Be sure to check out this amazing commentary by Steve Lopez from the LA Times, which directly challenges the Worst Best Picture Ever from a Los Angeles perspective and Dateline Hollywood's very amusing explanation of why this happened (third graph from the end is comedy gold, and Haggis was asking for it on the Brecht reference in his speech).
Then, if you must, check out the commentary of a pompous jackass in the Chicago Sun Times.
Roger Ebert has been extremely annoying this entire award season but he reached a new low with this, and I had to respond. So posted below is the e-mail I sent him in response to his column:
Re: The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash
Roger,
Your insistence on spinning information in order to justify the Oscar debacle is as shameful as it is embarrassing.
In your article, which primarily attacks Kenneth Turan and Nikki Finke, you state that "What is intriguing about these writers is that they never mention the other three best picture nominees: "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich.""
Did you even read Turan's article? If so you must have missed this:
" "Brokeback," it is worth noting, was in some ways the tamest of the discomforting films available to Oscar voters in various categories. Steven Spielberg's "Munich"; the Palestinian Territories' "Paradise Now," one of the best foreign language nominees; and the documentary nominee "Darwin's Nightmare" offered scenarios that truly shook up people's normal ways of seeing the world. None of them won a thing."
And Finke's article, which was published before the Oscar travesty and seems especially prescient now, includes this passage:
"It’s not that Crash isn’t Oscar-worthy and Brokeback is. Both are good, if flawed, movies."
Acknowledging Finke's personal opinion would have given your readers a better idea of where she was actually coming from in this debate, but unfortunately it doesn't support your viewpoint that critics and entertainment media just won't leave poor Crash alone. Or recognize it for the genius, Dickensian work that it apparently is.
As a critic you are, of course, entitled to your opinion and the general public is entitled to agree or disagree. But if you're really trying to figure out why so many Brokeback Mountain fans are so upset with the Crash victory maybe you should consider, and maybe even inform your readers, of the amount of "Best Picture" awards that Brokeback Mountain won prior to Oscar night:
BAFTA
Golden Globes
Independent Spirit Awards
Venice Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
New York Film Critics Circle
Broadcast Film Critics Association
Golden Satellite
Critics groups from: Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Florida, Iowa, Las Vegas, London, St. Louis, San Francisco, Southeastern U.S., Utah and Vancouver
Brokeback also won "Best Picture" equivalents from the Directors Guild and Producers Guild and won Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild. It also received the highest ranking of any Best Picture nominees on both the Village Voice and Film Comment critics polls AND made more money at the U.S. box office than any other nominee.
In comparison Crash won top awards from the Actors and Editors Guilds. It won the original screenplay prize from the Writers Guild. It was voted Best Picture by the Chicago Film Critics and won the NAACP Image Award. Not a bad showing but not even in the same universe as Brokeback when it comes to awards and acclaim.
Crash also failed to receive a Golden Globe nomination as Best Drama (nominations went to far more artistically successful films like A History of Violence and The Constant Gardener) and it was nominated as "Best First Feature," rather than "Best Feature," by the Independent Spirit Awards (even though Tommy Lee Jones' debut film, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, was nominated as "Best Feature").
I admire you for standing up for the minority opinion on this sad and shocking moment in Oscar history but I wish you wouldn't pretend to be so clueless about why so many people are outraged.
You're smarter than that.
Best,
Geoff Berkshire
Los Angeles, California
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