The Academy voters seem to be on a roll tonight.  Rachel Weisz took the Supporting Actress Oscar for The Constant Gardener.  It’s a shame her co-star, Ralph Fiennes, wasn’t nominated.  They were both great in the film.

According to Oscar.com, George Clooney started the night off with his the Oscar win.  This was a good pick, I think.  Clooney’s role in Syriana was undoubtedly his finest performance to date.  Will he win more?  Well, Best Director is most likely out since the Academy almost always goes with the Director’s Guild winner, but upsets have been known to happen.  He has, I think, a good chance in the Original Screenplay category.

The other day I was flipping channels and came across Geraldo Rivera’s news show where he was talking about, of course, liberal Hollywood’s pushing of the gay agenda with the Oscar nominations this year.  Basically, he was trying to downplay films like Capote, Transamerica and Brokeback.  According to Geraldo, because Brokeback has not crossed the hundred million mark in ticket sales its a flop.  Because Capote and Transamerica are little more than indie films with limited releases and limited ticket sales, they are also flops.  Well, lets take a closer look at the facts:

• According to Box Office Mojo, Brokeback Mountain has grossed nearly $130 million worldwide.  Once it is released on DVD, and with the help of some Oscar wins, it will most likely surpass $200 million in total sales. For a film that will mostly likely cost the studio $20-30 million when all is said and done, that’s not only a hit, it’s a huge fucking hit any studio would love to have.  Even if you factor in marketing costs, that’s still a return on investment equal to or greater than huge hits like The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
• Films like Capote and Transamerica are not intended to be huge hits.  They are made because the filmmakers have something to say; because the studios are looking a little Oscar love, and yes, a little controversy.  That being said, for a film costing $7-10 million to make, Capote will surely be in the black after more worldwide grosses and DVD sales are figured in, the same is true of Transamerica.
• In addition, Capote and Transamerica may not be huge hits across the US or the Red States, but Brokeback is playing well across the entire country.  That’s a success in and of itself.

Geraldo is, of course, pandering to Conservatives.  Saying the things they want to hear, fanning the flames of the so-called liberal bias of Hollywood.  Is Hollywood home to a liberal majority? Of course, it is!  What would you expect from an artists community — they’ve always tended to lean left.  Is there a liberal bias to the movies?  Hell, no.  Look the films that were the huge hits of 2005:  Star Wars Episode III, a teenage boy’s shoot ‘em up fantasy; Harry Potter, a children’s story where goodness overpowers evil; The Chronicles of Narnia, a film full of religious allegory; Batman Begins, where a caped vigilante takes the law into his own hands.  Are they bad films, no, but are they full of liberal bias, again no.  Are this year’s Oscar picks full of liberal bias?  Maybe, but that’s only through the eye of the Conservative beholder.  If you equate equality for all with liberal bias, then that’s what you see. 

UPDATE:  Great article about "liberal" Hollywood.

Paris, France is quickly becomming a city no one will want to visit.  After the recent riots and now with the torture and murder of young Jewish man, who would want to visit the City of Lights? Of course, whenever you visit a foreign city (foreign to you) you’re taking the slight chance that you could be faced with criminal acitivity — whether that be New York, Los Angeles, Paris, or London.  Crime is everywhere, but it seems like Paris is reaching a boiling point.

OK, so now I’ve bitched about the Oscars, now to my picks:

As much as people are talking about Brokeback Mountain, I really think Crash may take Best Picture. Both are excellent films, but to me Brokeback is the more daring of the two.  Actor is another one where there are two great actors vying for the top.  Both Ledger and Hoffman gave exellent performances, I just think Ledger’s was better; in fact, it’s the best work Ledger has ever done.  Again, Felicity Huffman is getting a lot of attention for Transamerica, and it was definately a daring role for any actress to take on, but I just liked Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash and she seems to have the momentum right now.  Huffman can hopefully use this Oscar nom to get better roles in the future.  I don’t see Desperate Housewives lasting forever.

Supporting Actor is an interesting one.  I think Gyllenhaal gave the better performance, but people are still talking about how Giamatti was stiffed last year when he didn’t get nominated for Sideways, and while I would agree he got stiffed, his performance in Cinderella Man, at least to me, was not as good as Gyllenhaal’s who gave two great performances this year in Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead. Supporting Actress is kind of a toss-up.  I think Weisz has the momentum going in, but like the Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny fiasco of 1993, Michelle Williams could be an upset winner, the same is true of Amy Adams in Junebug.  The Oscars like to reward emerging young talent in the Supporting categories; although, that doesn’t explain Marisa Tomei.

The others are guesses for me.  Of the animated features, I’ve only seen Wallace & Gromit and Corpse Bride.  Of those two, Wallace & Gromit is the better.  Best Original Song is an interesting one.  We have a country gospel song from Dolly Parton, the soft sounds of Bird York, and a rap song, which as we’ve all read ad infinitum has the word "bitches" in it.  Personally, I like "In the Deep," but I think Dolly could win for "Travelin’ Thru."  In many ways it is a courageous song, with courageous lyrics, for a courageous movie.  Dolly has taken a lot of flack from her country fans for daring to embrace the ideas of living together in peace and not judging one another, with many country radio stations refusing to air the song.

Well, there you have it.  I won’t be watching, but I will periodically check their website to see how my picks turn out.

You know, I haven’t been much of an Oscar viewer for well over 10 years.  They just aren’t that much fun to watch anymore — none of the awards shows are.  But with the event soon to be upon us I find myself wondering about some of the people who’ve received the awards:

• Take Kathy Bates, for example.  She won Best Actress in 1990 for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes in Misery.  I don’t deny that it was a great performance, or that Kathy Bates isn’t a great actress (although, she’s been wasted in recent years with boring turns in B-movie comedies), but was it really Oscar-worthy when you consider the other nominees that year?  Along with Bates was Angelica Huston for The Grifters, Meryl Streep for Postcards from the Edge, Julia Roberts for Pretty Woman, and Joanne Woodward for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.  To me it would have come down to Huston or Woodward and I would have leaned towards Woodward.  She gave a wonderful performance in that film.
• How about 1998 when Gwyneth Paltrow won for Shakespeare in Love and gave one of the worst Oscar speeches in recent memory?  Cate Blanchett was so deserving of that award for her performance in Elizabeth.
• Or Tom Hanks winning for Forrest Gump when it should have done to Morgan Freeman for Shawshank Redemption?  Gump was a great film and Hanks was great in it, but Freeman gave the better performance.
• Then there’s Russell Crowe’s win for Gladiator when it should have gone to Javier Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas in Before the Night Falls.  If not Bardem, then Ed Harris in Pollack, anything other than a gladiator pic!

Sometimes you just have to wonder what is going through the heads of the members of the Academy when they make these choices.  Deserving people are passed over, people who should have won for great roles when later on for lesser roles, it’s just a strange process.

Someone has gone to the trouble of recreating the opening sequence to The Simpson using live actors and posted it on YouTube.  You’d think this might be a little difficult, but it is eerily accurate, right down to actors who look much like the cartoon characers.  Check it out.