Monday, February 22, 2010

For those just wanting to read the note I posted on Facebook regarding Crash / Brokeback Mountain, it's further down, after the bold underlined part. ;-0)

I went over to Michael's last night. We watched Roseanne (after seeing a bit of Mutant X irked me), then slept. I had the most erotic dream about muscle bound men I've ever had in my entire life...and there was a story...and a new version of Wonder Woman. lol. And it was awesome...and I woke up hard and thrusting against Michael, still feeling spacey from Midrin I'd taken hours before (which was odd) and having flashes of my dream, leading to some amazingly powerful sex. Later we showered and spoke and cuddled and watched and slept some more. Our relationship / friendship / whatever it is, in such an odd place right now. But I just have to ride it out and see where it goes.

There was a terrible snow storm. I was waiting for Michael to leave for work (so I could spend the most time with him) but he called in around 6:30am. I went to the store for groceries, intending to go home from there, but then the roads were so terrible that I headed back to his place for a few more hours before he went in to work after all and I came home.

I watched excerpts from "The Plan", e-mailed Joe from Friday night, got the new 'Brothers & Sisters' episode, chatted with Bobby about gay characters on tv, my dream last night, and sex in general. I got a behind the scenes doco on 'Being Human'. I still need the new Spartacus, Smallville, and Desperate Housewives. I chatted with Jay, and everything is squared away there. I worked on my farm. I posted this "Oscar" note on Facebook, which I'll repost below, and now I'm waiting to do the Farm thing again before I head to bed as I'm extremely tired.

Anyways, here's the note that I posted on Facebook:

So this is the deal, in honor of the Academy Awards that are coming up, I want you to rank by favorite, all the best picture winners that you've seen. Here is a list of all the winners.

(I'm surprised how many of these I haven't seen)

Remember to put them in order of favorite not what you necessarily think the better movie is. Remember to tag your friends and make sure you tag me back so I can see your list.

Here is my list:
01 Ordinary People
02 The Sound of Music
03 The Silence of the Lambs
04 Schindler's List
05 Braveheart
06 The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
07 American Beauty
08 All About Eve
09 Rebecca
10 Ben-Hur
11 Shakespeare in Love
12 Chicago
13 Titanic
14 The English Patient
15 Forest Gump
16 Rain Man
17 Amadeus
18 Marty
19 From Here to Eternity
20 In the Heat of the Night
21 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
22 The Sting
23 Rocky
24 Driving Miss Daisy
25 Unforgiven
26 Gladiator
27 Around the World in 80 Days
28 Crash
29 Gone With the Wind

About the movie that's not on the list, but should be: Brokeback Mountain. Shorly after the debacle that was the 2005 Academy Awards I wrote this e-mail to my Hollywood Video co-workers:

March 7, 2006
11:04 PM

Hey guys,

This e-mail is pretty long. Just call me The Rambler.

I just wanted to write this out, as I'm sure it's going to come up at work, and I may possibly get emotional about the whole thing later on and not be as clear headed as I am right now. Before I begin, I just want to say that I'm not slamming the movie Crash; I haven't even seen it yet, though I intend to, both because the trailer made it look really good and because of the rave reviews Matt & Heidi gave it ;-0) This isn't about me disliking that film, or even me enjoying Brokeback Mountain; if that was all this was, then it would be a lot simpler, and I wouldn't be writing this at all. Crash won the Oscar for Best Picture. Brokeback Mountain did not. Of course, just being nominated for Best Picture is an honor, but this turn of events with Crash & Brokeback Mountain is unprecedented in all but one way. And that's what bothers me. I'm sure each of the five movies nominated for Best Picture were worthy of the title, but there have always been certain things that the Best Picture winner must or should do before the award is given; Brokeback Mountain accomplished all of these; Crash did not. This is why so many people who have been watching the Oscars for years are so shocked about Crash's surprise victory; even the film's creators & cast are in shock. For those of you not in the know, let me explain how & why this bothers me.

During the awards' season leading up to Sunday night's Oscars, Brokeback Mountain became the most honored movie in cinematic history. Think about that for a second. This movie that the Academy denied the Best Picture award to had more pre-Oscar Best Picture & Best Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List & Titanic combined! Pre-Oscar awards are generally a good way to gage how the Oscar's will turn out; especially when so many awards are given to one film. To see a complete list of the awards it had won or was nominated for prior to the Oscars, see below.

Now, of the major awards, Crash managed to win only the Screen Actor's Guild Award, the Chicago Critics Award, and an Image Award. Crash's win of the Chicago honor was mostly due to Chicago-area film critic Roger Ebert relentlessly pushing for it, and even then, Brokeback Mountain was the runner-up. So, how did Crash fare in all of the awards races that Brokeback Mountain won? Mostly, it didn't. Crash didn't even earn a nomination in most areas. In fact, before the SAG award, Crash barely merited mention as an Oscar contender at all. Generally movies like Crash that earn a Best Picture nomination from the Academy are the ones to walk away empty handed, with the honor of being nominated being especially impressive, as their film didn't earn the pre-Oscar wins to truly support their Oscar nomination in the first place. Being nominated is their reward, and a worthy one. Crash's Best Picture win flies in the face of all that; an amazing break with Oscar tradition.

But there's more. When Brokeback Mountain failed to receive the Best Picture Oscar, it became the first film in history to win the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild, and Producer's Guild awards and not win the Best Picture Oscar. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Also, each year the film with the most nominations almost always wins the top prize; only 4 times in the past 25 years has the Best Picture winner not also been the film with the most nominations. This year Brokeback Mountain had the most nominations. Brokeback Mountain also won the Golden Globe for Best Picture, all but assuring that it would win at the Oscars too. Crash didn't even earn a Best Picture Golden Globe nomination. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, what you may not know is that only once (in 1973) did a film not even nominated for the Golden Globe's Best Picture go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; that movie was The Sting, & it's lack of a Golden Globe nomination was due to a mix-up. Another factor in how the Academy has voted in the past is box-office, or how much money a movie has made compared to the movies it's nominated against. And again, like most Best Picture winners, Brokeback Mountain was by far the highest grossing film of the five nominees. Brokeback Mountain has earned $120,000,0000 worldwide, while Crash has taken in less than half that.

Brokeback Mountain was also the clear frontrunner in critical acclaim. Every year, both Premiere Magazine & Entertainment Weekly rank the year's movies according to the reviews they received. Brokeback Mountain came in first place on both lists. Three other Best Picture nominees (Goodnight, and Good Luck, Capote, & Munich) also placed in the Top Ten on both lists. Meanwhile, Crash ranked #36 on Premiere's list, and down in the 50's on Entertainment Weekly's. A half dozen big critics even gave Crash outright pans, saying it was a movie to be avoided. If you go to http://www.rottontomatoes.com (a respected online movie review site) you can see that Crash earned a 77% Fresh rating, while Brokeback Mountain earned an 86% fresh rating. That's pretty amazing, given the outcome of the Oscar race. That's unheard of. That's like being in first place through an entire race, and then being kicked in the balls just short of the finish line.

Some Crash supporters have argued the Academy had to choose between honoring two very worthwhile movies, one confronting racism, one homophobia, both subjects the Oscars have overlooked in the past. And while it was a difficult choice, they argue, it was a fair decision. But Hollywood has already honored numerous movies that confront racism. In The Heat of the Night won back in 1967, nearly 40 years ago. Other previous winners depicting racism have included Gandhi, Driving Miss Daisy, & Westside Story. Add to that the recent (well deserved) Oscar winners, Halle Berry, Jamie Fox, Morgan Freeman, & Denzel Washington (plus all the other nominees) and the "overlooked race issue" card seems a bit less valid. This doesn't mean that these stories are any less worthy for subject matter; only that they are different shades of a story that has already be seen and rewarded. Brokeback Mountain on the other hand was groundbreaking. No gay story, much less a love story, has ever been in serious contention for a Best Picture Oscar.

For the Academy to have chosen Crash over Brokeback Mountain, they had to overlook the fact that Brokeback Mountain was the favorite by almost every measure the Academy has used for 78 years! And they also had to be willing to overturn decades of Academy tradition as well. And all of this change happened without an infusion of new blood; there was no changing of the guard to explain this oddity of Academy behavior. The old guard themselves upended their traditions in order to propel Crash past Brokeback Mountain. Why? I don't know that the decision was in any way homophobic (though that word is being thrown around a lot), but sadly I do know that there was one Oscar tradition that was not overturned this year: as I already stated, no explicitly homosexual themed movie has ever won the Best Picture Oscar. For many Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender movie fans, this has been something of a disappointment. But in all honesty, a movie really hasn't captured a slice of our lives in any award worthy way, until Brokeback Mountain, that is. To see Brokeback Mountain in a packed theater with every shade/age/class of people sitting together, and not hearing laughter or insults thrown during the love scenes was astonishingly cathartic! To see the world stand up and praise the movie again & again was amazing! To see it jump through all the usual hoops required by the Academy to earn Best Picture was joyous! To see the movie denied it's rightful place was disgusting.

People argue that the Academy/Hollywood isn't homophobic. After all, Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for the gay role of Capote. But homophobia isn't as simple as that; it has many layers & permutations. The homophobia that people are talking about in the wake of the Oscars is the kind that buys into the acceptace of Hollywood's homosexual roles only when they conform to all the stereotypes of effete, lisping, asexual men. These characters, and their murderous/dying/AIDS ridden counterparts are allowed to flourish (Kiss of The Spiderwoman, Philadelphia, Gods & Monsters, Monster, Braveheart), while roles such as those featured in Brokeback Mountain are deemed to be dangerous or unwelcome. It's not that the visibility of the allowed homosexuals is unwelcome to a gay audience; it's that it's just a bit horrific to only allow one side of a group of people to be celebrated, while others seem to be punished. One of the gay characters in Best Picture winner Braveheart is thrown from a high castle tower to his death - there were cheers when that happened in the theater. When Philadelphia was released in 1993, they weren't even allowed to show the main character (Tom Hanks) and his partner (Antonio Banderas) really kiss on screen. And I can't even list all the gay roles from plays, novels, myth, history and breaking news that have been written as heterosexual when adapted for Hollywood. That a movie could be made that ignored all this bullshit, and told an honest, heart-wrenching tale of love between men - that it went on to earn rave reviews, box office success in most corners of the world, and then got snubbed at the last gate by the Academy sickens me. And I'm not alone.

I'll continue collecting GLBT themed movies. I'll continue promoting new GLBT releases. I'll continue hoping for higher quality releases. And I'll stop watching the Oscars, until they've demonstrated that this uncalled-for insult is nothing more than the result of an ignorant time, that has long been laid to rest.

Bald Jason
http://www.gothboy.com

Brokeback Mountain Awards & Nominations: (list includes Oscar nominations & wins)

Best Picture Wins:
Boston Society of Film Critics Award
British Academy of Film & Television Arts
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award
Golden Globe
Independent Spirit Award
London Critics Circle Film Award
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award
New York Film Critics Circle Award
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Satellite Award
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award
Vancouver Film Critics Circle

Best Picture Nominations:
Academy Award/Oscar
Gotham Award
Online Film Critics Society Award

Best Director - Ang Lee - Wins:
Academy Award/Oscar
Boston Society of Film Critics Award
British Academy of Film & Television Arts - David Lean Award
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Dallas-For Worth Film Critics Association Award
Directors Guild of America, USA
Golden Globe
Independent Spirit Award
London Critics Circle Film Award
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award
National Board of Review, USA
New York Film Critics Circle Award
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Satellite Award
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award
Vancouver Film Critics Circle

Best Director Nominations:
Online Film Critics Society Award

Best Cast Nominations:
Gotham Award
Screen Actors Guild Award

Best Actor - Heath Ledger - Wins:
Central Ohio Film Critics
New York Film Critics Circle Award
San Francisco Film Critics Circle

Best Actor - Heath Leger - Nominations:
Academy Award/Oscar
British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Golden Globe
Independent Spirit Award
Online Film Critics Society Award
Satellite Award
Screen Actors Guild Award

Best Actress/Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams - Wins:
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (tied with Amy Adams for Junebug)

Best Actress/Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams - Nominations:
Academy Award/Oscar
British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award
Golden Globe
Independent Spirit Award
Online Film Critics Society Award
Screen Actors Guild Award

Best Supporting Actor - Jake Gyllenhaal - Wins:
British Academy of Film & Television Arts
National Board of Review, USA

Best Supporting Actor - Jake Gyllenhaal - Nominations:
Academy Award/Oscar
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Online Film Critics Society Award
Satellite Award
Screen Actors Guild Award

Best Editing Wins:
Satellite Award
Best Editing Nominations:
American Cinema Editors, USA
British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award

Best Cinematography Wins:
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award

Best Cinematography Nominations:
Academy Award: Oscar
American Society of Cinematographers, USA
British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award
Online Film Critics Society Award

Best Adapted Screenplay Wins:
Academy Award/Oscar
British Academy of Film & Television Arts
Central Ohio Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award
Golden Globe
Online Critics Society Award
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award
Writers Guild of America, USA

Best Adapted Screenplay Nominations:
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Satellite Award
USC Scripter Award

Best Original Song Wins:
Golden Globe
Satellite Award

Best Original Song Nominations:
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award

Best Score Wins:
Academy Award/Oscar
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Online Film Critics Society Award
Academy Award

Best Score Nominations:
British Academy of Film & Television Arts - Anthony Asquith Award
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Golden Globe
Satellite Award

Other Award Wins:

Central Ohio Film Critics:
Best Actor of the Year - Heath Ledger

Venice Film Festival:
Golden Lion (best picture/director)
- to Ang Lee

PGA Golden Laurel Awards:
Motion Picture Producer of the Year

Other Award Nominations:
European Film Awards: Screen International Award - Ang Lee USA

   posted by Bald Jason at 02:43 PM
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