So disappointed

The 78^th Academy Awards ceremony ended up being much better than I thought, except for the final surprise that I feared, up until a few days ago, but didn't expect it would actually materialize. When Jack Nicholson read "and the Oscar goes to..." I was so sure he was going to say Brokeback Mountain I thought I heard wrong or that he had made one of his jokes. But no. I had heard right. He wasn't joking. Crash ended up with the night's biggest award.

What can I say besides that I was (and still am) deeply disappointed? Crash was a good movie, but certainly not the best of the year, especially when compared to a movie like Brokeback Mountain that was able to achieve so much with so little, in terms of the concept (an 11 page magazine story), no marquee name stars (as opposed to the humongous cast of Crash) and a story much more politically and socially charged (homosexuality between the roughest men on earth).

What went wrong? Who knows. We heard so many theories, but the most likely answer is that the Academy members, deep down, didn't feel comfortable enough awarding a movie that "normalized" being gay by striking one of Hollywood's core mythological figures: the cowboy.

Bottom line, where Hollywood could have made a courageous statement, it decided instead to take the easy way out, awarding the only movie, among the nominees, who could be considered the safe choice.

My prediction? Crash is a movie that will be completely forgotten within 6 months top. Brokeback Mountain would have held a place in Hollywood's history forever. What a pity. What a waste.

For gays, the ceremony wasn't a complete loss obviously. First there is the huge list of nominations raked up by Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Transamerica, all movies dealing with homosexuality and all critically acclaimed. And then there were the three wins for Brokeback Mountain and the one for Capote, all in important categories.

As for the winners, there were really only 3 surprises for me. One, the biggest and worst, I've already talked about. The other two were the Best Original Score and the Best Original Song. I thought for sure that John Williams would have won for Memoirs of a Geisha, but since he had two nominations (!!) he probably ended up splitting his own votes, thereby allowing Brokeback Mountain's achingly sweet and mellow music by Gustavo Santaolalla to rise to victory. Even though we could also, in hindsight, point out that this award might have been intended as the sugar coating for the bitter pill to swallow at the end of the night...

As for the original song, talk of a surprise win! The list was shortened to 3 nominees from the 5 of all past years ever since I can remember (what, they couldn't find 2 more deserving songs among hundreds of movies?!) and it included a country ballad (lovely and quite cheerful, thanks to the always upbeat Dolly Parton), a soulful ode to lost opportunities, hopes, and dreams (paired with a great scenography), and a ghastly rap act that was nothing more than a cacophony of sounds similar to what you'd hear in a preschool from kids on a sugar high, just worse. The winner? The rap song "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp." Unbelievable.

Naturally, during their acceptance speech, we all could see that the singers were probably high on the same illegal substance abused by Charlize Theron's publicist and/or personal shopper, who should be fired and committed. Not necessarily in that order.

Like I said, the ceremony was pleasant and kept a good rhythm going throughout the night, thanks in no small part to the classy job done by the handsome Jon Stewart, who didn't go overboard with political barbs (this wouldn't have been the right place for them anyway), but treated us to a few, very well positioned bombshells (like the joke on Björk not being able to attend the ceremony because she was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney while she was putting on her dress...)

What worked:

• The stage was fantastic, especially the display above the stage reminiscent of vintage movie theater marquees that showed winners' names, categories, presenters, etc... It was clearly there, but not annoying. A great touch, especially when paired up with the old fashioned ticket booth and the scrolling poster displays.
  
• Tom Hanks' skit on keeping the acceptance speeches short or else...
• The montages of clips from Hollywood's glorious ore are back!!
• Jon Stewart's The Daily Show's-style "for your consideration" ads with a political slant. Brilliant and hysterically funny.
• Introductory clips (or explanations) for virtually all categories, instead of a hand-picked select few that relegates all others to secondary status (and I'm not just referring to categories like Best Achievement in Sound, since oftentimes the supporting categories got shunned by the leading ones.)
• A masterful introduction of Robert Altman for the Honorary Oscar by Meryl Streep (herself introduced as the actor with the highest number of Oscar nominations ever, with 13) and Lily Tomlin. Clearly improvising based on a concept of what they had to say (Altman-style) they showed us what it means to be a great performer. Ms Streep should be nominated next year for THAT performance.
• A good acceptance speech by Robert Altman, relatively short, to the point, and original.
• The return of the excerpts from the Best Original Scores nominees. No matter how long the ceremony has to be, playing a short selection from the nominated scores is de rigueur. And this year we were also treated to the violin master Itzhak Perlman's virtuosity when he played said selections accompanied by Bill Conti's orchestra.

What didn't:

• Ben Stiller's annoying, puerile stint as presenter of the Best Achievement in Visual Effects Oscar (won, deservedly, by King Kong).
• The background music that played every time a winner got onstage and finally clenched the statuette. It was too loud and therefore noticeable, and it was clearly meant to keep the speeches from running too long, a constant reminder to the Oscar recipient that if he went overtime, he'd be cut out without further ado.
• Lauren Bacall's presentation of one of the night's clips. The lady is a legend, but she can barely get around (or so it seemed) and had a very hard time reading her lines on the teleprompter, making her look senile. I love her, but this outing didn't serve her well.
• The montages, albeit among my favorite Oscar treats, had sometimes little to do with the night's themes.
• The decision by the recipients for The March of the Penguins to go onstage carrying huge penguin-teddy bears, as if they had a special significance. Their impact was minimal and generally negative.
• The decision, by the ceremony's director, to cut Cathy Schulman's acceptance speech for Best Picture for Crash in order to keep the ceremony within its schedule running time of 3.5 hours. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to read in the papers that, as usual, the Oscar ceremony went overtime, but you don't cut the speech of the most important award of the night, no matter what time it is. This is one of those rare instances when you do need to make a distinction among categories. The top 8 (picture, director, two for writing, and four for acting) should never be cut, no matter what time it is. It's just rude and counterproductive.

This n' That:

• Matt Dillon was more gorgeous than ever.
• Joaquin Phoenix was bloated (still hot, but bloated like a sea lion).
• George Clooney's speech was great as he acknowledged the critics who accuse the film industry of being out of touch with the American mainstream, but added, "It's probably a good thing. We're the ones who were talking about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular... I'm proud to be a part of this academy, proud to be a part of this community and proud to be out of touch," he said.
  
• For a moment, when Jennifer Garner tripped on her dress, twice, and almost fell in the middle of the stage, I thought we were going to have another one of those "great Oscar moments". Alas, she recovered.
• Rachel Weisz, I assume, is pregnant, otherwise she probably ate a child for breakfast.
• Wallace & Gromit, the winner for Best Animated Feature Film, looks downright funny, and so do its makers.
• Does Dolly Parton wear counterweights on her back? Boy, could those boobs be any bigger? By the way, I love her.

I was very pleased with the winners of the technical Oscars:

• Editing went to Crash, whose story lines were masterfully intertwined.
• Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design went to the critically panned but technically immaculate Memoirs of a Geisha. Ever since the movie came out with a thud, the forecast has always been, "forget about the top tier prizes, and shoot for the technical awards, were you could easily sweep everything up." The costumes especially, were exquisite.
• Makeup went to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which deserved it far more than the other two nominated movies.
• Sound, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects went to King Kong, superior in all three categories to the other nominees by a mile.

So the most glaring result of this year's Academy Awards, in which none of the top nominated movies reached the $100 million benchmark for a commercially successful motion picture, is that the top six prizes got spread out to six different movies: Crash got picture, Brokeback Mountain director, Capote Best Actor, Walk the Line Best Actress, Syriana Best Supporting Actor, and The Constant Gardener Best Supporting Actress. We have to include the next most important two, Original and Adapted Writing, to have an individual movie (two in this case, Crash and Brokeback Mountain respectively) pick more than one statuette.

Interesting and odd. I wonder if it ever happened in Oscar history.

One last thing for Fabio: did you notice that the winning documentary for short subjects (or features, for that matter) wasn't the saddest of the bunch?! It even had the word "triumph" in the title. Go figure.