Spamlet on 6/3/2006 at 08:18
Stewart was hilarious, IMO, and it was overall the funniest Oscar ceremony I can recall. Rev. Heat's certainly worth catching though, so it's understandable.
Not in actuality, Turtle, I've just acted numerous gay roles (my girlfriend is, by the by, a black woman). Lots of Jewish ones too, though I'm a recovering Catholic. And British. And psychos. And...
But seriously, it isn't just the Oscars.
Maybe it's because I'm currently living in Montgomery, AL playing a cruel, racist character in "To Kill a Mockingbird" right where it all started (to packed audiences who sadly seem almost exclusively white). The way I see it, we're currently in what should be a whole new era of the Civil Rights movement with the notable exception of things showing very little sign of moving.
Between the wire tapping, and voting against gay marriage and abortion rights and the searches and seizures and profiling; people are glaringly being denied basic freedoms and we're pretty much just allowing it to happen. That's what is greatly concerning me.
Low Moral Fiber on 6/3/2006 at 09:11
haha drama major
Nicker on 6/3/2006 at 10:18
I nominate Tom Hanks for "Most Perfunctory Presentation of an Award in a Major Category".
Obviously he wasn't being paid by the word.
Nicker on 6/3/2006 at 10:23
Quote Posted by aguywhoplaysthief
At least it wasn't
Good Night and Good Luck that won anything.
That's only because the Vast Crypto Communist Hollywood Conspiracy didn't want to draw attention to itself . . . . . . . yet
Paz on 6/3/2006 at 10:47
Standards have really lowered if all it takes to become a communist is calling McCarthy a twat.
I mean you used to have to glance at some political theory, at least.
Shakey-Lo on 6/3/2006 at 11:11
Whether
Brokeback Mountain had won or not it was always going to be seen as political. If it had won, the conservative Christians would be up in arms, now that it hasn't won people like Spamlet are up in arms. It
is just the Oscars.
This seems as good a time as any for a quick hit of Perry Bible Fellowship:
Inline Image:
http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF002BCNauticalAwards.jpgConvict on 6/3/2006 at 11:19
Quote:
Christian groups criticize Hollywood
Los Angeles.– Christian groups have launched a furious campaign against Hollywood, claiming the Golden Globe Awards promote films with gay or "leftist" themes to serve a political agenda.
The criticism was made after Brokeback Mountain, a film about the forbidden love between gay Wyoming cowboys that stars Australian Heath Ledger, won four awards on Tuesday.
Other winners included Philip Seymour Hoffman, named Best Actor for his portrayal of the homosexual writer Truman Capote; and Felicity Huffman, the Desperate Housewives star who played a transsexual with a gay prostitute son in Transamerica.
"Once again, the media elites are proving that their pet projects are more important than profit," Janice Crouse, of Concerned Women for America, said.
"None of the three movies – Capote, Transamerica or Brokeback Mountain – is a box office hit. Brokeback Mountain has barely topped $US25 million in ticket sales.
"If America isn't watching these films, why are they winning the awards?"
The criticism from the American heartland carried more weight than usual this year because Hollywood suffered the biggest decline in attendance in two decades last year.
One of the few box office hits of the year was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which appealed strongly to Christian audiences.
Oscar pundits are now wondering whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will also reward Brokeback Mountain, potentially souring Hollywood's relationship with the American ticket-buying public even further.
Members of the academy must hand in their nomination forms by Saturday, with the winners to be announced on March 5.
Religious groups also pointed to the alleged political agenda of winners such as George Clooney, who won for his supporting role in Syriana, a film about the ethical pitfalls of the oil business; and Mary Louise Parker, who was rewarded for her performance in Weeds, a television comedy about a suburban mother turned marijuana dealer.
Much of the anger was directed at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group of 92 journalists from non-American publications who hand out the Golden Globe Awards.
The non-profit HFPA collects as much as $US5.7million ($7.6million) from selling the broadcast rights to the ceremony, which is consistently one of the three highest-rated awards shows in the US, along with the Academy Awards and the Grammys.
Stephen Bennett of Straight Talk Radio said: "When Hollywood is pumping out anti-family movies with sexually explicit, twisted and perverse themes that glorify homosexuality, transsexuality and every other kind of sexual immorality - then awarding itself for doing so - Middle America better take note.
"Hollywood (has) exposed its own corrupt agenda. (It) is no doubt out on a mission to homosexualize America."
The Times
I find it interesting that it won all these awards and yet apparently is not a box office hit. RUN FREE CAPITALISM, RUN FREE!!!
OnionBob on 6/3/2006 at 11:20
Crash is pretty puerile. It draws its characters as horrendous, patronising caricatures, and its emotions are worn as bold primary colours with no room for nuance or interest outside of the heavy-handed and yet completely ineffective moral message that is shoved down your throat every ten seconds.
Its high-school treatment of racism is as horrifyingly reductive and ineffective as its stylistic borrowings from other, better films (Magnolia anyone?) and it ignores realistic racist situations in favour of histrionic shock events that really say or do nothing that hasn't been said better a million times before.
I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain but by all accounts it was a story that attempted to deal with homosexual love in a sensitive, progressive way and in a traditional "forbidden love" story framework - which in itself is subversive without having to resort to hideous melodrama - and as such if hollywood wants to be seen as politically progressive and not just reducing massively complicated issues to black and white (lol) it needs to stop giving validation to shit like Crash and start considering more subtle, warm attempts at boundary transgression in the mainstream media.
SD on 6/3/2006 at 12:05
When was the last time the best picture of the year actually won Best Picture though? I'd say we're probably going back all the way to Schindler's List in 1993, or possibly the English Patient in 1996. That's a full decade or more.
oudeis on 6/3/2006 at 12:32
'raging bull' lost to 'ordinary people'.
'goodfellas' was beaten by 'dances with wolves'.
whoopi goldberg won supporting actress for playing a sassy black psychic in 'ghost'.
al pacino won best actor for 'scent of a woman'.
the oscar voting process is so utterly flawed, so in thrall to political correctness- to what academy members feel they are 'supposed' to like- that l gave up taking them seriously a long time ago.
question- are the baftas as fucked as the oscars?
