Well, the news is out. I was pretty happy with all the awards -- except best picture. Crash, I thought, was lucky to even get nominated...a good movie, just not in the same league as any of the other four. In my most objective mindset I just don't see it being the best film of the year.

Any other feelings about the winners?

I heard somewhere that Crash had a big-time advertising push for best pic winner. Could that have been the deciding factor? This is a rare time when I simply did not like the best picture-winning film. Almost anything would have been better. But hey, at least now we will all learn something about "tolerance."

argh, I picked 5 out of 6 right. Pretty much everything I wanted to win won, (Hoffman, Witherspoon, Ang Lee, Clooney, Wallace & Gromit). As for Crash, I think it was a great movie, but I wouldn't say best movie of the year. Brokeback should have won the big one.

Crash will go down in history as one of the worst Best Picture winners, if not the worst.

My second best movie of the year Crash (after North Country) won Best Picture. I'm quite happy tonight.

I am very happy that CRASH won. It was my last year's best, after Syriana and Cache. I liked Brokeback too, but I really thought CRASH deserved more to win. And in the end, it did, and I think the academy saw that this small film that was shown way back in May, really had some guns to flaunt against Brokeback.

Really, really dissapointing...Brokeback deserved it. All the others put together can't rob it of it's magnificence. Truly a historic landmark in cinema, in a way, I'm happy because Brokeback is afilm that's above awards and the sick lobbying behind them.

I was pleasantly surprised that Crash won. Typically my favorite movies don't win Best Picture (I think American Beauty was the last time), but unlike some people around here, I thought Crash was a pretty powerful film, which also looked great and featured some terrific performances.

But speaking of surprises, was anybody else shocked that Memoirs of a Geisha (which everybody seemed to dislike) picked up three awards?

I wasn't surprised. I thought that it would win two here.

Crash was by far the "easiest" of the five films nominated. It illustrated its major theme, that racism is pervasive and damaging, over and over again. It lingered on the superficiality of racism, and didn't go much deeper than "Latino + Tatoos = Gangbanger...no, wait, he has a daughter he loves, and is just trying to get by like anyone else." OK..figured as much. In spite of all this many of the characters remained dangerously close to being caricatures, even after their "breakthroughs."

Sorry, I guess I didn't need a film like this to show me that we all share the same struggle, stereotypes are a trap, yada yada yada. It was pretty much a forgone conclusion for me, and thus lacked any real power. They say the best stories show rather than tell. This one was a teller. I guess I found the other four movies transcendent in some way...and Crash simply a reasonably well made film with some good performances.

I don't recall a best picture winner ever being thought of, by a significant number of people, as one of the year's weaker films until this year. Anyway, I've said enough..

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Commontone,

The best film of the year was "Walk the Line" in my book, and I'm so glad that Reese won. She deserved it. She played that role phenomenally well. Brokeback Mountain is a solid movie, but let's face facts, folks. The crop of best picture nominees over the last 3 or 4 years has been extremely thin. Message to Hollywood: your "best" movies aren't as good as they used to be. Up the ante, please? Perhaps Brokeback would have been more interesting had Queer as Folk and The L-Word not been around. The gay lifestyle is not "shocking" anymore. In fact, the both of the aforementioned Showtime series have dealt with the topic with more interesting takes.

MGE, I don't think the gay aspect of Brokeback was remotely the focus anyway..certainly not in the short story it's based on, which I urge everyone to read.

Homosexuality was the vehicle for the film's theme, not the theme itself. It's about repressed passion and its consequences. The film is about two people who love each other deeply, and will never feel so passionately about anything else in their lives, but they can't embrace it in the open. Viewed in that light, the fact that they're both men is secondary.

Personally I'm glad Walk The Line was not nominated for best picture...the performances were excellent, but the film was bland and safe, treading the usual biopic cliches. Jon Stewart was pretty much correct, I thought, when he joked that it was "Ray with white people." It managed to tell the story of Cash's life, that is the major events, without really illuminating who Cash was, beyond an unstable drug addict with a tortured past. Now as a biopic, Capote was transcendent and illuminating.

Rant=off

quote:

ericg75 posted:

But speaking of surprises, was anybody else shocked that Memoirs of a Geisha (which everybody seemed to dislike) picked up three awards?

Personally, I had Memoirs of a Geisha as my third favorite 2005 movie of the year after North Country and Crash. I just wished that Ziyi Zhang from Memoirshad been nominated for the Best Actress award. Even though she was Chinese playing a Japanese geisha, her character development throughout the movie in typical subdued Japanese style was much more refined than any other performance, except perhaps, Charlize Theron in North Country. Nevertheless, I feel comfortable with the artistic Academy Awards for Geisha, the whole look and feel of the movie was awesome.

I want to marry Reese Witherspoon. I'm serious. When she was halfway through her acceptance speech and hadn't thanked Ryan Phillippe yet, I was beginning to hold my breath because I thought their marriage could be in trouble. Do I need help?

Yes, as does Hollywood, it would seem.

Why is no one talking about Good Night, and Good Luck? I can't believe that such an amazing film was denied in every nominated category, especially when the Academy handed an Oscar to Crash for Best Picture ahead of Brokeback Mountain.

quote:

Originally posted by NButler11:
Yes, as does Hollywood, it would seem.

Why is no one talking about Good Night, and Good Luck? I can't believe that such an amazing film was denied in every nominated category, especially when the Academy handed an Oscar to Crash for Best Picture ahead of Brokeback Mountain.

I thought GN&GL would win some of the second tier awards...the Cinematography & Art Direction were fantastic in that movie. I almost think David Strathairn should've won best actor. If you've seen any of the real Ed Murrow clips, Stratairn had him down pat. I didn't think the screenplay was that great (a tad short IMHO) but I was impressed by the fact that Clooney and his writing partner weren't working off any source material, which is really odd for a biopic.

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
I was impressed by the fact that Clooney and his writing partner weren't working off any source material, which is really odd for a biopic.

I'm not impressed by anything George Clooney does.

quote:

ericg75 posted:

I thought GN&GL would win some of the second tier awards...the Cinematography & Art Direction were fantastic in that movie. I almost think David Strathairn should've won best actor. If you've seen any of the real Ed Murrow clips, Stratairn had him down pat. I didn't think the screenplay was that great (a tad short IMHO) but I was impressed by the fact that Clooney and his writing partner weren't working off any source material, which is really odd for a biopic.

I can't deny that I was also very impressed with Good Night and Good Luck and the cinematography and the sharp contrast and black/white look of the 1950ish movie. Except for the extraneous relationship angle, the movie was a solid and very serious, well performed piece of work. Perhaps the movie was almost a docudrama, a documentary-like movie that didn't really add anything dramatic as opposed to reflecting a sharp angled reality shot like when PBS produces a reaction of historical colonial episodes of real history. Nevertheless I thought David Strathairn was fantastic and as real as any actor could be.

quote:

Perhaps Brokeback would have been more interesting had Queer as Folk and The L-Word not been around. The gay lifestyle is not "shocking" anymore. In fact, the both of the aforementioned Showtime series have dealt with the topic with more interesting takes.

It's very unfortunate that you think the only reason why Brokeback Mountain got the attention it did was because it's "shocking" to have a movie about gays. This movie is simply about a profound love between two people that is denied. One was willing to give everything up for that love and the other would, or in this case, could not. It is probably the most heartbreaking movie I have ever seen. Obviously both of them being male does play a role in this film but it does not understate the true message of the film.

And to say that Queer as Folk and The L-Word have dealt with this topic with more interesting takes.....

puh-lease!

I would rather have had Brokeback Mountain win for best picture because I did see Crash.... rented it after Oprah's 'crash moment' in Paris... and I remember liking the premise but I thought the execution could have been much better. Both shows were very affecting though.