A Calmer Reaction to the 2005 Oscars

After getting back from going to my friend's wedding and having a few days to think about it, I've calmed down a bit now, and here are my thoughts.

Well, the Oscars were certainly at least one thing I was not expecting: completely and utterly unpredictable. At least in the most important category. I thought I would get 8 out of 8 in the major categories for the 2nd year in a row for sure. It looked like, for the fourth time in the last ten years, we had a sure-fire lock for best picture. This wasn't the case. Instead of being very boring, these will perhaps go down as one of the most controversial Oscar years in history.

I'd like to address the Best Picture issue, but first I would like to mention a few things, in case people got the wrong impression from my previous post (which I will delete, as I was angry at the time):

1) I thought Crash was a good movie. Infact it was number one on my charts for over three months.
2) I think it is legitimate that someone likes Crash more than Brokeback Mountain. We all have our specific tastes. Just like I liked The New World, The Constant Gardener, The Squid and the Whale, and Junebug more than any of the movies that were even nominated for best picture.
3) I do not think that someone who does not like Brokeback Mountain is homophobic.

The reason why I thought Brokeback Mountain was a better movie than Crash was that it simply affected me more emotionally. It is a very moving story of self-inflicted loneliness, heartbreak, and people living a lifestyle when it was socially unacceptable and even dangerous to do so. Crash on the other hand, while dealing with a very important issue (racism), did not address it in the correct way. There are few people anymore who are extremely and overtly racist (at least in the areas of the country where I'd like to live) like the characters portrayed in this movie. I think it would have been much more powerful if it had dealt with the real issue: subtle racism. People who are racist without even realizing it, who think they are on board with the progressive movement on the issue but help further its existence every day. The movie simply failed in this regard. So despite the fact that I liked the movie, I don't think it attacked the issue from the right direction.

Now, my commentary:

Besides the fact that Brokeback Mountain was my favorite movie out of the five nominees and I wanted it to win, I was displeased with the outcome at the Oscars for a few reasons. You might say "well, maybe people simply liked Crash more?"

Then, what I want to know is why Brokeback Mountain received the following best picture awards (there are more than these, but I don't have them on hand right now):

British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
Venice Film Festival
Golden Globe Drama
Independent Spirit Awards
Golden Satellite Awards
The Producers Guild of America
The Directors Guild of America
Writers Guild of America (Adapted)
Broadcast Film Critics Association
LA Film Critics Association
NYC Film Critics Association
British Film Institute - Sight and Sound
London Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics
Southeastern Film Critics
Boston Film Critics
Vancouver Film Critics
Online Film and Television Association
Cinephile Society
Internet Entertainment Writers Association
Florida Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Las Vegas Film Critics
Iowa Film Critics
St Louis Film Critics
Utah Film Critics

This is an unprecedented number of wins for one single movie to receive in a given year. Even heavy favorites such as Titanic, or American Beauty, or The Return of the King did not receive such widespread and universal acclaim across almost every award given out for the year. In order to find a movie that did, you have to go all the way back to 1993, with Schindler's List. I can't even imagine the uproar and furor that would have resulted had that ended up losing Best Picture to The Fugitive.

Crash, on the other hand, won the following awards during the season:

Chicago Film Critics
Screen Actors Guild of America Ensemble Cast Award
Writers Guild of America (Original)
Independent Spirit Best First Picture

Basically, if a movie wins the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, the Golden Globe Best Drama, the BAFTA, the movie is going to win best picture. Many of the same people who vote for the DGA, PGA, BAFTA also vote for the Oscars. What could have happened here?

1) The previous awards BBM got were flawed in the first place because it was this massive frontrunner and people conceded their vote. Once people started hearing Crash had a chance at the Oscars they changed their mind and voted for it. I seriously doubt this, people don't automatically vote for what they think is going to eventually win Best Picture at the Oscars. It is very rare for one movie to have a sweep like Brokeback Mountain did, it usually goes to several different movies. For example, last year The Aviator won the Golden Globe Drama and the BAFTA, Million Dollar Baby won the DGA, and Sideways won many of the critics association awards.

2) The acting branch made a huge, I mean, really huge difference. This is the one branch of Oscar voters that don't show up as well in the precursor awards. How could this have helped Crash? There were so many people in the movie, and they and all their friends, etc, could’ve gone for it. Jon Stewart even made a joke during the show, “please raise your hand if you were NOT in ‘Crash’ ? If this is the case, were people really voting for what they felt was the best movie or were they voting for their friends?

3) The stuff I read before the Oscars is actually true. People didn’t even bother to watch BBM because of the content and voted for either A) whatever they liked best or B) whatever they thought had the best chance of winning. Except for a couple of special categories, you are *not* actually required to see all of the nominees. I read several articles about Oscar voters saying they were not planning on watching Brokeback Mountain due to the content of the movie before the awards, but I did not take it as a serious threat to the movie actually losing. Unfortunately I think this may have been a major help.

4) The Los Angeles factor. The movie was made in, was about, and employed many people in the area. Probably half the voters or more knew somebody who had something to do with the movie. Brokeback Mountain on the other hand, was a smaller scale film shot in Canada with little ties to Hollywood.

5) Crash is a vote for a liberal cause that can make Hollywood types happy without threatening their industry by angering middle America. As a liberal, I was waiting for the ranting that people like Pat Robertson would spout out that Hollywood is attempting to demoralize America. Maybe people were afraid of this affecting their industry.

6)Despite all the talk about Hollywood being on "the fringe" (I am quoting George Clooney's acceptance speech here), people were afraid of awarding a movie that would turn into a "cause" movie so early into the battle over the issue. Gay rights issues are going on every day right now, with constitutional amendment bans in the Red states, and people fighting for their rights. Despite the fact that I do not think Brokeback Mountain is an "issue" movie, but rather a tragic love story about people who happen to be gay, I think that this could have happened. Giving the "gay cowboy movie" the most prestigious movie award there is would be a slap in the face to those on the other side of the fence, outwardly taking sides in a battle that is still largely being fought.

7) Homophobia. Between the people who refused to watch the movie, to the people who may have been afraid of awarding the movie with its contents the big prize. Now I do *not* equate this with bigotry, if you look up the definition of homophobia, it is:

ho·mo·pho·bi·a
n.
1) Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2) Behavior based on such a feeling.

The key word here is fear. Fear of watching a movie about two men because it is unfamiliar to you and against the tenets with which you have been raised. Fear of the ramifications of what might happen by giving an award to a movie about gays praise and giving it Hollywood's stamp of legitimization. Fear of a number of things. I personally believe a lot of that was involved with this win, and you may disagree. I have even been told that I might be suffering from liberal-white-straight-male guilt on this issue. It is possible I suppose, but I do not think so.

Now, I disagree with the Oscars best picture almost every year. Since 1994, I have only agreed with the winner (based on the nominees) one time. I have agreed with the winner based on all movies released that year zero times. So being disappointed is not anything new to me. However, I usually think it is just a matter of (in my opinion) bad taste. I don't think that was it this time. I don't think the majority of voters really thought Crash was the Best Picture of the year, and I think a number of them didn't even give the movie a chance by watching it.

What is really too bad about this whole thing is that this is going to go down as one of the worst decisions on record for the Oscars. Do people remember Rocky as a great movie because it won Best Picture? It is a great movie (despite the fact that the sequels were quite awful), however people remember that moment much more because it lost to Taxi Driver, a (in most people's minds) far superior movie. This does a disservice to Crash, a good movie, because it will now be remembered in a less than positive light because of what happened at the ceremony.

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Now on to the other categories:

Best Director: At least Ang Lee won. And usually when there is a split between Picture and Director, the movie that wins director is better (the last time this happened was when Chicago won Best Picture but The Pianist took Best Director).

Best Actor: I am glad that Phillip Seymour Hoffman won, he is one of my favorite actors. I think perhaps Joaquim Phoenix or Heath Ledger deserved it more, but any of the three of them are good enough for me. Ralph Fiennes should have been nominated.

Best Actress: I would have preferred Keira Knightley to win this, but it was never going to happen. I am glad that Reese Witherspoon won over Felicity Huffman, who I thought gave an average performance in a bad movie (Transamerica). The other three people did not even deserve to be nominated. This was my least favorite category of the night, my top three choices for the year weren't even nominated, and it was by far the weakest category of the night. Naomi Watts should have been nominated.

Best Supporting Actor: Like I've said in previous posts, I think Clooney got this one as a consolation prize because there was no way he was going to win for Best Director or Best Original Screenplay. Personally I think Jake Gyllenhaal deserved it based on who was nominated, but considering that Jeff Daniels was not an available choice I am not so concerned with who won here.

Best Supporting Actress: The one choice of the night I was happiest with. Despite the fact that I actually thought Amy Adams gave a better performance, I consider them so close together (a virtual tie) that I would've been glad with either. As long as it wasn't any of the other three, who had few good scenes or gave average performances at best.

Best Original Screenplay: I am okay with Crash winning this. While I would have liked to have seen The Squid and the Whale win, I knew it would not, so this would have been my second choice.

Best Adapted Screenplay: I wanted and am glad that Brokeback Mountain won this.

Best Animated Film: I think Howl's Moving Castle was robbed. Hayao Miyazaki is so far ahead of everyone else's league in in the animation department it is ridiculous. At least he has already won for Spirited Away.

Best Documentary: I would have liked to see Murderball win this. To be honest I wasn't that enthralled with March of the Penguins. Addtionally, I am really wondering why Grizzly Man was not even nominated.

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The good of the rest:

1) George Clooney's speech: Despite the fact that the outcome of the awards seems to contradict his speech, it was a great thing to say. And I like speeches where people do not personally thank everyone they know. I am proud to be on the fringe too.

2) Jon Stewart hosting: A big improvement over the hosts of previous years.

3) The fake campaign clips: Hilarious

The bad of the rest:

1) The constant pleading for people to see the movies on the big screen. You know what? I do see movies on the big screen, all the time. You don't need to tell me to go. But if you really want to improve your audience, maybe you should improve your product. As well, maybe you should think about reintroducing short cartoons to play before every movie instead of making everybody sit through ten minutes of commercials for a movie that they paid up to ten dollars for.

2) The masturabatory self-congratulating film montages. Do I really need to see a tribute to film noir? To epic movies? To movies that advocated a cause (and including a low-rent movie like The Day After Tomorrow in that montage was pretty hilarious to me) ? I don't think so.

3) Despite the fact that I didn't like the win, cutting off Robert Moresco in the middle of the final acceptance speech to end the show was just classless.

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My prediction scores (from a previous post):

Here's how I did:
Major Categories: 7/8 (everything but Crash for Best Picture)
Specialty Film Categories: 3/3
Technical Categories: 6/8 (missed Editing and Cinematography)
Original Music Categories: 0/2
Short Film Categories: 0/3

Total: 16/24. Not too bad really. The short film and music categories are pretty much impossible to predict reliably, so I really feel like I got 16/19.

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Total Win Tally:
Crash 3 (Picture, Original Screenplay, Editing)
Brokeback Mountain 3 (Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score)
King Kong 3 (Visual FX, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing)
Memoirs of a Geisha 3 (Art Direction, Costumes, Cinematography)
Capote 1 (Actor)
Walk the Line 1 (Actress)
Syriana 1 (Supporting Actor)
The Constant Gardener 1 (Supporing Actress)
Wallace and Gromit 1 (Animated Film)
March of the Penguins 1 (Documentary Film)
Tsotsi 1 (Foreign Language Film)
The Chronicles of Narnia 1 (Makeup)
Hustle and Flow 1 (Original Song)

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So, to sum up, the ceremony was to me what the year in movies was to me: disappointing. Hopefully next year we will get a higher quality group of movies again and maybe the awards won't annoy me as much as they usually do next year. We'll see.