My Award Show Has A First Name

It's time for the Second Annual Guaranteed 100% Accurate* Academy Awards Pre-Vision. The Oscars are Sunday! Aren't you excited! Yeah, me neither, but tradition is tradition.

We begin this year with an amendment to Immutable Oscar Law, No. 1. As you know, in order to win an Oscar for Best Actor a nominee must meet one or more of three key criteria. He must be British, he must portray an actual historical person, or his character must be physically or mentally deformed. It's what I like to call the "British, Famous, Or Gimp" Rule. The rule hasn't actually changed, but by way of clarification I submit that playing a gay character is the equivalent of playing a gimp. NOTE: That is not because I think gay people are deficient in any way, but because in the Hollywood bizarro world of what constitutes a "challenging and brave" performance, gay is the new retarded. Let's look at the nominees ...

This year, amazingly, none of them are British. Terrence Howard looks like he could be, but he is in fact, a black man. So he's out. Joaquin Phoenix and David Strathairn both played famous people, Heath Ledger (Australian; so close!) and Phil Hoffman both played gay. But only one of them played both famous and gay. So the Oscar goes to ...

BEST ACTOR, LEAD:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

BEST ACTRESS, LEAD:
Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line

Is there some rule the Judi Dench must be nominated for every movie she appears in until she dies? Did anyone in America actually see Mrs. Henderson Presents? Didn't think so. Now, if Rule No. 1 applied to actresses (which it doesn't) Felicity Huffman still wouldn't win, because I'm pretty sure the Academy draws the line at chicks who used to have dicks. It's America's Sweetheart in a landslide.

BEST ACTOR, SUPPORTING:
George Clooney, Syriana

I'll actually be rooting for Clooney, because ... well, he's George Frickin' Clooney that's why.

BEST ACTRESS, SUPPORTING:
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

Always the toughest call of the night. Amy Adams seems to have a lot mojo of working for her, but no one saw Junebug, and with Heath and Jake getting shut out, I think Michelle becomes the dark horse winner. If Catherine Keener gets it, I give up.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
Wallace & Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

Speaking as a huge W&G fan, am I only one who was slightly disappointed by this movie? Wasn't it just a longer version of the much funnier A Close Shave? Was I expecting too much?

ART DIRECTION:
Pride & Prejudice

COSTUME DESIGN:
Pride & Prejudice

This way, I get at least one of these right.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Brokeback Mountain

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
March Of The Penguins

Incredibly, four legitimately popular and successful documentaries were nominated this year. One of them might even win!

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT:
God Sleeps In Rwanda

FILM EDITING:
The Constant Gardener

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
Tsotsi

MAKEUP:
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

ORIGINAL SCORE:
Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain

ORIGINAL SONG:
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," Hustle & Flow

This is probably just wishful thinking, but how awesome would this be, to hear Sigourney Weaver say, "The Oscar goes to, 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp'"? Since for some bizarre reason there's only three nominees this year, I think it might just happen.

ANIMATED SHORT FILM:
Badgered

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:
Cashback

SOUND EDITING:
King Kong

SOUND MIXING:
Walk The Line

What's the difference between these categories again?

VISUAL EFFECTS:
King Kong

Just curious, but how is Star Wars not even nominated? The entire movie is a visual effect.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain

Allow me to say for a moment that I have to seriously question the competence of any critic (and there were many) who saw A History Of Violence and honestly believed it was a good movie. Generally in these matters, I will concede to the vagaries of personal taste, but any objective viewer that didn't think it was one of the worst pieces of crap ever filmed by a legitimate director, needs to have their head examined. An absolutely horrible, horrible movie, and you'll never convince me otherwise. That the screenplay (and William Hurt) snagged a nomination is just sad, and a bit insulting.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco, Crash

Syriana was nominated for original, not adapted, even thought it says very plainly during the credits that the script was based on a non-fiction book. What is this the Grammys? Whatever. It's not going to win. Which is really too bad, because when you think about it, the script for Crash could not be more convoluted or inane.

BEST DIRECTOR:
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain

For the first time in several years, I have actually seen all five nominees for Best Picture before the Oscars were given out. So I can state with an informed opinion ... this is a truly disappointing group of nominees. I wouldn't say that any of them were bad movies, but the fact that these five got nominated when Cinderella Man, Walk The Line, Narnia, or even Batman Begins were not is a little bit frustrating.

I enjoyed Crash, despite feeling a little icky when it was over. (Not because it exposed my deep-seated racial prejudices, but because I let myself get taken in by some rather hackneyed emotional string-pulling. Hey, that's what movies are all about, but try not to be so obvious next time.) As a writer, I found Capote interesting, but ultimately not very moving. Munich was good ... right up until the "I can't have sex without thinking of my dead countrymen" scene. If you're watching a movie with about 25 or so gruesome murders, should Eric Bana's sweaty, weeping O-face really be the most disturbing image you take away from it? Good Night And Good Luck was like the best high school film strip ever, but dramatically, what exactly happened? There seemed to be another more interesting story that was missing, the Robert Downey subplot was completely pointless, and it somehow made Edward R. Murrow seem less daring that he actually was. He was not as daring as history remembers, but I didn't feel the film aggrandized him they way its critics implied.

That leaves us with Brokeback Mountain. It was a well-told romantic story, but how many of those do we get every year? I think it could have played up the prejudice angle even more, to really emphasize how impossible their situation would have felt to them. It didn't appear that they were being held back by anyone other than their doormat wives, so why all the fuss? Other than the costumes, I would have thought it was 2005 and they could have just moved to California or something.

Another small point, but I wanted to mention it: In any romantic movie the development of the key relationship has to seem real. If characters fall in love too quickly or in some implausible way, you can't buy the rest of the movie. That's not necessarily what happened here, but didn't it seem like they went from "we're just two good buddies" to "violent anal sex" a little too quickly? I'm just sayin' is all. For a guy like Heath, who had obviously never kissed a man before, he took control of the situation pretty quickly, didn't he? It's not like they were at Misshapes or anything.

(SPOILER ALERT)

... I also didn't appreciate the trick near the end where it's implied, but not confirmed, that Jake didn't die accidentally. Is what we see when Heath is on the phone the truth, or is it just his imagination? Or is it obvious and I am just too slow to see it? I hate when movies are ambiguous for no reason. The larger point is that it doesn't feel like a Best Picture to me, it definitely wasn't the best movie of last year, but it was probably the best of the ones that were nominated, the most deserving, and the most likely winner.

BEST PICTURE:
Brokeback Mountain

For the record, the best movie that came out last year was Sin City, which in a travesty of justice, received zero nominations. I've seen no one that has mentioned this, but could Robert Rodriguez's dispute with the Director's Guild have something to do with it? Was it intentionally snubbed and/or outright denied votes? Not even a cinematography (which was brilliant, by the way) or visual effects nod? Outrageous.