No Surprises In Oscar Noms

Best Picture:
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night, And Good Luck
Capote
Crash
Munich

Best Actor
Joaquin Phoenix
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Heath Ledger
David Strathairn
Terrence Howard

Best Actor (Ladies' Division)
Reese Witherspoon
Felicity Huffman
Charlize Theron
Judi Dench
Keira Knightley

Supporting:
Boys
Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man)
George Clooney (Syriana)
Matt Dillon (Crash)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain)
William Hurt (A History of Violence)

Girls
Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)
Amy Adams (Junebug)
Catherine Keener (Capote)
Frances McDormand (North Country)
Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain)

Director
Paul Haggis (Crash)
Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
Bennett Miller (Capote)
George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck)
Steven Spielberg (Munich)

The only one of these I've seen is A History of Violence, which I caught on an airplane a few weeks ago, and I can tell you William Hurt was so goddamn bad in that movie he not only brought down the temperature of the movie by about 15 degrees, he caused a potentially lethal drop in cabin pressure. The only bright spot was that the next movie—it was a long flight—featured a great performance by Reese Witherspoon (not Walk the Line but some crapola romantic comedy with the equally great Mark Ruffalo).

Comments

[jf]

I can't believe Rob Zombie didn't make the cut for best director.

[Murray "Superboy" Babitch]

Hoffman should get actor in a stroll. His near perfect simulation of Capote is a given. What's amazing is his performance after he takes on the Capote persona.

By comparison, Blanchett did an excellent job copying Katherine Hepburn in Aviator, but I felt like I was watching a very good impersonator, like Martin Short doing young Kate.

[Jason Ligon]

Did anyone else see Crash and think that it was just okay? I don't understand the excitement.

[crimethink]

Tim,

I would have thought that with your hundreds of cable channels, you would have at least seen Crash by now. I'd hate to think that the ten-channel-watchers in your community are subsidizing your channel-surfing ways for nothing.

😉

[Baylen Linnekin]

I thought Walk the Line not getting a nod for Best Picture was definetly a surprise.

[Ned]

Jason,

I was definitely surprised to see Crash there. I thought it was a pretty good movie, but nothing that special. Two movies right off the top of my head that I think are clearly more deserving of a best picture nomination are The Constant Gardener and Syriana.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Yes, Crash was just okay, but this year the award will necessarily go to a movie that is, at best, just okay. A terrible, terrible year for movies!

I agree about Hoffman -- a wonderful performance. I hope Felicity Huffman wins, too, for the same reason, though Transamerica is an even "smaller" picture than Capote.

What a sad year, generally. If the Academy had standards even slightly higher than, say, the Nevada Boxing Commission, any number of envelopes would reveal that the winner was "none of the above."

[Jesse Walker]

Signs that you've had a baby in the last year: The Oscar nominees are announced, and the only movie you've seen on the list is tucked away in the supporting-actress nominations.

[Yogi]

Really, you're surprised to see Crash? When I saw it, I immediately knew it had Oscar material. I haven't seen alot of the others yet, so I don't know if it should get it yet. (They aren't out on Netflix yet.) Crash was one of the best movies I've seen in a while though. Much better than most of the crap Hollywood's put out lately.

[crimethink]

But it is comforting to see that the Academy has retreated into its ghetto, after having taken a few baby steps outside by nominating SF, fantasy, and comedy films in the past few years.

Let's see:

Brokeback Mountain -- trumpets liberal causes
Good Night, And Good Luck -- villifies conservatives
Capote -- portrays flyover country as a cesspool of pathology
Crash -- for the 99999th time, shows that racism sucks
Munich --- for the 99999999999th time, shows that Jews have been victimized.

[Twba]

Jesse,

You have seen one more than I have.

[Phil]

Or, alternatively:

Brokeback Mountain -- Shows an emotionally realistic love story that happens to be between two men.
Good Night, And Good Luck -- Stands up for free speech rights, sticks a needle in the recent Ann Coulter-led attempt to rehabilitate McCarthy
Capote -- portrays its title character brazenly exploiting Midwesterners for his own purposes
Crash -- haven't seen, can't comment
Munich --- Shows Jews actually fighting back for once, and asks questions about the costs of political violence in the process.

But I guess those interpretations would conflict with the "damned liberal Hollywood" and "put the worst face on everything" tropes.

I'm a little surprised at the Theron and McDormand nominations. I thought that movie was pretty much DOA, and these seem like pro forma nominations for previous winners in an "important" movie.

[SR]

Good Night & Good Luck is excellent. (I just saw it Friday.) Oh, and crimethink, STFM before you say it "villifies conservatives".

[jroh]

Totally unscientific, I know, but interesting:

Rotten Tomatoes Rating
94% Good Night, And Good Luck
92% Capote
86% Brokeback Mountain
77% Crash
78% Munich

Domestic releases with higher ratings than Brokeback, Crash or Munich (100 reviews or more):

94% The Squid and the Whale
89% Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
87% A History of Violence

Heck, even 40-year Old Virgin got an 84% rating. Would've loved to see that one nominated.

[crimethink]

Also, Tim, you spelled "Surprises" rong in the title. 😉

[crimethink]

Phil and SR,

I'm not saying these are necessarily bad films -- I'm saying that they fit right in with the Academy's long-standing political and social views. Indeed, the McCarthy-like attitudes of some conservatives do need to be criticized, but you never see a film criticizing liberals get a nomination.

I haven't yet seen Brokeback Mtn., though I intend to. It may be good, or it may be another Cider House Rules, a mediocre partisan hackjob that happens to tickle critics' political funny bone. Seriously, BM got a nom in every major category except Best Actress. It would have to be phenomenal to justify that.

[mk]

crimethink,
I'm trying to think of a movie that villified liberals that might possibly have warranted a nomination. I can't think of any.

Anyway, I'm still mad at the Academy for not nominating Ghost World for best movie, so what do I know.

[Randolph Carter]

I hope Michelle Williamas wins for best supporting actress - she's really great. If you want to see her in a movie sans man-love (except for a gay midget named Benson Hedges) see The Baxter.

[Jeff P.]

Enthusiasm for Hollywood celebrating itself is a neurological disorder, on par with a compulsion to be urinated on.

There's something wrong when we celebrate movies sticking thier noses in politics, but scream when the inverse happens.

[Brian]

I don't suppose Theron got the nod for Aeon Flux by any chance? Becuase that would double the number of nominees I've seen.

I thought Munich was outstanding, mostly for the reasons Phil points out.

[Ironchef]

Crash. Fairly bad movie. No more than an afterschool special/middle school morals lesson dressed up as "serious" fare.

"Kids - racism, stereotypes, and making rash judgments are bad. Mmmmkay?"

Some of the characterizations are zany. Apparently everyone in LA is a) racist or nobly tolerant and b)those views are exactly reversed by the end of the movie.

[crimethink]

There's something wrong when we celebrate movies sticking thier noses in politics, but scream when the inverse happens.

Not sure I agree with that, Jeff P. The government should serve the people, not the other way around. Just because I concern myself with the government's actions does not give it the right to concern itself with mine.

[dagny]

Only two of these I saw were Capote and Brokeback Mountain. They were both actually really good movies. If you assumed Capote would be mocking Kansas... it's not. Truman Capote is no Atticus Finch.

Brokeback Mountain is also really not political. I mean, if you think gays are going to hell, if you want to say nothing bad has ever been done to them in this country, I guess you'd object to it. So there's a bit of a political assumption there, that you're not a nutcase, but it's not a political movie. It's a tragic love story. With pretty mountains. And lots of sheep.

[Rhywun]

I, too, only saw "A History of Violence" & I thought William Hurt's performance was nothing short of bewildering. It's weird, cos I think he's a pretty good actor & I think Cronenberg's a great director, but somebody dropped the ball in following the rule that all toughs have to have a New Yawk accent, if even a horrible one.

I couldn't care less about any of the other movies on the list - which is no great surprise to me. There's seems to be even more fishing for Oscars than usual with these movies.

[James Feldman]

I'm rooting for Tony Kushner for best adapted screenplay (Munich). Otherwise, this Oscars, much like this Superbowl, is perhaps the least interesting one of my life.

[Amanda Hugginkiss]

I haven't seen ANY of the films on the list. How can any of them be any good? None of them include CGI dinosaurs.

[crimethink]

I'm trying to think of a movie that villified liberals that might possibly have warranted a nomination. I can't think of any.

Well, not this year, but there have been several in the past -- Wag the Dog and Primary Colors come to mind -- but none have been nominated by the Academy for anything.

[Ted Barlow]

I haven't seen ANY of the films on the list. How can any of them be any good? None of them include CGI dinosaurs.

OR DID THEY?

No, I guess they didn't.

You know what's unusual? I'm much more excited about the documentaries and animated movies. "Enron", "Penguins" and "Murderball" were all outstanding, and the animated movies are all excellent, too. Go, genre films!

[R C Dean]

My theory is that nothing wrecks a movie faster than movie stars.

With very few exceptions, the more Movie Stars in a flick, the harder it blows (Exhibit A: Ocean's Twelve). Most of the movies I have really enjoyed recently have been either animated or documentaries.

[joe]

"...but you never see a film criticizing liberals get a nomination."

Forrest Gump, the touching story of how a mentally-challenged man discovers than anti-war protesters and violent, hypocritical, idiotic, degenerate creeps? Where the heroine endures domestic abuse and dies of AIDS after descending into the corrupt hippie demi-monde?

[Jim Treacher]

Between the slate of nominees and the choice of host, I'm wondering what the ratings will be like this year.

[ChrisO]

Wow, this the is the first year in quite awhile that I didn't see any of the nominated movies. Just not interested.

--"Brokeback Mountain": Gay cowboys eating pudding--can the South Park guys see into the future?

--"Good Night, And Good Luck": McCarthy was a bad guy. Who knew?

--"Crash": Must've missed noticing when that one came out. I'm turning into the sort of disinterested codger that my old man became. Bah humbug!

--"Capote": Phillip Seymour Hoffman deserved an supporting-actor Oscar for his role in "Boogie Nights". That role creeped me out. I don't think I could sit through 2 hrs of the Capote screech, but the wife will probably make me do so soon.

--"Munich": Maybe as a followup, Mel Brooks will get Spielberg to direct the long-awaited "History of the World Part II: Jews In Space." Actually, in all seriousness, this looks like one I should probably go see. Maybe if I can get off my lazy fat ass...

[R C Dean]

So, if we go back 12 years we can come up with a movie that criticized lefty-libs via a sub-plot.

Point made, I think.

[Phil]

Indeed, the McCarthy-like attitudes of some conservatives do need to be criticized, but you never see a film criticizing liberals get a nomination.

Network? Forrest Gump? Saving Pvt. Ryan? (At least implicitly, or is Spielberg automatically discounted?)

[Phil]

BTW:

Primary Colors was nominated for both Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, and Wag the Dog was nominated for Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. And before you kvetch about them not getting nominated for the big two, the latter came out in The Year Of Titanic, and the former was not even the best picture of its month, let alone its year. (The nominees that year were The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets and Lies, and Shine.)

[Rhywun]

Phillip Seymour Hoffman deserved an supporting-actor Oscar for his role in "Boogie Nights".

I totally agree - but nobody knew who he was back then. Now's the time for his pity win. If he can withstand the juggernaut of the gay cowboys, that is.

[Eddy]

Just wondering, why does anyone really care about "the academy" masturbating? I mean, ok it's not the self fulfilling prophecy that the NYT best seller list is but...what the hell does it have to do with a movie actually being good since the scope is basically limited to the oscar season?

[D.A. Ridgely]

I don't think I could sit through 2 hrs of the Capote screech, but the wife will probably make me do so soon.

I've been pushing people relentlessly to see "Capote." Not one person I know who has actually seen it didn't like it. If there were an Oscar category for "Best Working Actor Who Unfortunately Will Never Be An A-List Star," Hoffman would definitely be on my short list (along with Forest Whitaker, who should have won an Oscar for his Charlie Parker role in "Bird")

But regardless of what one thinks of the real Truman Capote or his preening affectations, the movie is tremendous. If your wife forces you to go see it, I seriously doubt you'll regret it.

[Matt Tievsky]

Also saw History of Violence and was sorely disappointed. But I thought Hurt was one of the few bright spots.

[crimethink]

Phil,

Those nominations were only because Dustin Hoffman portrayed a film producer, and Kathy Bates a lesbian Democratic operative. And, in a sense, both were noble liberals in the films. None of the unsympathetic liberals in the films got nominations.

[Phil]

See, this is what pisses me off about the received wisdom about Hollywood and the Oscars. Here are the last 25 years worth of Best Picture winners. I'd like crimethink and RC Dean to tell me which ones are the hotbeds of partisan liberal politics, and why. Notice, no Philadelphia, no Fahrenheit 9/11, no Nixon or JFK, nothing by John Sayles, no Lars von Trier . . . so, show me what I'm missing, guys? Where's the partisan politics, the pet liberal politics, the conservative-bashing?

I will spot you American Beauty, and you spot me Chariots of Fire. OK, go.

2004 ? Million Dollar Baby
2003 ? The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002 - Chicago
2001 - A Beautiful Mind
2000 - Gladiator
1999 - American Beauty
1998 - Shakespeare in Love
1997 - Titanic
1996 - The English Patient
1995 - Braveheart
1994 - Forrest Gump
1993 - Schindler's List
1992 - Unforgiven
1991 - The Silence of the Lambs
1990 - Dances With Wolves
1989 - Driving Miss Daisy
1988 - Rain Man
1987 - The Last Emperor
1986 - Platoon
1985 - Out of Africa
1984 - Amadeus
1983 - Terms of Endearnment
1982 - Gandhi
1981 - Chariots of Fire
1980 - Ordinary People

[Bonar Law]

There's a director named Haggis? I bet his movies are just as good as his name sounds.

"[Brokeback Mountain is] a tragic love story. With pretty mountains. And lots of sheep."

[comment deleted for reasons of taste]

[nofrontin]

Crash may be the worst movie of 2005

[Don Mynack]

I saw Brokeback Mountain, and was really surprised there was not more disco music in it.

[b-psycho]

I liked "Crash". Though, I approached it as a dark comedy of sorts instead of a "message" film, so...

[Syd]

I saw four of the five Best Picture nominees. They all deserved their nominations. Capote's the best of the four.

[Postmodern Sleaze]

Political bias on that list? Let's see..

Million Dollar Baby- supports euthanasia. However, the film was directed (and written?) by a Libertarian-Republican. Scratch.

Braveheart- certainly a bump for the Scottish independence movement, but I don't know if I could really call it leftist.

Schindler's List- no comment needed. But if opposing genocide is someone indicative of leftist bias these days...

Dances With Wolves- definitely biased towards a "noble savage" portrayal of the Lakota. Kevin Costner's movies tend to all be tinged with middle-american romanticism, though (and they tend to be awful)- Open Range, The Postman, Field of Dreams, etc... I wouldn't necessarily call them "conservative" in the political sense, but he's certainly more sympathetic to middle-american values than most in Hollywood.

Platoon- clear anti-Vietnam War bias. Probably one of the few clearly "leftist" movies on the list.

Gandhi- hagiography of a leftist icon.

So, if we excuse Gandhi, the only clearly left-biased film on the list is Platoon. Of course, this isn't counting the films I haven't seen, and I don't want to bother to deconstruct anything right now, so we'll leave it at that...

[The Great Ape]

In response to a comment at the top, Crash is incredibly overrated. I'm hard pressed to think of another movie that tried so hard to say something that everyone already knew.

History of Violence was pretty cool and didn't quite get its due.

[mk]

I do notice a variety of stances both for and against the notion of a monarchy in the list. Could Hollywood be run by a cabal of conflicted Boethiusans?

[James]

Phil: Gladiator sucked. Other than that, the list holds up pretty good. I don't know that you would say in retrospect that these are the best twenty-four films of the last twenty-four years or even that, in retrospect, the films are the best ones of their individual years, but it's not a bad list of movies.

I think that it's a fairly conservative list, by Hollywood standards, meaning that none of them are real controversial subjects with real controversial conclusions and none of them use particularly innovative narrative techniques a la Memento or, for that matter, The Thin Red Line. A few of the films were a little "hot" when they were made. I remember Platoon got some flak for its portrayal of war crimes, but it well within the accepted national narrative about Vietnam.

Hollywood averages out to common liberal and is not the radical hotbed conservatives claim it is. So what? I'll bet banking averages out to conservative. It's just another industry. The news averages out to the statist center, no matter what people say.

[Captain Holly]

Phil, I'll bite.

Platoon A highly-sensationalized, some would say fictionalized, account of American soldiers as rapists, murderers and thugs who kill each other as easily as they do the VC. A movie only a paranoid anti-war Lefty could love.

Dances With Wolves Propaganda masquerading as art, a White Wannabee fantasy where the Virtuous Enlightened Kevin Costner fights the twin demons of Manifest Destiny and White Racism. In reality, Costner's character probably would have been scalped within the first half-hour.

Braveheart This wasn't a Left-wing movie in and of itself, but it gave the Academy an excuse to ignore the best movie of that year, Apollo 13, which was considered too white, too male, too patriotic.

There are several snubs on that list that are not political per se, but rather elitist in nature. Like silly movies such as Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment which nobody saw and which were consciously chosen because the Academy did not want to award anything of substance to George Lucas.

Ditto for American Beauty and Beautiful Mind, which displaced the first two LOTR movies. The Academy finally gave grudging approval to ROTK, simply because they would have lost all credibility with the moviegoing public had they not done so.

In short, I'll agree the Academy is not consistently leftist in its choices. But it is almost always elitist, preferring instead to honor movies that virtually no one cares about because to give an Oscar to a movie like Narnia would be to admit that the hoi polloi have good taste.

[The Great Ape]

and re: Hoffman being awesome, i think his role in Owning Mahowny was the best i've seen (i haven't seen Capote).

[Rick Barton]

And where in the Hell is a nomination for Serenity?

[joe]

I'm quite certain RC Dean will be able to come up with excuses why every single film on that list demonstrates clear liberal bias.

Even the ones that National Review lauded for their conservative sympathies. Making up stories about being persecuted by the leftist media is quite the parlour game for his set.

[Pedanteriffico]

Also, Hoffman rocks in Lebowski. Very funny.

[Col DuBois]

Rick Barton,

You've gotta be pissed about Munich getting the nod.

[Akira MacKenzie]

And where in the Hell is a nomination for Serenity?

YEAH! Where's Nathan Fillion's best actor nomination???

Those brie-and-chardoney-swilling movie-house-fops! Watch a few Bergman flicks and they make you an Academy judge!

[Phil]

In short, I'll agree the Academy is not consistently leftist in its choices.

Or, well, pretty much at all, seeing how deep into Kreskin territory you had to dig for those, er "reasons."

But it is almost always elitist, preferring instead to honor movies that virtually no one cares about because to give an Oscar to a movie like Narnia would be to admit that the hoi polloi have good taste.

Right, because nobody went to see Titanic, or Gump, or Silence of the Lambs, or Chicago, or Gladiator, or Rain Man . . . so, despite this little piece of nonsense, is there some reason why an industry self-award for artistic achievement should not nominate the films that they feel are the best artistic achievement? Should they just see what Variety lists as the top five grossers of the year and start throwing statues?

(So I take it Narnia is the Passion of this year's culture-war bleaters?)

Ditto for American Beauty and Beautiful Mind, which displaced the first two LOTR movies.

American Beauty won over The Cider House Rules, The Insider, The Green Mile and The Sixth Sense. To my recollection, New Line did not campaign particularly hard for the first two installments specifically because they wanted to wait until the third to really hit hard with an Oscar campaign.

[Eric the .5b]

Saving Pvt. Ryan?

Huh? What's the anti-liberal message in that movie?

And where in the Hell is a nomination for Serenity?

Duuuuude. The series is immensely better.

[Phil]

I mean, Big Momma's House 2 made $27 million this weekend. In January! That's pretty big! I smell Oscar!!!

[Phil]

Saving Pvt. Ryan?

Huh? What's the anti-liberal message in that movie?

Oh, there isn't one -- that's why I said "implicitly." See, the movie is all about the need for patriotism, the call to duty, the exercise of courage, the value of obediance and the admonition not to waste the sacrifices of our veterans. You know, all the things the culture-warriors would say that liberals hate.

[thoreau]

Ditto for American Beauty and Beautiful Mind, which displaced the first two LOTR movies

To expand on what Phil said, American Beauty came out in 1999. The first LotR movie came out in 2001.

If somebody wants to allege bias, at least get your facts right. I suggest you go read IMDB before you embarrass yourself any further.

[dhex]

"In short, I'll agree the Academy is not consistently leftist in its choices. But it is almost always elitist, preferring instead to honor movies that virtually no one cares about because to give an Oscar to a movie like Narnia would be to admit that the hoi polloi have good taste."

you know, applying this to political stances we'd find...oh fuck it.

[Akira MacKenzie]

I'm quite certain RC Dean will be able to come up with excuses why every single film on that list demonstrates clear liberal bias.

I can't speak for Dean, joe, but it's a pretty safe bet that if Brokeback Mountain wins, everyone from Michael Medved to Fred Phelps will be wailing and gnashing their teeth over the afront to their "traditional family values" (i.e. religion-spawned, homophobic, paranoia).

I can't wait to watch the meltdown!

[Stevo Darkly]

I'm trying to think of a movie that villified liberals that might possibly have warranted a nomination. I can't think of any.

"And the Oscar for best picture goes to ... Team America: World Police!"

(wild applause, standing ovation, cries of "Fuck, yeah!")

[mediageek]

"Just wondering, why does anyone really care about "the academy" masturbating?"

Because short of taking part directly, the most thrilling thing one can do is watch.

Duh.

[Bonar Law]

Here's my ranking of some of these movies on the liberal/conservative scale:

culturallyconservative:

Return of the King

Braveheart, although it's a close call. Wallace calls the Prince of Wales a ?sodomite,? which is traditionalist, but he also screws the Princess of Wales, which, since Wallace is a mere commoner, demonstrates modern liberal egalitarian values. The tiebreaking factors here are that it's by Mel Gibson, and that Scottish nationalism is associated more with cultural conservatives than liberals in the specific circumstances of American society.

Forrest Gump

Themes which appeal to conservatives:

Chariots of Fire

The Last Emperor (I put this in the conservative category only because I wanted to give the Academy the benefit of the doubt. The movie can be squeezed with some difficulty into the conservative category by citing the negative portrayal of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. However, outside the context of the Cultural Revolution, the Chicoms are portrayed kind of favorably, and their crimes outside the context of the Cultural Revolution don't get any attention compared to the attention to Japanese war crimes in WWII)

culturally liberal:

Million Dollar Baby (euthanasia!)

Chicago (a feminist wet dream: Woman kills scummy man. Also features courts letting said woman off the hook under pressure from the media. Bonus liberal points because it couldn't have been shown under the ?reactionary? Hays Code, which didn't allow criminals to be shown getting away with their crimes.)

Shakespeare in Love (Shakespeare's girlfriend defies cultural and legal taboos against actresses. Dour Puritan is converted from opposing theatrical performances to loudly applauding Shakespeare, his girlfriend, and their fellow-actors)

American Beauty (?Guys, I know this sounds wild, but hear me out: A movie that looks beneath the glittering surface of American suburban life and exposes the rot within! Wouldn't that be original??

Themes which appeal to liberals:

Schindler's List (Not that conservatives don't hate Nazis and the Holocaust, but these are liberal themes in the sense that, say, Soviet gulags are conservative themes.)

Dances With Wolves (although it has bad Indians in it, the movie focuses more on the badness of whites, other than whites who go over to the Indians. And the bad Indians are enemies of the good Indians, not of the whites)

Driving Miss Daisy (elderly well-meaning white woman learns Valuable Lessons from virtuous black man)

Platoon

Gandhi (courageous nonviolent struggle against British Imperialism by humble non-Christian leader)

[Bonar Law]

Wait-Danves with wolves should have been filed under "culturally liberal," not "liberal themes."

[Kevin]

I agree with the "not necessarily leftist, but always elitist" characterization of Hollywood. The entertainment industry, especially film, loves to pat itself on the back for its enlightenment. Based on that, Brokeback Mountain is a shoo-in for Best Picture, despite that fact that it's little more than a silly chick-flick.

[downstater]

I can't wait to watch the meltdown!

coming to a military funeral near you, where people like phelps will be honoring the sacrifices of our veterans.

if i couldn't watch a movie without attempting to find the hidden political bias, i'd pluck my eyes out.

[gregcuz]

"Like silly movies such as Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment which nobody saw and which were consciously chosen because the Academy did not want to award anything of substance to George Lucas.

Ditto for American Beauty and Beautiful Mind,"

All of those movies were box office smashes. Only Ordinary People failed to crack $100 million, but $50 million in 1980 was a "hit." A Beatiful Mind did $170 mil+, American Beauty $130mil, Terms over $100. All were commerical and critical hits.

[thoreau]

Wait, standing up to the (insert the name of a German regime whose name cannot be typed without invoking Godwin) now constitutes liberal bias?

Oh, shit...

[Captain Holly]

Or, well, pretty much at all, seeing how deep into Kreskin territory you had to dig for those, er "reasons."

And I will notice that you didn't provide any rebuttall to my examples of Leftism...

Right, because nobody went to see Titanic, or Gump, or Silence of the Lambs, or Chicago, or Gladiator, or Rain Man . . . so, despite this little piece of nonsense, is there some reason why an industry self-award for artistic achievement should not nominate the films that they feel are the best artistic achievement? Should they just see what Variety lists as the top five grossers of the year and start throwing statues?

Considering that the domestic take of a movie like Narnia is almost two times greater than the combined totals of the five "Best Picture" nominees, it is pretty clear to me that what Hollywood considers to be the best movie and what the public considers to be the best movie are quite different.

But hey, if Hollywood wants to make movies that no one wants to see because they're "artistically superior", then that's their perogative. The market will take care of it, eventually.

Come to think of it, in light of this year's box office take, the market is already taking care of it.

American Beauty won over The Cider House Rules, The Insider, The Green Mile and The Sixth Sense. To my recollection, New Line did not campaign particularly hard for the first two installments specifically because they wanted to wait until the third to really hit hard with an Oscar campaign.

So the studio has to ask the Academy to honor their picture before they give it an Oscar? That is even stronger evidence that the whole process is about as ojective as a high school studentbody election.

[dhex]

unrelated: what's the fucking deal with conservos hating on gandhi? do they love the british empire that much? or is it that a non-jesus d00d like, fucking rocked and shit? i met a catholic dude who was like, hey, he once said christians don't act like christians, so i hope the little heathen burns in hell. and i'm all like, bro, i don't know how to say this, but like, the pot and the kettle are all fucked up.

[Randolph Carter]

Cap't Holly,
CoN:tLtWatW (I feel like using acronyms today) was a kind of crappy movie. Just admit it! It's ok. Just because it's a Christian allegory (and the books, which are much better, and almost hamfistedly allegorical) doesn't mean Christians have to like it. Too many plot holes, too little character exposition, a mediocre soundtrack, and beautiful vista overload. It doesn't pass muster as a great film (a great film like Return of the King).

[David]

Phil,

If you remember the last movie thread, every film has at least a hidden liberal agenda. For instance, from the answers I got to asking people to name an overly liberal big budget blockbuster, any film that had characters(gays, blacks, abortionists, women), plot points or off-hand remarks left of Michael Savage is liberal propaganda.

My point was that most films are usually politically neutral despite the leanings or activism of the cast and crew. I don't think they'd marketable otherwise because most people are neither extreme liberals nor extreme conservatives.

[Jesse Walker]

The moral of Forest Gump is that it's better to be retarded than to be a hippie. I think we can safely put it in the right-wing pile.

The striking thing about that list of Oscar Best Picture winners is that, while some of them were good movies, hardly any came even close to being the best of the year. Maybe Unforgiven. Not one of the others.

[Captain Holly]

Wait, standing up to the (insert the name of a German regime whose name cannot be typed without invoking Godwin) now constitutes liberal bias?

No, but purposely omitting how Schindler purchased arms for his Jews at the end of the war so they could protect themselves is...

See http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OpEds/Gun-Bans-and-Schindlers-List.htm

[downstater]

i think dhex makes a good point. i often wonder about that myself. what do conservatives find so objectionable about these supposedly liberal movies?

what would a conservative gandhi (the movie, not the person) be like?

dances with wolves displays white racism toward indians. would a conservative dances with wolves show such treatment to be a good thing? would they ignore it all together?

would the cowboys in brokeback mountain stay virtuously closeted and repent?

what exactly is the problem here?

[Eric the .5b]

unrelated: what's the fucking deal with conservos hating on gandhi?

I didn't see any hating, just the claim that the movie had liberal themes. Just like the claim that Saving Private Ryan had conservative themes. Neither were about politics on that level, but partisan clannism makes folks latch on to certain themes that are only peripherally conservative or liberal.

[Eric the .5b]

The moral of Forest Gump is that it's better to be retarded than to be a hippie. I think we can safely put it in the right-wing pile.

Fie! It had Democratic presidents presented as folksy and likeable in their cameos, while Gump reports the Watergate burglary. Not to mention Gump being tolerant of pretty much anyone he meets who doesn't give him good reason to be otherwise. The movie's heart is in a very moderate liberal place.

Just acknowledge that nobody really likes hippies, left or right. 😉

[thoreau]

I didn't see any hating, just the claim that the movie had liberal themes.

I haven't seen the movie Ghandi, but if I had a team to root for I'd rather insist that Ghandi's values are shared by my team. Claiming that a widely admired figure like Ghandi is more like the other team doesn't strike me as a good idea.

[Captain Holly]

To expand on what Phil said, American Beauty came out in 1999. The first LotR movie came out in 2001.

Correct. I forgot they were released three years in a row, not every other year.

[anon2]

1/2: They mourn India's lack of Halloween.

[Captain Holly]

I'd rather insist that Ghandi's values are shared by my team.

Unless, of course, you're talking about how Ghandi used to beat the hell out of his wife and cheat on her...

[Eric the .5b]

I haven't seen the movie Ghandi, but if I had a team to root for I'd rather insist that Ghandi's values are shared by my team. Claiming that a widely admired figure like Ghandi is more like the other team doesn't strike me as a good idea.

It's very much in the apparent spirit of Phil casting Saving Private Ryan as conservative, instead of claiming it for "his team" as well.

[Randolph Carter]

Cap't Holly, first, what? Wife-beating Ghandi?

Second, maybe I misread your comments earlier, but you seemed to be saying that The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was a great film deserving consideration for an Oscar. Were you really that impressed by it?

[downstater]

Unless, of course, you're talking about how Ghandi used to beat the hell out of his wife and cheat on her...

so if the movie depicted him beating his wife, would it then be a more conservative film to you?

i'm also short on historical details, but if schindler provided jews with weapons to defend themselves, how exactly does that cast him in a bad light if it had been included in the film?

[downstater]

Eric the .5b,

i think phil was saying that such values depicted in saving private ryan were a part of his "team's" values - despite the popular insinuation that liberals do not value such things.

[SR]

"would the cowboys in brokeback mountain stay virtuously closeted and repent?"

If you read the critiques on WorldNet Daily, that's exactly what they want. Remember, if a movie has a gay character, and that character doesn't (a) suffer horribly because of his or her sexual orientation and then (b) either die or repent, then it's pro-homosexual agenda propaganda. And no, I'm not exaggerating one iota.

[D.A. Ridgely]

The striking thing about that list of Oscar Best Picture winners is that, while some of them were good movies, hardly any came even close to being the best of the year. Maybe Unforgiven. Not one of the others.

Well, just looking at the other nominated pictures, Gandhi and Rain Man were better pictures than their competition and The Silence Of The Lambs was far better than its competition.

Generally, though, the award is as much about popularity inside the industry as it is about artistic merit and there is no particularly compelling reason to believe that people who make movies are any damned good at judging them.

Anyway, the most important word in the phrase "show business" has always been and will always be "business." Sadly, as films become more and more mere component in marketing schemes, years like the anno mirabilis of 1939 become less and less likely ever to occur again.

[Captain Holly]

Cap't Holly, first, what? Wife-beating Ghandi?

I remember reading that in a serious article about Ghandi. After spending some time on the net searching, I cannot find any supporting evidence for that accusation. I must have read that he was abused his wife, and assumed it meant he beat her.

I hereby withdraw it.

However, I did find this interesting article (http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt) which revealed several things I did not know about Ghandi (besides the interesting factoid that once Germany attacked England, he became a fan of Adolf Hiter):

BUT Gandhi's monstrous behavior to his own family is notorious. He denied his sons education--to which he was bitterly hostile. His wife remained illiterate. Once when she was very sick, hemorrhaging badly, and seemed to be dying, he wrote to her from jail icily: "My struggle is not merely political. It is religious and therefore quite pure. It does not matter much whether one dies in it or lives. I hope and expect that you will also think likewise and not be unhappy." To die, that is.

On another occasion he wrote, speaking about her: "I simply cannot bear to look at Ba's face. The expression is often like that on the face of a meek cow and gives one the feeling, as a cow occasionally does, that in her own dumb manner she is saying something. I see, too, that there is selfishness in this suffering of hers ...." And in the end he let her die, as I have said, rather than allow British doctors to give her a shot of penicillin (while his inner voice told him that it would be all right for him to take quinine).

He disowned his oldest son, Harilal, for wishing to marry. He banished his second son for giving his struggling older brother a small sum of money. Harilal grew quite wild with rage against his father, attacked him in print,
converted to Islam, took to women, drink, and died an alcoholic in 1948. The Mahatma attacked him right back in his pious way, proclaiming modestly in an open letter in "Young India," "Men may be good, not necessarily their children."

Oh, and according to this article, Ghandi had a real thing for enemas...

[Randolph Carter]

re: Ghandi

Every beautiful river has its candiru fish

[Captain Holly]

so if the movie depicted him beating his wife, would it then be a more conservative film to you?

No, just more accurate. If that means more conservative, then so be it.

i'm also short on historical details, but if schindler provided jews with weapons to defend themselves, how exactly does that cast him in a bad light if it had been included in the film?

It doesn't cast Schindler in a bad light. However, considering Speilberg's well-known pro-gun-control views, it does smack of historical revisionism.

I'm not saying Hollywood can't make whatever movies they want to. But like any other industry, if you make a bad product that nobody wants you'll eventually go out of business. IMHO, the choices for this year's Oscars demonstrate that Hollywood, unlike Ford or Chevy, have yet to figure this out.

[downstater]

yes, spielberg does seem to have trouble depicting jews with guns.

say, isn't one of his movies nominated this year?

[Les]

That is even stronger evidence that the whole process is about as ojective as a high school studentbody election.

Has anyone argued that the Oscars were ever "objective?" I hope not. It's impossible to be objective when comparing films, music, etc. There are no "bests" in art, only "favorites."

[Les]

But like any other industry, if you make a bad product that nobody wants you'll eventually go out of business.

Hollywood has, from its inception, made mostly, IMO, crap. Same with television. It's a business model which evidently works very well.

[Captain Holly]

Les

Touche

[Hakluyt]

In general, Oscar nominees enjoy success at the box office.

[joe]

You know, if I had written this: "Not to mention Gump being tolerant of pretty much anyone he meets who doesn't give him good reason to be otherwise. The movie's heart is in a very moderate liberal place."

and proclaimed peaceableness and tolerance to be the territory of liberals, I would have received no end of abuse for my slander.

Hi, Phil.

[John]

I saw Brokeback Mountain and while Ang Lee as usual makes a beautiful to look at film, it is basically a fantasy for gay men; the straight acting guy who looks like Jake Gaylenhall and happens to really play on the other team. Considering the fact that the audience for the Oscars is comprised largely of gay men, I suppose it makes sense that it should win a lot of Oscars. It is really not bad and not nearly as polemic as I expected it to be. After you get over the initial shock of two guys going at it, it becomes what it is; a pretty average melodrama about forbidden love. Ten years from now no one will watch or care about this movie.

The Capote movie was good, but Capote has to be the easiest most over the top character to do in American History. Playing him is no big accomplishment and is not worthy of an Oscar nod. I think Joaquin Phoenix did a much better job in a much tougher role in a much better movie and ought to win, but I am sure he won't.

I don't quite get people's obsession with the Oscars. First, if you are not in the movie business, what do you care what movies win awards? It is not like I like a movie less because it doesn't win any Oscars. Second, the Oscars are so incredibly wrong most years. Many of the movies that have won best picture are at best forgettable and sometimes flat out unwatchable. Ever try to actually sit through Driving Miss Daisy or Shakespeare in Love, just to name two especially undeserving winners in recent years? Add to that the incredible Oscar snubs and mistakes over the years. Think about it, Ordinary People over Raging Bull? If you ever want to feel bad about the state of Hollywood go the Wikpedia listing of Best Picture winners and nominees and look at the quality of winners and how consistently high it is through the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and then how it drops in the 80s, 90s and 00s. It is really depressing. I just don't see how or why people care about it anymore.

[Phil]

Considering that the domestic take of a movie like Narnia is almost two times greater than the combined totals of the five "Best Picture" nominees, it is pretty clear to me that what Hollywood considers to be the best movie and what the public considers to be the best movie are quite different.

So you're on the Oscar train for Big Momma's House 2 noted.

These were the top ten grossers for 2005. Do you really think that these represent the pinnacle of artistic achievement in the film industry? Not whether they were crowd-pleasers -- they clearly were, and I saw and like four of the ten. But were they the best, artistically speaking?

1 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
4 War of the Worlds
5 King Kong
6 Wedding Crashers
7 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
8 Batman Begins
9 Madagascar
10 Mr. & Mrs. Smith

By the way, I'm not sure what numbering system you're using, but the combined total of the five Best Picture nominees is currently $186,205,204. Narnia has grossed $278,133,732. You have to have an awfully generous definition of "nearly" to call that "nearly twice as much." It has grossed half again as much.

Also by the way, here are the per-screen averages for the five Best Picture nominees:

Crash $28,034
Brokeback Mountain $31,223
Munich $27,223
Good Night, and Good Luck $31,320
Capote $43,982

Yeah, nobody wants to see those. That Capote per-screen average, is more than half of Narnia's, one ONE-TENTH the number of screens.

So the studio has to ask the Academy to honor their picture before they give it an Oscar? That is even stronger evidence that the whole process is about as ojective as a high school studentbody election.

Academy voters probably see several hundred movies every year. So, yes, they're going to notice the ones that take out full-page trade ads and send out nicely-packaged screeners with "For Your Consideration" on them. In any case, who said anything about "objectivity?" It's an industry award voted on by industry
people.

They have an award for what you apparently want. It's called the People's Choice Awards. The Oscars are the award for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. What the hell do you want them to give awards for?

Eric the .5b, you are misunderstanding my argument. I'm not "claiming" Saving Pvt. Ryan for any "team"; I'm saying that the movie reflects values that conservatives typically claim for themselves, and therefore they probably do not consider it a "liberal movie" despite the Dreaded Spielberg being at the helm.

On the whole Gump thing, a close reading of Zemeckis's movies in general can show a pretty conservative attitude. Remember how great the town in Back to the Future was, how picture-perfect-50s? You know, until the black janitor became mayor.

On preview: Hi, joe!

[mediageek]

"I would have received no end of abuse for my slander."

That's because you're this forum's patchouli-scented whipping boy.

[Phil]

BTW, just to yank the rug out from under the premises that Cpt. Holly may assume I'm arguing from, as far as I'm concerned, the greatest Oscar crime in history aside from the Scorcese snubs was Annie Hall over Star Wars. Yeah, Woody Allen, blah blah blah. Star Wars was a clear advancement in the state of the art for film technology, and it was obvious by Oscar time that it had had a greater cultural impact in America and worldwide than any film in decades. It literally changed the way movies are made (if not for it, there would never, ever, ever have even been a Narnia movie this year); Annie Hall is a footnote now.

[John]

Phil,

I always considered Gump a pretty conservative movie. The movie is one big indictment of the big public ideals of the last 40 years. All of the hypocrites in the movie are people who publicly claiming to be moral and crusading about society's morality but in private are rotten people. The best example is the Robyn Wright's hippe boyfriend who claims to be working for peace while beating the hell out of her all the while blaming Johnson in the Whitehouse for his behavior. Gump, in contrast, can't understand the big ideas, but knows the small, simple ideas of treating people well and how to act in his day to day life. I always took that film as an indictment of the superficial liberal crusading over the last 40 years, which is why I think a lot of liberals hated that movie.

[Bonar Law]

Let me explain what I was trying to do in my classification of movies:

If the movie openly glorified some sort of culturally-liberal value, I labelled it "themes which appeal to liberals."

Likewise with cultural conservatism and themes appealing to conservatives.

Of course, it's a very rough system, and not what you'd call scientific.

I *didn't* put anti-Nazi films in the "culturally-liberal" category, because American liberals and conservatives are both stongly anti-Nazi.

But the choice of subject matter tends to say *something* about what subjects are particularly in someone's mind. If someone focuses on the evils of Nazism, rather than on the evils of Communism, then it's a reasonable hypothesis that that person might be a liberal. There's exceptions, of course, insert disclaimers, etc.

"what would a conservative gandhi (the movie, not the person) be like? "

I think a conservative wouldn't *do* a Gandhi movie. He might choose another subject altogether, like the life of Whittaker Chambers. If he did an India movie, a conservative movie guy might do one on how Winston Churchill tried to stop the British granting independence to India, warning about a weakening of British power and a potential eruption of sectarian violence. The movie would then show scenes of sectarian rioting after independence, and cut to a scene of Churchill shaking his head and saying, "if only they'd listened to me." Cut to credits.

"dances with wolves displays white racism toward indians. would a conservative dances with wolves show such treatment to be a good thing? would they ignore it all together?"

Staying with the Indian theme:

Again, a conservative movie maker wouldn't choose the subject of a white man living with noble indians. The theme would probably be white settlers -- man, wife, and several adorable children -- trying to eke out a hardscrabble existence on the frontier. The man asks for military protection against hostile Indians, but the bureaucrats in Washington refuse because of worries about being "provocative." Then a party of Indians charges in and massacres the man's wife and children. So the man raises a company of militia and goes out to defeat the Indians.

"would the cowboys in brokeback mountain stay virtuously closeted and repent?"

A conservative moviemaker probably wouldn't *choose* the topic of a gay love story.

[Gandhi]

I'm GANDHI, dammit, not fucking Ghandi. Vishnu help me.

[dhex]

ghandi was not a saint by any stretch of the imagination. anyone who claims otherwise is a tard. but that's not my larger point.

my larger point is who in the flying bugfuck humperdink unholy neocon universe would object to someone who helped nonviolently eject one of the most large, vicious and evil political empires of all time in pursuit of home rule? what sort of tory crytop-monarchist fuckface does one have to be to wax nostalgic for the british empire? re: ghandi - homeboy came from an aesthetic tradition of weirdness. but it's also one of self-sufficiency, self-determination and kicking fucking coercive invaders the fuck out of your house without resorting to wanton violence.

i mean, i know why the jesus freaks do it - someone who's not a good christian, yet is more good than most christians of the modern era? fuck that's bad PR - put a hit out on this robe-wearing freak, stat! but secular conservatives who get down on ghandi makes no sense to me. his economics were wiggy...so the fuck what?

[John]

Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. Another example of a movie, in Private Ryan that people will be watching and talking about for decades to come, loosing out to a movie that is at best a footnote now. Popularity should not be the sole criteria, but enduring popularity and relevance goes a long way to evaluating in hindsight which years the academy got right and which years they blew it.

[Gandhi]

You know, dhex, you are really pissing me the hell off.

Fuck you, I'm going on a hunger strike until everyone spells my name correctly.

[John]

my larger point is who in the flying bugfuck humperdink unholy neocon universe would object to someone who helped nonviolently eject one of the most large, vicious and evil political empires of all time in pursuit of home rule? what sort of tory crytop-monarchist fuckface does one have to be to wax nostalgic for the british empire?

I don't dhex, perhaps one of the several million people who died in the civil war that broke out after the English left. Of course they are not hear to speak for themselves being dead and all. Perhaps some of the people who died as a result of not getting vacinations as a result of Ghandi's efforts to prevent them might have something to say about that subject as well. You speak like a typical foul mouthed self hating liberal moron who has no real experience or knowledge of any culture outside your own. Yes we know the story, brown man good, white man bad and all of history is the story of the evil white man oppressing the good brown man.

[dhex]

yeah, i know, i can't spell. so fucking sue me, gandhi.

[dhex]

dear john:

are you really going to fucking tell me that the fucking british fucking holy fucking empire wasn't one of the most evil fucking things to ever curse god's green fucking earth? even if i were not genetically required to say that i'd still say that.

ok, well...maybe you are. and in that case, i salute you, for you are indeed about to rock.

ROCK!

alternate ending:

dear john: you're right. i'm a one-dimensional straw man. how could i not have seen the error of my ways? i am a fool to think that somewhere white people did harm! a fool, i tell you!

also, if only the americas had been reconquered by england, france or spain, we could have avoided the american civil war entirely. it's much better to be ruled by outside forces than fight a civil war that's hundreds of years in the making.

true story: movies are boring as fuck.

even truer story: the annihilation of the native populations of the americas was really, really really really, really , , , , , , ,bad. but no one alive now bears any responsibility for that, and such silly gooses who insist otherwise are as dumb - but not as reprehensible - as those who insist what happened was not monstrous. those people are fucking assholes - actually, they're a word beyond "fucking assholes" that hasn't been invented yet, and will require an alien tongue to truly express just how much of a fucking asshole one has to be to sort of pooh-pooh wanton slaughter and degredation - and should get cancerous aids in their noses.

[Stevo Darkly]

what would a conservative gandhi (the movie, not the person) be like?

Ghandi would say, "Merry Christmas!" instead of "Happy holidays!" all the time.

dances with wolves displays white racism toward indians. would a conservative dances with wolves show such treatment to be a good thing? would they ignore it all together?

Upon coming across a lone white man invading their territory, the American Indian characters should have captured Kevin Costner and tortured the crap out of him with clubs and sharp implements.

(If they could capture this event on film, so much the better.)

would the cowboys in brokeback mountain stay virtuously closeted and repent?

Or maybe conservatives would just make one of the cowboys would be a cowgirl.

And she would get captured by American Indians.

And the hero would save her.

By offering to trade Kevin Kostner instead.

[Steefo Dargly]

Not only can I not spell "Gandhi," I can't even spell "Costner."

[R C Dean]

one of the most large, vicious and evil political empires of all time in pursuit of home rule?

That would be the British Empire, which fought to end slavery, brought such concepts as the rule of law to brutal dictatorships the world over, never overthrew or displaced a democratic government, and ended (or tried to) all kinds of barbaric practices in India alone (I'm thinking suttee here, but there are others).

Look around the world. By and large, the most non-functional crap-holes were colonized by someone other than the British. The ones run by the Brits were the lucky ones.

There's a lot of people who seem to think I'm some kind of cultural conservative. I'm not, you know.

I just thought it was kind of amusing that, in his quest to find non-liberal themes in an Academy-nominated picture, Joe had to go back 12 years to a subplot.

Anyone who doesn't think that Hollywood is predominantly (not universally, but predominantly) left-liberal, and that this affects their work, is a fool.

Of course, they're mainly greedy callous fucks, so the left-liberal thing isn't the main thing that comes through in Hollywood movies.

[Gandhi]

You bet your ass, dhex. I'll sue you, John, and Stevo, and any other fucks that dishonor me. I'm a Vishnu-damned lawyer, you know! No jury can resist my home-spun loincloth and folksy, quaint demeanor.

I didn't walk ten thousand miles and starve myself to get this kind of treatment.

[downstater]

since liberals seem to be able to handle films in which white men aren't always virtuous good guys much better than conservatives who instantly go on the defensive - i have to wonder who's really feeling the guilt here.

unless they're defensive because they feel that white men are oppressed in film, part of the whole "culture of victimhood".

[Captain Holly]

So you're on the Oscar train for Big Momma's House 2 noted.

Don't know. Haven't see it yet. Is it a poignant story of one man's unrequited longing to become a woman in spite of society's disapproval?

If so, it's a shoo-in. 😉

These were the top ten grossers for 2005. Do you really think that these represent the pinnacle of artistic achievement in the film industry? Not whether they were crowd-pleasers -- they clearly were, and I saw and like four of the ten. But were they the best, artistically speaking?

Which confirms my original point: What Hollywood thinks are the best movies are not even close to what the public wanted, or more accurately, paid their hard-earned money to see.

By the way, I'm not sure what numbering system you're using, but the combined total of the five Best Picture nominees is currently $186,205,204. Narnia has grossed $278,133,732. You have to have an awfully generous definition of "nearly" to call that "nearly twice as much." It has grossed half again as much.

I'm using Box Office Mojo's figures (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/) They don't have Crash's totals posted, but I guessed it grossed around $20 million.

Furthermore, that's only domestic box office totals. If you add in foreign markets, Narnia has more than doubled it's take. Most of the Oscar BP nominees have either anemic international numbers or haven't even been released outside the US. Clearly, Narnia's appeal isn't limited to a narrow segment of the US population.

Also by the way, here are the per-screen averages for the five Best Picture nominees:

That's a clever way of spinning the numbers. If you make a narrowly-focused movie and only release it in a few markets, of course you'll get a high per-screen number.

We see this in effect with Brokeback. Last week it was released in over 450 more theatres nationwide; it's per screen average plummeted to a paltry $3,955. It's because everyone who wanted to see it has already seen it; it has very little appeal outside of it's narrow, highly-motivated audience. If it had been released on as many screens as Narnia was initially it would have disappeared by now.

[R C Dean]

Get a little perspective, dhex. I'm not saying the British empire was a world-spanning daisy farm, but in historical perspective its not even in the running for evilest empire.

Consider how the French and the Belgians ran their colonial possessions, how the Chinese and Russians treated their border regions/empires, how the Germans and the Japanese acted during their mercifully short-lived 20th century empires. Every single one of these perpetrated horrors worse than anything the Brits ever did.

[dhex]

dear rc:

see "ireland, history of" for more details.

again, nobody's got to be perfect or nothing, but empires are by necessity evil. it's how you hold onto your stuff (which was someone else's stuff at some point not too far away) i mean, in a modern sense your points are ok, but at the time, is replacing one tribal system with another (admittedly with more white people and bigger hats than) really an improvement?

p.s. please gandhi don't hurt them!

[downstater]

I just thought it was kind of amusing that, in his quest to find non-liberal themes in an Academy-nominated picture, Joe had to go back 12 years to a subplot.

the aviator.

[mediageek]

I found the following link of some enlightenment.

(Link goes to video clip.)

[Les]

Yeah, Woody Allen, blah blah blah. Star Wars was a clear advancement in the state of the art for film technology, and it was obvious by Oscar time that it had had a greater cultural impact in America and worldwide than any film in decades.

I guess for some, a script is an important thing. I agree with you regarding the cultural/technological effects of Star Wars, but if you haven't seen it recently, the dialogue is right at about a high-school freshman level, characters change their accents, and it's as predictable as your average b-grade WW2 flying ace flick. Don't get me wrong, I love the world Lucas created and he's been a technological trailblazer, but the script is the backbone of any film, and Lucas hasn't shown that he can write one (at least not since "American Graffiti").

"Annie Hall" however, is filled with a rare and timeless wit and, unlike "Star Wars" will not get cornier and cornier as the years go by.

Yes, I love Woody Allen.

[downstater]

of course on second thought, this movie doesn't really contain non-liberal themes - as i am not prepared to cede entrepreneurship and capitalism as non-liberal.

however, by the current conservative metric of a non-liberal movie - the main character is simultaneously a sympathetic figure and also a successful business person who battles with the government (of course this may be seen as an affront to conservatism these days), tells off his girlfriends hollywood elite family, and succeeds in accomplishing his dreams.

also, there are no minorities or gays.

[Les]

Ten years from now no one will watch or care about this movie ("Brokeback Mountain").

How do you define "no one?"

[Eric the .5b]

Eric the .5b, you are misunderstanding my argument.

Gotcha, Phil. Thanks.

[James Feldman]

I dunno where the idea originated that "Annie Hall" is a footnote now. Yeah, and no one takes "Manhattan" or "Crimes and Misdemenors" seriously anymore either.

[mediageek]

Woody Allen sucks.

[James Feldman]

Oh, I agree.

[Gandhi]

mediageek, that Weird Al really captured my essence. Much better than Attenborough, who entirely missed the heart of my message. Yes, I advocated nonviolence for India, but I didn't mean that I couldn't whup ass on occasion.

In case you are wondering, I faked my death. I'm currently living with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And no, I'm no longer celibate.

[Eric the .5b]

The Aviator

Good catch. Agreed.

[Eric the .5b]

Darn, is the partisan movie pissing-match over? I was enjoying it! 🙂

[R C Dean]

Woody Allen sucks.

Ya know, even his older movies that are supposed to be his best do not wear well at all. They come across as very dated.

[Pro Libertate]

Gosh, I rather like Woody Allen's old stuff. And I just got a hold of some of his old stand-up routines, which I also thought were funny. Must I surrender my libertarian credentials at the door?

[mediageek]

Manhattan Murder Mystery quite literally gave me a headache.

No, you can still be a libertarian if you like Woody Allen. I'll just point my finger, stick my tongue out and say "Nyah" at you.

[R C Dean]

see "ireland, history of" for more details.

Ireland, dhex? Not a happy chapter, to be sure, but not enough to put the Brits in the running for evilest empire. I mean, come on, the Belgians killed more people in the Congo in ten years than the Brits did in the entire history of Ireland. When you're trailing the Belgians in anything, you're not a serious contended.

[Pro Libertate]

Sure, I'll give Manhattan Murder Mystery, but what about Sleeper, Bananas, or Love and Death?

[downstater]

Darn, is the partisan movie pissing-match over? I was enjoying it! 🙂

i guess so - at least it is for me. i don't normally view movies through a political lens - as i'm normally renting them for a bit of escapism, the last thing on my mind are current political trends and what not.

i guess it's interesting to view them in such a light, but it ruins the movie for me.

now, i've got a sopranos dvd to get home to.

[John]

Ten years from now no one will watch or care about this movie ("Brokeback Mountain").

How do you define "no one?"

I define that to mean that it won't be played on cable very often if at all (see movies like Casino and Shawshank Redemption as a counter example of movies that seem to get more not less popular with age and familiarity), that is won't come up in conversations as one of the best movies ever or even in the first decade of the century, few if anyone who was not of age when it came out will have ever heard of it. Yeah, it still might pop up at a movie of the week on lifetime or Bravo, but it will pretty much be forgotten. See movies like Driving Miss Daisy, Ordinary People, The English Patient, The Turning Point, which all got big Oscar Buzz but no one remembers or watches anymore.

[Stevo Darkly]

That would be the British Empire, which fought to end slavery, brought such concepts as the rule of law to brutal dictatorships the world over, never overthrew or displaced a democratic government, and ended (or tried to) all kinds of barbaric practices in India alone (I'm thinking suttee here, but there are others).

And they built the aqueduct, I think.

BTW: Old, funny, whacky Woody Allen = good.

New, witty, serious Woody Allen = bad.

I'd probably put the old/new dividing line between "Sleeper" and "Love and Death."

Although I haven't actually seen the latter.

Actually, the line between old/new corresponds pretty closely the line between "Woody Allen movies I've seen" and "Woody Allen movies I haven't seen and only heard about." Which, of course, means I'm passing judgment on much work I haven't actually seen. Of course I am. I'm a busy guy.

[Mo]

John and RC,
Would a story about the "patriots"* George Washington and Tom Jefferson agitating a colonies peacefully administered by the Brits (when compared to India) and then overthrowing the government thanks to an alliance with *gasp* France be liberal too? Keep in mind this doomed blacks to decades of enslavement and eventually led to a bloody civil war. Not to mention the crushing of small rebellions for independence afterwards.

Or because that one involved tax evasion and an armed uprising rather than peaceful resistance, does it become conservative?

Does anyone deserve liberty besides Americans John? Or is it only when Americans do the liberating that it becomes ok?

Catain Holly,
Eminem killed Mozart's total sales. I guess that makes "My Name Is" artistically superior to "Requium".

* Scare quotes intentional

[SR]

"I agree with you regarding the cultural/technological effects of Star Wars, but if you haven't seen it recently, the dialogue is right at about a high-school freshman level, characters change their accents,"

Identify a character other than Princess Leia who changes her accent. (Carrie Fisher's changing accent was in character, just as Natalie Portman's was in the prequels.)

[Lurker who praised Steefo Darg]

Is that "the" Mo?

[Mo]

Is there more than one?

[Phil]

Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. Another example of a movie, in Private Ryan that people will be watching and talking about for decades to come, loosing out to a movie that is at best a footnote now.

Um, just for the record, Shakespeare in Love has been on TV like every weekend for the past month, whereas the last time ABC tried to air Saving Private Ryan, Brent Bozell and the Conservative Culture War Brigade went apeshit because they wanted to leave all the violence and profanity in. Make of that what you will. It may very well lead future broadcasters to figure it isn't worth the trouble with FCC busybodies or trying to edit it down to an air-able version.

I do think that Ryan was the better movie, but Miramax essentially bought that Oscar and everyone knows it. Lest we forget, Spielberg did win Best Director that year, not only over lightweight nobody John Madden for Shakespeare, but over Peter Weir for The Truman Show and Terry "One Movie Every Ten Years" Malick. The Academy may be middlebrow, but they are not consistently stupid.

What Hollywood thinks are the best movies are not even close to what the public wanted, or more accurately, paid their hard-earned money to see.

The fact that these movies have marketing budgets that are approximately equal to the entire production budgets of smaller movies has something to do with it as well. Seriously, level with me here: Do you really think that Revenge of the Sith, Wedding Crashers, Narnia and Mr, & Mrs. Smith were the best movies as artistic achievements that Hollywood has to offer, and thus deserve to be recognized by their peers as the absolute best?

I wonder if "$$$$$$$" would still be your argument if we were talking about the Grammy awards? Money = market pleasing, market clearing, etc., but it doesn't automatically equal artistic quality. I suspect you know this.

I think I'm probably right about the Christers being pissed off about Narnia, too. Judging from the way you keep pushing it.

[Super Prole]

SR,

Chewbacca.

So there.

SP

[Lurker, etc.]

Hadn't seen the moniker "Mo" in a while.

I admit I am not a very good lurker, so maybe I just thought you vanished for a while.

[Mo]

Yes, 'tis me. Though I've been so busy with school I can't post much. I had to respond when people started hating on Gandhi.

[JDM]

William Hurt? Really?

So now he's managed to embarrass both himself and the academy with that performance. Bravo.

[John]

Um, just for the record, Shakespeare in Love has been on TV like every weekend for the past month, whereas the last time ABC tried to air Saving Private Ryan, Brent Bozell and the Conservative Culture War Brigade went apeshit because they wanted to leave all the violence and profanity in. Make of that what you will. It may very well lead future broadcasters to figure it isn't worth the trouble with FCC busybodies or trying to edit it down to an air-able version.

I am not sure who the hell you are talking about, but as a card carrying member of the culture war brigade, I can say that me and everyone in my company doesn't have a problem with the profanity in that movie. You make that statement like the people who objected wanted the movie banned and all the prints burned instead of being concerned about an incredibly violent and graphic movie being shown at 7 o'clock on a Sunday evening. Granted, I agree that people should just show some responsibility and turn the TV off if they don't want their kids to watch it, but I don't have kids and it is easy for me to say. Even though I don't agree with them, I don't think that they were calling for censorship or trying to make it where no one could see the movie as you imply.

As far as Mirimax buying that oscar for Shakespere in Love, then that really undercuts the oscar's credibility. That movie is absolutely aweful and unwatchable. It is not even middle brow. That it should have lasted more than a weekend in theaters or gotten even one luke warm review, is pretty depressing.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

I haven't seen any of the best-pic nominees, I don't know Phil, and I suspect Phil will be screaming like a queen while watching this year's Parade of Gowns, but Phil is clearly winning the argument here.

If you're not paying attention to per-screen averages, you are not championing the voice of the common people; you're letting a bunch of liberal Hollywood MBAs dictate to you what's a major cultural event. When a picture opens on 4,000 screens after six months of publicity and makes a lot of money, that tells you a little bit about what "the public" wants, but it tells you a lot more about where Hollywood decided to put its muscle (which is not to say that these two are mutually exclusive; they're not dumb in Hollywood). It's more informative to gauge how a picture performs in its own niche relative to its own marketing and screening capacity. (By this measure, King Kong is clearly something of a disappointment and Narnia is fifty-fifty. Nor is Brokeback Mountain anything particularly earth-shaking, because it's one of the most heavily supported sleeper films ever released.) With per-screen average, The Passion of the Christ is a completely astounding movie phenomenon. Without it, it's a hit that didn't make quite as much money as Spider-Man 2. Which is fine with me, because I think Spider-Man 2 was hands-down the best movie of 2004, but it's pretty clear The Passion had a unique appeal that far outweighed its marketing or rentals.

John is correct that Shakespeare In Love (albeit on a recent re-viewing it turned out to be more entertaining than I'd remembered) is the model of Oscar bait that nobody even remembers in a couple years. Every word of praise I've heard for Brokeback Mountain tells me it's going to be the same story there. But who cares? Nobody remembers The Blair Witch Project either, and that was a real gas as a cultural phenomenon and the movie that legitimized shooting on video once and for all (which may ultimately make it the most influential picture of the nineties).

It's stupid to draw conclusions about politics based on what gets snubbed and what doesn't. Dirty Harry didn't even get nominated in 1971, but if that's evidence for a liberal anti-cop bias, why did another hardguy cop movie win? The only thing that proves is that the Oscars rarely honor the best or most interesting picture of the year: The French Connection has, IMHO, aged like old milk, while Dirty Harry remains a completely entertaining movie that's politically and culturally fascinating. The best picture of any year rarely even gets nominated. Can any person with taste claim Terms of Endearment was better than The King of Comedy, The Deer Hunter was better than Dawn of the Dead, Gigi was better than Vertigo or any winner of the past 20 years was better than whatever the Coen brothers had out that year? These awards are decided on by vote-that's a guarantee the choices will rarely be interesting. What's amazing is that so many of the movies on Phil's list are actually pretty good.

The only actual Best Picture crime ever recorded was Chariots of Fire. I made Super 8 movies with my brother in 1981 that were better than that thing. How much coke was left over from the seventies, how shaken up was the Academy by the election of Ronald Reagan, how much circulation to the brain were those skinny neckties cutting off, that anybody thought Chariots of Fire was better than The Road Warrior, Scanners, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Excalibur? It's a bunch of nancyboys running on the beach in their underwear!

[Stevo's my hero!]

"hating on Gandhi"

Great title for a doctoral thesis or name for a band.

If I keep posting do I stop being a lurker?

[Jim walsh]

Capote -- portrays flyover country as a cesspool of pathology

And your point being...

[Jim Walsh redux]

The fact that the Academy Awards totally ignored Passion Of The Christ and Fahrenheit 911 last year makes a joke of the notion that it has anything whatsoever to do with genuine cultural impact. But then I stopped taking the Oscars seriously the year they passed over 2001: A Space Odyssey for Oliver.

[Les]

No, you can still be a libertarian if you like Woody Allen. I'll just point my finger, stick my tongue out and say "Nyah" at you.

With that kind of dialogue, you could write for Lucas! 😉

[David]

As far as Mirimax buying that oscar for Shakespere in Love, then that really undercuts the oscar's credibility.

Since when has the Academy Awards had any credibility? I mean, Al Pacino didn't win for either Godfather film(there was no third), and Raiders of the Lost Ark lost out to Chariots of Fire.

[David]

Sorry Tim,

I hadn't read your posted before I posted. Wow, looking back, 1981 was a hell of a year for movies.

[Jesse Walker]

Miscellaneous comments:

1. The greatest Best Picture crime wasn't Chariots of Fire. It was Gentleman's Agreement.

2. Annie Hall is at least ten times as good as Star Wars. And Love and Death is Woody Allen's funniest flick.

3. Les is right about George Lucas's writing. Except that he doesn't even deserve credit for American Graffiti, since that's basically just an Americanized remake of I Vitelloni.

4. Sure, Tim, Dirty Harry kicks The French Connection's ass. But how does Magnum Force stand up to French Connection 2?

[John]

Tim,

I don't think Charriots of Fire was that bad of movie, but I agree it no business being nominated letalone winning in 1981 or any year for that matter.

Absolutely that Dirty Harry is an underrated movie. To this day it is still a kick ass entertaining movie to watch and a real time capsul of 70s culture. In contrast there are Kojak reruns that play better than the French Connection.

I don't quite get the whole Spiderman thing. I really wish someone would make a movie like Airplane that would do to comicbook superhero movies what Airplane did to big budget disaster movies and make them unmakable for about twenty years or so. I will admit that I did watch Spiderman 2 on an cross country flight and it was okay, I didn't think it was great, but it was a lot better than anything else in the genre. I got trapped into watching one of those Y Men movies. The ones with Patrick Stewart and some guy with big sideburns who is really a crime fighting mutant raccoon, YMen Divided I think? It was awful.

[John]

Jessee,

Magnum Force was a confused film, but I will take it over French Connection 2 anyday. The French Connection movies just don't work anymore. They look and feel like bad cop shows.

[John]

One other thing Jessee, I kind of like Bananas as Allen's funniest movie. You are right thought that Anne Hall is a better movie than Star Wars. Actually, I will take Hannah and her Sisters as Allen's best work. It should have won the Oscar for best picture, I think it lost out to either Platoon or The Last Emperor, both of which have not aged well at all.