"Crash" is a film panoramic of racism in LA including the entertainment industry, with some good performances, yet hardly groundbreaking in content or style. But that's show biz. At least "Brokeback Mountain" came out with three awards, including adapted screenplay and director, with moving speeches by director Ang Lee and scripters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. I'm also glad Annie Proulx was there to share in the acclaim.
Philip Seymour Hoffman's impression of Truman Capote was, sorry to say, way down on my list (I'd have certainly gone with either Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix). And whereas Reese Witherspoon appropriately paid homage to Johnny and June Cash in her best actress speech, Hoffman (as at the Golden Globes) could find not one word to say about the brilliant but tortured gay man whose life he rode to Oscar gold. Really, I'm quite disgusted by him.
George Clooney was more than a bit condescending in his defense of Hollywood's being "out of touch" with America (because tinsel town, it seems, exists on a higher moral plane). That's the attitude that plays well in the blue states but ensures liberals won't be making inroads in the red states.
Jon Stewart, by the way, was a lot better than I had expected. Not exactly exciting , but occasionally clever and not (like Whoopi Goldberg) politically insufferable.
More. Reader "Jessup" writes:
Crash was the safe liberal choice-guilty Hollywood navel-gazing about how racist they all are in LA and in "the industry." Few people bothered to see it.
Brokeback is a modern classic.
...Steve was right; Hollywood is homophobic, and as he said before, they only like their queers when they have plenty of "swish." Absolutely. Steve don't be afraid to speak the truth!
Thanks for saying it for me.
Still more. Tom Shales
writes in the Washington Post:
Film buffs and the politically minded, meanwhile, will be arguing this morning about wither the Best Picture Oscar to "Crash" was really for the film's merit or just a copout by the Motion Picture Academy so it wouldn't have to give the prize to "Brokeback Mountain," a movie about two cowboys who fall reluctantly but passionately in love."
"Mountain" won the major awards leading up to Best Picture....But the Academy ran out of love for the film at that point, making "Crash" the suprise winner.
And here's Charles Krauthammer's
comment about "Syriana," which seems applicable to "Crash" as
well:
[Y]ou have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
That about sums it up.
Ye gads, still more. Blogger Tim Hulsey shares his thoughts.
What strikes me about this nasty National Review poke
at "Brokeback" is just how lame it is. When it comes to hate humor,
the hard right is even less funny than the hard left.