Oscar wrap
Mar. 6th, 2006 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI didn't see any of the best pictures this year except the one that won.
Let me save you the time of reading the full rant if you choose: Crash in no way could possibly have been the best film of the year. There's just no way. It was not nearly as political as Good Night and Good Luck, not so personal as Brokeback Mountain, not so push-button issue-hot as Munich, and not nearly as character-driven as Capote.
Now, bear in mind, that's how it appeared to me based on reveiws for the other films. My basis for rejecting Crash is that it did not compare in reviews to these other films and my own experience watching it found it sadly lacking. It's not, contrary to the speech of the producers, a film about tolerance. It is decidedly about intolerance, hatred, and morality (more lack-thereof, you ask me) at gun point--literally. Not a single person in the whole film was genuinely appealing, with the exception of the Latino father, and he was set up for fucking sainthood by the film by virtue of being a good father. It was a one-sided portrayal set up so that the man who was racist about his being a Latino (and therefore crooked) was shown to be "evil." Everyone hates in Crash, seems to be the message. Oh, except for this one guy. Go him.
Otherwise, the film is a hodge-podge of dramatic scenes screwed over by heavy narrative and emotional manipulation. Instead of asking you to accept nuanced portrayals, they throw in disparate elements: a racist cop is also a concerned son (something that I don't think takes any stretch of the imagination as racism in no way excludes or exists outside of filial piety); a white woman mistrusts the aforementioned saintly Latino but considers her Hispanic housekeeper (at whom she shouts and treats like a second-class citizen) her "best friend;" an Iranian man combats insults and insinuations that he's a terrorist yet gladly buys a weapon to get respect and hunt down his enemies. It's impossible to like one single character. They're all reprehensible. The conflicts or the 'crashing into each other' often present huge opportunities for dramatic tension, but the tension fizzles or is bent and twisted into a convoluted ending that redeems no one.
Best picture my ass.
As for the rest, I'm shocked Clooney won, though I thought his speech was one of the best of the evening. I wish Felicity Huffman could have won. Hers was a role that was so out there, so far removed from Charlize Theron's gogging-for-an-Oscar bit, or Judi Dench doing-her-same-old-shit routine, or Keira-fucking-Knightly MUCKING UP ONE OF THE GREATEST HEROINES IN LITERATURE, or Reese Witherspoon's pseudo-imitation of a real person. I really am starting to resent the biopic for its monopoly on the Oscars the past two years. I won't say that Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Reese Witherspoon were just aping real people, but it's something of a cheat where there's audio/visual record of the person you're meant to be portraying. Versus actors and actresses who have to bring to life a character who doesn't exist outside of the fiction. I think it's a lot harder to take a character who has no history but that we learn of in the film and play him/her so thoroughly it's as though they have as many long years as real people than it is to do a half-imitation, half-embellishment of a historical figure.
Yes, I realize there are lots of people who won for being historical figures. I have no problem with historical figures that are sufficiently removed in time or not recorded outside of written record to be breathed with new life, but really, someone of whom videos and audio recordings remain, or who might still be alive when the biopic is made? How can you separate a performer who becomes the character from someone who copies mannerisms and tone well enough to mimic accurately? It's the difference between lifting up new artists and celebrating Elvis impersonators. I won't say the actors/actresses who've won of late don't deserve it. Only that I wish more credit could be given to the craft and skill it takes to move a purely fictional character from the realm of the scripted/written sketch to a living, breathing, flawed person. Making the unreal real should be more celebrated than taking the already existing and making it Hollywood.
End of Rant.
Jon Stewart, COME BACK NEXT YEAR. Dear Lord, he was hilarious. I love him to death anyway, so maybe I'm biased, but he was genuinely wonderful. He didn't let Hollywoodism hold sway nor did he thumb his nose at it like Chris Rock did. The montage bit was cute, though I think his humble smartest-guy-in-the-room schtick was better still. His play with Clooney was to die for. Clooney's gonna be the new Jack Nicolson with his comic timing. I love The Daily Show-style clips sneaking in there, too. Jon, you are the king.
Let me save you the time of reading the full rant if you choose: Crash in no way could possibly have been the best film of the year. There's just no way. It was not nearly as political as Good Night and Good Luck, not so personal as Brokeback Mountain, not so push-button issue-hot as Munich, and not nearly as character-driven as Capote.
Now, bear in mind, that's how it appeared to me based on reveiws for the other films. My basis for rejecting Crash is that it did not compare in reviews to these other films and my own experience watching it found it sadly lacking. It's not, contrary to the speech of the producers, a film about tolerance. It is decidedly about intolerance, hatred, and morality (more lack-thereof, you ask me) at gun point--literally. Not a single person in the whole film was genuinely appealing, with the exception of the Latino father, and he was set up for fucking sainthood by the film by virtue of being a good father. It was a one-sided portrayal set up so that the man who was racist about his being a Latino (and therefore crooked) was shown to be "evil." Everyone hates in Crash, seems to be the message. Oh, except for this one guy. Go him.
Otherwise, the film is a hodge-podge of dramatic scenes screwed over by heavy narrative and emotional manipulation. Instead of asking you to accept nuanced portrayals, they throw in disparate elements: a racist cop is also a concerned son (something that I don't think takes any stretch of the imagination as racism in no way excludes or exists outside of filial piety); a white woman mistrusts the aforementioned saintly Latino but considers her Hispanic housekeeper (at whom she shouts and treats like a second-class citizen) her "best friend;" an Iranian man combats insults and insinuations that he's a terrorist yet gladly buys a weapon to get respect and hunt down his enemies. It's impossible to like one single character. They're all reprehensible. The conflicts or the 'crashing into each other' often present huge opportunities for dramatic tension, but the tension fizzles or is bent and twisted into a convoluted ending that redeems no one.
Best picture my ass.
As for the rest, I'm shocked Clooney won, though I thought his speech was one of the best of the evening. I wish Felicity Huffman could have won. Hers was a role that was so out there, so far removed from Charlize Theron's gogging-for-an-Oscar bit, or Judi Dench doing-her-same-old-shit routine, or Keira-fucking-Knightly MUCKING UP ONE OF THE GREATEST HEROINES IN LITERATURE, or Reese Witherspoon's pseudo-imitation of a real person. I really am starting to resent the biopic for its monopoly on the Oscars the past two years. I won't say that Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Reese Witherspoon were just aping real people, but it's something of a cheat where there's audio/visual record of the person you're meant to be portraying. Versus actors and actresses who have to bring to life a character who doesn't exist outside of the fiction. I think it's a lot harder to take a character who has no history but that we learn of in the film and play him/her so thoroughly it's as though they have as many long years as real people than it is to do a half-imitation, half-embellishment of a historical figure.
Yes, I realize there are lots of people who won for being historical figures. I have no problem with historical figures that are sufficiently removed in time or not recorded outside of written record to be breathed with new life, but really, someone of whom videos and audio recordings remain, or who might still be alive when the biopic is made? How can you separate a performer who becomes the character from someone who copies mannerisms and tone well enough to mimic accurately? It's the difference between lifting up new artists and celebrating Elvis impersonators. I won't say the actors/actresses who've won of late don't deserve it. Only that I wish more credit could be given to the craft and skill it takes to move a purely fictional character from the realm of the scripted/written sketch to a living, breathing, flawed person. Making the unreal real should be more celebrated than taking the already existing and making it Hollywood.
End of Rant.
Jon Stewart, COME BACK NEXT YEAR. Dear Lord, he was hilarious. I love him to death anyway, so maybe I'm biased, but he was genuinely wonderful. He didn't let Hollywoodism hold sway nor did he thumb his nose at it like Chris Rock did. The montage bit was cute, though I think his humble smartest-guy-in-the-room schtick was better still. His play with Clooney was to die for. Clooney's gonna be the new Jack Nicolson with his comic timing. I love The Daily Show-style clips sneaking in there, too. Jon, you are the king.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 06:29 am (UTC)I can't believe it won. There wasn't any call for it. No stand out performances, not really, no brilliant scenes or wit. WTF?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 06:44 am (UTC)Also, I'm still upset that The Squid and the Whale didn't get more academy recognition beyond Best Screenplay.
With this (and last) year's nominations and winners I've finally been convinced that the "political" aspect of the AA's are dominant over true merit.
Now, aside from the Oscar complaints... I feel that an actor/actress portraying a real person is inevitably viewed with a sense of disbelief and lurking criticism by the audience that he/she needs to overcome in order to make the performance acceptable. I think this balances against the fact that there's footage and interviews, etc. to draw from to help in the character creation.
Wow, my ability to construct sentences has gone completely down the shitter.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 08:16 am (UTC)I think that any actor who transforms themselves completely into someone who isn't themself is putting on a good performance, and so I can see why Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jamie Foxx won. I assume that even with source material, it's no less challenging for an actor to totally become that person (possibly even harder, with their target already completely decided for them). Still, the Academy should probably try and be more original.
I watched Pride and Prejudice. I'm not attacking your opinion of her at all (everyone has their own opinions, blah blah blah) but I don't get how you can loathe someone so much just for being average (which is why I keep bringing it up, I just don't understand at all). It's not an Oscar-worthy performance, no, but even if it's the best source material ever and someone is completely wrong for a role or approaches it in the entirely wrong manner, looking at the film itself, I see nothing wrong with her in context with the movie.
oops
Date: 2006-03-06 08:17 am (UTC)Someone Else's Reaction
Date: 2006-03-06 03:59 pm (UTC)Re: oops
Date: 2006-03-06 04:16 pm (UTC)The ending was corny, but whatever. I don't think the point of the movie (or the goal) was that you liked any of the characters (Matt Dillon especially -- I would never once have considered that anything in the movie was intended to "redeem" his character into being a good guy).
I dunno that that's so. He rescues the woman from the burning car, which is brave enough to lionize him as a hero. So he's still a schmuck and a racist, but he's able to lay all his baggage aside to rise above and beyond the call of his duty, blah blah blah. Very emotionally manipulative.
Having seen Hustle & Flow, however, I understand where you're coming from.
My roommate chided me for being hard on that film when I hadn't seen it. However, being a feminist, I find the glorification and justification of the lifestyle of a pimp reprehensible in the extreme. I do not think it's okay to show him as a dreamer trying to break into rap with his music by initially supporting the investment with his sex slavery. He'd have to be a really nice guy to his working girls, actually protecting them as I guess pimps are meant to somehow, for me to consider his dreams and aspirations as worth my attention. My friend who saw the film tells me this isn't hardly the case. So, I won't be seeing that.
And "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp"? I won't discuss merits of the song since I didn't care for any of the song nominees as was, but that says it all. Woe is the poor controlling male who has to wrangle women to sell their bodies for his money. Forget, you know, the women selling their bodies for sex and having to make do on money less his take who only get their income from themselvese and don't have luxury of owning more bodies to press into service. Disgusting.
I think that any actor who transforms themselves completely into someone who isn't themself is putting on a good performance, and so I can see why Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jamie Foxx won. I assume that even with source material, it's no less challenging for an actor to totally become that person (possibly even harder, with their target already completely decided for them). Still, the Academy should probably try and be more original.
You're right, of course, and I can see that side to it, it just irks me that it's sure Oscar nominations for anyone who does a credible impersonation of a person either still living or heavily recorded versus someone who can create a character that is lasting and memorable and well played from a few lines of a story. I still say we owe Johnny Depp an Oscar for Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, but maybe that's just me.
Re: oops
Date: 2006-03-06 04:16 pm (UTC)I watched Pride and Prejudice. I'm not attacking your opinion of her at all (everyone has their own opinions, blah blah blah) but I don't get how you can loathe someone so much just for being average (which is why I keep bringing it up, I just don't understand at all). It's not an Oscar-worthy performance, no, but even if it's the best source material ever and someone is completely wrong for a role or approaches it in the entirely wrong manner, looking at the film itself, I see nothing wrong with her in context with the movie
There goes the male, defending Keira Knightly again....
Kidding. But all jokes aside, it makes me despair for the reviewers in this country who were sucked into the film if you think her performance in context was acceptable. That just means the rest of the film is about as mediocre, which makes me scratch my head as to why it was so popular with critics.
Hate her for being average? I think hate's not too strong a word, but it's the reason for it that I think is confused here. I don't hate her for being an average actress. In most things I've seen her in, I've not been bothered by her limitations. She was good in Love, Actually in her exchanges with the guy she was trying to get to like her (and who really secretly did). I found her mostly acceptable in Pirates (except for that damned dead-stop line about the corset when she's fighting the pirates, and that wasn't her fault, it was the writer's). In King Arthur, she did a passable job, though I honestly hardly paid her any attention (between the polar magnetisms of Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd, she stood not a chance of catching my attention).
What I find most lamentable is that she in no way appeared to elevate herself or involve herself in the character as she is meant to be from the source material. The clip they played at the Oscars is one of the most dramatic in the book. It's where Elizabeth finally allows herself to break barriers of thin restraint and let Darcy have the full force of her contempt for him. It is a scene that requires an actress to be both hurt, angry, satisfied, and even malevolent. That's not easy to do. It is not helped by being spat out by a little waif who looks incapable of summoning the fury and pain and even less capable of inflicting it upon her opposite. Keira Knightly doesn't do anger terribly well. She's far too cute and gorgeous. I could see her pulling off one of the more vampy, noir, restrained cold hatreds of the black and white days, where her impassive facade and chilly beauty would work to her advantage. But passion? Not so much.
And the Darcy she was opposite? Totally wrong for the character. I liked from the reviews that this Darcy was emphasized as shy. That's not incorrect. Darcy himself says that he 'lacks the talent for idle chatter' and 'putting himself forward in conversation' with people he's not familiar with. That's shy, to be sure. Watching Matthew McFayden (sp?) react by not reacting at all to Keira Knightly's hissing and spitting was painful because at that point he did know her well enough to be bold, and he is proud enough (hence the title of the thing) to assume his connections and finances and the honor of his proposal ought to secure him what he wants. Maybe he grew a pair of stones immediately after that scene, but as with Lizzy, there's a slow burn of fury in him that should match her.
I guess all that is my directorial input, but it's also source. As is, Pride & Prejudice seemed to take liberties to the extreme that it turned this compelling story about two people overcoming their shortcomings into something of a lesser film about a pushy girl and the shy rich boy she wins. In other words, it became a fairy tale instead of a personal/social commentary as I think most Austen fans would say it was meant to be.
But you're right. I shouldn't crow too loud until I see the damned thing. I just don't know how I'll manage that. I flatly refuse to buy it, and Netflix renting means I'll only have it (I'm on the one-disc-at-a-time program) and nothing else for a week. Maybe my parents will have bought it. I shudder to think of them buying it for me for my birthday...
Re: Someone Else's Reaction
Date: 2006-03-06 04:18 pm (UTC)Re: oops
Date: 2006-03-06 04:32 pm (UTC)2) Yeah, the characters in Hustle & Flow are all annoying and hateable and you don't want them to succeed, which is why I got pissed off and walked out. The craft of the movie was fine -- it's not an ineptly-made film, but it's just...not about people you want to care about or anything.
3) He might have deserved one for that (if only as one of those make-up Oscars, probably for his performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). But I wouldn't have minded, if only because it meant they were rewarding him for a fine career and awarding something to a comedy for a change.
Re: oops
Date: 2006-03-07 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 01:02 am (UTC)I also secretly rather wish that Michelle Williams had won best Supporting Actress for Brokeback Mountain because I think she's awesome, too. But Rachel Wiesz is pretty cool. I question her actual talent, because mostly I just think she's pretty, but since I didn't see whatever it was she won for, I'll reserve judgment.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 01:40 am (UTC)Michelle Williams was supposedly fantastic, too, so now I have to see both films and find out for myself.
Re: oops
Date: 2006-03-07 01:51 am (UTC)No, you're not wrong. I freely admit there's always going to be room to interpret the story and there's going to be plenty of interpretations that I won't like.
Not knowing the book gives you a different perspective, so that's fair. It's a great book in general, though I confess it has more attractions for us of the female persuasion. Keira can approach it the way she has, but that is an extremely shallow interpretation. It's a "I gave the book a once over and compared it to a television series/movie I paid more attention to." If you're going to study your character, you owe the character more than that. I guess what shocked me most was how authoritative she attempted to sound while spouting off something that was completely, ridiculously oversimplified.
And it's quite possible to lose some of the themes from the book without having the loss ruin the adaptation. Elizabeth's first proposal from Mr. Collins is a means to gauge her attitude towards marriage, especially marriages of obligation versus love/compatibility, but you don't need it to get her opinion on the subject if you just watch her react to Jane and Bingley's romance and her own snub of Darcy.
Meh. I'm going to borrow the DVD from the library in the next few weeks. We'll see if it manages to overcome my disgust and approbation.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 04:19 am (UTC)