I sit here, wiping the blood from my eyes, trying to fight off flashbacks to the 2004 election, wondering just how things went so wildly wrong.
Of the 24 Academy Awards categories, I successfully predicted 18 winners, which puts me at an even 75% accuracy. At the start of the show, I had guessed I would hit 20 of 24, since I didn't expect to sweep, but I did think I had made reasonably smart decisions. Ang Lee was a lock for best director, in a year that saw all five best picture and director nominees match up for the first time since 1981. Likewise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, George Clooney, and Rachel Weisz all seemed like the strongest contenders in their categories, and I was right.
And then Crash had to come along and ruin my entire day.
For those who haven't seen it, or for those who have seen it and are simply a little slow, Crash is a cheesy, ham-fisted melodrama that makes Peter Jackson look like Wim Wenders. It's bloated, predictable, filled with flat characters, and unpleasant to watch. It's a tale about racism that never stops reminding you in bright colors and monosyllabic words and arbitrary plot points that you are watching a movie about racism, and it's your duty to be moved by the film. If not, you don't understand it. It's a movie for people who don't understand enough about movies to pick a good one from a fake one; it's the cinematic equivalent of Ayn Rand, a film for posers and wannabes and that guy in your philosophy class who thinks he's on the ball but pronounces the first "s" in "Descartes."
I'm literally at a loss. I'm monumentally disappointed that Crash won over the powerful Capote, the amazing Good Night, and Good Luck, the thought-provoking Munich, and above all, the phenomenal Brokeback Mountain. In a year when the new version of independent film (small budgets, big names) seemed to be everywhere, Brokeback balanced an emotional story, a solid cast and crew, a well-written script, and an eye to the cultural zeitgeist to become something bigger than the sum of its parts. It's more than a film; it's an idea about where film is heading.
But, like I said, Paul Haggis pretty much screwed that up.
There were some nice surprises in the evening, including the best song win for Hustle & Flow, and there were some bad surprises, like Brokeback losing the cinematography award to Memoirs of a Geisha, a truly insipid period piece that was luck to win for costume design and art direction. And, of course, Jon Stewart was a great host.
But man, this stings. This hurts. I'm reminded of Titanic winning best picture over L.A. Confidential, As Good As It Gets, and Good Will Hunting. Except that was a bad romance beating out legitimate human dramas, and tonight's awards feel like we're taking a cultural step backward. Other films were better, but the Crash DVD is going to have the best picture sticker on the box at Wal-Mart, and that hurts.
Anyway.
Below is my list of predictions and the actual winners. Overall, I'd say I did pretty well, and except for the best picture heartbreaker, I'm pretty happy with the results. The Sis made predictions in 22 of the 24 categories, and most of our picks were the same. (She excluded animated short film and live-action short film.) I got 17 of those 22 correct, and she went 15 for 22. Sis, I accept cash or check.
Best Picture
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain.
Winner: Crash. more »
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Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
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Sunday, March 5
This Just In: Oscar Still A Pretty Stupid Little Guy
by
Dan Carlson
on Sun 05 Mar 2006 09:36 PM PST
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Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
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