillness. In a screed published in Britain's Guardian, she excoriates academy members and gratuitously refers to the winning movie as "Trash." Classy stuff.

Here, of course, is where I have to tell you that BBM (as devoted fans refer to it) is a great movie -- lest you suspect I believe otherwise. In fact, it ranks amongst the few dozen movies that, in my 15 years as a critic, I have pronounced to be near-perfect. Its economy of language and emotional depth make it an instant classic; one of those films people will love and study for generations, just as they do Witness (1985), beaten for Best Picture by the tedious Out of Africa; and The Sixth Sense (1999), crushed by American Beauty's smug attack on suburbia.

Brokeback has resonance outside of the gay community precisely because its theme is universal. Beyond a tale of love and loss, it's the story of two people whose relationship is thwarted by circumstance. Shakespeare knew this was a good one when he wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1596. James Cameron used it as the framework for his otherwise clumsy Titanic, arguably the most recent instance previous to Brokeback whereby people developed a heroin-like addiction to cinematic tragedy on a mass-market scale. (Teenage girls used to get together to cry while listening to Celine Dion sing My Heart Will Go On.)

On the other hand, Crash is also an excellent movie. Was it better than Brokeback? Debating that is as pointless as debating whether Titanic (1997) really was better than As Good as it Gets, Good Will Hunting and LA Confidential (I think we can all concede The Full Monty was a dubious nominee).

The more important question is why it matters so much to people that Brokeback didn't win. To answer this, it's helpful to go back to the 2001 Oscar campaign. The prevailing wisdom that year was that Halle Berry had to win the Best Actress prize for her performance in Monster's Ball. The imperative arose from the fact that in 74 years, Oscar had never rewarded an African American in the category. It didn't matter whether Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Sissy Spacek or Renee Zellweger had handed in a superior performance: If Halle didn't win it would be an insult to African Americans.

In the Best Actor category, Julia Roberts lobbied for Denzel Washington with the absurd suggestion that his previous Supporting Actor Oscar for Glory had amounted to only a kind of junior membership in the Academy, and the time had come for a promotion. Both Berry and Washington won and, to paraphrase John Stewart's hilarious deadpan following this year's self-congratulatory clip reel tribute to issue films, "discrimination against African Americans was never a problem again."

The somewhat regrettable reality for many Brokeback fans is that they have allowed a two-and-a-half-hour cinema experience to become a surrogate for the place of gays and lesbians in the greater community. Reviews -- positive and negative -- were presumed to be a litmus test for homophobia. Every award, every dollar in box office and every favourable mention of the movie in the mainstream media was turned into a rung on the ladder toward final and absolute acceptance.

And so, beyond the question of merit, Brokeback's Oscar outcome was transformed into a referendum on a community: For many gays and lesbians, a win would apparently salve every psychic wound suffered from bigots. Perhaps more importantly, an Oscar would provide a gold-plated cudgel with which to beat down loose canons like Ann Coulter, who furiously denounced the film while admitting they hadn't seen it. (For the record, Coulter hated all of the nominees and saw none of them.)

Like just about everyone, I was astonished when Jack Nicholson revealed that the winner of the Best Picture Oscar was Crash. But I'll get over it. As Oscar upsets go, it hardly ranks up there with 1952, when the cartoonish The Greatest Show on Earth beat out High Noon.

We will never know how the academy voted. Maybe Brokeback lost by only one vote. In the end, it really doesn't matter. Gentlemen's Agreement didn't end anti-Semitism. In the Heat of the Night didn't end racial discrimination. Philadelphia didn't really change the struggle against AIDS. Brokeback Mountain's fans have to shake it off. America neither loves nor hates gays and lesbians any more than it did the minute before the envelope was torn open.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 02:00 PM

Thanks, ennisandjack & hidesert for posting these articles. Very interesting.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: chameau on Mar 17, 2006, 02:14 PM

Thanks hidesert!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 17, 2006, 03:58 PM

Brokeback Mountain is a tremendous work of art.  The short story was written as an example of rural homophobia. The film, while a love story about two people who happen to be men during certain time and in a certain part of this country, is about the results of repression. I would not think that BBM would change too many minds concerning homosexuality (although the huge demographic of women who attended BBM did surprise, me but not Focus Features) just as...

Million Dollar Baby (not nearly as artistic as BBM) would change opinions on euthanasia;

Silence of the Lambs increase the # of Serial Killers or membership at the FBI;

Gone with The Wind  motivate people to run plantations;

Chicago  invite people to sing in courtrooms with alot of crotch shots.(How could the Hours not win?---also about repression); or

Out of Africa encourage people to hunt Lions or move to Africa and start a plantation.

BMM is not a message film. There was message sent by certain members of the Academy who clearly voted against BBM even without seeing it. That is the problem.

Title: Another S**thead Outrage
Post by: tpe on Mar 17, 2006, 03:58 PM

From http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2006/03/another_oscar_o.html

-----------------------------------------------

Another Oscar outrage from Tony Curtis

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgoldderby.latimes.com%2F.%2Fphotos%2Funcategorized%2Fdefiant.jpg&hash=a1630a7dcafcea97a56bd109227c8b055118c4ad)
Photo: Still defiant — Tony Curtis never won an Oscar but was nominated for best actor of 1958 for "The Defiant Ones," costarring Sydney Poitier. He lost to David Niven ("Separate Tables").
(United Artists)


As if Tony Curtis hasn't caused enough trouble this awards season, now he's harrumphing, "Everyone takes the Oscars too seriously — it's ape s**t and so fake!"

He made the accusation of fakery while being honored at Britain's Empire Awards and the charge can easily be verified by Curtis himself, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences who told Fox News Channel that he had no intention of watching "Brokeback Mountain" before voting for the Academy Award for best picture.

When The Envelope contacted the academy for reaction to Curtis' "Brokeback" comment, executive director Bruce Davis said, "The ballot contains a very clear instruction that you're not supposed to vote in the categories in which you haven't seen every nominee."

Curtis' honorary Empire Award was presented by Roger Moore, who starred opposite Curtis in the short-lived TV series "The Persuaders" back in the early 1970s, and now joined him in making light of the Oscar best picture loser.

"We were going to star together in 'Brokeback Mountain,'" Moore said, "but we couldn't decide which one was going to stand in front."



The 'Academy' of idiots must be bursting with pride to have him as a member...  Bruce Davis, eat your heart out (literally!)

Title: Roger Ebert's interview with AfterElton
Post by: badnomad on Mar 17, 2006, 04:49 PM

Did anyone read the interview with AfterElton.com where Ebert tried to backpeddle his spiteful; criticims towards BBM fans. It was pretty pathetic and he contradicts himself several times. He DOES however back down and admit that MAYBE homphobia DID play a part in BBM losing, but it was probably the THIRD reason.

Here's the link: http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2006/3/ebert.html

Well, I received an e-mail reply from the INTERVIEWER, Michael Jensen, and he agreed with me that Ebert's responses were pretty lame.  He wasn't impressed either. Here's his reply:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, obviously you won't get any argument from me! I tried to approach the subject from as many different angles, but Roger and I couldn't quite see eye to eye. You should see all the stuff that didn't make it into the piece simply because it was too long or just a repeat!

No matter what we'll always have Brokeback and I think we'll be vindicated in the end by history.

Thanks for writing and all the best.

Michael
 

Title: Re: Roger Ebert's interview with AfterElton
Post by: tpe on Mar 17, 2006, 04:56 PM

DEATH TO PHILISTINES.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 05:20 PM

Thanks, Michael for posting this. Yes it is pretty lame. For example

"AE: I think many gay people would feel better if Crash had been running closer to Brokeback. Its win wouldn't seem so suspect. Even the Las Vegas odds-makers had Brokeback as a sure thing. To then have it lose has been hard for a lot of people to accept.

Roger Elbert: You know last year my wife and I went to the Kentucky Derby and the horse my wife bet on she bet on because horse that had the same name as Sting's son and she is a Sting fan. The odds on it were fifty to one and it won, and we we're surrounded by a hell of a lot of pissed off people. How could the fifty to one long-shot win the Kentucky Derby? Occasionally your horse doesn't win.

Pretty lame analogy. The Oscar is not a horse race. At least the horse can run all by itself and not voted by others to decide who the winner should be.

AE: Yes. Again, looking at all the historical precedents the Academy had used over the years as the guideline.

Roger Ebert: But it didn't win the Editors Guild and no Best Picture in decades has won without winning the Editors Guild. [It Happened One Night, The Godfather II, Annie Hall and Ordinary People all won without the Editor's Guild award.]

One could also point out other historical precedents. The winner should not be based on the precedents but the merits, period.

Personally, making a prediction is one thing but going out all the way to defend Crash and even denouncing the fans and Annie Proulx is beyond my comprehension. And below is just for the record.

"'Brokeback' bitching - from Richard Roeper

Author Annie Proulx, who penned the original short story on which "Brokeback Mountain" was based, has joined the chorus of "Brokeback" complainers. In the Guardian, Proulx writes:

"The people connected with 'Brokeback Mountain,' including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy Awards, it would get Best Picture as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit Awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known the conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture ..."

I guess that would be the same conservative voting body that awarded best song to "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp."

One week after the Oscars, I'm still hearing from fans of "Brokeback" who are offended and outraged by the best picture win for "Crash." Some folks are even calling me terrible names for predicting a "Crash" victory and saying I didn't believe "Brokeback" should have been nominated.

What can I say? On my list of 2005's best movies, I had "Brokeback Mountain" at No. 7, behind "Syriana," "The New World," "Crash," "Munich," "Nine Lives" and "Capote." So that means I'm homophobic? Please.

The "Brokeback" camp seems to feel their film is morally superior to the other nominated films, particularly "Crash," and that a vote against "Brokeback" is a vote against tolerance.

What a bunch of bull.

Why is a film about two gay cowboys more noble than a film about race relations? Or a movie about an Israeli hit squad avenging the massacre at the Munich Olympic Games? Or a film about an author's book about the murders of an innocent family? Or a movie about a journalist's crusade against a witch-hunting senator?

In two decades of writing about movies, I have never heard such bitching and moaning and griping about a film not winning best picture. Enough is enough. You lost. Try to handle it with some grace."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: bnjmn3 on Mar 17, 2006, 05:52 PM

Quote from: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 05:20 PM

Thanks, Michael for posting this. Yes it is pretty lame. For example

"AE: I think many gay people would feel better if Crash had been running closer to Brokeback. Its win wouldn't seem so suspect. Even the Las Vegas odds-makers had Brokeback as a sure thing. To then have it lose has been hard for a lot of people to accept.

RE: You know last year my wife and I went to the Kentucky Derby and the horse my wife bet on she bet on because horse that had the same name as Sting's son and she is a Sting fan. The odds on it were fifty to one and it won, and we we're surrounded by a hell of a lot of pissed off people. How could the fifty to one long-shot win the Kentucky Derby? Occasionally your horse doesn't win.

Pretty lame analogy. The Oscar is not a horse race. At least the horse can run all by itself and not voted by others to decide who the winner should be.

AE: Yes. Again, looking at all the historical precedents the Academy had used over the years as the guideline.
RE: But it didn't win the Editors Guild and no Best Picture in decades has won without winning the Editors Guild. [It Happened One Night, The Godfather II, Annie Hall and Ordinary People all won without the Editor's Guild award.]

One could also point out other historical precedents. The winner should not be based on the precedents but the merits, period.

Personally, making a prediction is one thing but going out all the way to defend Crash and even denouncing the fans and Annie Proulx is beyond my comprehension. And below is just for the record.

"'Brokeback' bitching

Author Annie Proulx, who penned the original short story on which "Brokeback Mountain" was based, has joined the chorus of "Brokeback" complainers. In the Guardian, Proulx writes:

"The people connected with 'Brokeback Mountain,' including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy Awards, it would get Best Picture as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit Awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known the conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture ..."

I guess that would be the same conservative voting body that awarded best song to "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp."

One week after the Oscars, I'm still hearing from fans of "Brokeback" who are offended and outraged by the best picture win for "Crash." Some folks are even calling me terrible names for predicting a "Crash" victory and saying I didn't believe "Brokeback" should have been nominated.

What can I say? On my list of 2005's best movies, I had "Brokeback Mountain" at No. 7, behind "Syriana," "The New World," "Crash," "Munich," "Nine Lives" and "Capote." So that means I'm homophobic? Please.

The "Brokeback" camp seems to feel their film is morally superior to the other nominated films, particularly "Crash," and that a vote against "Brokeback" is a vote against tolerance.

What a bunch of bull.

Why is a film about two gay cowboys more noble than a film about race relations? Or a movie about an Israeli hit squad avenging the massacre at the Munich Olympic Games? Or a film about an author's book about the murders of an innocent family? Or a movie about a journalist's crusade against a witch-hunting senator?

In two decades of writing about movies, I have never heard such bitching and moaning and griping about a film not winning best picture. Enough is enough. You lost. Try to handle it with some grace."

Can someone go back to this quote and  label who said what? Some quotes are Ebert, some Proulx, and some Roeper!!!  We need to be accurate with these quotes. Roger really loved Crash (for whatever reasons) more than he really liked BBM.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 05:59 PM

Quote from: bnjmn3 on Mar 17, 2006, 05:52 PM

Can someone go back to this quote and  label who said what? Some quotes are Ebert, some Proulx, and some Roeper!!!  We need to be accurate with these quotes. Roger really loved Crash (for whatever reasons) more than he really liked BBM.

Just clarify the quotes. Thanks for the suggestion.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 06:26 PM

Ten Films That Give Oscar a Bad Name[/b]

Still smarting over that big "Crash?" It's not the first time the academy has embarrassed itself with a choice that's going to age badly.

By Stephen Farber
Special to The LA Times
March 19, 2006


IS "Crash" the worst movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture? Probably not, though it definitely reeks. Academy members had a chance to make history by honoring "Brokeback Mountain," a trailblazing gay love story that also happened to be the best movie of 2005. Instead, they voted for arguably the worst of the five films nominated — a ham-fisted exposé of racial tensions in Los Angeles that pulled its punches by ending on an incongruous note of communion and redemption.

Disappointing as this decision was, however, it wasn't the first time the academy got it all wrong. Indeed, in the 78 years that Oscars have been awarded, there are only a dozen or so times when the statuette was awarded to an undisputed classic such as "It Happened One Night," "Gone With the Wind," "Casablanca," "All About Eve," "On the Waterfront," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II."

In other cases, the academy honored a good movie that wasn't quite the best of the year — the Oscar did not go to 1941's "Citizen Kane," frequently cited as the greatest movie in history, but "How Green Was My Valley" — or hugely popular films that may have been kitschy but were still enormously entertaining, such as "The Sound of Music," "Titanic" or "Gladiator."

But in a surprising number of cases, the Oscar has gone to films that were mediocre or just plain bad.

To provide a little context for readers who are still perplexed or angry over this year's upset, I've come up with an admittedly subjective list of the 10 worst movies to be voted best picture. It wasn't an easy list to compile — not because there were so few possibilities but because there were so many.


These first two really take the booby prize:

"The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) was criticized even at the time for its cornucopia of clichés. Perhaps this circus-themed soap opera can be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure, full of unintended howlers, but is that what the Oscar was meant to signify? The Oscar that year might have gone to "High Noon," "Moulin Rouge" (the good version, directed by John Huston), or to "Singin' in the Rain," which wasn't even nominated but is now widely regarded as the greatest movie musical ever made.

"Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) also sits at the bottom of the barrel. Producer Mike Todd was the Harvey Weinstein of his day, a cunning showman who knew how to court Oscar voters. He also managed to attract a legion of stars to do cameos, a novelty at the time, but the movie is nothing more than a 167-minute travelogue, with inane and insulting comic relief provided by Mexican actor Cantinflas.


Grandiosity is a regrettable hallmark of several of the other worst movies to be named best picture:

"The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) first epitomized this trend. It's a three-hour biopic with a few eye-popping production numbers and a couple of hours of padding.

"Ben-Hur" (1959) won a mind-boggling 11 Oscars. The chariot race is worth the price of admission, but the rest of this 212-minute epic is drenched in syrupy religiosity reminiscent of a Hallmark Christmas card. The movie was the weakest of the five nominees that year; "Anatomy of a Murder," "The Diary of Anne Frank," "The Nun's Story" and "Room at the Top" are all more watchable today. And two movies that are more enduring than any of them — "Some Like It Hot" and "North by Northwest" — weren't even nominated.

"The English Patient" (1996) is well photographed and well edited, but it's also emotionally desiccated and downright ponderous (as "Seinfeld" fans well know). Director Anthony Minghella crafted a far more involving movie three years later, "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which won exactly zero Oscars.

"Forrest Gump" (1994). Robert Zemeckis made a terrific piece of entertainment in "Back to the Future," but he won his Oscar for this bloated, soft-headed trip though a few decades of American history. That year, the academy might have honored the electrifying "Pulp Fiction" but chose to play it safe. Quentin Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary did win for best screenplay, but that was merely a consolation prize, like "Brokeback Mountain's" directing and screenplay Oscars this year.

"You Can't Take It With You" (1938). Some argue that the academy is a sucker for swollen, overlong epics. But in several instances, the Oscar went to small, quirky movies that were just as stupefying. This one is a case in point. Seen today, the antics of the world's wackiest family seem about as engaging as the sound of fingernails raking a blackboard. Consider all the classic comedies of the '30s and early '40s that didn't win Oscars — such as "My Man Godfrey," "Ninotchka" and "His Girl Friday" — and then try to justify this one's victory.

"Rocky" (1976) ladles on the whimsy as well. This is one of the most ridiculous of all Oscar choices, first because of the movies it beat: "Taxi Driver" and "Network." It's also hard to forgive the picture for spawning all those dreadful sequels, with yet another installment, "Rocky Balboa," still to come.

"American Beauty" (1999) is a precious satire of suburbia (now there's a fresh topic) that mustered the courage to criticize real estate agents and gun nuts. Overlooked that year: "The Insider" and "The Cider House Rules," the latter of which took on a genuinely controversial subject — abortion. On the plus side, the Oscar victory gave writer Alan Ball the clout to create HBO's "Six Feet Under," a far more incisive look at American mores.


Finally, there is space for one more movie on the list, and that belongs to:

"Crash" (2005). This jeremiad bemoaning our society's intolerance is filtered through a fanciful plot built on a heap of outlandish coincidences. Can you really imagine audiences in another decade or two giving this movie, which somehow combines grandiosity and whimsical eccentricity, any more respect than they give "Rocky" or "The Greatest Show on Earth" today? Like all of these prize-winning embarrassments, "Crash" is destined to be remembered as just one more footnote in the annals of Oscar blunders.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Toadily on Mar 17, 2006, 06:28 PM

I think it's interesting Ebert didn't have a come back to "well BBM won ALL the other awards" and could only
compare it to Color Purple that got a lot of NOMINATIONS but didn't win.  So this is unprecendented.
And note his argument was a movie that came out before they gave a best actor nod to an African American.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 07:01 PM

Oscar Grouch[/b]

The question isn’t why Crash won, but why we should care.

by Scott Renshaw, Salt Lake City Weekly  |  March 16, 2006


Crash beat out Brokeback Mountain for the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards on March 5—and it had to mean something. Hollywood is less gay-friendly than everyone believes, perhaps. Or it’s more interested in appearing sensitive to racism than in appearing sensitive to homophobia. Or after a year of bad box office, the industry didn’t want its most public face to be a dude in a cowboy hat kissing another dude in a cowboy hat. Somehow the entire entertainment journalism industry managed the slick logistical trick of banging out a thousand befuddled “think pieces” while simultaneously wringing its hands into withered stumps. It’s the same weird combination of hilarious and depressing that we’ve come to associate with Scott McClellan press conferences.

The intensity of the analysis had a lot to do with the writers having a dog in a fight—or, at the very least, fighting whatever they perceived as a dog. There were those who remained underwhelmed by Brokeback as its bandwagon built momentum. And there those who loathed Crash, like New York Press critic Matt Zoller Seitz, who called it “an Importance Machine that rolls over you like a tank … lazy and simplistically cynical about its central subject.”

But wherever your personal preferences lay—Brokeback was my favorite film of 2005—it was crushingly obvious to me that everyone was asking the wrong question. The question wasn’t, “Why did Crash upset Brokeback Mountain?” The question was, “Why should we care?”

1980: Ordinary People over Raging Bull. 1982: Gandhi over E.T. 1990: Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas. 1994: Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction. Are we beginning to see a pattern? And those are just examples since the death of disco.

Now some of you may look at those examples above and think, “Hey, I preferred the winner in that year over the loser you named.” Or you may wonder why I omitted the oft-mentioned travesty of Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan in 1998 (hint: I don’t actually happen to think it was a travesty). But even that is part of the Oscar trap. We breathe a sigh of relief whenever the awards go the way we would have them go, waiting for another year to fume over voting gone cockeyed. Yet year after year, people keep coming back, when even a rat has the common sense to stop licking the plate that electrocutes its tongue.

We, the movie-lovers of America, have given the Oscars a power they have no business possessing. It is a vote for “excellence” in which many voters talk openly about not having watched all the nominees. It is a vote in which the electors are voting for their friends and colleagues or maybe not voting for the guy who acted like an ass one day on the set. There’s a good reason why a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame is not chosen by a player’s peers the day after he retires—because time and distance allow a better perspective on greatness than immediacy and coziness.

It’s one thing to watch the Oscars in order to gawk at stars or mock the latest hysterically wrong-headed piece of choreography. But viewers have also allowed themselves to be duped into associating the highest quality with a televised advertisement for the filmmaking industry. If you had any doubts that’s exactly what the Oscar broadcast is, they should have been erased by this year’s theme of, “Oh, pleeeeeease go back to watching movies in theaters.” Whether they’re voting their conscience or with some agenda in mind—picking a veteran over a guy with more years ahead of him, for example—it’s still an industry sending its customers a message. Only in entertainment do people allow the manufacturers to tell them which one of their products is best.

Is there an element of sour grapes in a film critic complaining over who gets to decide cinematic immortality? Probably. I can’t deny that I’d rather see people flock to the films lauded by those who actually watch more than a few of them in a year. But the irony is that plenty of those same people have been the ones analyzing themselves into knots over the last several days. If Brokeback Mountain had won, as had been widely predicted, would that suddenly make the Oscars any more “valid” as an arbiter of excellence?

It’s time to stop looking at them—the Academy voters—because their interests are not yours. The interest of moviegoers would be better served by ignoring them entirely.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 07:06 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 07:01 PM

If Brokeback Mountain had won, as had been widely predicted, would that suddenly make the Oscars any more “valid” as an arbiter of excellence?

Perhaps. As I have mentioned before, the academy needs BBM more than BBM needs the academy. For whatever reason, the academy decided to pass it and it's their loss.

Quote

It’s time to stop looking at them—the Academy voters—because their interests are not yours. The interest of moviegoers would be better served by ignoring them entirely.

Thanks, hidesert for posting this article. Yes that is what I have decided too - to ignore and here I say again - bye bye. Perhaps I should say "Adios" since the subject of this year is "racism"  ;D

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 09:47 PM

Quote from: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 07:06 PM

Quote from: hidesert on Mar 17, 2006, 07:01 PM

If Brokeback Mountain had won, as had been widely predicted, would that suddenly make the Oscars any more “valid” as an arbiter of excellence?

Perhaps. As I have mentioned before, the academy needs BBM more than BBM needs the academy. For whatever reason, the academy decided to pass it and it's their loss.

Quote

It’s time to stop looking at them—the Academy voters—because their interests are not yours. The interest of moviegoers would be better served by ignoring them entirely.

Thanks, hidesert for posting this article. Yes that is what I have decided too - to ignore and here I say again - bye bye. Perhaps I should say "Adios" since the subject of this year is "racism"  ;D

You're right Ethan and so is the author of the article - the loss hurts because we had a certain level of expectation that the Academy could never fulfill. The Academy's claim that it rewards the highest levels of excellence is as much of an illusion as a Hollywood movie.  The entertainment industry is the illusion industry and the Academy is its best creation.

Yes the Academy needed BBM much more than BBM needed the Academy.

"We, the movie-lovers of America, have given the Oscars a power they have no business possessing. It is a vote for “excellence” in which many voters talk openly about not having watched all the nominees. It is a vote in which the electors are voting for their friends and colleagues or maybe not voting for the guy who acted like an ass one day on the set. There’s a good reason why a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame is not chosen by a player’s peers the day after he retires—because time and distance allow a better perspective on greatness than immediacy and coziness."

- Scott Renshaw (above)


"The Academy Awards have lost their relevance. They've been upstaged by awards that are more in tune with reality, such as the Independent Spirit Awards, which Proulx cited, even the Golden Globes, which are way more fun.

Instead of being a body of professionals who consistently recognize truly great films, the Academy consistently caves in to political pressure, and the fear of public backlash. Prizes going to artists to make up for previous years' slights.

Until Oscar voters find the courage to make the hard calls, their Big Night will continue to slip in our esteem and the ratings."

- Karen Hershenson (Annie Proulx thread)


"Gentlemen's Agreement didn't end anti-Semitism. In the Heat of the Night didn't end racial discrimination. Philadelphia didn't really change the struggle against AIDS. Brokeback Mountain's fans have to shake it off. America neither loves nor hates gays and lesbians any more than it did the minute before the envelope was torn open."

- John Moore (above)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 17, 2006, 09:51 PM

Good quotes and summary, hidesert. Thank you. I truly feel sorry for the Academy.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 18, 2006, 11:30 PM

Crash, Bang, Wallop![/b]

By James Langton, March 19,2006 | The Telegraph, London

Last week, as the pomp and ceremony of the Oscars began to recede for another year, readers flicking through Daily Variety, the American entertainment bible, will have come upon a full-page advertisement in praise of the popular cowboy film Brokeback Mountain.

Alongside a picture of the two lead actors, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, in an embrace, ran copy saying: "Thank you for transforming countless lives through the most honoured film of the year. We agree with everyone who named Brokeback Mountain BEST PICTURE."

Except, of course, the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences - which did not. The Academy favoured Crash, the unflinching portrayal of racism in America, over Ang Lee's acclaimed and controversial tale of gay love in the wilds of Wyoming.

Gushing advertisements hailing the Oscar-winning films are an obligatory part of the American film industry, but unheard of for a losing film. Even veteran Hollywood observers admitted that it was the first time they could remember seeing the Academy's judgment questioned in such a way. You could almost hear the sound of studio moguls spluttering into their morning cups of low-fat decaffeinated latte.

The $18,000 (£10,000) advertisement had been written and paid for by ordinary fans, many of them gay, and all furious that Brokeback Mountain had won every major film prize in the past six months, but was then denied the ultimate accolade: Best Picture at the 2006 Academy Awards. The fact that the film won three of the Oscar categories it was nominated in, including Best Director, was of little consolation.

Among those who organised the campaign was John Wells, a New Yorker who joined one of dozens of internet forums that sprang up to discuss the film after it was released last year. They had done it, Mr Wells said, "as a positive expression of what the film means to us".

But the insurrection was not to end there. Days later, another volley was launched as Annie Proulx, the American writer whose short story inspired Brokeback Mountain, vented her fury over the loss to "Trash - excuse me - Crash". Proulx went on to lash out at the "conservative, heffalump Academy voters", many of whom lived "cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days". She rounded off her attack with the blunt words: "For those who call this a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays."

Proulx's outburst was unprecedented, laying bare the behind the scenes bickering that had been simmering away for a week. This was war. Like rival gangs, the fallout has divided loyalties across the Hollywood Hills and beyond - you're either "with Brokeback", or against it.

It all began two weeks ago, when Jack Nicholson tore open the envelope on the stage of the Kodak Theatre. Nicholson, his trademark eyebrow arched even further than normal, looked surprised as, to gasps from the auditorium, he uttered the two words: "Crash, whoa!"

Backstage, Nicholson could be heard insisting that, as a member of the Academy, he had, in fact, voted for Brokeback. But the damage had been done. A conspiracy theory quickly began to circulate around the internet that Nicholson had been so repulsed by the images of homosexuals home on the range - or so his accusers claimed - that he had deliberately read out the wrong film.

It was followed by another rumour that members of the Academy had voted for Crash by accident because of a flaw - accidental or otherwise - on the ballot paper. Brokeback was listed second on the form but punching the second hole purportedly cast a vote for Crash. Lionsgate, the studio behind Crash, has also been accused of dirty tricks by Brokeback supporters because of a deluge of 110,000 DVDs of the film it sent to all members of the Academy and the Screen Actors Guild.

The row has cut through the self-satisfied smog that normally descends on Los Angeles once the Oscars are over. The stars of Crash's large ensemble cast, including Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle and Thandie Newton, rapidly fled the scene. Others tried to play down the significance of the attacks on the film. "Proulx is just a writer," said one studio insider with a sniff. "Nobody listens to them anyway."

The Crash team, determined to maintain a dignified silence, would not be drawn. But earlier comments by the film's director, Paul Haggis, were dredged up as fuel for the fire. The Canadian had called Brokeback "a really good movie", before damning the film with faint praise. "If you decided to vote for it," Haggis said, "the best reason would be you thought it was a great movie about two human beings, not because it's a social statement. If you wanted to see the gay community embraced by Hollywood, well, the fact is that that happened a long time ago. I mean, look at the popularity of Will & Grace," he said.

The comparison between a sitcom and a deeply serious cinematic drama that lays bare the contradictions of homophobic America astounded many inside and outside the industry. Surely Haggis wasn't suggesting that the theme of Brokeback had been eclipsed by a mere television series, was he?

The battle started to turn even uglier. Even Stephen King, the horror writer, joined in, complaining that "American pop culture is intent on passing this passionate, well-meant, and well-made movie like a kidney stone".

Kenneth Turan, one of the most widely read reviewers in the business, joined the Brokeback camp, saying "sometimes you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film Brokeback Mountain was more than its loss to Crash in the Oscar Best Picture category".

Turan, branding Crash "a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long", berated Academy members who thought that they could "vote for it and not feel that there was any stain in their liberal credentials for shunning what Brokeback had to offer".

In Crash's defence, the venerable Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, scoffed at suggestions that homophobia had cost Brokeback the ultimate prize. "The membership of the Academy, and the working population of the Hollywood branch of the industry, is less homophobic than almost any other group you could name," he insisted.

His repeated championing of Crash earned Ebert a deluge of abuse from Brokeback supporters. "I've been told that I am evil," Ebert said. "I've been told that I am behind the persecution of millions of Americans. That I have encouraged hate toward gays. I've received both very brief and obscene messages, and very long and literate messages that tell me a vote for Crash was vote for homophobia."

There is no doubt that the film's subject made many older Academy voters feel uncomfortable. As a result, many of them did not even see it. Their opinions were summed up on Oscar night by two veterans of the silver screen. Ernest Borgnine, the 89-year-old actor, admitted: "I didn't see it and I don't care to see it." He then, rather intriguingly, predicted that: "If John Wayne were alive today, he'd be rolling over in his grave."

Tony Curtis, now 80, who was last week honoured with the Empire Awards 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award, told a red carpet interviewer: "This picture is not as important as we make it. It's nothing unique. The only thing unique is that they put it on the screen - and they made 'em cowboys."

As he accepted his award in London last Monday night, Curtis, perhaps commenting on the week's events, said: "Everyone takes the Oscars far too seriously - it's apes**t and so fake."

Others have suggested that Crash's social issue was simply more attractive to Academy voters than Brokeback's. Its theme of racism was politically correct enough to appeal to Hollywood's bleeding heart liberal sensitivities. And unlike Brokeback which, although set in Wyoming, was actually filmed in Canada, Crash was made on the streets of Los Angeles with a host of big names.

"Crash provided jobs for actors and other LA-based workers, who are increasingly frustrated by runaway productions that travel to far-flung locations," explains Martin Grove, of the Hollywood Reporter. "Moreover, because Crash was a story dealing with complex racial relations in Los Angeles, it was something that LA-based Academy members could easily relate to."

But he suggests that the most crucial factor may have been that the Academy has become increasingly sensitive to other awards' ceremonies muscling in on its territory. There can be no disputing that Brokeback was the most critically acclaimed film of its year. It was, in fact, one of the most critically acclaimed films ever. The list of awards that it won stretches across 12 pages on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and several continents.

By the time this year's Oscar night rolled round, Brokeback Mountain had been the toast of everything from the Golden Globes (for which Crash was not even nominated) to the Baftas, winning best film at both awards. As Brokeback's director, Ang Lee, describing his surprise at the Best Picture loss pointed out on Oscar night: "We've won every award since September, but missed out on the last one, the biggest one."

And there's the rub, suggests Grove. "In applauding Crash over Brokeback, Academy members were saying, in effect, that you can't take their votes for granted."

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 18, 2006, 11:50 PM

Thanks, hidesert. It is already two weeks past the Oscar and the news media is still talking about it. Viva BBM!

Let's just put it this way...the Academy is just jealous of BBM's achievement.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Buddy on Mar 19, 2006, 12:50 PM

Hidesert:
You beat me to it. I was just about to post TIMES' Farber piece.
 Now I'll write him to express appreciation for the obvious!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 19, 2006, 02:00 PM

Quote from: Buddy on Mar 19, 2006, 12:50 PM

Hidesert:
You beat me to it. I was just about to post TIMES' Farber piece.
Now I'll write him to express appreciation for the obvious! 

I liked his article because it points out how blind and irrelevant the Academy is even today.  There were some very fine films this year and 2005 appears to parallel 1976 when three classics, "Taxi Driver", "Network" and "All the President's Men" were snubbed in favor of "Rocky" another quickly forgotten film as "Crash" will be.

 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 19, 2006, 02:07 PM

Quote from: ethan on Mar 18, 2006, 11:50 PM

Thanks, hidesert. It is already two weeks past the Oscar and the news media is still talking about it. Viva BBM!

Let's just put it this way...the Academy is just jealous of BBM's achievement. 

Yes Ethan, it's the subject that just won't die.   Langton gives a good synopsis but I disagree with his end quote from Grove, "In applauding Crash over Brokeback, Academy members were saying, in effect, that you can't take their votes for granted."  The award distribution at the Oscar ceremony was in line with predictions except the last one, so we continue to ask why didn't BBM get the "Best Picture" Oscar.
 
Of course the Academy would like us to just vanish and not question them.  Sorry but I've always been an annoying questioner. 

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hidesert on Mar 19, 2006, 02:12 PM

Thanks E&J for the Roger Ebert interview. I'm just catching up on my reading.

I partially agree with Ebert's analysis that Academy voters can be divided into
three categories, some people just thought "Crash" was the best film of the
year; others voted for it because it was made in and about LA; and still others
voted for "Crash" to block BBM because of homophobia.  I just disagree with
Ebert that homophobia was the smallest percentage - I think the "vote for your
buddy and for LA movies" segment and homophobia were a greater percent than
those who thought it was the best movie.

And I also agree with him that a person can be a staunch supporter of "Crash"
and not be a homophobe - the key is what was their motivation. Homophobia
wouldn't even be a topic of conversation if credible rumors from many
directions didn't surface even before Academy voting started. Like many others
I just question why after winning the most awards and Oscar nominations, the
BBM train was derailed.

Much of the post Oscar chatter would disappear it the Academy annually
published voting totals. Not to cast any doubts on the credability of
PriceWaterhouseCooper, but we all remember a very old and respected CPA firm
that no longer exists because of backroom deals with Enron, I speak of Arthur
Anderson and Associates.  It's time the Academy let some daylight in.
       
The three Oscars that BBM won were really for personal achievements.  Larry
McMurtry is an icon among Western novelists and screenwriters and Hollywood
owed it to him.  Ang Lee won the Director's Guild award in 2000 but lost the
Oscar that year, so it was also his time.  John Williams is another Hollywood
icon, but he's won before and was nominated twice which canceled him out and
Gustavo's score was exceptional.  The Best Picture Oscar recognizes everyone
connected to the film and that was the recognition we were all looking for. 

Ebert's interview with AfterElton appears on the surface to be an attempt to
placate BBM supporters who might also happen to be weekly viewers of his show. 
If Ebert hadn't been such a vocal champion of a poor film and written his
infamous article "The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash", he would have been easier to
forgive.

Title: Oscar, I Can Quit You
Post by: tpe on Mar 19, 2006, 03:11 PM

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/movies/19broke.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1142798627-mjzzLfysffZD6gLbdWXofw


------------------------------------------


Oscar, I Can Quit You
Published: March 19, 2006

Many "Brokeback Mountain" fans were disappointed when the Academy Award for best picture went to "Crash" instead. Some moped. Some swore. A great many lost money. One fan did more than mourn: he organized. At left, excerpts from a manifesto circulating on the Internet.

A 'Brokeback'-Inspired Boycott:
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2006%2F03%2F17%2Fmovies%2F19emial.300.jpg&hash=ca21aeb53bc94ba1b44fa10252559338db8c9277)


To the barricades, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender cinephiles! You have nothing to lose but your statuettes — and lavish gift bags, of course.

Title: Re: Oscar, I Can Quit You
Post by: sweetlilg on Mar 19, 2006, 03:42 PM

Quote from: tpe on Mar 19, 2006, 03:11 PM

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/movies/19broke.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1142798627-mjzzLfysffZD6gLbdWXofw

i'm boycotting!!

thanks for posting!  :)

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 19, 2006, 04:18 PM

"Everything's better without Oscars!"

Yeah...

Title: Re: Oscar, I Can Quit You
Post by: hidesert on Mar 19, 2006, 05:01 PM

Quote from: tpe on Mar 19, 2006, 03:11 PM

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/movies/19broke.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1142798627-mjzzLfysffZD6gLbdWXofw

Oscar, I Can Quit You
Published: March 19, 2006

Many "Brokeback Mountain" fans were disappointed when the Academy Award for best picture went to "Crash" instead. Some moped. Some swore. A great many lost money. One fan did more than mourn: he organized. At left, excerpts from a manifesto circulating on the Internet.

To the barricades, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender cinephiles! You have nothing to lose but your statuettes — and lavish gift bags, of course.   

I strongly agree tpe, it's time to boycott an irrelevant organization with homopboic members. First I'd like to make a slight change to the rallying cry, "To the barricades, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender cinephiles and your friends and allies!


I'm reposting Tom O'Neil's article that underscores the gay connection to the Oscars:

Gays: Oscar Betrayed Us[/b]

Tom O’Neil, LA Times   March 13, 2006 

The reason gay people are so eye-popping furious over what happened to "Brokeback Mountain" at the Academy Awards is more than just disappointment that a gay-themed movie lost best picture. To put it in classic Hollywood terms, many gays believe that Oscar — ruthlessly, deliberately and mercilessly — plunged his sword into the backs of those who love him most.

Who the heck does he think he is, anyway? Bette Davis?

If the Oscars gold derby is regarded as the sporting event that it really is, there's no doubt who the cheerleaders are: gay guys.

If you don't believe that, you haven't been paying attention to who organizes your office Oscars pool every year. Don't those chaps all seem to be a little too well groomed and well-spoken?

Go ahead and ask any gay man you know if he's ever fantasized about winning an Oscar and he'll instantly blurt out his acceptance speech. Even the part — a la Julia Roberts — where he warns the orchestra conductor not to dare interrupt him because he may never make it up to the podium again and there's so much to say.

Of course, Chris Rock wasn't kidding when he notoriously said last year, "What straight guy that you know cares? Who gives a f---?"

So "Brokeback's" loss was more than just mere disappointment by a group of people who rooted for it to win. Finally, gay people — who'd been unofficially in charge of whipping up Oscars ballyhoo nationwide forever — had their own horse in the derby.  And it wasn't another one of those pity-poor-us-because-we're-dying-of-AIDS films starring Tom Hanks.

The "Brokeback" pony had similar hopelessly straight guys in the saddle, yes, but it was a love story. If it won best picture, its victory would be a milestone moment in showbiz history as important and validating to gays as the "In the Heat of the Night" best picture win was to African Americans and the "Schindler's List" victory was to Jews.

Imagine gay people's excitement and glee throughout this Oscars race! Even better, it looked like "Brokeback" was the easiest bet in any Oscars pool because it could not be denied. It led with the most nominations, which almost always assures triumph, and it had previously been rubber-stamped the best pic of the year by 23 other award groups, including the Producers Guild, BAFTA, Indie Spirits, Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., New York Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Assn. and Golden Globes (where "Crash" wasn't even nominated).
 
Its subsequent Oscars loss was "blatant homophobia" according to Ann Northrop, cohost of "Gay U.S.A.," the nationally syndicated TV news show. "Come on! It won every other best picture award in the world, but I don't think they wanted to give it to us!"

Her cohost Andy Humm added with sad resignation, "It's the typical conservatism of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which is composed of old straight guys."

More than two-thirds of respondents to a poll at gay news site Advocate.com agree, blaming homophobia for "Brokeback's" loss. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan concurred, too, writing, "In the privacy of the voting booth, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices…. And at least this year, that acting out doomed 'Brokeback Mountain.'"

Meantime, more and more actual evidence of bias mounts. No longer is Tony Curtis alone among older academy members who publicly admitted that they refused even to consider "Brokeback." Oscar's best actor of 1955 Ernest Borgnine ("Marty") told Entertainment Weekly: "I didn’t see (‘Brokeback Mountain’) and I don’t care to see it. I know they say it’s a good picture, but I don’t care to see it." Then he added the most ridiculous, illogical, slam ever uttered against the gay cowboys: "If John Wayne were alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave!"

Perhaps we can no longer assume that apparently hip Sarah Jessica Parker isn't homophobic. She made a shocking confession to Conan O'Brien and his national TV audience: she voted for best picture at the Oscars without watching "Brokeback Mountain." Instead, she accepted input about it from her three-year-old son who watched about 20 minutes of the DVD screener out of curiosity. Presumably, Sarah ended up voting for something else.
 
How can gay people not feel betrayed by Oscar when so many voters publicly admit that they never even gave "Brokeback" a chance? Worse, that didn't stop them from giving "Brokeback" all of the other Oscars it was expected to get: best director, screenplay and musical score. But they just couldn't go that last step, just couldn't install such a historic milestone on a financially successful and critically acclaimed film — worthy of Academy Awards for writing and direction — and place it in Oscar's best pic pantheon.
 
Can gay people ever forgive Oscar? If not, just think of what the Academy Awards will be like in years to come without their cheerleading. Will anybody care?

Title: Ten films that give Oscar a bad name
Post by: tpe on Mar 20, 2006, 09:02 AM

From http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-ca-bottom19mar19,0,4258543.story?coll=cl-movies


-------------------------------------------------------------


March 19, 2006

PERSPECTIVE
Ten films that give Oscar a bad name
Still smarting over that big "Crash?" It's not the first time the academy has embarrassed itself with a choice that's going to age badly.
 
By Stephen Farber, Special to The Times


IS "Crash" the worst movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture? Probably not, though it definitely reeks. Academy members had a chance to make history by honoring "Brokeback Mountain," a trailblazing gay love story that also happened to be the best movie of 2005. Instead, they voted for arguably the worst of the five films nominated — a ham-fisted exposé of racial tensions in Los Angeles that pulled its punches by ending on an incongruous note of communion and redemption.

Disappointing as this decision was, however, it wasn't the first time the academy got it all wrong. Indeed, in the 78 years that Oscars have been awarded, there are only a dozen or so times when the statuette was awarded to an undisputed classic such as "It Happened One Night," "Gone With the Wind," "Casablanca," "All About Eve," "On the Waterfront," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II."
 
In other cases, the academy honored a good movie that wasn't quite the best of the year — the Oscar did not go to 1941's "Citizen Kane," frequently cited as the greatest movie in history, but "How Green Was My Valley" — or hugely popular films that may have been kitschy but were still enormously entertaining, such as "The Sound of Music," "Titanic" or "Gladiator."

But in a surprising number of cases, the Oscar has gone to films that were mediocre or just plain bad.

To provide a little context for readers who are still perplexed or angry over this year's upset, I've come up with an admittedly subjective list of the 10 worst movies to be voted best picture. It wasn't an easy list to compile — not because there were so few possibilities but because there were so many.


These first two really take the booby prize:

"The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) was criticized even at the time for its cornucopia of clichés. Perhaps this circus-themed soap opera can be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure, full of unintended howlers, but is that what the Oscar was meant to signify? The Oscar that year might have gone to "High Noon," "Moulin Rouge" (the good version, directed by John Huston), or to "Singin' in the Rain," which wasn't even nominated but is now widely regarded as the greatest movie musical ever made.

"Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) also sits at the bottom of the barrel. Producer Mike Todd was the Harvey Weinstein of his day, a cunning showman who knew how to court Oscar voters. He also managed to attract a legion of stars to do cameos, a novelty at the time, but the movie is nothing more than a 167-minute travelogue, with inane and insulting comic relief provided by Mexican actor Cantinflas.


Grandiosity is a regrettable hallmark of several of the other worst movies to be named best picture:

"The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) first epitomized this trend. It's a three-hour biopic with a few eye-popping production numbers and a couple of hours of padding.

"Ben-Hur" (1959) won a mind-boggling 11 Oscars. The chariot race is worth the price of admission, but the rest of this 212-minute epic is drenched in syrupy religiosity reminiscent of a Hallmark Christmas card. The movie was the weakest of the five nominees that year; "Anatomy of a Murder," "The Diary of Anne Frank," "The Nun's Story" and "Room at the Top" are all more watchable today. And two movies that are more enduring than any of them — "Some Like It Hot" and "North by Northwest" — weren't even nominated.

"The English Patient" (1996) is well photographed and well edited, but it's also emotionally desiccated and downright ponderous (as "Seinfeld" fans well know). Director Anthony Minghella crafted a far more involving movie three years later, "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which won exactly zero Oscars.

"Forrest Gump" (1994). Robert Zemeckis made a terrific piece of entertainment in "Back to the Future," but he won his Oscar for this bloated, soft-headed trip though a few decades of American history. That year, the academy might have honored the electrifying "Pulp Fiction" but chose to play it safe. Quentin Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary did win for best screenplay, but that was merely a consolation prize, like "Brokeback Mountain's" directing and screenplay Oscars this year.

"You Can't Take It With You" (1938). Some argue that the academy is a sucker for swollen, overlong epics. But in several instances, the Oscar went to small, quirky movies that were just as stupefying. This one is a case in point. Seen today, the antics of the world's wackiest family seem about as engaging as the sound of fingernails raking a blackboard. Consider all the classic comedies of the '30s and early '40s that didn't win Oscars — such as "My Man Godfrey," "Ninotchka" and "His Girl Friday" — and then try to justify this one's victory.

"Rocky" (1976) ladles on the whimsy as well. This is one of the most ridiculous of all Oscar choices, first because of the movies it beat: "Taxi Driver" and "Network." It's also hard to forgive the picture for spawning all those dreadful sequels, with yet another installment, "Rocky Balboa," still to come.

"American Beauty" (1999) is a precious satire of suburbia (now there's a fresh topic) that mustered the courage to criticize real estate agents and gun nuts. Overlooked that year: "The Insider" and "The Cider House Rules," the latter of which took on a genuinely controversial subject — abortion. On the plus side, the Oscar victory gave writer Alan Ball the clout to create HBO's "Six Feet Under," a far more incisive look at American mores.


Finally, there is space for one more movie on the list, and that belongs to:

"Crash" (2005). This jeremiad bemoaning our society's intolerance is filtered through a fanciful plot built on a heap of outlandish coincidences. Can you really imagine audiences in another decade or two giving this movie, which somehow combines grandiosity and whimsical eccentricity, any more respect than they give "Rocky" or "The Greatest Show on Earth" today? Like all of these prize-winning embarrassments, "Crash" is destined to be remembered as just one more footnote in the annals of Oscar blunders.

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farber has written several books on film and is a critic for Movieline's Hollywood Life. Contact him at calendar.letters@latimes.com.


Nota Bene: I am beginning to love the LA Times so much, I might just subscribe for it here in Chicago.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Italian_Dude on Mar 20, 2006, 09:12 AM

Thanks for that article tpe!
made my day haha!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 20, 2006, 09:31 AM

Quote from: Italian_Dude on Mar 20, 2006, 09:12 AM

Thanks for that article tpe!
made my day haha!

We should write to him and express our agreement and thanks...

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: ethan on Mar 20, 2006, 12:22 PM

Thanks for posting the article. Now Crash will be remembered not the Best Picture but the Best Picture that gives Oscar the bad name. LOL. I love it. No sour grape here. The merits of Brokeback Mountain speak for itself.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: tpe on Mar 21, 2006, 08:17 AM

From: http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/article/20030605.php


----------------------------------------------


About Last Night...   
Posted by: Alex McAfee
Source: THN
Date: March 20th, 2006

Oscars...

The Academy Awards have come and gone. It seems that after all the build up, more should linger about the world famous ceremony besides what Charlize Theron was wearing. Alas, I think that her horrible dress and the surprise Oscar awarded to the movie "Crash" will be all that will linger. "Brokeback Mountain" seemed absolutely certain to take the award, considering the accolades that it had already accrued. But, "Crash"! Literally and figuratively, the Oscar was given to another movie that built its momentum by bombarding the Academy members with DVD's.

The strategy worked, just as Miramax did with "Shakespeare in Love" over "Saving Private Ryan". Now there is a new debate, should "Crash" have won? I have heard opinions from many people and read many dissertations and still I can't say who's right. The opinion that the gays were slapped in the face by the upset is relevant, depending on who one speaks with. I loved the movie for its quiet but sweeping beauty and tragedy that unites us all. The love story was character driven and truthful, not at all manipulative. There was a depth that flowed throughout the film that hasn't been seen in a Hollywood film in ages. "Crash" was provocative and explosive in its view of present day race relations in Los Angeles.

Personally, I thought that because of its unflattering showing of Los Angeles, I had predicted that the city of vanity on its night of nights would never vote the film as a representation of itself. I feel that they are all patting themselves on the back saying, "we did something important" while not seeing that the portrayal was all about the vacant surface of unconscious living. In reality, they wish that they could solve their problems as such in the film and still come out as unscathed and pretty as the characters in the film. However to do that, they would have to recognize that there are problems.

I liked "Crash" also, but thought that it was rather contrived. Now I have heard the argument, from gays and straights alike, that "Crash" was actually the better film. I disagree, while able to excite viewers with rage and a little hope, it is not the kind of film that I would want to see again and again. I will own "Brokeback Mountain" and I am sure that I will find subtleties in each viewing that I did not see before. The film does not beat one over the head with the obvious.

Now if there were another film in the pack that I think deserve to win besides "Brokeback" it would have been the thoughtful and truth-based "Munich". Now that film was highly overlooked in my opinion. That was the sort of film that drives me to do more research to find out more facts behind the movie. Eric Bana, like the director he once worked, is a treasure of believability and accents, which transcends all genres. His day will come. Until then, my opinion will probably be the last you will hear about the Oscars this year.

 

Title: Re: Oscar, I Can Quit You
Post by: tpe on Mar 21, 2006, 08:48 AM

Quote from: tpe on Mar 19, 2006, 03:11 PM

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/movies/19broke.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1142798627-mjzzLfysffZD6gLbdWXofw


------------------------------------------


Oscar, I Can Quit You
Published: March 19, 2006

Many "Brokeback Mountain" fans were disappointed when the Academy Award for best picture went to "Crash" instead. Some moped. Some swore. A great many lost money. One fan did more than mourn: he organized. At left, excerpts from a manifesto circulating on the Internet.

A 'Brokeback'-Inspired Boycott:
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2006%2F03%2F17%2Fmovies%2F19emial.300.jpg&hash=ca21aeb53bc94ba1b44fa10252559338db8c9277)


To the barricades, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender cinephiles! You have nothing to lose but your statuettes — and lavish gift bags, of course.

I sent Daniel the following letter today:



Greetings Daniel,

I saw your 'manifesto in last Sunday's New York Times.

Whether you succeed or fail in your endeavor to get people organized as to the indecent slap the 2006 Oscars has proven to be, I think you have already accomplished something by voicing out your anger and disappointment so publicly.

Know that many share your anger and disappointment.

Let it be a consolation to all of us that 'Brokeback Mountain' will not go away.  We will all be there to make sure it lives forever.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: *Froggy* on Mar 21, 2006, 03:41 PM

Quote from: Italian_Dude on Mar 20, 2006, 09:12 AM

Thanks for that article tpe!
made my day haha!

Same here!!!

Quote

"Crash" (2005). This jeremiad bemoaning our society's intolerance is filtered through a fanciful plot built on a heap of outlandish coincidences. Can you really imagine audiences in another decade or two giving this movie, which somehow combines grandiosity and whimsical eccentricity, any more respect than they give "Rocky" or "The Greatest Show on Earth" today? Like all of these prize-winning embarrassments, "Crash" is destined to be remembered as just one more footnote in the annals of Oscar blunders.

LOL

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: The Ultimate Otaku on Apr 13, 2006, 03:54 PM

Here is an article, I BELIEVE written by Proulx, concerning "Crash" winning Best Picture instead of BBM.

Commentary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blood on the red carpet

Annie Proulx on how her Brokeback Oscar hopes were dashed by Crash

Saturday March 11, 2006
The Guardian

 
Ain't no Mountain high enough ... Ang Lee with his Oscar for best director. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/AP. More photographs
 
On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping toward the Kodak Theater for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred.
The red carpet in front of the theatre was larger than the Red Sea. Inside, we climbed grand staircases designed for showing off dresses. The circular levels filled with men in black, the women mostly in pale, frothy gowns. Sequins, diamonds, glass beads, trade beads sparkled like the interior of a salt mine. More exquisite dresses appeared every moment, some made from six yards of taffeta, and many with sweeping trains that demanded vigilance from strolling attendees lest they step on a mermaid's tail. There was one man in a kilt - there is always one at award ceremonies - perhaps a professional roving Scot hired to give colour to the otherwise monotone showing of clustered males. Larry McMurtry defied the dress code by wearing his usual jeans and cowboy boots.

The people connected with Brokeback Mountain, including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy awards, it would get Best Picture as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture. Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.
After a good deal of standing around admiring dresses and sucking up champagne, people obeyed the stentorian countdown commands to get in their seats as "the show" was about to begin. There were orders to clap and the audience obediently clapped. From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from "the show" which, as the audience was reminded several times, was televised and being watched by billions of people all over the world. Those lucky watchers could get up any time they wished and do something worthwhile, like go to the bathroom. As in everything related to public extravaganzas, a certain soda pop figured prominently. There were montages, artfully meshed clips of films of yesteryear, live acts by Famous Talent, smart-ass jokes by Jon Stewart who was witty and quick, too witty, too quick, too eastern perhaps for the somewhat dim LA crowd. Both beautiful and household-name movie stars announced various prizes. None of the acting awards came Brokeback's way, you betcha. The prize, as expected, went to Philip Seymour Hoff-man for his brilliant portrayal of Capote, but in the months preceding the awards thing, there has been little discussion of acting styles and various approaches to character development by this year's nominees. Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don't know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?

Everyone thanked their dear old mums, scout troop leaders, kids and consorts. More commercials, more quick wit, more clapping, beads of sweat, Stewart maybe wondering what evil star had lighted his way to this labour. Despite the technical expertise and flawlessly sleek set evocative of 1930s musicals, despite Dolly Parton whooping it up and Itzhak Perlman blending all the theme music into a single performance (he represented "culchah"), there was a kind of provincial flavour to the proceedings reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night. Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this. There came an atrocious act from Hustle and Flow, Three 6 Mafia's violent rendition of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", a favourite with the audience who knew what it knew and liked. This was a big winner, a bushel of the magic gold-coated gelded godlings going to the rap group.

The hours sped by on wings of boiler plate. Brokeback's first award was to Argentinean Gustavo Santaolalla for the film's plangent and evocative score. Later came the expected award for screenplay adaptation to Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, and only a short time later the director's award to Ang Lee. And that was it, three awards, putting it on equal footing with King Kong. When Jack Nicholson said best picture went to Crash, there was a gasp of shock, and then applause from many - the choice was a hit with the home team since the film is set in Los Angeles. It was a safe pick of "controversial film" for the heffalumps.

After three-and-a-half hours of butt-numbing sitting we stumbled away, down the magnificent staircases, and across the red carpet. In the distance men were shouting out limousine numbers, "406 . . . 27 . . . 921 . . . 62" and it seemed someone should yell "Bingo!" It was now dark, or as dark as it gets in the City of Angels. As we waited for our number to be called we could see the enormous lighted marquee across the street announcing that the "2006 Academy Award for Best Picture had gone to Crash". The red carpet now had taken on a different hue, a purple tinge.

The source of the colour was not far away. Down the street, spreading its baleful light everywhere, hung a gigantic, vertical, electric-blue neon sign spelling out S C I E N T O L O G Y.

"Seven oh six," bawled the limo announcer's voice. Bingo.

For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays.



The reason I think it iwas writte by Proulx was because:
1) the thing on top mentioning her name
2) whoever wrote this was there
3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain#Roman_Catholic_Church 
If you scroll down to #33 it quotes her having said that bitin the article about the Award choosers.

It's an interesting article. What do you all think?

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Patriot1 on Apr 13, 2006, 09:15 PM

Quote from: The Ultimate Otaku on Apr 13, 2006, 03:54 PM

Here is an article, I BELIEVE written by Proulx, concerning "Crash" winning Best Picture instead of BBM.

... SNIP for brevity ...

It's an interesting article. What do you all think?

Yes, it is a very interesting article.  She is so correct also.  Thank you for providing it to us.

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: malawix on Jun 08, 2006, 07:53 AM

Did anyone see this before?

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi72.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F80005%2Foscarballot.jpg&hash=2310cc7ba5a46079754ef4580778c3b9fa428a7f)

I found it on the net after the Oscar. Too bad I do not remember in what site.  :-\\

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: *Froggy* on Jun 08, 2006, 03:06 PM

Quote from: malawix on Jun 08, 2006, 07:53 AM

Did anyone see this before?

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi72.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F80005%2Foscarballot.jpg&hash=2310cc7ba5a46079754ef4580778c3b9fa428a7f)

I found it on the net after the Oscar. Too bad I do not remember in what site.  :-\\

I saw this on IMDb...yes, it's odd..but after looking at it for an hour..I just thought..surely all the voting categories are the same, and therefore they know how to vote for best movie, just as well as best Actor, best director, best screenplay and so on...and funnily enough "that man" still won! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: Koka on Jun 08, 2006, 03:52 PM

Quote from: malawix on Jun 08, 2006, 07:53 AM

Did anyone see this before?

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi72.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F80005%2Foscarballot.jpg&hash=2310cc7ba5a46079754ef4580778c3b9fa428a7f)

I found it on the net after the Oscar. Too bad I do not remember in what site.  :-\\

I read in an article somewhere that that was only a joke meaning that's not what the real ballots looked like ( next to that pic was a pic of the REAL ballots so.... ).

Title: Re: Post-Oscar news coverage
Post by: hpv on Jun 09, 2006, 03:40 AM

Quote from: malawix on Jun 08, 2006, 07:53 AM

Did anyone see this before?

(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi72.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F80005%2Foscarballot.jpg&hash=2310cc7ba5a46079754ef4580778c3b9fa428a7f)

I found it on the net after the Oscar. Too bad I do not remember in what site.  :-

I heard that some of  the older academy voters never wanted to see BBM  :s)
but I'm sure that  they missed the button.. :s)   that old putz's