Cleaning up after Oscar.

Armond White in the New York Press: "Pauline Kael wrote that critics should not talk about the Academy Awards. She was right.... But not even she could have guessed the extent to which annual Awards grubbing would destroy film culture, or that critics would willingly kowtow to it." The piece actually segues into a rebuttal to the general critical snubbing of Spanglish, but still.

Roger Avary: "Like, how about Alexander Payne's speech: 'Hold it, let me think.......... ah, yes, thank you to the actors.' I know I'm not one to talk about Oscar speeches, and Alexander is a friend of mine, but that was funny."

Lynda Obst at Slate: "Criticizing Bush post-election puts a frisson in a live national audience that almost feels dangerous. Isn't that sad?" And:

What about Charlie!? Wasn't that a highlight? I felt like all of the writers in the country were cheering when his name was called, and like I heard you [David Edelstein] all the way from New York. Didn't you just get a delicious sense of his joy? That impish smile? With all those egomaniacs going on and on, he just wanted to thank his daughter Anna and get off the stage.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw: "Frankly, the best of New Hollywood was represented in the writing awards."

Caryn James in the New York Times: "The Rock-Penn showdown, and the mini-sweep of top awards for Baby, create a perfect snapshot of the dilemma the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences faces: it knows it ought to move into the 21st century but hates the idea."

David Poland: "I thought it was the best produced Oscar telecast I've ever seen... Which makes it all the more painful that is was as boring, predictable and sure to be low rated as it was." Also at Movie City News, Emanuel Levy, who's just conducted an informal poll on the best and worst movies to have been named Best Picture, argues that, sure, the show was predictable, but M$B, unlike Titanic or Gladiator, deserved to win.

Chris Parry:

ET can go to great lengths to have Nic Cage tell us about his dog Steve, or about how Adam Goldberg once had his hair long, or about how James Cameron's ex-wife's housekeeper's sister once dated the make-up assistant on White Chicks, but when it comes to the Oscars, suddenly we're so pushed for time, so desperate to get to the Barbara Walters interview with Teri Hatcher, so incredibly disgusted by the chance that the biggest celebrity event of the year might push four hours in length, that we can only give the Best Supporting Actor 45 seconds to say his thank you's? What the hell is that?

Also at Hollywood Bitchslap, David Cornelius thinks the tech nominees got a raw deal.

Jeffrey Wells writes an open letter to Marlon Brando: "[P]roducers Gil Cates and Lou Horvitz took the politically easy road and revealed their personal colors, not to mention the industry's basic value system, in their decision to pay a special extended tribute to Carson and not you."

The IFC's Alison Willmore misses the Oscars of old: "Because when it was messy excess, we were all in it together, because we loved the spectacle, as silly and self-important as it was."

Danny Schlechter: "US jingoism should be out of place in an industry that derives half its revenues overseas globally, in a world that does not see our soldiers and their role through Hollywood colored glasses. Besides the flag waving, there was censorship... oops, forgive me, the enforcement of 'network standards and practices.'"

Dennis Cozzalio: "[A]s my pal Cruzbomb wondered in his caustic piece on Oscar enthusiasm and the lack thereof, why would a director of Scorsese's caliber and originality care to so desperately seek admission to a club that has bestowed its highest honor upon the likes of Ron Howard, Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner?"

Tom Hall:

There is no doubt that Eastwood is a beloved figure in Hollywood, and as a director, I think he has made some excellent films (Unforgiven being my favorite). But let's get one thing straight: Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and Robert Redford combined could not direct a film with the visual imagination, style, and absolute love of movies that is Martin Scorsese's The Aviator."

In the Hollywood Reporter, Anne Thompson writes that M$B's four major awards "reveal a yearning for a Hollywood that is swiftly vanishing... We are not far away from a time when the Academy's technical awards will celebrate the feats of studio VFX behemoths and animated features while the major Oscar categories might just as well be called the Independent Spirit Awards."

Anthony Kaufman:

I didn't see Clint Eastwood's racist, classist, sexist melodrama until after many of the year's top ten lists tauted its achievements. About the time I finally caught the movie, controversy was erupting about the film's pro-euthanasia stance. But there was so much more to offend in Million Dollar Baby that I couldn't even get to the right-to-die stuff.

Filmbrain's reaction to M$B's win? "Beyond a personal dislike for the film (an extreme one at that), it does seem to prove, once again, that the idea of 'liberal Hollywood' is little more than a myth."

Cinema Minima correspondent André Soares has made an interesting discovery: Million Dollar Bigot, a site featuring, among many other arguments, NBC's John Hockenberry's: "If Mr. Eastwood is so convinced that his film is grounded in reality then perhaps he might wish to accompany me to the US Army's Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland where there are 1000 or so severely disabled soldiers from Iraq whose lives are changed forever, who were told they fought for Iraqi freedom and are now perhaps wondering, along with their families, who is going to fight for their freedom to live a full life here in America."

Aaron Dobbs: "Most deserving person to not win an award: I've said it before, I'll say it again: Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake. Hands down. No contest."

Vince Keenan: "The high point of the show was Sidney Lumet's gracious speech accepting the lifetime achievement award. As if he hadn’t done enough by making great movies, he thanked Francis Faragoh for writing Little Caesar. What a guy."

The parties: an overview from Shawn Hubler and Gina Piccalo in the Los Angeles Times and the pix Vanity Fair's found of its own soirée.

The AP's David Germain: "Million Dollar Baby? Old news. Jamie Foxx? Ancient history. It's time to set odds on which films will dominate next year's Academy Awards, based on what's visible in Hollywood's ever-changeable lineup for 2005." Via indieWIRE's "Awards Watch."

But Matt at low culture's looking beyond 2006.

Posted by dwhudson at March 1, 2005 9:50 AM