Well, here we are. 2005. Not a good year for the Academy. In fact, my Oscar escapade stopped for like a week and I watched other stuff off of Netflix after seeing this batch. And why? Because it was a preachy year, a controversial year, a political year...basically all of the things you try to avoid when you watch movies. And it's going to be difficult to write this posting, because I don't want to piss off half of my audience. I know this sounds strange since most of the things that I say and write are intended to make people mad and thus get them to think, but there are some things that can get you seriously yelled at. But whatever, I will take the heat. Because I have to. Because I'm not a hero. Just like that guy from that movie I like.
Well alphabetization: you remain Lady Luck's evil twin (Madame Misfeasance) because you're doing what you're supposed to do, but I don't like it! Consider, if you will, a first-time reader stumbling upon my blog to find that in the first paragraph after the teaser I'm ripping on a movie about gay guys. Do you want me dead, Madame? Well I'll play your sick little game, because I went where every other guy in my social circle was afraid to go. I watched Brokeback Mountain and I even wanted to like it, because it's fun to like things that other people don't so you can prove them wrong. But it's pretty bad. Not because it makes me uncomfortable. Because it's bad. It makes no sense, it's melodramatic, and it's based on something that was originally a very, very short story in The New Yorker. And it's like 2 hours and 15 minutes. It's based on material that likely consisted of: "two cowboys discovered they liked each other. Then they ruined their lives so they could get together twice a year on a mountain away from their families. One of them died. The end. Please proceed to the nonsensical cartoon on the next page." I kept looking for signs that they were attracted to each other, to see where the romance began. Well, they're acting exactly like two straight guys would on a mountain: not saying much, getting their work done. Then they're both in the tent because it's raining outside, and literally out of nowhere: the pants are coming off. This would make no sense with a guy and a girl. When it's two guys who up until this point in their lives had been interested in women (one of them enough to be engaged to one) all of a sudden find themselves in a lifelong romance with one another, it's just silly. And within a book it can make some more sense when you get insight into the psyche of the characters. In a movie, you have to be shown or the narrator has to tell you. Maybe they were both attracted to men for their whole lives up until this point, but if the movie doesn't show that then I don't buy the romance. And then their poor families suffer because they're disconnected from their wives and children. So what is the point of this movie? To cause controversy, I think. On the positive side, the acting in the film is definitely good. Back to being negative: the fact that it's in the 60s and not the 1800s and everyone is wearing a cowboy outfit is goofy. The highlight of the film is that Anne Hathaway is in it and she's pretty hot. Michelle Williams is scary though. Seriously. But you know what? I watched it. I watched it, and I judged it fairly. As you'll soon see with other reviews I put up, and some I already have, I have changed my mind about a fair few movies recently. But this isn't one of them. People said the Academy was homophobic by not giving it the award. I say that for the first time in a long time they were doing their job (judging films based on merit) and not trying to promote themselves as progressive.
Well, that was some heavy ranting. Let's lighten it up, shall we? Oh wait, we can't. Because 2005 sucks, and even the good movies are depressing. And this movie isn't particularly great anyway. I've already mentioned my thoughts on films that have a good performance but are meh as films, and the next good example of this is Capote. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a truly great performance as Truman Capote. How can we tell? He annoyed the crap out of me at times, and so would the real guy probably. Because while the whole persona that he had is fun and enjoyable for the dinner party scenes, when he starts using the same Mighty Mouse voice when talking about the cold-blooded murder of an entire family, it's frankly insulting. And you can argue back and forth about whether his voice and personality were his natural state of being or whether he became a caricature of himself to help foster a popular persona. But either way, he could've toned it down when speaking about serious things. The voice I use (much the same as most people) when talking to my friends about movies and stuff is different than the voice I use when apologizing, or the one I use in a formal setting, etc. Everyone does it, so the fact that he didn't really kind of bothered me. And the movie is overall pretty boring, until when he's interacting with one of the killers and starts to see a bit of himself in the guy. Those scenes are really well done, and easily the highlight. And I give the real-life Capote major credit for writing both In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's because that kind of range as a writer is pretty uncanny. But seriously though, best picture nominee? Come on now. Oh and also, if the Academy is so homophobic, why did they give the award to a guy playing a gay guy? (Which they also did back in 1993 for Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.) Oh wait, that doesn't make any sense. I guess people should check stuff before they start whining (I constantly check things before I whine on here).
What's that? A movie from 2005 that I liked is next? Well, put a jetpack on my back and call me Boba Fett. As it so happens, I like the 3 remaining nominees. And although this one is more on the level of what I'd call "enjoyable" than actually good, it's undeniably enjoyable. It is Good Night, and Good Luck and if you haven't heard of it that probably just means you're a person who isn't me or George Clooney (he was born on my birthday you know, or the other way around I suppose). Clooney wrote and directed this movie, and it's full of great actors. It's a historical drama about television journalist Edward R. Murrow and his continuing search for answers from Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. When I read the cover, I thought to myself: here we go with Hollywood beating another dead horse. The Red Scare was bad, we get it! We lost Vietnam, we get it! Movies with special effects and fight scenes can't actually be quality films, we get it! (wait, what now?) But I ended up enjoying it much in the same way I enjoyed Frost/Nixon because instead of being preachy it was very real and thought-provoking. It also has a really good running time, because it's fairly short but they fill it up with good stuff. It's not an overly excellent movie, but it's certainly worth watching if you have the time. The black and white picture really puts you in the time period, and you feel as though you're watching a documentary on the situation that might have been made at the time of the film's events. Which I really liked, because I hate when historical films show events from a modern-day perspective. This didn't do that, so I'm not sure it's good enough to be a Best Picture nominee but I definitely think it's a quality film.
Though I do really like this year's winner, the movie I feel was really deserving was Munich. And I know, Spielberg already won Best Director twice and he's been nominated a bunch of times and blah blah blah. But I think this is easily his second best piece of work after Schindler's List because it really makes you think and it is especially well-filmed. In fact, in terms of how interesting his shot choices are, I'd say this is his best piece of work. It's certainly a heavy movie, and is even more depressing than Schindler in many ways. Because at the end of that movie, you're left with some hope after 3 hours of intensity. But at the end of this movie, you're thinking to yourself "well they did what they set out to do, but that kinda sucks." For those unaware, the film centers on the secret mission of revenge against the Palestinian operatives that were responsible for the Israeli murders at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The revenge mission aspect of the story may or may not be true, but as I always say, who cares? It's a movie. And it's not like the film makes up the fact that the two camps hate each other, because they do. Is it beyond possibility that this happened? No. And it very well could have, so quit with the whining. Seriously. The film uses this situation as a backdrop for the nature of revenge. Something interesting I learned in class (never thought I'd use that phrase) is that the "eye for an eye" system was actually progressive for its time. Because before it was in place there were blood feuds that involved "you took my wife, I kill you. You killed my friend, I kill four of you. You killed four of us, we kill 10 of you." So on and so forth, until no one's left. So, eye for an eye is pretty good compared to that. But did the actions in the movie do anything? Or is it back to escalating blood feuds? That's what the main character essentially asks, to which Geoffrey Rush responds, "why do I cut off my toenails? They'll just grow back." And that response has stuck in my memory ever since I saw the film four years ago. So it's a rough, heavy movie but it's quite excellent. Solid acting, great direction, and (as usual) an outstanding musical score from my hero: John Williams.
Well now it's time to talk about this year's winner, which you could say deals with a controversial issue, but actually approaches the subject from a very reasonable and interesting position. The movie is Crash, and the movie itself caused some controversy because it wasn't even nominated for the Golden Globe and yet it won the Oscar, and this fact helped to fuel the "Academy is homophobic" argument. Since Ang Lee won for Best Director of Brokeback, I'd say that's the real controversy. Because even if you like that movie, from a directing standing point it's mediocre. Whereas Paul Haggis, the writer and director of Crash, does a really great job. And he's just the man anyway. He wrote Million Dollar Baby (the previous year's winner) and he wrote the Clint Eastwood WWII films of 2006, and they brought him in to write some of the more personal scenes in Quantum of Solace. It's worth saying twice: he's the man. This film is the kind that I like to see win: it came out in the summer and gained a slight following (people in my high school class kept telling me to see it) and it ended up winning. It has some fairly big stars in it but no one huge, and it's not an "artsy" movie. It's funny and tragic at the same time. It portrays racists from all possible positions, but it humanizes them. The film shows us that racism is a terrible thing, but that it doesn't come from nowhere. The people are racist for a reason, even though the reasons are obviously invalid. This makes the turning points that several characters face all the more powerful. And the film literally has you laughing one second and crying the next (sometimes tears of joy, sometimes not). Some more cynical than myself (hard to imagine, I know) might say that in the battle of Hollywood political correctness, racism beats gay rights. But I'd like to think that the film won not because of the issues it addresses, but because of the fresh way it approaches them and the talent of the writer/director and all of the actors.
Whew! Well that was a rough, rough year. I mean seriously, I'm glad I saw those movies far apart from each other, instead of like the 2008 movies which I watched over the course of three days or so. Because had I watched all five in close proximity it would've thrown me into a depression. Well, not really. But you see my point. There were definitely some good movies in this year, but I overall didn't like the first two that I mentioned. And I am cynical enough to suggest that socially conscious films are recognized by the Academy because they like to see themselves a certain way within society. But in recent years, I've mostly agreed with the overall winners so perhaps the Academy isn't as far gone as I thought. Either way, next entry will include a drunk Sandman, a reclusive survivor of the Titanic, and crotchety Clint Eastwood.
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