The Oscars - Chicken or Not
Mar. 6th, 2006 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orikesSo, what do you think?
Did Hollywood chicken out by surprisingly giving the Best Picture Oscar to Crash over Brokeback Mountain, or did the voters honestly consider the ensemble piece about racism a stronger movie than a heartbreaking story of unacceptable love between two men?
I haven’t seen either movie, though they are on my ‘want to see’ lists. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered it a ‘chicken’ move to vote for one over the other until I started reading some of the articles today. Last night it was just a big surprise. Honestly, all of the pictures nominated were heavy pieces and pretty deserving of the recognition. For the first time in a long time, there wasn’t one picture in the list that made me as, “Why the hell is that there?”
All in all, it was a pretty mixed bag for the awards this year. Despite the success and furor over Brokeback, no one film dominated. In a very rare move, the Best Director was not the person behind the Best Picture. And on top of that, every single acting award was the only award for the respective movie.
John Stewart was no Billy Crystal, but he was also leaps and bounds above David Lettermen (who even acknowledges how bad he bombed his hosting gig). I felt that the light political tone to his jokes fit the tone of the movies chosen pretty well. After all, we had a films about terrorism, homosexuality, racism, journalist integrity and a movie about a homosexual journalist wrestling with integrity.
Either way, I joined the rest of Rochester in whooping it up for hometown boy Phillip Seymour Hoffman when he got named as Best Actor. I imagine if he hadn’t been named, there probably would have been rioting down at the Little.
Did Hollywood chicken out by surprisingly giving the Best Picture Oscar to Crash over Brokeback Mountain, or did the voters honestly consider the ensemble piece about racism a stronger movie than a heartbreaking story of unacceptable love between two men?
I haven’t seen either movie, though they are on my ‘want to see’ lists. To be honest, I hadn’t even considered it a ‘chicken’ move to vote for one over the other until I started reading some of the articles today. Last night it was just a big surprise. Honestly, all of the pictures nominated were heavy pieces and pretty deserving of the recognition. For the first time in a long time, there wasn’t one picture in the list that made me as, “Why the hell is that there?”
All in all, it was a pretty mixed bag for the awards this year. Despite the success and furor over Brokeback, no one film dominated. In a very rare move, the Best Director was not the person behind the Best Picture. And on top of that, every single acting award was the only award for the respective movie.
John Stewart was no Billy Crystal, but he was also leaps and bounds above David Lettermen (who even acknowledges how bad he bombed his hosting gig). I felt that the light political tone to his jokes fit the tone of the movies chosen pretty well. After all, we had a films about terrorism, homosexuality, racism, journalist integrity and a movie about a homosexual journalist wrestling with integrity.
Either way, I joined the rest of Rochester in whooping it up for hometown boy Phillip Seymour Hoffman when he got named as Best Actor. I imagine if he hadn’t been named, there probably would have been rioting down at the Little.