Ug.

Liz Rizzo — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 21:05:03 -0600

You know what, I was personally heartbroken that Brokeback didn't win.

And I haven't seen Crash yet - although I will - precisely because from the trailers its racism themes seem a bit heavy-handed and not about the Los Angeles I live in. Again, I need to see it, but that was my aversion from the trailers, which may prove to be completely inaccurate. Everyone I've spoken to says it is a powerful, daring film.

But all that said, those film industry voters she's talking about ARE the academy. It's THEIR award to give to whoever they damn well please. I think it was brave and honest for Ang Lee to say he was disappointed not to win best picture - but this quote from Annie Proulx is just way, way rude.

You mean Crash sent DVDs to voters... like everyone else does? Shocker.

America's Yeasty Ferment

emdashes — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:23:26 -0600

Annie "Brokeback" Proulx has surely earned the right to carp, and so she does:

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "Brokeback Mountain" has bashed the "segregated" and "out of touch" community that passed over the film, and instead gave the best picture Oscar to "Crash" - a film about race relations.

"Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good," Proulx wrote in an essay for the London Guardian. "And rumor has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of 'Trash' - excuse me, 'Crash' - a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver."

I didn't feel that way about Crash, which riveted me in the theater but faded away not long afterward; I think it's important, if not timeless. Anyway, Transamerica is even more controversial, though it wasn't up for Best Picture. Race isn't exactly a dead topic, but Proulx still has a point. Especially about the wrought-iron out-of-touchness.

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Ug.

America's Yeasty Ferment