http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/001361.html
Posted on 12/22/2005 8:26:10 PM PST by rightwinggoth
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gay and political films are dominating this year's Academy Awards race with some experts expecting that Oscar will wind up wearing pink, either for left-leaning politics or sexual preference.
As Hollywood starts its annual awards season leading to the March 5 Oscars, key front-runners in main categories are either gay-themed or political films, with Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," a drama of love between cowboys, leading the pack in the all-important best picture race.
"It could be the gay Oscars this year because gay-themed movies could win almost all the major awards," said Tom O'Neill, show business awards columnist for The Envelope.Com., referring to the sudden dominance "Brokeback Mountain" has gained so early in the race.
"'Brokeback' is going to be hard to beat. Rarely do we have this kind of award consensus for a movie, and its director (Taiwan's Ang Lee) is long overdue for an Oscar," O'Neill said.
"Brokeback," the first gay romance to make a bid for mainstream respectability, has already won the top awards handed out by critics in New York and Los Angeles and copped seven nominations for the January 16 Golden Globes, often a key indicator as to which way the Oscar wind might be blowing.
As for political films -- the field is crowded with potential winners: "Munich," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana," and "The Constant Gardener."
Many experts predict that "Brokeback's" toughest competition could come from either George Clooney's "Goodnight, and Good Luck," a steely-eyed examination of the McCarthy era, or "Munich," Steven Spielberg's study of the price Israel paid for its reprisals for the murder of its athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
DON'T COUNT "MUNICH" OUT
Before the race began and before anyone had a chance to see Spielberg's movie, it was being touted as the odds-on favorite to snare the best picture award, namely because Spielberg is a revered figure in Hollywood and had chosen to make his most serious movie since "Schindler's List."
The film is an examination of the cost of fighting terrorism and whether a democracy can use methods like targeted assassinations without destroying or shaming itself.
The film was hit by a backlash as soon as it was shown to Jewish American and Israeli groups, who argue that Spielberg ignored arguments that Israel was justified in using the methods it does in the war against terrorists.
New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier wrote that "'Munich' prefers a discussion of counterterrorism to a discussion of terrorism; or it thinks that they are the same discussion. This is an opinion that only people who are not responsible for the safety of other people can hold."
David Poland of Movie City News said that "Munich" has to overcome the impression that it is anti-Israeli and possibly can do this "because the anti-Israeli accusation is a neoconservative one and not a mainstream Jewish one."
He noted that at screenings at the headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members give out the Oscars, "Munich" was well received.
Poland, himself, is optimistic, predicting that "'Munich will still win the Academy Award. I think 'Brokeback' will suffer when it goes into a wider viewing."
Other films with gay characters or gender-challenging themes that have won prominence this year include "Capote," thanks to its standout performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as writer Truman Capote, and "TransAmerica," with Felicity Huffman winning rave reviews as a man on the verge of completing a sex change.
In this movie, she's a woman playing a man about to become a woman and if that sounds easy, rest assured it isn't.
"Brokeback Mountain" is also doing well at the box office -- even though it is only in 69 theaters, it was last week's eighth-highest-grossing movie.
Sounds like they leather crowd will be out in force at the Oscars.
No wonder I haven't been to the movies in years and have zero interest in the Oscars.
And Hollywood wonders why movie attendance is falling fast.....
Correct. Spielberg sees no difference between terrorists and those who hunt terrorists.
I think I'll pass on watching movies or awards shows. Lefties always go one step to far.
Next they'll go for pure Stalinist propaganda in the name of high art.
I saw a ad for this movie today on A&E they called it a love story 3 times and each time they did, it was a scene of a woman and a man embracing. The only time the two men were shown together was when they were talking. Talk about pulling th wool over the viewers eyes.......geezzzzzeee!y
Hollywood has its mind made up. They are going to turn us all into queers or go broke trying.
Personally the sooner they go broke the better I would like it.
They nominate this kind of garbage and then can't figure out why no one watches their stupid Academy Awards shows. Real morons.
LOL! Of *course* 'BrokeHole SheepFudgers' is
going to win. All the Oscars is anymore, is all
the filthy HollyPerverts voting for each others
celluloid sexual deviate fantasy Porn & snuff flicks.
And yet it's been out 2 weeks and has only raked in $3.5M box office. That sounds like a failure to me despite their attempts to push it critically.
Good...I'm always looking for a reason not to get sucked (pun intended) into the tube. Especially by the Oscars.
NOBODY will watch the Oscars...if this is the road they want to travel...they will reap the disrewards....mark my words...there will be so many boycotts...they won't know what hit them.
What Hollywood idiot thought that a film about queers on horseback would bring average people into the theaters?
This film may pass the smell test in large cities with large homo populations, but I doubt it will fill many seats in small-town America.
http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/001361.html
I wonder if he is hiding in the closet.
My wife has a knack for seeing beyond the obvious and opines that the working title was Bareback Mountin', but that the marketing department insisted on a title change.
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