Some Thoughts About The Oscars

It seems that what was happening was awards were going to a lot of newcomers. I don't think any of the 4 acting winners had ever been nominated before (Clooney, maybe? The others, definitely not). Ang Lee had only been nominated for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon before, and had not won. Etc. etc. So it was sort of a passing of the torch year. It was also, it seems some sort of a spread the wealth around year, like sometimes seems to happen. When there's no big juggernaut film, nobody's a big winner, and the Academy seems to like to give everyone something, kind of like bringing cupcakes to every kid in the entire first grade class so that no one feels left out.

Clooney himself said, when he won Best Supporting Actor, that he had not won for Director (for Good Night and Good Luck, which I think was completely shut out), and he was right.

I had a strong notion just before the event that the Academy would spread out the awards and Ang Lee would win and "Brokeback Mountain" would not. Of course, anyone can take it or leave it.

John Stewart I think did a great job and kept getting better as the show went on but I missed the political snipes.

I thought the majority of it was boring. I kept flipping back and forth to see if there was anything else decent to watch.

The only thing I was genuinely happy about was to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman win Best Actor since I think he is superb and I love him.

Since I had not seen ANY of the movies, my impressions are only of the hype I've heard. I've no idea what Crash was about. I'd like to see Capote. Brokeback Mountain was so oversold and harped about that I will never watch it. Walk the Line might be okay but Joaquin Phoenix's surly face last night put me off seeing it. I didn't realize it until Reese won, but I'd been hoping that Felicity Huffman would win Best Actress. The rest I don't care about.

From what I know of "Crash" it sounds like an extremely L.A. film. I saw a theory somewhere that the majority of the Academy members live in L.A., and that had an effect -- I could believe it.

Phoenix, I know, that Lily Tomlin/ Meryl Streep thing was weird. What was worse is that I think it wasn't actually impromptu -- it was scripted, except for one aside by Lily about getting Meryl's laugh.

The "It's hard out here for a pimp" crew were a highlight, they were just so excited and so many people in the audience were laughing in an "I'll be damned" kind of way.

Jon Stewart had some good moments, I loved the quip that went something like, after Adam Sandler came out in a special-effects green spandex suit, it's nice to have confirmation that he's Jewish. Heh.

I liked the schtick between Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep. It was very much in the style of Robert Altman, who they were paying tribute to.

That was Ben Stiller in the green suit, Soz, and I didn't get Stewart's remark. Maybe I wasn't looking close enough (Ben Stiller gives me the creeps) but was that a crack about him being circumcised?

I'm still chuckling about "Pimp."

I think Crash is a powerful, meaningful movie that did some more profound things with characterizations of racial situations than I remember seeing before.

I think Hustle and Flow is very unique and felt genuine, and I'm glad 3-6 Mafia won for that song.

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman. Haven't seen Capote, but I've been a fan of Hoffman's for years and don't doubt he deserved it.

I think its interesting that some folks feel totally comfortable coming to conclusions about films having never seen them.

I didn't see Brokeback, but I don't like anything to be hyped that much.

Terence Howard is going to do great things in th movies.

Ben Stiller, right. Yeah, it was the implication that the suit was so tight that you could see that he was circumcised. (I didn't actually see anything.)

The schtick was certainly thematically appropriate but the actual material and execution wasn't that great, I thought -- it picked up towards the end.

One thing about "Brokeback" is that it got so many awards before the Oscars rolled around -- I dunno when people actually vote, with academy awards, but they have this sort of balance fetish, it seems. Like, if someone has been nominated for an award 5 times and has been narrowly beat out each time, they'll award it to him the 6th time whether he was actually deserving for that particular performance or not. So if the voting happened recently enough, I could see that there would be a bit of a backlash. Like, "Yeah yeah yeah we know, 'Brokeback' is like soooo great and everything, but it already has all of these awards, let's mix things up a bit."

Brokeback Mountain is a very good film, but not awesome. Good and hyped, but not a cinch.

The idea of an "anti-gay" bias is as fair as the idea of a "Pro-Mosad" or "Pro-Israeli government" bias against the film Munich (which I think is a better picture than Brokeback).

Hey, but what can you expect if Sin City wasn't even nominated?

Agree on both counts.

I've had my eye on him (Terence Howard) for a long time. Trying to remember where I first noticed him, in fact. Hmm. (Off to Google.)

We felt the same and made the comment while watching it about how it seemed so 'L.A.'.

Okay, so what does "so L.A." mean?

The screenwriter and "co-winner" of the best picture and best screenplay oscars is originally a native of London, Ontario, so CBC has been giving this a lot of air time. They interviewed the screenwriter and broadcast the interview today. He basically said that he had been in a road rage incident, and had been lead to wonder if the other party goes home and abuses his wife and kids because of his anger, and that he was thereby lead to write the story which he expanded into the screenplay. Although i'm not certain that it was his intent, he seemed to me to be saying that the screenplay was about L.A. and the cultural milieu there, as opposed to a universal statement about humanity. I think he maybe meant to say it was "everyman" material, but he kept referring to aspects of life in L.A.

Aspects like what? The only part I can think of that wouldn't readily translate into any big city in the US was the white producer telling the black director how a black person should talk. That environment would almost have to be Hollywood.

Of course, I assume that others actually saw the movie.

I was unable to link a page with a transcript for the interview, or an audio link for it, but i've had that problem before. If i remember, i'll try to do that tomorrow, when the program (Free Style, CBC Radio One) will be archived. If i remember . . . it was a very interesting interview--he was the screenplay writer for Thirty Something years ago, and for Million Dollar Baby . . .

There was a passage in which he described two black UCLA students approaching a video store. One turns to the other and asks if he's noticed how the white folks are reacting apprehensively to their arrival. He then says they are the ones who should be worried, because they are the only black people in a crowd of "over-caffeinated" white folks, and the LA police are known for their violent treatement of blacks. They then rob a couple coming out of the video store, and the husband speculates that it is because they were waiting and waiting for the movie they had checked out, but kept missing it, so they robbed this couple to get the video of that movie. That certainly is an odd perspective, and the screenwriter mentioned in the inteview that when he and his wife were once mugged outside a video store, that was how he speculated on motive to the police, whom i recall weren't buying it.

"Crash" won for its ensembled cast of big stars and a tight, innovative script -- I'm certain it was close but this was the year of passing around Oscars to honor the top two films. It's happened before as a director getting the big one and then not getting best movie. I think Matt Dillon winning for supporting was the tip of the scales. "Brokeback Mountain" is a difficult film to judge and the director deserves all the awards he has received. I bet he appreciates winning the top Spirit prize just as much as the Oscar as that voting body are fellow small film makers. He set out to make a small art film -- the hype is in its controversial subject even though it has been in movies before, they weren't the best movies with top stars.

What we meant by 'so L.A.' was in reference to the difference in culture between L.A. and other large cities we've visited. The rich District Attorney's wife and how she treats her maid, the Persian shopkeeper and his disdain for hispanics, the black cop screwing his Cuban/Haitian (I believe) partner and telling his mother he was screwing a Mexican to make her mad, the black men in the all-white area, the lack of anyone who didn't have an agenda all made it seem very LA.

I've spent some time in LA, Miami, NYC, Boston, and currently live near Chicago. LA is very LA (which doesn't describe it at all, I realise) which is different than the culture of any other city I'm familiar with.

I liked the movie, agreeing with Phoenix that it was good, not great. I do think the environment was more typical of what I think of as LA more than other cities and I don't think it would have been as effective/believable if it had been set elsewhere.

That's a pretty good summary, J_B.

I've lived in L.A. but haven't seen "Crash", so can only comment on the L.A. part.

What J_B makes me think of, though, is one of the things that made me decide I loved Columbus. When we first came here for a visit, we were hungry when we got off the plane and stopped at the foodcourt at the airport to get something to eat. I was looking at the menu, you know, illuminated photos and items that is displayed up high behind the people who take your order, and was taking a while, couldn't decide what to eat. Eventually I became aware that there was a person almost directly in my line of sight, and he seemed to think I was looking at him. He was black, and in L.A. mode, I immediately shifted to damage control -- ****, that guy thought I was staring at him, and now he's about to confront me about it and he's not going to buy that I was just looking at the menu... then I saw the guy's expression. It was mild amusement and a sort of "can I help you?" I smiled sheepishly and gestured at the menu, he made a little "a-ha" motion and smiled bigger, then turned away. That was that.

That happened over and over again on our visit, people were comfortable. Friendly. The fault lines that are in plain sight in L.A. (and not just black/white, at all; there's white/Mexican, Mexican/black, Mexican/non-Mexican Latino [like El Salvadorean], rich/poor, and on and on) just weren't as much of an issue here. I'm not saying it's a Utopia, it's not. But of all the places I've lived, it has the best atmosphere of embracing diversity, recognizing differences but being comfortable with them.

L.A. is not a comfortable place. It probably can't be until significant existing injustices are rectified, and that process isn't and shouldn't necessarily be a pretty one. But it's tense tense tense.