3/5/06

Shame on you Academy

When watching Crash I felt as though somebody was beating me over the heard with a large hammer labled "Racism." I think it is fairly certain that this will go down as one of the worst years in Oscar History. First of all, there was a lack of stellar films (there was one that was stellar, and one that was very good). The entire thing was horrendously predictable (not that you can tell from my predictions) and the mother of them all...Crash won best picture. Can somebody wake me up and tell me that it is still Sunday morning and the Oscars haven't happened yet? While Crash does have its merits (for instance, the car rescue scene and Thandie Newman's performance) it does not have enough of them to merit a win for best picture. I truly do not understand how people actually liked this movie. It really was torture for me to watch it. The writing was horrible (and it won best screenplay?) parading around a bunch of racist people does not make an intelligent movie. Show us something original, show us a story that touches people. Brokeback Mountain: possibly the biggest snub in Oscar History. Not only was it a compact and smart film; it featured some of the best performances of the year (Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway...oh wait, that's every character in the movie) it was beautifully shot and accompanied by a spectacular score (which was justly rewarded). After a night where the Academy continually kept celebrating how smart and progressive they are, wouldn't it have only made sense to award a smart and progressive film like Brokeback Mountain? A film that puts two men in the place of a usual hetero relationship to prove the point that their love is the same as any other? Yes, the love story of Brokeback Mountain is no different than what other movies have done time and time again, but it made it fresh and new and exciting. And thank you to the conservative media that made this happen. Brokeback was fine until you came around and made up this non-existent face-off between it and Crash. Brokeback was the most celebrated film of the year. Brokeback was the most talked about film of the year. Brokeback was the most subtle film of the year. But you couldn't deal with the gay people, so you gave a huge boost to the audience pleaser that was Crash and ruined it for everybody. Shame on you Academy...shame shame shame... [end rant]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, how I agree with you on this on.

No wait. Come one, let's crash into each other so we can feel something.

Brokeback Mountain was robbed. What a shame. Indeed.