Oscars 2006

Everything was going fine in Oscars until Crash won the best picture. Boo academy. How can the best picture award go to Crash and directing to Ang Lee? I don't know even remember when was the last time awards were split up like this - Million dollar baby, Return of the King, Beautiful Mind, American Beauty all of these movies got best directing as well as best picture awards.

A crappy movie gets the best picture. damn!!! . Eddie - will you change your rating to 1.:)

--Ranjan

I'm delighted. I take great pleasure in poking fun at the Academy's predictable middlebrow tastes, and this year's win only provides more grist for my mill. I was hoping "Brokeback" would win both for merit, and because I wanted to hear the religious right shrieking about the "gay agenda." "Crash's" win will, however, provide another entertaining spectacle: the gnashing of teeth and righteous indignation of all the critics (and there were many, including me) who despised the film.

To all my fellow-"Crash" haters, I can only say, "Relax. It's not like somebody important gave the film a pat on the head; it's just the Academy. And they can't help it; they just don't know any better."

- EXTERNAL LINK -

By the way, the AMPAS likes to split Picture and Director more and more. This happened in 2000 when "Gladiator" won Picture but Soderbergh won Director for "Traffic". Poor Ang Lee--everyone thought that he was gonna win for directing "Crouching Tiger" that year.

Also, "Chicago" took Picture while Polanski took Director.

I want to see "Mission: Impossible 3" with Philip Seymour Hoffman talking the way he did in "Capote".

"A crappy movie gets the best picture. damn!!!"

I seriously disagree, I also have seen all five films, and have felt since the nominations that although I expected Brokeback to win, Crash was the far better movie.

Brokeback Mountain was a beautiful, emotional and affecting film, but to the average person, it was nothing more than a very nice romance movie with gay cowboys instead of the usual formula. Or, to put it simply, it didn't seem like much more than two guys hitching it up together in the mountains. It didn't have an enormous amount that the average person or voter could identify with.

Crash on the other head deals with issues that we all face from time to time and some of us evey day. It is evey bit as emotional and powerful as Brokeback, and still is a vital, fresh social commentary on a highly important modern issue. The reason why things were made so blatant in the film, I believe, is because how (or why) would you want to deal with a topic like racism, in a subtle manner? The ensemble cast was brilliant (SAG was deserved) and the direction was only a tiny notch below Ang Lee.

On balance, Crash was better than BBM, and if its Oscar hopes were seriously boosted by its last minutes screenings, then that is merely good marketing by the Crash producers, nothing more. For a movie that people claimed arrived in theatres "too early" to make in indelible mark at the oscars, well, it seems that the academy thought otherwise. Who woulda thought, Ebert gets it right!

unfortunately, race relations are not as simple as "crash" makes them seem to be. also, the acting was laughable, and the opening monologue was one of the worst speeches i've ever heard in my life.

"we're so disconnected that we have to get into car accidents." yes, that's exactly why we run our cars into other people's cars.

This is very big upset .
I thought "Brokeback" was a lock.
Everything else was more or less predictable except the Best Picture.

Their "In Memoriam" segment didn't even feature the recent late, great Don Knotts!

Surely they would have made the effort and taken the time to fit HIM in,
...as well as Dennis Weaver and Darrin McGavin....

The times we live in!

Haggis Delenda Est

Tim,

None of this has anything to do with whether or not Crash "deserved" its Best Picture; it only argues to the point of how the film was received by critics, and nothing more.



There were indeed many critic who disliked Crash - as your own numbers at Rotten Tomatoes point out. "Crash" is one of the lowest rated (by the tomato meter) films to win a Best Picture, more in line with picks such as Beautiful Mind and Gladiator, neither of which were strongly embraced by critics. As comparison points: Million Dollar Baby - 91%, LOTR: Return of the King - 95%, Chicago - 87%, A Beautiful Mind - 78%, Gladiator - 77%, American Beauty - 89%, Shakespeare in Love - 94%, Titanic - 86%, etc.

"Crash" was easily the most hotly debated of all the films this year, as witnessed by Ebert's constant dueling with the critics who were attacking the film. More to the point, only a handful of critics strongly supported the film: in the Village Voice poll of 103 critics, only 4 voted the film in their Top 10. The quotes included about the film in that poll were typical of the significant opposition to the film:

Crash offers a lesson on racism for those viewers who don't have to think about it, namely, white people. CYNTHIA FUCHS

So Paul Haggis gets his car jacked, and somehow this qualifies him to make the definitive drama on race? Arrogant and schematic, Crash's ensemble artifice was enough to make Grand Canyon look like Shadows. BEN KENIGSBERG

An overwrought exercise in after-school-special morality, Crash creates hollow statements about race without a shred of humanity. Resolutions come fast and furious—sprain your ankle, heal your prejudices, hug your Hispanic maid—letting audiences feel better about their own seemingly redeemable racism. ANTHONY KAUFMAN


Also recent articles by MSNBC critic Eric Lundegaard ("The ABC Oscars: Anything But Crash"), Jim Emerson and others continue the argument against the film over the weekend. Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir's recent comments were a bit more balanced:

Look, it's not like "Crash" is a war crime or something. A lot of the acting is quite good, and the honorable intentions of this achingly earnest sermon ("Racial Pain: Los Angeles, America, the World?") are obvious.... [But...] No one in this movie ever talks like an identifiable human being... This entire film is a spinach-flavored schematic, going from one overloaded symbolic encounter between angst-ridden people of different ethnicities to another.... You could say that "Crash" is aware of the ironies and contradictions of race in America, but that's literally the only thing it's aware of. It's grasping you by the lapels, like that uncle you generally avoid at family gatherings, and screaming into your face: "My God! The contradictions!"



It is fair to say that the critics who did not like the film truly despised it, and one could argue that this at least suggests the film has something going for it: not too many people threw up their shoulders and said "Eh, I don't care either way."

I’m not sure that I would go as far as to mention “many” critics didn’t like “Crash”. According to RT, only 23% of the critics didn’t like it; that’s about two out of every ten critics out there. With that in mind, I would have to say a “few” critics didn’t care for “Crash” as 77% of the others that did. So was “Crash” truly critically hated? I think not.

Comparing the theme importance next to “Brokeback Mountain” is also a ludicrous argument. Since when are racial issues not an important topic? And between both films, it isn’t as though no film maker has ever NOT approached the gay or racial issue. Granted, most people might see two cowboys as being gay a little odd and it’s possible that Lee was going for a bit of a shock factor, and I find this just doesn’t work for me. If promoting the acceptance of the gay culture in a non-gay world was the message, then yawn and pass me a cup of coffee so I can wake up. I don’t find it interesting because I can barely relate with it. “Crash”, however, deals with issues I can relate with because all of us have been faced with them at some point in our lives.

As far as the nominated films go, I’m pretty much in agreement with John’s picks this year. I, too, was far more fond of “The Constant Gardener” and found “Good Night & Good Luck” a far better film than Brokeback or Crash. I would not say the acting in “Crash” was bad but I would admit the plots were way too contrived for their own good. Nevertheless, I don’t feel it was an awful movie nor do I feel it was one of the greats. The film worked for many people, and it apparently worked for Hollywood and there’s nothing anyone can do about it but gripe. So, with that in mind, what’s the point?

Timmy:D;)

don knotts and dennis weaver died this year, not in 2005. the "in memoriam" montage was for 2005.

[Post edited by posters5 on Mar 7, 2006]

Brokeback has been over-rated since day one because of it's gay characters. And in 1998, Speilberg won best director and Shakespeare In Love was best picture. Crash absolutely deserved it.

Don Knotts will be in the running next year for Oscar's least publicized but most coveted award: "Dead Person Who Gets Most Applause During Memoriam Montage."

Richard Pryor was in a dead heat with Shelley Winters for the award this year. We'll need to go to the replay to determine the final winner.

I don't ever recall seeing Madeline Kahn in one of the in memoriam montages. This was some years back but I remember being upset that she wasn't included.

Michael

montages are compiled months in advance so that the academy can obtain clearances from the clips' rights holders. you don't futz around with a montage close to a live showing because a) you don't want to disrupt an already settled-upon editing rhythm and b) you don't have time to mess with lawyers days before a live event.

Shelley Winters died last January and SHE was featured...

..so WHAT GIVES?!

Hey John:

..maybe he'll die LAUGHIN' after he picks up his Oscar paycheck...
:)

Oh, my gosh, is Jon Stewart about to die, too?

John

Jack's popularity MAY VERY WELL dictate that the Oscar staff WILL rush to get the rights to put him in the montage -
- and I'll go as far to say that they WILL do this - even should he kick just ONE DAY before a yearly telecast!

Should he kick the same MORNING as an Oscar telecast, I believe they WILL
put together something quick...

Heh, should Jack kick DURING an Oscar telecast...well, THAT would be a first -
- I believe they would stop the broadcast - maybe!

I'm going to write a letter to the Academy and hope to get 'something' to explain all this...

Let's all drop this topic like a bad habit now, and discuss...er, JON STEWART!

I think they may have had the clips for Shelly Winters ready years ago. Let's face it, she was old, fat and overweight, so she was bound to go at any time.

Timmaaaaaay!!! :D

I can kind of see both sides of this argument. I'm wondering, if Jack Nicholson dies 2 weeks before an oscar telecast, is he going to be included in the montage? If so, at what point do you draw the line? Does his popularity dictate that the oscar staff rush to get the rights to put him in the montage. I'm not sure if the whole, 'they need to get the rights' argument holds water. Surely they rush to get the rights if someone like Nicholson dies. I don't mean to add more fuel to this already out of control fire but I thought I'd add how I thought. Thanks

Michael

Shookie,

Scolding is an Eddie kind of thing, not a DVDTown Staff thing. I swear. :)

I think the answer to your question is a simple one. Shelley Winters died more than a month before the telecast, Don Knotts just a week and a half before. There's a big difference between the two. Same for Dennis Weaver. It really does take time to clear all the rights for the clips and to edit the entire montage as well as the music for the montage. Heck, it can take time just to make sure we have the rights for a screenshot to post at the site.

I have Doc-tor...
...and BTW, it's 'a dead PERSON'...not 'PEOPLE' - - so get that straight...

..and I would suggest since it's your JOB to review DVD's that YOU do the same.

(geez, ask a simple [but SMART] question here and these staff TRY to ridicule you....how humorously quaint!)

you're getting awfully worked up over dead people. here's a suggestion--watch a couple of dvds with don knotts, and we'll all agree that you've given him a fitting memorial. don't forget to applaud every time he shows up on your tv screen.

People, People, People!

First of all, I'm NOT angry, but mildly disappointed - as odds are good there were also MANY others
who watched this year's telecast and were hoping for SOME kind of traditional professionalism.
My gripe is ONLY about the Academy not acknowledging KNOTTS in this year's memoriam - period.

The elaborations in my opinion here may appear to look like I'm roiled and miffed,
-but don't 'scold' me on your assumption that it appears I do not know how the corporate world works - I DO!

Second: Yunda, your examples re Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui are well noted, and I
certainly and fully understand how studio rights and legal issues play in terms of this issue...

..but I truly don't believe THAT to be any, if not actually being THE, ultimate excuse
towards not having my question given a simple and straightforward answer here...

All I'm asking is that if Shelley Winters was included because of the close timing, why wasn't Knotts?
Can the Academy give us an answer/reason here? ....or will we never know?

..most typically, and because of not being on the inside of it all, it will be the latter.

Any rate, let's CEASE this discussion of the issue here as I've made my point.
Whether you agree or disagree, it's well documented that a vast majority gave THIS year's
Oscar telecast - a permanent and serious black eye for years to come.

Shookie, Shookie, Shookie,

As much as I love to argue with Eddie and disagree with him at every turn I get, and I do, I reluctantly have to agree with him on this one. It really is a matter of studio rights along with an entire slew of legal issues. Even in small business the issues of copyright material is taken very serious and it’s just the way the corporate world works these days. The blame truly is in the way the studios have everything tied up in their own legal system, and due to this, nothing can be done over night.

Timmaaaaaay!!!! :)

Shookie,

Actors don't typically own the footage that they appear in. You need to get clearances from the people who own footage that is publicly shown. Also, tens of thousands of "famous" or "important" moviemakers die each year. How many of them can you feature in two to five minutes? Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui weren't featured in any Oscar "In Memoriam" clips, but their contributions to cinema were pretty damn memorable. Still, I'm not shedding crocodile tears.

Instead of getting angry, try to understand the facts that govern the real world. As nice as it is for you to want to commemorate dead people, bear in mind that your anger is not helping anyone (not to mention the fact that your latest post became increasingly incoherent).

Eddie

She WASN'T - same goes for Peggy Lee and Lawrence Tierney -
- and the Academy should kick themselves in their butts until they do!

It's not a question of disrupting or 'messing-with' the show's laborers and lawyers,
but ONLY of broadcast professionalism by the show producers re the decision-making, timing and scrutiny
for this very heartfelt montage that should always feature the actor/actress that hath 'recently' died
(even within weeks before the telecast) for saving and preserving their memory in
people's living minds re the essential loss of the star, and all that they've left us.

Certainly if the actor kicks within (say) one week before the show, that's right on the border -
..but even a little over 2 weeks prior to air - as was in the untimely death of Knotts...
-what, the show's producers don't have ANY time to pull their heads out of sand?

IMHO, all involved with putting together Oscar's telecast have got it azz-backwards;
- they're asking all the questions FIRST - and THEN go on doing the shooting.

You say the Academy has to obtain clearances thru lawyers to show clips?

- what, a dead actor's kin is actually going to SUE for the telecast of a 5-second clip?
- what, Winters predicted in her will she'd die 7 weeks before an Oscar broadcast?

..and 'Editing Rhythms'? - let's sympathize:

- How painstaking is it to insert a last-minute/5-second clip in the montage from their digital editing rooms?

I can imagine behind the scenes at NEXT year's telecast - hosted by Oprah - (GOD!)
- and the memoriam segment showing Knotts..with director Ron Howard passing away just two weeks before the broadcast (perish the thought, but just as an example):

..DRAT, the show's editors just couldn't put Howard in because of time/legal restraints...
..OH, a major factor: the montage HAS to be in alphabetical order...
..GOSH, if there's no last names with an I or a J, maybe get a Mayberry scene with the two together...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Folks, if the Academy keeps employing inept producers that shut their eyes so nobody can see them,
then PLEASE, BY ALL MEANS - tune in for Oscar on the TV each year; till death do you part -
- It'll continue to feature ALL the magnanimous presentations to enrich your brains for eternal cynicalness.

I e-mailed the Academy on the issues regarding their "In Memoriam" segment
and they found that my inquiries were "...too vauge to answer...", and that they
"...will feature Mr Knotts in the 2007 telecast..."

Seems they've got more on their minds now - the memoriam segment notwithstanding.

i was just watching some episodes of "three's company". i was tempted to applaud when don knotts appeared on the tv screen, but there was plenty of pre-recorded laughter and applause on the soundtrack.

I'm guessing that "too vague to answer" really means they got so many complaints about people they missed in the segment that they don't want to answer.

John