wow, me too, glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Crash! RJW, I liked your analysis.
I still think Jon Stewart was pretty good.

RJW, I admit i watched a bit. The joke that the women were so poor they couldn't even cover their breasts was funny.

Rave: Hoffman won best actor
Rant: Jon Stewart and George Clooney (too cute)
Rant: Brokeback did not win but Crash won

One more thing and this time IT is Travel related: Where was Brokeback Mountain filmed? I would like to travel to see those interesting vistas

Although the story takes place in Wyoming, it was actually filmed in Canada.

Brokeback Mountain was filmed in Calgary.
My major disappointment with the awards was Felicity Huffman not winning. She was brilliant in Transamerica.

I agree about Felicity Huffman. She was fantastic in Transamerica. What a great actress!

I was disappointed that Felicity Huffman did not win too. She was absolutely outstanding in <u>TransAmerica.</u>

I was so disppointed Joaquin Phoenix didn't win best actor! I am not a country music fan but thought he was amazing! And i would definitely &quot;Walk (cross?!) the Line&quot; for HIM! ;)

The opening, asking all the former hosts to host again was the funniest and cleverest part of the entire evening, especially Billy Crystal and Chris Rock in the &quot;Brokeback&quot; tent who were &quot;too busy&quot;. It was pretty much downhill from there comedy wise with the exception of Lily and Meryl.

If they want to boost going to the movies why don't they do montages of this past year's movies -- ones that people can actually go see -- rather than more of the distant past over and over?

Felicity Huffman should have won, but Reese Witherspoon was no surprise. Is it possible that Felicity is too much of a &quot;TV actress&quot; to win the support of the movie crowd? I was pretty much with all the other choices, even though I hadn't seen Crash, all my friends who had were raving that it would win.

If I am entitled to my opinion without being skewered and reviled for it:

Crash was exceptional - exceptionally awful. The script, acting, and directing were amateurish, even embarrassing.

Crash won, not because it was a good picture, but because it concerned racism. It is a pity that the picture was not made in an intelligent manner, such as 'Gentlemen's Agreement' or 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

Rants: The most poorly produced Oscar show, ever. I wonder how much they paid Jon Stewart to shelve his b*lls for the night?

And what was with the awful dance numbers while the nominated songs were performed? It reminded me of Cabaret night at my daughter's high school.

Felicity Huffman was robbed.

Liked the past host intro.

Liked the overhead listing of peoples names - some I don't know.

Liked - not loved - Jon Stewart.

Did not really like any of the songs and I admit I love Dolly (and many other styles so no flames please).

Hate, hate, hate that the orchestra started playing at the start of the acceptance speeches.

Lots of pretty dresses.

Hated every single reference by winners to time too short to talk - talk and you will get to say at least a little.

Every year top rant is winners not knowing which direction to exit the stage. Have a giant sign facing the stage with arrows pointing either way and light the one that is needed. Tell everyone before hand to look for the arrow. They look like first graders at a school play. Come on, it happens every year.

Loved seeing most of those hollywood twits unable to comprehend Stewart's jokes, yet Clooney was laughing all the time so props to him.

I don't get the fascination with Selma Hayek...

Where was Sean Penn? I was waiting for him to come up there and criticize John Stewart for making fun of actors (egad!) like he did to Chris Rock. Is he on hiatus because of his brother's death?

i saw very few of the nominated films so I can't join in in the BBM v. Crash debate. But I did love Reese in Walk the Line but Joaquin was amazing too. He made me a Johnny Cash fan.

My peeve was that these Hollywood types were congratulating themselves on being so socially aware because of the rare films like BBM. But this is the same industry that gives us winners like Ace Bigelow and Dumber and Dumber and loads of other rehashed trash through out the years. Yeah films like that have done a lot to raise the conscience of America. Give me a break.

Am I the only one who laments the passing of great movie songs? All this trashy rap crap with everyone gettin jiggy and bleeping words? Hey, I'll take the cheesy Disney songs any day.Dolly got robbed this year.
....Feed the birds, tuppence a bag....

Ellen and Bennnie,

We could start the official Fodor's Joaquin fanclub. Thought he was absolutely awesome in Walk the Line. I'm such a gullible goober (and I work in the marketing field so I should know better...)--after seeing the movie, I hotfooted it to buy a couple of Johnny Cash CD's and a biography about him. A pretty amazing life story. As of last week, we also own the DVD :-) Amazing for someone who didn't like Johnny Cash before last fall.

Tess - that's so funny - we did the same thing. Within 24 hours of seeing the movie we had purchased 5 Johnny Cash CDs. So many great songs in the movie and so many more that we discovered on our own. Sunday Morning Coming Down is great, I Still Miss Someone, Man in Black, The One on the Left etc. My Ipod is full of Johnny Cash. Now I need to get the DVD.

I also enjoyed Phoenix in The Gladiator.

I thought all of the Best Actor nominees were deserving.
I felt Heath Ledger and Jake Gylenhaal (sp??) were overlooked by the writers and Ang Lee in their acceptance speeches. They did a superb acting job and helped put that little gold guy into the hands of Larry McMurtry and Ang Lee. The Mpls. paper staff editorial today voiced this same opinion!!

bennie - my reaction was similiar to yours. When I saw a news story titled &quot;Is Hollywood becoming more serious&quot; or something like that, my first thought was &quot;you have got to be kidding&quot;.

With all the silly, stupid movies out there, this is such a ridiculous statement.

Loki, surely you are kidding about Sean Penn criticizing John Steward's making fun of actors. There's a big difference between the light hearted and good spirited making fun he was doing and the downright rude things Chris Rock said about a really fine actor. HUGE DIFFERENCE. I sincerely hope that you are able to distinquish the difference between the two.

Hi Tess! A Joaquin fan club is a great idea! You can be prez, and i'll be the liaison between the club and Joaquin! ;) ((L))

Bennie and tess, we did the same thing after seeing the movie - immediately bought two cds, our FIRST country music EVER. And last tuesday we bought the DVD - i just loved their sweet yet intense story!

And we did the same thing last year after seeing &quot;Ray&quot; - bought a couple cd's and the dvd. Such an amazing artist.

Regarding &quot;It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp&quot;, from the really good film &quot;Hustle and Flow&quot;. We saw it at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. Great characters and acting, fun music, humor and pathos. They really made you care about people trying to make their lives better. I recomend it!

Jake Gyllenhaal,,,most gorgrous man alive! I drooled over him in Jarhead....more Santa dancing please! If I was Heath(Ennis), I would have fallen in love too!

Neo, it's called a &quot;joke&quot;. I hear Kmart is having a blue light special on senses of humor, you might want to pick one up. I didn't hear Jude Law griping...

I haven't watched it in years and years. I could care less about Hollywood and the award they constantly give to themselves. But I enjoyed reading some of your critiques of the related movies.

I didn't even like the Academy Awards Show when the movies were actually good.

JJ5, I'm in total agreement with you. By the way, how do you think John Ford would have asked Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne to portray the Brokeback Mountain roles?

Loki, if your comments represent the sense of humor one can buy at K-Mart (and I believe they must be) then I'll pass thank you.


&quot;Where was Sean Penn? I was waiting for him to come up there and criticize John Stewart for making fun of actors (egad!) like he did to Chris Rock.&quot; Hmm. Why are we supposed to think you were joking and not serious. The way you said it, certainly suggested that you thought Sean Penn was out of line for criticizing the racist remarks made by Chris Rock. Sorry, but that kind of humor totally escapes me.

Is your comment &quot;I didn't hear Jude Law griping&quot; also supposed to be funny and leave us on the floor laughing? It's really hard to tell.

Missed most of the Oscars because I TRAVELED over to the Kimball to watch Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents. Fantastic movie, great actress.

Birdie, I loved Mrs Henderson Presents!!! Much better than a lot of the others. I heard that she was rejected for an appearance on a live morning show...too old, they said...would not appeal to their demograhics!!!! I adore Judi Dench!

So glad I found this! Just watched &quot;Walk the Line&quot; for the second time and I have to express that I think it is an absolute travesty that Joaquin Phoenix didn't win best actor. I mean, come one. Philip Seymour Hoffman was good, but he learned one character and stuck with it. Joaquin learned at least three characters and portrayed them all... RRRRRAAAARRR!!!

ceb1222,

Welcome to our Joaquin fan club! :-)

I was very disappointed when they were announcing the names of the lead actor nominations and they referred to one of them as a former heartthrob. It was meant to refer to Matt Dillon. He has done many movies and has a great portfolio. It is a shame that people would still want to label him as a &quot;heartthrob&quot;. In fact I though it was insulting to an Oscar nominated actor.

Gee I don't think being labeled a &quot;hearthrob&quot; is a bad thing. It was the &quot;former&quot; hearthrob that was bad.

PS. Did you see him do his unused acceptance speech last night on SNL? Kind of funny -- total sendup on his racist character in CRASH.

RB_travelerx, did someone at Fodors decide to make boss of this forum? Go pout and whine somewhere else.
To make this travel-related (RB, are you happy now?), I watched the Oscars from a hotel room in Vienna, Austria. I had to wake up at 2 am. It was frustrating: I am a big fan of Jon Stewart too and the Austrian tv channel kept cutting away anytime JS was talking. They would only show the &quot;meat&quot;, that is the awards presentations themselves. So I missed the gay/straight cowboy movie scene pastiche (heard it was great though--can you watch it anywhere on the web?) and some other juicy bits. George Clooney was very classy--his speech about the Oscars changing his obituary was funny. Also, FWIW it's worth (and this IS travel related so RB crawl back into your cave), Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana were both playing at numerous cinemas in Vienna and in English with subtitles instead of dubbing. That was quite surprising. In fact, I saw them showing at more cinemas in Vienna than I did in Orlando when I was visiting there earlier this year.

Brokeback’s writer can’t come to grips with the reality that Crash won best picture so she wrote an essay identifying the reasons that the academy didn’t vote for it. http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/...727309,00.html

Of course the article is not self-serving or anything. A story about racism in LA is important and relevant. The finding the issue of racism relevant and awarding an amazing cast is not being out of touch as Proulx says. Hope she doesn’t choke on the sour grapes. :(

Wow. Interesting article. Sour grapes is right. So &quot;Best Picture&quot; should really be titled &quot;Most Controversial Issue of the Year&quot; and not given for overall &quot;greatness&quot; of the film in all aspects?
I really can't believe how many people act like the award for best picture came down to just the themes of the pictures involved. Give me a break.