Oscars

Well, I didn't end up seeing Why We Fight (soon, Rachel, I promise), but I did end up talking to my friend Julie from Boston for an hour and a half (new phone record!), and still I'm coming off my Oscar daze enough to talk about it.

I'll put my Crash rant first, the theory being that this way you're more likely to READ it.

Crash is not the best film of 2005. Honestly, it's probably in my bottom 10 (having more to do with the fact that I didn't see many of the REALLY bad movies from last year). But as much as it is NOT the best movie of the year (especially when compared to the likes of Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck), even moreso is it not even close to the best screenplay of last year. In fact, it was one of the worst (and that has more to do with the actual quality of the script than with the quality of the movies I saw). The fact that it won over Good Night and Good Luck, Squid and the Whale, Syriana, and Match Point makes the wound even greater.

In fact, if any movie got the shaft, definitely Good Night, and Good Luck, which deserved to win all of the six categories it was nominated for (except lead actor...Phillip Seymour Hoffman deserved that award the day he was born), but did not win one of them. Clooney got Supporting Actor for Syriana, which was nice and he had one of the best acceptance speeches, but he and Grant Heslov deserved original screenplay so much, not only because it works dramatically and the dialogue kicks ass (neither of which were qualities Crash had), but also because they researched the HELL out of that thing. There was so much hard work put into every frame of that movie, and I called this weeks ago and I stand by it now more than ever, that ten years down the line people will point to it as one of many movies that didn't get the recognition come Oscar night that it deserved. Honestly, I'm kicking myself for not rating Good Night, and Good Luck higher for my top 10 of '05...can't wait to see how well it grows on me over the years. Meanwhile, Crash will be long forgotten, in the tradition of A Beautiful Mind (which, yes, did win Best Picture in 2001, and in spite of being a damn fine film is a film no one cares about anymore).

Spielberg deserved directing, but Clooney should've won and we all knew Ang Lee was taking it. It was a tragedy just waiting to unfold.

Similarly, Brokeback had a damn fine screenplay, but A History of Violence was hurt badly enough by its lack of nominations that throwing it this one would've really helped.

Reese, Hoffman, Clooney, and Weisz all completely deserved the acting awards they got. I'm sure this is the first time I've completely agreed with every acting award, and honestly if it were all up to me and I could pick anyone from any movie, these would be totally fine picks (though I will say that Q'Orianka Kilcher deserved more recognition for The New World).

Speaking of which, it would've killed 'em to rightfully give The New World the credit it deserved for cinematography? I didn't see Geisha, but The New World was one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. Completely gorgeous.

You know why Crash got editing? Interconnecting stories. If you're going to go that route, at least give Syriana some love and nominate it. But really, The Constant Gardener was so precisely edited I thought that was a lock. And I know that's a really geeky thing to dissect, but it's an important award.

War of the Worlds deserved the awards Kong won, but Kong is too good to really complain about it.

3-6 Mafia had the greatest acceptance "speech" ever. That IS how you win an Oscar.

Jon Stewart kicked ass. Especially the improvised moments.

Overall, pretty much as the industry predicted it, and the only things I was personally surprised by were the awards given to Crash, but that was probably because I feel it didn't deserves a single one of them and was surprised that anyone could watch Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, and Crash and walk away thinking Crash was the best of them.