Sunday, March 05, 2006
Last Minute Oscar Prediction
If Brokeback Mountain doesn't win the Oscar for Best Picture, it will lose to Crash. That will mean that, in Hollywood, "racism" is the new "anti-Semitism" and movies about race relations are the new "movie about the Holocaust."
The corollary to this is that a gay-themed movie is the new "race relations" movie --coming in second to the preferred Academy sensibility.
UPDATE (11:40 P.M): Not to say I told you so, but, well, I told you so!
Jon Stewart was a great host -- perhaps the most "normal-guy" host since the late, great, Johnny Carson.
Balanced hugging Hollywood with well-timed pricks of its elitist sensibility. Best line: After a lenghty series of clips showing Hollywood "message" movies, Stewart dead-panned., "And after all of that, all of those problems have been solved."
Next best line: "For those keeping track--Martin Scorsese, no Oscars; 3-6 Mafia [raucus winners of "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" as Best Song], one Oscar."
UPDATE II (3/06/06, 2:00 A.M.): It should be kept in mind that another reason why Crash won is simple numbers: It was an L.A.-based "ensemble" movie, i.e., it employed more Hollywood actors in Hollywood, including also-rans as Ryan Phillipe (thank goodness the charming Reese Witherspoon didn't have a Hillary Swank/Boys Don't Cry moment and forget to thank her slightly less-talented husband). It makes sense that the Hollywood types would reward a "message" picture that keeps a lot of them in business.
UPDATE III (3/06/06, 3:00 A.M.): Run for your lives!!! We're very sorry, Mr. Wheaton! Really!!!
UPDATE IV: Slightly more "professional" analysis can be found here.
UPDATE V: Nikki Finke was pretty much dead-on with her own predictions. Good snapshot of the hypocrisies of Hollywood.
UPDATE VI: Speaking of hypocrisies, two things come to mind from George Clooney's wonderfully self-serving speech: 1) "We were honoring Hattie McDaniel with an Oscar when blacks could only see films in the balcony of theatres." Oh, right, I keep forgetting what a great advancement on race Gone With The Wind represented! Oh well, slightly better than the message of Birth of A Nation, I suppose. 2) Exactly how much of a social "advance" was the live perfomance and win of "It's So Hard Out Here Being A Pimp." Is that really something Clooney takes pride in as being happily "out of touch" with America? Ironically, the whole minstrel-show aspect almost made some of the over-the-top episodes in Crash seem reasonable.
Tags: movies, Oscars, Crash, Brokeback Mountain
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The corollary to this is that a gay-themed movie is the new "race relations" movie --coming in second to the preferred Academy sensibility.
UPDATE (11:40 P.M): Not to say I told you so, but, well, I told you so!
Jon Stewart was a great host -- perhaps the most "normal-guy" host since the late, great, Johnny Carson.
Balanced hugging Hollywood with well-timed pricks of its elitist sensibility. Best line: After a lenghty series of clips showing Hollywood "message" movies, Stewart dead-panned., "And after all of that, all of those problems have been solved."
Next best line: "For those keeping track--Martin Scorsese, no Oscars; 3-6 Mafia [raucus winners of "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" as Best Song], one Oscar."
UPDATE II (3/06/06, 2:00 A.M.): It should be kept in mind that another reason why Crash won is simple numbers: It was an L.A.-based "ensemble" movie, i.e., it employed more Hollywood actors in Hollywood, including also-rans as Ryan Phillipe (thank goodness the charming Reese Witherspoon didn't have a Hillary Swank/Boys Don't Cry moment and forget to thank her slightly less-talented husband). It makes sense that the Hollywood types would reward a "message" picture that keeps a lot of them in business.
UPDATE III (3/06/06, 3:00 A.M.): Run for your lives!!! We're very sorry, Mr. Wheaton! Really!!!
UPDATE IV: Slightly more "professional" analysis can be found here.
UPDATE V: Nikki Finke was pretty much dead-on with her own predictions. Good snapshot of the hypocrisies of Hollywood.
UPDATE VI: Speaking of hypocrisies, two things come to mind from George Clooney's wonderfully self-serving speech: 1) "We were honoring Hattie McDaniel with an Oscar when blacks could only see films in the balcony of theatres." Oh, right, I keep forgetting what a great advancement on race Gone With The Wind represented! Oh well, slightly better than the message of Birth of A Nation, I suppose. 2) Exactly how much of a social "advance" was the live perfomance and win of "It's So Hard Out Here Being A Pimp." Is that really something Clooney takes pride in as being happily "out of touch" with America? Ironically, the whole minstrel-show aspect almost made some of the over-the-top episodes in Crash seem reasonable.
Tags: movies, Oscars, Crash, Brokeback Mountain
