Oscars

[tahnan]

How clever of Garrett, to type running commentary; all I have are remembered reactions. But:

Dear god--an Oscar for Eminem? Eminem just won as many Oscars as The Hours?

Clearly I need to see Frida, which someone out there in the Academy liked a lot more than I would have expected. Clearly I also need to see The Pianist.

There was, in some ways, less politics than I expected: or rather, most people kept their political statements to saying "Let's all pray for peace" or the like. With the exception, of course, of Michael Moore, who I like less than ever. I continue to find him needlessly infuriating--I suppose he feels it's needful, although whether that's "needful to bring about change" or "needful to keep the spotlight on me me me," I'm not sure. It's my feeling that politics has no place at the Oscars; it's just not the forum to start discussing "fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president." (More at this set of comments in colorwheel's journal.)

So I was annoyed to see him win--I admit, I didn't see his documentary, nor the others, but I feel he's more demagogue than documentarist (someone else relayed the opinion that Bowling for Columbine was a documentary the way Jackass was a documentary). The only other award that I particularly minded was Chicago for Best Picture; it just wasn't that good, certainly not as good as The Hours.

So there you go. Nothing exciting, only a little infuriating.

But: the food was excellent. Hooray for Chris Morse!

Comments

[tablesaw]

In a mostly lackluster essay, Roger Ebert made a good point:

[T]he Oscars are not intended as a political forum. It only sometimes seems that way, because in a fragmented world it is one of the few non-sports events that you can be sure most of the country is watching.

It is a melancholy fact that more attention will be paid to the opinions expressed Sunday night than to the combined weight of all of the debates in Congress. Who cares what the politicians think, when Michael Moore is running wild? To this day, more Americans have heard about the Dalai Lama from Richard Gere than from any other source.

People watch the Oscars because it's tradition, the same way that people watch the Super Bowl even when they know it's going to be a blow-out. If the nominees and winners were chosen completely randomly, many people wouldn't notice, except for a few who would have done noticeably better picking the winners. If millions of people are willing to watch actors be vain and self-congratulatory, I don't see why they shouldn't expect them to be vain and faux-politically-conscious as well.

That said, I read the speech (I slept through the Oscars), and boy, was it lame. I would have expected someone like Michael Moore to spend weeks preparing a 45-second statement just in case. If that's all he could come up with, that's really sad.

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

I boggled at Eminem winning as Oscar, myself. Of course, then I got completely confused when the person who received the Oscar on behalf of himself and his co-writers didn't look like Eminem nor did he mention Eminem as one of the co-writers like the little screen caption under him. Of course, I dont' kow Eminem's real name. He must have one.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

Eminem was born Marshall Mathers (III I think). The guy, whose name I never bothered to catch, did refer a couple times to "Marshall" in his speech, so yeah, he acknowledged Eminem.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

yay! someone who agrees about Chicago.
I haven't actually seen The Pianist[1], but from what I know, it was better than Chicago. And I enjoyed Chicago.
Maybe by awarding it Best Picture, they're hoping to encourage more musicals? Maybe it's a reaction to war - let's go for something lighter?

I dunno what they were thinking. TTT was tons better than Chicago, and that's not even my bias speaking.


[1] it being winter, a depressing time as it is, really, not the uplifting cheerful subject area