Handicapping Oscar Part I: Best Picture
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: What Can I say about Brokeback that hasn?t already been said? I can say, the love story touched me... it did. I can say the fact that what can only be described as a ?gay film? to be nominated and to be a commercially viable film is historic... it is. I love this movie and I hope that it changes the world.
CAPOTE: As a literary figure, Trueman Capote stood head and shoulders above his peers. As a movie, Capote gets lost in the second act. Don't get me wrong, Phillip Seymore Hoffman is a FREEKIN CHAMELEON! He completely disappears into every role he's given. But the movie itself, while entertaining, suffers from the same aimlessness that causes men to become writers.
CRASH: You know the logline... an ensemble piece with practically every working actor in the metro Los Angeles area and some from New York, interwoven story lines, hot topics, blah, blah, blah... I liked this movie. I found it a little too preacy... Racism = BAD; yea we get it. There's a few really good scenes, including what has to be the best scene of Sandra Bullock's career early in the first act. The dialogue is poetic and very well-written, but I still found myself wanting more. It was an enjoyable experience, but best picture, it was not.
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK: Great story. Not enough emotion or backstory. Kinda like this review.
MUNICH:It's my opinion that when Kirosawa died, Spielberg took the reigns as the worlds greatest living director. The man knows how to make a movie and it would be very easy to dismiss this as "another Spielberg movie"... but I found the politics and questions asked with this movie particularly intriguing. Avner, the movie's central character IS America... finding ourselves wronged and longing for revenge, and, after exacting it, examining at the cost and the repeating circle of violence. Spielberg, himself, called this film "a prayer for peace." I found it to be both cinematically and intellectually satisfying and for that, I think kushner will win best screenplay, but brokeback will win best picture.
