Crash for the Win

So what do I know? It was a close race. Crash's win probably says a great deal about male Academy members' discomfort with Brokeback Mountain.

Comments

[marc harvey]

I disagree. It might, perhaps, be due to the fact I am South African, but I thought Crash was incredible and I was getting all jumpy as I thought Brokeback would get it just because the whole same-sex marriage thing is such an "in" issue at the moment. What do you think?

[Fahbre]

The Academy Awards'TV ratings have plunged for the last three years. Grassroots America is not about to change, because Hollywood wants to dictate which movies are the "best". American families decide which movies are the best. My family chose not watch the Academy Awards.

My friends have also expressed their disgust with the Academy's FINAL FIVE selection of Best Picture, particularly, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and TRANSAMERICA. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was chosen to the final five over CINDERELLA MAN?

Best Picture? Best picture to whom? A selection made by a small group people, Academy members, that wish to further their own sexual and political agendas? Topics that have never been done before.

What next? Soon they will be making movies of men falling in love with their favorite sheep, or women with their water faucets.

The Academy Awards' Oscar is no longer the highest honor in filmmaking to Majority America. The Academy's choice of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and TRANSAMERICA has proven them to be a very dishonorable judging agency... incapable of knowing what the American people want.

Americans want wholesome movies, like: CINDERELLA MAN, BATMAN BEGINS, NORTH COUNTRY, STAR WARS: EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH, WALK THE LINE, CRASH, KING KONG, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE MATRIX RELOADED, APOLLO 13, BREAKING AWAY, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE COLOR PURPLE, DEAD MAN WALKING, DEAD POET'S SOCIETY, 8 MILE, ERIN BROCKOVICH, FIELD OF DREAMS, GANDHI, GOOD WILL HUNTING, GOODBYE MR. CHIPS, HOOSIERS, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, THE KARATE KID, NATIONAL VELVET, NORMA RAE, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, RAIN MAN, ROCKY, SCHINDLER'S LIST, SEABISCUIT, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

The American people voted at the box office for Best Picture, but the Academy ignores the current blockbuster box office hits: STAR WARS -
EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH made $380 Million dollars...WALK THE LINE made $116 Million dollars...HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLIT OF FIRE made $288 Million dollars...WAR OF THE WORLDS made $234 Million. Why does the Academy overlook these films and deliberately select box office flops for Best Picture?

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and TRANSAMERICA were both flops at their box office openings, making less that $1 Million. Other movies with homosexual themes or with main characters being gay made much more money at their box office openings: BIRDCAGE made $18 Million, INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE made $36 Million, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLY made $12 Million, IN AND OUT made $15 Million. The opening gross average for all homosexual movies is $9.5 Million dollars. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and TRANSAMERICA didn't even make $1 Million. It is clearly the Academy's intent to boost box office flops that encourage their own sexual and political agendas.

Majority America does not want movies that focus on a very small group of people (1% of the free America people, NOT including the 5 million people in our jails and prisons) that enjoy same sex, because it is readily available, convenient, economical, "Don't call me in the morning" sex...Don't need to remember their birthday sex...Don't need to take them out to dinner sex.

Majority America want wholesome movies! Not crap like these two, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and TRANSAMERICA.

[sherry]

I think Brokeback Mountain deserved Best Pic. And what's with Ang Lee? Why does he not credit the incredable Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in his acceptance speech? They are excellant and a big part of the film & Lee's success.

[parke]

Why is this such a surprise? Every other know-it-all I encountered last week said Crash had it.

[Libby]

Anne,
Would ou consider doing a story about the political side of this loss. The academy spent the night patting itself on the back for being progressive and taking politicals stands and then gives the Best Picture prize to Crash. Now the Radical, religious and Conservitive right are saying this is a step back (Coulter said that I believe) for the Left.

I don't think the Academy really had any idea of what type of message they were sending. I still don't think they do.

[David]

Easy for me to say, having skipped both, but I like the notion I've heard expressed that given a choice between two films whose agendas they agreed with the voters picked the one they had really enjoyed the most, the one that was fast-paced and exciting rather than the one that was slow-paced and depressing.

[Anne Thompson]

I think the race between Crash and Brokeback Mountain was very close. The media tends to make its prognostications based more on how many awards a movie wins than actually talking to Academy members. Although Crash and Brokeback both did well throughout the prolonged awards season, Brokeback grabbed more wins, was the highest grossing best picture nominee, and had the most nominations. But anecdotally, L.A. voters were talking about Crash, especially during the voting period. many of them said they voted for Crash. So Brokeback Mountain, which was long and slow and made some people (mostly older men) uncomfortable, lost out over a movie that made Liberal voters feel good about themselves, finally. The voters do not think in terms of sending messages. They vote for the movie that they are genuinely proudest of, that engaged their emotions and dazzled them with fancy cinematic footwork. Crash grabbed what we all thought it would--writing and editing. It was not an exercise in cinematic style. But the actors who dominate the academy went for the movie, which gave a great sprawling ensemble plenty of good material to chew.

[Minority America]

"Majority America want wholesome movies!"....Majority America need learn to spell. Majority America smash puny homos....Argh!

[Dear Fahbre]

I really wish people would respond properly to posts like yours whenever they encounter them, instead of being sarcastic, or even worse, just ignoring them.

I think the root of your confusion is that you believe homosexuality is something one DOES, rather than something one IS.
It is a physical condition with a biological basis, just like left-handedness. The hypothalamus of the brains of gay men is the same size as the hypothalamus inside women's brains. This condition is not just confined to humans, but has also been discovered in individuals from at least 300 other species.

Gay men are naturally oriented towards their own sex. They are not simply perverted straight men. A straight man who is simply experimenting (eg in prisons) may be called "bi-curious". This is not the same as being "gay".

Similarly, transgendered people also have a biological condition. In their case, it occurs because of a chromosomal mix-up.

Hope that clears things up slightly?

[dennis]

If the race was indeed close, as many have surmised, then the fact that there were some Academy voters who refused to even see "Brokeback Mountain," much less vote for it, may have thrown the race to "Crash."

I, for one, don't believe that there were only a handful of voters--Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis amogn them--who NEVER would have voted for "Brokeback Mountain."

What about Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston,for instance?