2005 Oscar Watch

Fact: Crash is one of the worst movies to win Best Picture.  Also fact: 2005 was one of the weakest Best Picture lineups of all time.  Obviously they should have gone with Brokeback Mountain but not only is the Academy slightly racist, they are also apparently homophobic.  All was resolved in 2016 when they awarded Best Picture to the gay black movie and a nation was healed.  This is such a crappy Oscar year, I don't like any of the winners except for Philip Seymour Hoffman, not so much for the performance but because that dude deserved an Oscar.

You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

 

5. Capote must have tricked Oscar voters.  This is a run of the mill biopic with a very good lead performance.  If anyone else would have played Truman Capote other than Philip Seymour Hoffman this movie wouldn't be in the lineup at all.  It would have been forgotten like the other Truman Capote biopic from 2005, Infamous.  Hoffman plays Capote as he is investigating the real life murder case that inspired his novel In Cold Blood.  Hoffman is great, the movie is long, dull and very routine.

4. Crash is not a good movie at all.  A bunch of characters in LA talk about their racist tendencies and some get redeemed while others don't.  It's an ensemble drama based around a central theme, in this case racism, and you think it's all going to come together but it never quite does.  The only real reason I can think as to how it won is because so many people were in it.  If you were in the Academy in 2005 you were either in Crash or knew someone involved in Crash so that's why you voted for it.  I found the whole thing a little insulting to my intelligence.  All the characters talk like a middle aged white guy writing about racism and the struggles of minorities.

3. Munich is a very long Steven Spielberg film about the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics.  A Palestinian terrorist group took hostage and killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team.  Eric Bana leads a group of Jewish mercenaries assigned to assassinate people associated with the incident.  It's good, it's violent, it's tense but it's one of those Spielberg historical dramas that just doesn't know where to put its focus.  It's a little all over the place and could use some tightening.

2. Good Night, And Good Luck is a historical drama focusing on Edward R. Murrow and the news team that famously took on Senator Joseph McCarthy when he was conducting the Communist witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  So the network is telling him to play nice but he sees an injustice that he needs to report.  It's weird how some movies become relevant as time goes on.  In 2005, they were obviously making comparisons between then and now but the movie is probably more topical today with politicians openly attacking journalists.  The film is directed by George Clooney in luscious black and white cinematography that really accentuates the smoke filled newsrooms and it is tight.  It's an hour and 45 minutes and every thing in the film is vital to the story.

1. Brokeback Mountain is that gay cowboy movie that according to Ernest Borgnine made John Wayne turn over in his grave.  I will admit that at the time, I don't think I was ready for a gay cowboy movie either.  I saw this in the theaters and thought it was long, slow and boring.  Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal get jobs herding sheep, have sex and start a romance that spans years where they visit each other on the mountain to express a love that dare not speak its name.  Watching it then I didn't really get the hype, watching it 13 years later, I got sucked into the story and the whole movie worked.

I feel ashamed to admit it but I can pinpoint the reason I didn't like Brokeback Mountain at first and it's probably the same thing that turned off a lot of people.  It was their first moment of physical contact.  It comes out of nowhere.  You're watching a movie about two guys herding sheep and then, bang, they're boning.  If you didn't know the movie was about gay cowboys you were in for a rude awakening at that moment.  For me, I didn't understand that moment.  It seemed like Jake was gay and he turned Heath gay with his kisses.  That's the exact opposite thing that happens.  Heath was always gay but hid his feelings because that's what you were supposed to do.  He finally finds a love that he can truly care for but it's a love that he knows he can't have.  The whole thing worked for me on second viewing but I can honestly say that most people probably weren't ready for it in 2005.  I wasn't either, I wrote it off as the gay cowboy movie myself.  Watching all the films back to back, it is the only thing worth voting for.  Crash and Capote shouldn't be here.  Munich is one that's just fine for a nomination and Spielberg has made better movies and been rewarded for better movies.  Good Night, And Good Luck is a good film but it's just a little too small for Best Picture.  My vote is Brokeback all the way.  It's not a perfect film but it's better than anything else here.  I will admit that at the time I was rooting for Crash just because it came out early in the year.  It was released in the summer, got decent reviews and stayed in people's minds come award season.  I always like when the Academy has a longer than 2 month memory.  It's a crappy winner though and doesn't hold up at all. 

Oscar Winner: Crash

My Vote: Brokeback Mountain

GABBY Winner: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 

Best Actor

5. Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash in the very uninspired biopic Walk The Line.  I remember Steve Martin called it Ray for white people and that is precisely what it is.  It not only feels like the same film the won Oscars the year before this but it feels like every biopic.  It is a completely unoriginal film that puts every biopic trope in the blender and turns it on high.  It’s no big shocker that it spawned a parody film two years later.  Phoenix is perfectly fine as Cash but the whole movie and his performance just reeks of Oscar bait.

4. David Strathairn also plays a real life man in Good Night, And Good Luck where he smokes a lot of cigarettes to play veteran newsman Edward R. Murrow.  His performance is humorless and stiff but that’s what the role calls for so he does a very good job but it’s not a showy role that wins Oscars.  It’s really cool that he got nominated though as he’s been one of those actors who is consistently good in everything but doesn’t get a lot of meaty lead roles.

3. Terrence Howard had a good year in 2005.  He had a role in the Best Picture winner, Crash, he co-starred with 50 Cent in Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ and scored an Oscar nomination as DJay, a pimp with aspirations of becoming a rapper in Hustle & Flow.  This was the first time I saw a Terrence Howard performance so I was as impressed as everyone else.  Since this film I have become less of a fan.  There is something in every role I see him in where I find him just the slightest bit unbelievable. I always see the actor at work instead of someone inhabiting a character.  This particular performance didn’t age well for me because of that aspect but I remember at the time thinking that he did a phenomenal job.

2. Heath Ledger does a complete turn around from what we expected from him as Ennis Del Mar, a cowboy with a secret relationship in Brokeback Mountain.  We are first introduced to him as a manly man with a manly job because that is exactly how Ennis wants us to see him.  Only briefly throughout the film does he ever let his guard down and show us who he really is, the moments he is alone with his lover and feels safe.  As the film goes on we see Ennis age and grow conflicted as to his feelings and his sexuality.  The thing that is most remarkable with Ledger's performance is how he ages with the character.  We see cracks in his skin from years of being in the sun but also an internal change in Ledger that is quite remarkable.  This was a huge departure from the roles he was known for at the time and of course he would surprise everyone again 3 years later.

1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman disappears into the role of Truman Capote in the biopic Capote to the point where we don't see Hoffman at all.  It's not just an impression, Hoffman inhabits Capote's body and soul and becomes him.  I remember what impressed me the most was seeing Hoffman at the Oscars, looking slightly uncomfortable in his suit like he wished he was in sweatpants, hair a bit unkempt and a 5 o'clock shadow and then they play a clip from the film and you can just see how much of a difference Capote was from the man who played him.  This is a case where the performance makes the movie better.  I really didn't care for the film but Hoffman's performance makes it watchable and good.  You forget you're watching a straight up and dull biopic.

Hoffman had this category won before the film came out.  Word from the set was that he gave the performance of the lifetime.  Then the movie opened and he didn't disappoint and he rode that to Oscar night.  The only one who would make sense beating him would be Ledger but the consensus at the time was that he was young and this was his first real role that proved he could act.  He'll have other chances if he keeps it up.  Howard's nomination was more of a "welcome to the club" type thing, Strathairn really had no chance of winning and Phoenix's nomination was to be expected but shouldn't have won.  It's sad to look at this category and realize that my top two both died prematurely due to drug overdoses.

Oscar Winner: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

My Vote: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

GABBY Winner: Robert Downey, Jr. for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Best Actress

5. Keira Knightley is a fantastic actress but there is no way I'm gonna vote for someone starring in the 100th film adaptation of Pride And Prejudice.

4. Judi Dench keeps getting Oscar nominations for better roles than the one she won for which makes that Shakespeare In Love Oscar look dumber and dumber.  She wins for 8 minutes of dress up in a Victorian gown, a role that requires no acting at all and then continues to be great in roles that would warrant an Oscar.  In Mrs. Henderson Presents she plays a British socialite who buys a theater and puts on all nude revues to put butts in the seats.  It's like a "we have to save the rec hall" movie but with old ladies and naked women rather than break dancers.  It's not exactly an Academy Award winning performance but it is a fun movie and Dench is very charming in the lead.

3. Reese Witherspoon plays June Carter Cash, country singer who eventually marries Johnny Cash in the paint by numbers biopic Walk The Line.  I've already voiced my displeasure with this film but I'll say it again, I really didn't like it.  Reese's performance especially didn't do anything to help matters.  While I didn't dislike her specifically, I saw nothing that commanded attention or stood out.  She's been good in other movies so part of me is glad she won but I don't understand how this performance earned an Oscar.

2. Charlize Theron just won two years ago for a better performance than this but it's almost impossible to beat her performance in Monster.  She's damn good in North Country and the only reason I'm not voting for her is because she just won.  In fact, I like her so much that I'm tempted to give her 2 Oscars in 3 years, I mean, I can't really do that, but you know what I'm saying.  In this film she plays a single mother who gets a job at an iron mine.  At first she's just happy to have a job but then she starts getting sexually harassed.  Not like slaps on the butt, like violent attempted rapes, and the people who run the company have a solution, she should quit.  She files a lawsuit and the movie is framed through the trial so you will see her giving her testimony and then flash back to the incident.  It's a Norma Rae like little person versus the big guys movie that worked for me and Theron is at the middle of it giving a dynamite performance.

1. Felicity Huffman plays Bree, a transgender woman who discovers she has a son in Transamerica.  As I’m writing this some controversy has just happened as Scarlett Johansson was cast as a transgender man in a film and backed out due to complaints from the transgender community.  I’m not sure if this is offensive to anyone or not but Huffman is scary good in this role.  She’s playing a woman who was born a man and goes on a road trip with the son she never knew she had.  She had the boy when she was a man so she is the boy’s father.  I don’t see it as offensive simply because Huffman’s portrayal is so honest.  This character feels real and lived in and Huffman nails every facet of her.

The vote comes down to Huffman and Theron and Felicity gets the edge because Charlize just won.  Drench is out because she won before and Knightley is out because she’s playing a character many other people have played.  Witherspoon’s win is something I only condone because I love the actress despite not liking her performance.  Sometimes you vote for the actor, sometimes you vote for the performance but a vote for Huffman is one for an actress I like who delivered a great performance.  It’s not a huge shock that she didn’t win.  People in the Academy were screaming about Brokeback Mountain, I doubt they even popped the Transamerica screener in their DVD player.

Oscar Winner: Reese Witherspoon

My Vote: Felicity Huffman

GABBY Winner: Felicity Huffman

Best Supporting Actor

 

5. William Hurt makes the most of his small screen time in A History Of Violence.  It’s surprising that he got nominated since he’s in so little of the film and the movie only got one other nomination.  He plays Viggo Mortensen’s older brother who is also a ruthless mobster.  The movie spends so much time setting him up and then when he finally shows up at the end he doesn’t disappoint.  He’s frightening and funny but he’s already won so give the award to somebody who showed up for more than a day.

4. Matt Dillon pulled the longest straw and became the representative from the ensemble of Crash.  I suppose if they had to nominate someone from the film, Dillon is the best choice.  He has the best excuse for a character arc even though it’s pretty phony.  He’s a huge monster and a police officer.  He’s racist, sexist, bigoted, self righteous and arrogant.  He’s introduced sexually assaulting a black woman he pulled over then he does some more racist stuff then he’s redeemed by saving that same woman from a car fire.  So he’s a hero for doing his job rather than watch a black woman die? 

3. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jack Twist, a cowboy who falls in love with another man but keeps their relationship secret in Brokeback Mountain.  His chemistry with Ledger is very good and some of his scenes with his wife played by Anne Hathaway are as well.  The big reason I couldn’t vote for him is because Ledger is so much better.  One guy is delivering a powerhouse performance and the other guy is just okay.  I talked about how Ledger ages with his character both internally and externally.  By the end of the film he looks like The Marlboro Man and is carrying himself completely different.  Gyllenhaal puts on a gay mustache.

2. George Clooney gained some weight to play CIA operative Bob Barnes in Syriana, one of several storylines in a film with too many of them.  People always get impressed when an actor gains or loses weight.  I never am because it’s their job to work on their bodies.  I have an 8 hour a day job and have to find time to exercise.  Actors pay people to force them to exercise.  If you pay me a million dollars I could make my body look however you want is the point I’m trying to make.  Clooney is his usual Clooney self in this film.  He’s always got a certain level of charm to his characters even when his character isn’t supposed to be charming.  I’m fine with the fact that he won but he’s given much better performances than this in better films.  It would have been better if they waited.

1. Paul Giamatti finally got an Oscar nomination after being an also ran for the past two years.  In 2003 he starred in American Splendor, got a couple of critic's notices, but an Oscar nomination was probably out of the question.  In 2004 he starred in Sideways, a Best Picture nominee, and was almost assured a nomination but was left off in favor of Clint Eastwood.  In 2005 he takes a supporting role in Cinderella Man, a sports biopic directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe and the Academy said, “yes, finally, this is what we like”.  This movie is your typical boxing melodrama but the performances from Crowe and Giamatti give it a boost.  Paul plays the wise cornerman who not only dispels wisdom about fighting but also about life.

Honestly, my favorite performance here is William Hurt but I can’t vote for a guy who’s only in about 6 minutes of his movie.  Maybe if he was really old and had never won before but he already has an Oscar and this ain’t worthy of a second one.  So the vote comes down to the other 4 and performance wise they are all even.  The reason I’m picking Giamatti is because this category was made for guys like him.  Like how Walter Brennan won 3/5 of the first Supporting Actor Oscars and you can’t complain, Giamatti is an actor who was just meant to win this category.  Clooney was good and he had the weight gain thing, but he’s a leading man.  Him winning here makes him less likely to win for something better like Up In The Air or The Descendants.  He also basically won this year as a consolation prize, he was nominated for Best Picture, Director and here and they didn’t want him to leave empty handed.  He even said so in his acceptance speech.  He should have numerous other chances, seeing how many times Giamatti gets passed over, this might be his only shot.

Oscar Winner: George Clooney

My Vote: Paul Giamatti

GABBY Winner: Jeff Daniels for The Squid And The Whale

Best Supporting Actress

5. Catherine Keener plays Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird and Truman Capote's best friend in Capote.  On paper this seems like a surefire nomination.  Keener already had one Oscar nomination under her belt and she's playing a historical figure in a Best Picture nominee.  The only problem is that she doesn't do much in the film.  She basically exists in the film so Truman can talk to someone at certain points in the film or to feed him straight lines.  Keener was much better this year as the love interest in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and had she been nominated for that I would have given her the vote.  I love her but there's really nothing to this performance.

4. Frances McDormand plays a female union leader in an iron mine that is rampant with sexual harassment in North Country.  She's a tough old broad who recognizes that the harassment exists but thinks you have to give as good as you get.  If a guy calls you 'sugar tits' you tell him he has a small pecker.  She fights for her women employees and then the character gets all Oscar bait when she develops ALS.  She gets a moment where she walks into a meeting on crutches and we see her in the hospital.  It's a fine performance but not good enough to win a 2nd Oscar as she already won for a much better role in Fargo.

3. Rachel Weisz won the Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG award for a performance I didn't see anything special about.  In The Constant Gardener she plays the wife of a British diplomat played by Ralph Fiennes.  She was a political activist and ends up murdered and the whole movie is told in flashback trying to figure out what happened to her.  She's good in the film but I don't understand the universal acclaim.  She's a great actress so it's not a bad thing that she won an Oscar but compared to the next two ladies I don't see why she ended up victorious.  I would actually rather have seen Catherine Keener win over her.

2. Amy Adams got her first nomination for her breakout performance in Junebug.  She plays a naive, southern, pregnant young woman who is the highlight of this indie comedy.  I remember at the time that the promotional campaign for her started really early.  By October she was getting for your consideration ads and the gamble paid off.  The studio was able to get her name in the voters's minds and keep it there until the nominations.  The movie is very small but Adams is very fun in her role and it skyrocketed her career.  I can't really vote for her because it's her first big role but it's a nice nomination.

1. Michelle Williams is an actress who continues to surprise me.  She started on the teen soap opera Dawson's Creek and then went on to film and turn in performance after performance that continue to get Oscar nominations but no win yet.  She could have gone the romantic comedy route or starred in teen gross out comedies but instead she picked interesting roles in good films.  This was the first time critics took notice of her as she plays the scorned lover of Heath Ledger's character in Brokeback Mountain.  She starts out as a loving and devoted wife and then quickly begins to suspect her husband's sexual proclivities.  She doesn't have a lot of meaty scenes in the film but she has enough and knowing her future work makes me compelled to give her the edge.

My favorite performances are Adams, Williams and McDormand.  I can't vote for McDormand because she's won already and I can't vote for Adams because it's her first film.  That leaves Williams as the only actress to vote for.  This was her first Oscar nomination and she went on to score nods for My Week With Marilyn, Blue Valentine and Manchester By The Sea, all performances that could have easily won and probably should have.  She's an actress that I forget that I love and then I see her in a movie and think, why the hell doesn't she have Meryl Streep's career, she's so damn good.  Recently she got all the laughs in the pretty dreadful Amy Schumer comedy, I Feel Pretty.  This woman can do anything.

Oscar Winner: Rachel Weisz

My Vote: Michelle Williams

GABBY Winner: Maria Bello for A History Of Violence

Best Director

The Best Director nominees lined up perfectly with the Best Picture nominees this year but for some reason there was a split.  Capote's Bennett Miller, Crash's Paul Haggis, Good Night And Good Luck's George Clooney and Munich's Steven Spielberg all scored nods but they chose Ang Lee as the winner for Brokeback Mountain.  So enough voters picked the director of the best film but when it came time to vote for Best Picture they went, ew gross, boys kissing.  I wasn't a huge fan of Lee's direction, I think the movie has some pacing problems.  I respect the win but I would have picked Clooney who keeps his movie incredibly tightly focused.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
There are a lot of issues with Crash but the main problem is the screenplay.  All the characters speak like they were written by the same person, which of course the were.  If they weren't gonna give Paul Haggis Best Director they probably felt that they needed to honor him here.  I would have picked any of the other nominated films instead especially The Squid And The Whale, Good Night And Good Luck or Woody Allen's Match Point.  Brokeback Mountain wins the Adapted category and I remember the writer picked up his Oscar wearing blue jeans, which was pretty cool.  That's a category that should have gone to A History Of Violence.

Best Animated Feature
No Pixar film was released this year so that left the field clean for Nick Park and Aardman Animations to win for their delightful stop motion animated Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit.  Their movie Chicken Run in 2000 was instrumental in getting this category created so it's only fitting that they won at some point.

Best Documentary Feature
The biggest omission of the year was Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man being left of the nominees.  The winner ended up being March Of The Penguins which was a box office success but not a great film.  It's cute because you see adorable penguins walking around as Morgan Freeman narrates but the better documentary this year was most definitely Murderball about hardcore paraplegic rugby players.

Best Original Score/Original Song
The quiet and hypnotic guitar instrumentals of Brokeback Mountain wins over 4 films that I can't recall the music of.  Three 6 Mafia became the first hip hop group to win an Oscar for It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp from Hustle & Flow.  This was also the first rap song to be performed at the awards ceremony as Eminem refused to perform his Oscar winning song in 2002.  Seeing as how the other nominees were the love ballad from Crash and a forgettable Dolly Parton song from Transamerica.  The academy made the best choice.

Best Sound Editing/Sound Mixing
Peter Jackson's useless remake of King Kong wins both categories.  While kind of fun and visually impressive I was not a fan of Jackson's version.  It was overlong and poorly acted, outside of Naomi Watts as the damsel in distress.  For those keeping score, Walk The Line gets a nomination but is one of the rare musicals not to win this category.

Best Art Direction/Cinematography
Memoirs Of A Geisha was supposed to be the big awards film of the year.  It was based on a best selling book and directed by Rob Marshall, who made the Oscar winning Chicago.  It didn't do that well critically or commercially but it did end up winning 3 Oscars, including these two categories.  The Art Direction win is just but the Cinematography category should have gone to Brokeback Mountain or Good Night And Good Luck.

Best Makeup
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe wins easily.  The other nominees were Cinderella Man and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith.  Nobody wants one of the prequels to win an Oscar.

Best Costume Design
Memoirs Of A Geisha wins another Oscar.  This one is warranted.  I just wanted to note that one of my all time least favorite films got an Oscar nomination.  Tim Burton's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is not only a useless remake that nobody asked for or wanted but it's also one of the ugliest films I've ever seen.  The costumes, the score, the cinematography, everything in this movie is nauseating to the senses.

Best Film Editing
For some unknown reason, Crash wins.  I suppose because it has several story lines going on at once.  The Constant Gardener and Munich would have been much better choices.  Even fellow nominees Cinderella Man and Walk The Line would have been more palatable.

Best Visual Effects
King Kong rightfully wins over The Chronicles Of Narnia and War Of The Worlds.

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