oscar notes

Here is the problem, one of many, but the big one that tends to encapsulate them all with Crash: accepting the award for best screenplay, one of the writers cited a quote by someone's name I had not heard of, a quote that inspires him and apparently is his own motto toward art, "Art is not a mirror, but a hammer to shape society." Um, no. That is what art is not. That is why Crash is not art, but a hamfisted, didactic piece of shit with nothing to say but the grossest of generalizations, probably a problem you are going to encounter when you make a souped up version of Short Cuts and Magnolia but excise any subtlety and art those movies had and try, oh how they tried, to up the dramatic factor by making the theme Race, with a capital R, of course, but which you know, maybe is going to come off as nothing but vapid generalizations when the writers and the director are all white.

Has the world gone mad that anyone thinks this is a good movie, let alone Best Picture? I am not being dramatic when I say that I really think it might have been the Worst Picture of the Year. Surely, that could be because I didn't see too many new movies in 2005, but also, it's just a bad movie.

Other Oscar notes:
Jon Stewart did all right, not as amazing as I had hoped, but still as charming and funny as you can probably be given the format. It was nice when even he, the host, ripped the pointless montages that happened every ten minutes.

Mastercard and their Priceless campaign are now blatantly trying to piggyback on the popularity of the New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest, with some horrible corporate version of the fun with their Fill in the Blank commercial contest.

Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh my fucking God. I haven't had a screen crush in what seems like years, the last one I can remember is twelfth grade, Ryan Phillipe in that 54 and Cruel Intentions era. But, oh man. Jake. Whenever he was shown on screen, I totally got nervous and giddy, even heated up a bit, started to sweat, felt like this was some crush I encountered in a bar. I shied away from making eye contact with him even though he was just on my tv screen. Whoa, I cannot wait to rent Jarhead on Tuesday and stare at my boyfriend some more.

Gyllenhaal, I want to have your babies!