Oscars rehash: ’06, Year of Horrifying Accidents

The question for the ages is which version of Crash is worse: The 2006 Best Picture winner or David Cronenberg's 1996 paraphiliac fetish fest?First off, I don't hate Crash. It's a simplistic, Hollywood pat-on-the-back look at race relations that manages to confirm all the worst stereotypes while at first seeming to contradict them. It's two hours of sometimes interesting performances and cross-pollinating stories that nearly makes you go hmmm at the end, only to forget everything you saw 10 minutes later. It is Robert Altman or P.T. Anderson as done by a freshman high school class in Brentwood. This movie is not the end of the world, it's not the worst movie ever made. It's just in no way the Best Picture and possibly the best proof that in the end, these awards mean nothing.

Much better and in-depth arguments can be found here.

What should have won: Brokeback Mountain was better than Crash, but it was a better character study than it was a love story. There is not enough chemistry between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who's sort of irritating in the movie, to qualify the movie as an epic love story. The real power is in the loneliness of Ledger's Ennis Del Mar. It is an imperfect movie, but it is far, far more worthy of Best Picture than Crash.

Munich has lingered with me much longer than I thought it would. Over the years, I have come to distrust Spielberg's serious movies for the reasons noted here. Much of this movie is revisionist history. The assassins in question had little or no remorse for what they did in retribution for the kidnapping and killing of Israeli athletes, but Spielberg gives them serious crises of conscience. But that works in explaining the larger history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. In the end, Spielberg and writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth link the Olympic tragedy to 9/11, which at the time seemed a huge leap of logic to address in the final minute. But Spielberg does it with uncharacteristic subtlety, and it's really not that far off the mark. The two events are at least bookends to a particular moment in history. Good film, not the best film, but far, far more worthy of Best Picture than Crash.

Capote is a solid movie carried by the performances of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener. It's engrossing, memorable and far, far more worthy of Best Picture than Crash.

Good Night and Good Luck was the best of the movies given the political situation when the movie was released. George Clooney did his best Clint Eastwood impression, and made a lean, mean movie with almost no fat that works well on two levels. It is a captivating retelling of the history of Joe McCarthy and how public opinion shifted away from his red baiting. But it is also a reminder of how often the media can be wrong for so long and complicit in the worst things that happen in our society. Few in the media dared speak the obvious -- this was a witch hunt by a drunk seeking to amplify his own profile -- until many, if not most Americans, had ceased being moved by his posturing. Edward R. Murrow, in this instance standing in for all mainstream media then and now, only dares speak the truth when it is safe to do so. It was especially poignant when it was released in 2005, when we confronted two wars and a fierce Republican propaganda machine and the media was again failing to report the obvious out of either fear or laziness. It was also far, far more worthy of Best Picture than Crash.

Crash, ironically, was just happy to be nominated.

Better movies that got screwed: Clooney had a big year. He won Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, a confusing, twisting exploration of shifting loyalties in global geopolitics that requires multiple viewings to fully sort out but it is also dead-on accurate when finally pieced together. The Constant Gardener was beautiful and sad and manages to be about people first while also being about Something. The Squid and the Whale was bitter but remained sweet. Batman Begins, King Kong and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire were all flawed popcorn movies, but served with the richest butter available. A few smaller movies: Cache, Grizzly Man, Joyeux Noel, Paradise Now, Dear Frankie, Millions, and The Ballad of Jack and Rose. Woody's Allen's Match Point -- following one almost no one liked Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, but it worked for me -- was a lesson for the director to stop casting people as avatars for himself. He moved the story out of New York to England, cast young people he had never worked with before and made a dark, unforgiving movie. It was at times very similar to Crimes and Misdemeanors, but it felt completely new. All in all, maybe it wasn't the best year in movies, but it was one of the smartest ever.

Worst award: Crash, obviously.