M. Night Shyamalan had a two-minute-long AmEx ad on the Oscars telecast tonight (watch or download — thanks, Arzan and Sonia). The ad was lots of fun, a riff on Shyamalan’s odd worlds. Manoj Night was all slicked out in necklace, fitted suit and fancy haircut. Ennis Del Mar would approve.
I heard there was a short Ismail Merchant clip in the obituary montage. Sajit adds that Aishwarya Rai’s L’Oreal ad was shown at the end.
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p>Out of the nominees, here are my personal should-have-beens (see also the complete list of winners):
Picture: Munich (winner: Crash)
Director: Steven Spielberg for Munich (winner: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain)
Actor: Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line (winner: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote). It’s a travesty that Reese Witherspoon won her Best Actress award for Walk the Line, while Phoenix, the movie’s heart, was jilted for his dark, intense performance.
Yes, Hoffman disappeared entirely inside that role like a good interper, in a way you rarely see any more. But the faults of the rest of the movie bleed over. Capote was so slow and aggressively anti-stim, so sensory isolationist, it literally almost put me to sleep in the theater, slower than watching paint dry. As Anthony Lane wrote about a different film, it had ‘the touch of mummification which wins awards’ and an elegiac tone that was stultifying.
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p>Crash blindly jabbed your emotional buttons. It was a race drama by the guy who wrote Million Dollar Baby, and about as subtle, i.e. not at all. It felt as pointlessly corrosive as downing a bottle of Tabasco sauce, making it upsetting to sit through, every key character spewing racist invective. It felt like reading Usenet: messy, undirected, didn’t go anywhere. You’ve got my time, now make a point.
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p>The movie was way too pat, like feature columnists in small papers in the ‘burbs. Everyone just happened to bump into everyone else in the L.A. urban sprawl. I’ve seen that narrative structure before, but it wasn’t used well here — it was utterly contrived. The carjackers were like scholars. The Latino dude who lived in a ghetto barely had any accent. If you’re going to deal with race, be accurate. This movie veered into Lifetime schmaltz often, as mawkish as much of Bollywood.
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p>I liked Munich a lot. It felt artistic without being showy — Spielberg played with visual filters and style the entire movie, it felt inventive and deeply personal. The script was pretty subtle for Hollywood, playwright Tony Kushner’s touch.
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p>Host Jon Stewart was strangely slow and restrained, much less entertaining than usual. In years past, Billy Crystal actually had more zing.
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p>Was Ang Lee’s win the first for an Asian-American director? I loved his shout-out in Chinese to his peeps at the end.
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p>Like every year, the technical categories’ acceptance speeches felt more or less real, while all the actors’ speeches struck me as pre-rehearsed and overacted. Much gagging. And aside from Ben Stiller’s green-suit antics and the brilliant, in-jokey Robert Altman parody by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, the tone of the entire production was unbelievably sedate and establishment for a profession which is a hothouse of nonconformists. Someone could do well with an alternative, rockin’ Oscars.
Here’s Anna’s liveblog and fashion commentary.
Update: Watch Jon Stewart’s opening monologue.
Kom,
Could be. Quite a subversive thing to do in that time, I guess, especially considering Silsila showed Amitabh in full-scale Rekha-seducing, poetry-reciting stud mode.
I can’t believe DesiDancer just called T2ndBMWITW a “ho”. What a saucy wench.
I’ll stand in for ANNA 🙂 try the Maybelline XXL (not Intense) but honestly you don’t need a two step. The key is in a good mascara that lets you build rather than two steps. If you are just a tad slow in between steps the first step will dry on you and the second one will clump. Try Lancome’s L’Extreme. It’s fantastic.
the tone of the entire production was unbelievably sedate and establishment for a profession which is a hothouse of nonconformists. Someone could do well with an alternative, rockinÂ’ Oscars.
Regarding the tone… From one perspective, it seemed to be a byproduct of the industry’s sense of self-importance (“we make serious films in serious times”) and from another angle, it just seemed to lack energy and innovation. But then, in being a somewhat reserved affair, it also seemed to project a sense of dignity, a conspicuous lack of flamboyance that seemed intent on not making the Oscars a Las Vegas dinner show aimed at pleasing a perpetually over-stimulated viewing audience…
I agree that entertaining noncomformity is and always will be a hallmark of good moviemaking but I don’t believe it has to be the only means by which the industry defines itself. I also agree that yesterday’s affair was at times so quiet and even-handed that it seemed to lack any truly defining moment. But then again, its an awards show intended to recognize all the defining moments and spectacular noncomformities that have been hitting the screen throughout the year…
Billy Crystal was once a good standard for the awards, he injected energy and vitality into the moment and made people smile and look forward to the “show.” However, in making the Oscars a show about all the shows we’ve been watching & talking about the entire year and splicing the handing out of awards between songs, impressions and stand-up comedy, he more-or-less made the films irrelevant and ultimately left the impression that Hollywood doesn’t take itself or its audience seriously…
I think yesterday and perhaps this entire year was about taking things seriously, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It may have been a little contrived and taken the entertainment out of the awards, but I liked the change in tone. It wasn’t just one big raucous party, it was an awards-ceremony that aimed just a little higher than what people were expecting. It may not have succeeded for everyone, but at least wasn’t like any other year and in the end, I guess that jives with the whole philosophy of nonconformity.
Watching Crash was the equivalent of eating glass.
The whole Oscar deal is such a drag not to mention, politicized. It probably is the biggest dog-and-pony show Hollywood studios perform year after year. Good advertising indeed, especially the, “Buy tickets and share the experience with a bunch of strangers, don’t buy DVDs”. I appreciate the sentiment but you really don’t want to spend $20 + popcorn+soda on “Freddy Got Fingered”. Probably some movies were meant to be seen on DVD only, that too if one is so [fill_in_the_blank] challenged enough to watch a movie such as FGF.
It is really interesting that not a single comment was heard either on the radio or the boards about the Tsotsi director(?) saying “our movies depict the human emotion as your films do” or something like that. The guy looked pissed on stage, I wonder what his motivations were.
How can you explain
[*} Clooney getting the award and not Dillon, Giamatti or any of the other nominees? Clooney got it because the folks had to give him something.
[*] Based on what I had heard on the radio today, it appears they left out an actor by the name of Don Knotts, according to IMDb, he died in Feb 06. Did Pricewaterhousecoopers (thats a freakin long name for a management boutique) freeze the Oscar montage by the time Don Knotts died? probably they did.
[*] Robert Altman was thrown a bone in the form of a lifetime achievement award. The academy should be glad he didn’t piss them off. It appears that there is great rivalry between the likes of Clooney, Altman and the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. By the way, I also head that Tommy Lee Jones is also in that group. I don’t blame these guys, the Oscars are more like. Oh you didn’t get an award last year and the year before that, I guess we will award you this year. Competition be damned.
Finally, you have no idea how deep the hatred is for Shyamalan on WGN 720AM. This radio station hosts a movies and pop-culture oriented show on the weekend which sounds OK to me until the topic of Shyamalan comes along. I am not sure if it is collective prejudice but the net result is that people simply hate the guy. Probably because of conditioning, I am beginning to doubt the guy, especially after the Village reviews. Nick DiGilio, the commentator, literally goes on the radio and says “I hate this Shamalan- ding-dong guy”. The word pretentious, useless and least qualified director follow immediately. Do you seriously think this guy is overrated?
Hustle and Flow was a silly movie. This review does a good job of revealing its ridiculous aspects.
http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2006/01/cant_knock_hust.html
I was surprised by the Don Knotts omission, but read somewhere else that they only cover the calendar year Jan-Dec. when doing these remembrance things. So I guess he will be included next year. Seems a bit odd.
As for Altman, Clooney and their rivalry with the Academy, then why do they show up to accept these awards if they find them meaningless? Paul Newman doesn’t show up anymore, Brando gave up on them. So has Reford, I think. And I agree about them giving awards after they are long past due. In my opinion, Tommy Lee Jones was the undeserving recipient of one for The Fugitive, which should have gone to Ralph Fiennes for Schindler’s List.
–> If that were the case, how do you explain the inclusion of Chris Penn? He died in January.
–> They probably do so for the sake of propriety. Hollywood is liberal as it is. Consider the style of Clooney and Altman as rebellious at best. I mean its a freakin clique at the end of the day, if there is a fundraiser tomorrow, Clooney ought to be able to walk-up to these people and ask for funds yeah? I will not be surprised if Clooney starts campaigning for Hillary tomorrow.
By the way, was Will Smith being tongue in cheek when he said, South African American? Wouldn’t Charlize Theron be African American? I already have a SNL skit on my mind revolving around Charlize and the whole South African American angle.
Incorrect. I copy/pasted those sentiments from a mini-review I wrote before Munich was released.
The target market being those who follow daytime soaps? I liked Syriana. It’s not about labyrinth, it’s about making a coherent, novel point. Crash had none, unless you count ‘Everyone’s a little bit racist,’ which Avenue Q no doubt did better.
Vij, you need to watch more Bollywood and exercise the muscles that allow you to suspend all sense of feasibility or reality 😉
According to Angryasianman.com, Ang Lee was the first Asian to win best director. I personally felt the Academy’s decision for Crash as Best Picture was a cop out–it could have made a greater statement about awarding cinema that tackles necessary contemporary issues. Granted, Crash did try to address “every day racism”, but themes and characters in Crash felt too forcefed and lost its relevance for me. My pick was Brokeback Mountain going in, but I thought Munich would also have been well deserving. These two movies portrayed a moral complexity and a restraint that built upon layers in the themes of the movie–Brokeback about a masked sexual orientation, Munich about the ethical angst of violence. I guess there’s always next year…
Why do the awards have to make ‘a statement’? I saw Crash and thought it was OK, not the best picture of the year. However, I don’t believe in handing out awards to make a statement. They should be given for how well the art appeals to you. That art may have a message wrapped in it, or may not, which could have a factor in how much you like it. Ultimately, a compelling movie is more than some social statement, and far too many films use an issue as a crutch. I thought Crash did exactly that. It was lazy. Plenty of good films come around that are simply good movies. No forced statement, no ‘bigger issue’.
yea – one needs to have masochistic tendencies to think that’s entertainment – around the scene that the police guy was molesting the woman i felt sick to the stomach and the person i was with started crying – we would have got up to go but we were right in the middle and it felt like we’d be making a scene – just cringed through the rest of the movie .
Well, I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortable scenes that made it a bad movie. I think we need those uncomfortable scenes once in while, sans the shock just for shock’s sake aspect.
Like someone else said, it didn’t tie anything together, there was no point, and it addressed the race issue really simplistically. I can’t believe that anyone would think this a complex, multidimensional film!
yea… shock for shock’s state summarizes the whole movie – a sequence of painful events pulled together to rationalize every wicked, depraved act out there.
ok.. but just to share what happens when someone takes the same idea of people crisscrossing paths in a lifetime and creates something wonderful… i finished albom’s “five persons …” on a plane ride the other day… it’s an antidote to all the crashes in the world and will make you fall in love again with friends and family.
Pattie Kaur – Is there any man you don’t find attractive or cute?
yes…..many…but i prefer to stick the positives. woever, we’ll just say i’m not too fond of nsync or backstreet boys, and rappers.
ok. i sounded like a ball of asiago there, a BIG ball. beam me up oprah.
even though not having seen Hustle and Flow, my reaction to it was multi-facted…one thing i thought was that it’d be nice when african american movies portraying more generally positive life styles get nominations as well. there’s so much out there about african american culture as with all cultures to portray, we could be getting realyl good movies. seeing a more broad picture of african american culture has been quite eye opening over the years as to how much there is that gets missed by the mainstream portrayals. its like the portrayal you see in movies and rap videos is like all you see about african americans but there’s so much that just gets completely missed. those who are not african american miss out because of it as well as those who are african american
M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are boring as hell…..just because the “Surprise!?” thing worked once, it doesn’t mean that it will work over and over again. I feel that he pretty much screwed himself up by doing the same thing over and over again….and over again.
A friend best summed it when he said “Somewhere,PT Anderson is crying himself to sleep knowing that a Magnolia ripoff walked away with the oscar.”
that was one of the reasons that quentin tarantino listed ‘hustle and flow’ as 1 of his top 5 movies of the year.
“Oh, and note to Clooney – making a movie about McCarthyism 50 years after the fact is not bravery. I eagerly await his timely take on the Teapot Dome scandal.”
“In the current political climate, when the ability of the press to hold the government accountable is under attack, the movie was timely if not brave.”
Exactly.
Aw, poor guy. Maybe he shouldn’t have ripped off Altman’s “Short Cuts”.