Last Night's Oscars...

I didn't think Stewart was "bad." He was simply flat and lifeless like the rest of the show.

a) i couldn't stand "crash" … it just beat you over the head constantly with the same goddamn simple message … but i could see how this movie would be great for a huge chunk of people in this country who simply aren't "thinkers", they just go about their business and don't really discuss or think about tough topics like racism … i can understand how, if you're part of this demographic, seeing "crash" could be a revelatory experience (wow, racism still exists!)

b) the academy got a lot of heat about nominating all these films which NOBODY saw, i really think that's why they ended up giving the award to "crash" over "brokeback" … the oscars certainly aren't the grammys, but they need to reward excellence in box office performance (see "march of the penguins") … i've also read reports about homophobic older academy voters who simply refused to watch "brokeback" and never would have voted for it, but i'm not sure how much credibility these have

c) tom shales is a whining bitch, always has and always will be … i thought jon stewart did a good job, best line of the night was the "scorcese v. 36 mafia oscar scorecard" … thankfully we FFWed through the clip stuff (although the homoerotic cowboy stuff was hilarious) and most of the lesser awards, but watching the show in about an hour and a half made it come off pretty well

i really do believe that some people are sarcastically challendged, they just don't get when somethings sarcastic.

i used to like tom shales npr movie reviews before moving to DC, but never really liked his tv reviews. he takes issue with anything he considers mean-spirited i.e. "My Name Is Earl"

can't see why people thought Brokeback Mountain was such a good movie… for me it was like King Kong, overly long, in need of editing, yes it looked great on the screen and the story interesting. i found the female characters. the wives and the mother of jake's character who made that brief appearence at the end, much more interesting than the men, more complexitiy under the surface. and the actresses gave the more compelling performances… heath and jake will continue to be popcorn crowd favorites.

oh, and the "oscar campaign" clips with colbert doing the narration were really really funny (especially the sound editing one) … but do you think it was a little too "insider"? do most people realize how much campaigning goes on by studios and actors and whatnot for the awards?

Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:

b) the academy got a lot of heat about nominating all these films which NOBODY saw, i really think that's why they ended up giving the award to "crash" over "brokeback" … the oscars certainly aren't the grammys, but they need to reward excellence in box office performance (see "march of the penguins") … [/QB]

Who the hell saw "March Of Penguins"? And did more people see it compared to "Crash" and "brokeback"? I can honestly say, I haven't seen any of the three.

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Who the hell saw "March Of Penguins"?

March of the Penguins $77,437,223
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room $4,071,700
Murderball $1,531,154
Darwin's Nightmare $163,487
Street Fight $4,779

i haven't seen enron yet, but murderball was incredible, 10x better than penguins … penguins is the 2nd highest grossing documentary of all time … still behind farenheit 9/11, i think

Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
March of the Penguins $77,437,223

That's as much (if not more) than Brokeback Mountain.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
That's as much (if not more) than Brokeback Mountain.

yeah, this is my first time looking at boxofficemojo in a while, i'm really surprised at how much brokeback has pulled in … it's at ~$79,000,000 right now, with crash only at ~$53,000,000 … guess my whole hypothesis on rewarding box office performance for best picture goes down the drain =)

In terms of 2005 boxoffice

Walk The Line - 18th - $98,403,000
March of Penquins - 25th
Wallace & Gromit - 45th - $56million
Crash - 47th - $53 million

Capote, Constant Gardener, Capote, Junebug, didn't make the top 50.

Brokeback wasn't released until Christmas so i wouldn't show up on the 2005 list

Six times more people saw Star Wars, the top grossing movie, than Crash. Crash may have done decent rental…

somebody did the analysis for me already… :D

Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
a) i couldn't stand "crash" … it just beat you over the head constantly with the same goddamn simple message … but i could see how this movie would be great for a huge chunk of people in this country who simply aren't "thinkers"

Oh Hoya..you really love yourself don't you?

It must be hard…being such an enlightened genius and all.

do you read movie reviews? you must get pretty frustrated on a frequent basis if you think my thoughts were annoying

crash had a ham-fisted message that was repeated over and over and over again and was well-fashioned for people who aren't exactly critical thinkers

this isn't exactly groundbreaking stuff i'm saying, it seemed to be a popular consensus for those critics who gave the film mediocre reviews (and there were plenty of them)

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/crash

Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:
March of the Penguins $77,437,223
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room $4,071,700
Murderball $1,531,154
Darwin's Nightmare $163,487
Street Fight $4,779

i haven't seen enron yet, but murderball was incredible, 10x better than penguins … penguins is the 2nd highest grossing documentary of all time … still behind farenheit 9/11, i think

Shows you how much I know, I didn't even know it was a documentary. But it sounded very successful.

Looks like I didn't miss that much going to the Belle & Sebastian show last night.

Originally posted by HoyaParanoia:

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Who the hell saw "March Of Penguins"?

March of the Penguins $77,437,223
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room $4,071,700
Murderball $1,531,154
Darwin's Nightmare $163,487
Street Fight $4,779

i haven't seen enron yet, but murderball was incredible, 10x better than penguins … penguins is the 2nd highest grossing documentary of all time … still behind farenheit 9/11, i think

Enron was awesome, so was Murderball, Penguins was like a Discovery Channel program. When it was over, I was mad. If I had seen it on TV, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, but in a theater? No.

i was thrilled to see that tsotsi won for best foreign language film. all of south africa must be a giant party right now. i thought for sure that joyeux noel would win, and that the palestinian film (whose name escapes me right now) and tsotsi, being south african, didn't stand a chance. i am so glad i was wrong!

btw, tsotsi opens in dc this week or next. i was fortunate enough to see it last month. it is excellent. i highly recommend.

"Munich" was the best-made, most-moving, most thought-provoking, most relevant movie of the year. It focused on the conundrum, ambiguity, and never ending madness of the Middle East conflict and its relevance to the current world. It is brutal and devastating – the best movie of '05.

SAW II was the best movie of 2005. :cool:

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
SAW II was the best movie of 2005. :cool:

What about Hostel?