Blogging the Oscars 4

11:06, Dustin Hoffman's here to ramble through adapted screenplay

Brokeback could win due to a sweep, or due to Larry McMurtry's prestige.

and it did. If Brokeback does sweep, does this mean we have to put up with another wave of "gay cowboy" jokes and takeoffs? McMurtry takes a moment to recognize booksellers; good for him.

Uma Thurman's presenting original screenplay. She looks weird. Appropriate, I guess, since this is often the category where academy voters feel comfortable choosing something off-kilter. In the 90s, it seemed like the original screenplay award was often reserved for the weird "indie" movies, or what counts as indie movies in the eyes of the AMPAS.

Crash won. Is this the Academy being daring, or being safe? I'm not sure. I guess the really "daring" choice might have been "Squid and the Whale" because there isn't any widespread praise forthcoming for picking it. Pick Crash, and you can read the win as a bracing, brave willingess to confront race-relations in America.

11:18, Ang Lee's about to win best director

I haven't really liked an Ang Lee movie since Eat Drink Man Woman, which itself was only mildly entertaining. It's criminal that Ang Lee is famous in this country while Edward Yang couldn't get arrested. I guess I liked Sense and Sensibility as much as EDMW. Ang Lee proves, seems to me, that Taiwanese filmmakers are just as capable as others to make mediocre middlebrow American movies in a variety of genres.

Best picture: I guess I'm expecting Brokeback. If it fails to win, will that reflect a rejection of gayness by Hollywood? Will they be accused of flinching in the face of true recognition of cowboy love? Will the North American Man-Cowboy Love Association denounce the awards? Well, Ang Lee still got best director, so it didn't walk away empty-handed.

Well, Crash won. I'll see it eventually. Its Oscar win doesn't change that at all, nor, I hope, does it make me more or less inclined to like it.

They're done by 11:30. That's nice. Ooh, cool. Hellraiser 5 is on. That's a good one.

In the morning I'll reread all this and decide whether blogging events like this is a worthwhile enterprise for the CR. Right now I'm thinking no, but I'll reflect in the cold light of day.

Maybe it's just the Oscars. I just don't take this seriously enough. Or the art of cinema, for that matter.