Posted on 03/06/2006 10:36:42 AM PST by mathprof
Also, the jokes may have played a part. I didn't see Brokeback but by now it's getting hard to take it seriously.
So much of the hype revolved around the gay theme, that it's hard to see what else the movie had going for it.
Crash wasn't that good, either. It meant well, but some of it was so simplistic and caricatured.
I know they tried to show complexity and ambiguity, but I don't quite think they succeeded.
Capote, though, was a great movie, and shouldn't be lumped in with the others. It was a very thoughtful, professional film. It wasn't a "gay" movie, just a movie who's main character happened to be homosexual.
Movie people defended this year's choices by saying that they didn't just want to give awards to the pictures that made the most money. They said they only wanted the "best" films and performances.
In this they missed the point their critics were making. Those who questioned the selections wanted more "family friendly" choices, not automatic nominations for the biggest blockbusters.
Beyond that though, none of these movies were real "outsider" efforts -- true low-budget, non-Hollywood productions. Those still don't get Best Picture nominations.
The thing about this year, though, was that you didn't have must-see "David Lean" type productions that combined big box office with artistic claims. Maybe next year.
I think they got tired of us predicting BM would win.
Kind of a "Nya-nya, shows what you know!" tantrum.
They are not cowboys, there are shepherds.
That one is in New Orleans.
I just can't believe we haven't heard of John Wayne haunting movie theaters where this awful movie has played :) Go Duke Go!!!
The love that dare not speak its name now doesn't know when to shut up.
Ya Think?
Wyoming: where the men are men, and the sheep are scared!
Two of my female friends who saw Brokeback thought it was garbage about a "love story". They wound up identifying with the wives of this sordid gay affair. One of them was grossed out with the anal sex scene. That crap scum movies like this have even a chance for an award is sickening.
No matter, they didn't look any more like sheepherders than cowboys.
"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.
"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."
Two problems with this farce of an article that reflect more on the sad state of journalism, than the equally said state of liberal Hollywood.
Based on the evidence provided in this article, the "Leading US critics" who "questioned whether Hollywood is yet ready to give its biggest prize to a gay love story" consists of (1) one of the screenwriters for Brokeback Mountain and two film critics, (2) one from the Washington Post and (3) one from the Los Angeles Times.
The writer started with a premise, a pre-conceived belief and then went out for whatever modicum of "facts" would lend themselves to that belief, no matter how slim, and no matter what contrary facts are out there.
And when is the opinion of a couple of film critics anymore than their personal opinion and no more informed than the piece of paper they write on? I think their opinion on this matter reflects only their own bias and their lack of knowledge that, in fact, more academy members may have simply, actually liked the film Crash better. When it goes against their own bias, their must be conspiracy somewhere.
I'd have paid cash money to see John Wayne's zombie stride across the satge and beat those jerks senseless.
The academy looked at their revenues and decided they better tone it down a little. Anti-racism, that's safe. Truman Capote is the kind of homosexual holliwood can handle, the funny Paul Lynde kind.
I'd have paid cash money to see John Wayne's zombie stride across the satge and beat those jerks senseless.
"Leading US critics" Rex Reed?
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