kieslowski_67 wrote:Andre Jurieu wrote:
However, the one precursor award that Crash did win was the Ensemble Cast award at the SAGs. I believe this signal was a pretty good indication of the momentum the film had been building ever since Ebert gave it his seal of approval.
Prior to the crash on Sunday night, the SAG ensemble predicts the Oscar BP winner 50% of the times, DGA+PGA+WGA+GG predicted the final BP winner 100%, DGA alone predicted the BP winner 90% of the times. You do the math and tell me which is(are) a more reliable precursor.
Well, I guess I've crunched the numbers and found that when we are talking about separate votes and different voting bodies, different results may occur. Yes, some of these precursor awards are better indicators than others when we look at past history, but considering each vote is a separate action and the circumstances of the voting change from year to year, these precursor awards are not totally accurate at predicting results within a given year. The SAG awards haven't been around that long and my point isn't even about the correlation between the results of the various award shows. I just mentioned that the win at the SAGs was an indication of
Crash gaining momentum. My point is that the support of the actors is an indication of support from a fairly large body of voters. Since it was the last major awards show before the Olympic-downtime, it was the last chance to make a big splash.
Crash received such a significant push that it was thought to be the only film that could upset
Brokeback. I'm not arguing with your contention that
Crash's Best Picture win was a surprise based upon how the Hollywood awards are supposed to play out. I'm just saying this wasn't completely unexpected and that the film was receiving significant support beforehand.
kieslowski_67 wrote:Ebert's wife is black and they might have been at the receiving end of this so called racial discriminating thing. I am sorry but that won't be enough reason for you to shamelessly advocate a minor movie (if the AMPAS really wants to honor a truly remarkable film that tackles the racial issue, they could have done it with the brilliant and vastly superior "do the right thing").
Or Ebert may have actually thought that
Crash was a great film and he might have thought it better than
Brokeback. I don't particularly think all that much of Ebert or
Crash, but why is it that his appreciation of
Crash has to have an excuse? Why is it so unthinkable that his support of
Crash is related to his belief that the film is of high quality rather than due to the ethnic background of his wife? I somewhat agree with you that personal experience with racial discrimination is not the greatest reason to advocate a "minor" movie, but maybe Ebert doesn't believe
Crash to be a minor movie. Perhaps he believes it to be a very significant film, perhaps just as good or better than
Do the Right Thing.
Yes, the academy could have rewarded
Do the Right Thing back in the day, but they didn't. Maybe rewarding a less superior, bland, safe film such as
Crash is their way of making amends - which is an action they have done in the past. It's not the greatest method of apology, and I don't agree with it (considering all the praise goes to an old white-guy with questionable talent), but it's the way (Hollywood) politics work.
kieslowski_67 wrote:This is not the first time Ebert totally lost his touch. He did the same thing for proclaiming that Frances Mcdormand should win the best actress Oscar for "Fargo" in 97, while leaving out a richly deserved winner Emily Watson ("breaking the waves", the best performance of the 90s) going home empty handed. Is there any doubt to sane cinephines which performance is vastly superior? It's like asking whether Michael Jordan is a better basketball player than Steve Kerr and Mr. Ebert feverishly said he believe Mr. Kerr is and should be the better player.
I don't think that analogy works all that well. I would say that comparing McDormand in
Fargo to Watson in
Breaking the Waves and determining who is the best actress, would be more akin to comparing Kobe Bryant scoring 68 one night versus Portland and Vince Carter scoring 55 versus the Suns. Both are impressive and both have their own context which makes them difficult to compare with any great degree of certainty, but people form their own passionate opinions and try to diminish the accomplishment of the opposing side. Realistically, how can one come to a definitive conclusion?