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marantzo
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:30 pm Reply with quote
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I used to love the tabloids when I was visiting Brooklyn in the late 50's. The New York Mirror and the Daily News. The New York Post was a tabloid (sized) but a serious newspaper then (left wing). I remember following the Johnny Stompanato murder case and the Feds trying to find Howard Hughes, related to United Airlines (or whatever airline he had). I would go to Dubrows late night and pick up the first edition and read it with my Knockwurst on a kaiser, then I would read later editions on the subway the next day. Walter Winchell had a column in one of them and was always finding Communists under the bed. Great stuff and fun to read. I also read The Immoralist by Gide on the subway. The tabloids were better.
Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:56 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Shannon,

I tried following you're link, but it didn't work. Can you tell me how to get to the article. I'd be interested in reading the whole thing.

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:16 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Nevermind. Salon provided one.

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shannon
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:43 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1628 Location: NC
I fucked up the link when I initially posted. It's been edited. The link should work now.

edit: I had to edit this post to correct my spelling of "edited."
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:08 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Thanks.

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Mr. Brownstone
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450
1. Whatever issues Annie has with Hollywood, denigrating another film, made by fellow artists, to make her point is incredibly ungracious.

2. What rankles me about the Brokeback furor is that supporters of the film who feel it was "robbed" of Best Picture assume that the film is exquisitely perfect and therefore the only reason it could have lost was due to some sort of moral failing of the voting members of the Academy.

Brokeback has all sorts of problems as a film, especially in the last 30 minutes, which have allowed several films to slip past it in my personal best of list. Is it not possible for Annie to imagine that others would do the same?

Perhaps not everyone would arrive at the conclusion that Crash should win (I still haven't seen it), but why not any other film? Why is Annie's position seemingly that no other film but Brokeback is entitled to win?

3. Lastly, for a creator of a film that was, intentionally or not, supposedly to be a avatar to tolerance, grace, love, humanity, understanding, etc., to be so vulgar and industrious in trashing the work of other artists and then impugning the integrity of other artists is unconscionable, and raises doubts about her own artistic and personal integrity.

Annie's done her own film, and what many, including myself, had hoped might come out of its recognition and success, a phenomenal disservice.
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Mr. Brownstone
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:22 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450
What also angers and disappoints me about her galling lack of grace and courtesy on this issue is that it her actions completely belie the purpose of the "serious" art she had a hand in shaping.

I spoke at a fundraiser for this theatre group that produced a play in which I performed in early 2005, and discussed the company's next project, which was going to tackle issues dealing with homosexuality. I spoke pretty vigorously on the need for stories such as this, because of their ability to integrate with mainstream culture until they are not marginalized.

I argued how excited I was by The Laramie Project, and how much attention it had received. "This is it," I said to myself. "If anything good is going to come out of this poor kid's murder, it will be that things are going to change. This culture is going to change."

I didn't hide my massive dissappoinment, and my utter confusion, at what would happen at the next presidential election, in which half the country sided with the robber barons in part because they didn't want gays to get married. How did we get from Matthew Shepard's legacy to the Defense of Marriage Act?

Perhaps, I argued, that had more Laramie Projects existed, so many that they were as abundant and as common as romantic comedies or action adventures or Broadway musicals or television sitcoms, if there was no novelty to a Laramie Project that it didn't need to justify its exist by being socially relevant or brilliant or groundbreaking, that perhaps one of the "issues" that decided 2004 would be no issue at all.

The Laramie Project didn't need to win a bunch of awards to offer me that hope.

Art, Sean Penn once said, ultimately should either reflect the world or offer the hope for change. Anything after that, I say, is gravy. You make, you market, you hope. That's all you can do.

Ms. Proulx's project has gotten quite a bit of gravy. To complain that it didn't receive all the gravy, to expect that you're entitled to something firmer than hope, betrays the entire purpose of making hopeful art in the first place.

Whatever sociological or artistic benefit may arise from Brokeback, whether there's another gold statue on Ms. Proulx's or Mr. Ang Lee's mantle or not will not alter that. Ms. Proulx would do well to remember why this story needed to be told in the first place. Winning gold statues, I'm pretty sure, was not the reason at all.
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:06 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Quote:
What also angers and disappoints me about her galling lack of grace and courtesy on this issue is that it her actions completely belie the purpose of the "serious" art she had a hand in shaping.


You nailed it.

I read her comments, and I imagine some bitchy Hollywood bigwig chatting on the phone by her pool. It's the antithesis of what I would have expected from an industry outsider and a supposed serious artist. (Though personally I'm no fan of her work.)

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shannon
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:38 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1628 Location: NC
Quote:
1. Whatever issues Annie has with Hollywood, denigrating another film, made by fellow artists, to make her point is incredibly ungracious.


I don't disagree. That doesn't make it less funny, though.

Quote:
2. What rankles me about the Brokeback furor is that supporters of the film who feel it was "robbed" of Best Picture assume that the film is exquisitely perfect and therefore the only reason it could have lost was due to some sort of moral failing of the voting members of the Academy.


I would say that if a large section of those voting members of the Academy flat-out refused to even see Brokeback Mountain because of its subject matter, then that's a pretty big moral failing. (This is the real issue, why the controversy still exists, btw. Has little to do with the quality of either film.)

Quote:
Perhaps not everyone would arrive at the conclusion that Crash should win (I still haven't seen it), but why not any other film? Why is Annie's position seemingly that no other film but Brokeback is entitled to win?


I don't think that's Ms. Proulx's position at all. She seems to have just really disliked Crash. I still contend that if any other film but Crash had won, there would be no backlash because then the Academy's "We're really are liberal, just not that liberal" position wouldn't have been so obvious. The other nominees all won multiple awards and ended up on multiple critics' top ten lists. Crash was liked by Ebert. See the discrepancy?

Quote:
Lastly, for a creator of a film that was, intentionally or not, supposedly to be a avatar to tolerance, grace, love, humanity, understanding, etc., to be so vulgar and industrious in trashing the work of other artists and then impugning the integrity of other artists is unconscionable, and raises doubts about her own artistic and personal integrity.

Annie's done her own film, and what many, including myself, had hoped might come out of its recognition and success, a phenomenal disservice.


Overreact a bit?

Quote:
I didn't hide my massive dissappoinment, and my utter confusion, at what would happen at the next presidential election, in which half the country sided with the robber barons in part because they didn't want gays to get married.


Does this situation bear any simularity to the Crash win?
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Marc
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:14 am Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
CRASH fucking sucked. It was shallow, manipulative and laughably obvious. In addition, the soundtrack was awful sub-Enya, EMO crap.
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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:10 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Marc wrote:
CRASH fucking sucked. It was shallow, manipulative and laughably obvious. In addition, the soundtrack was awful sub-Enya, EMO crap.


Well, now I guess we know what's what.

The fact is that it's all opinion. But Ebert was not the only person who loved Crash. David Denby's original review is what made me go to see it the opening weekend. He raved and raved. So did others. Ebert being such a high-profile critic helped the movie's case, that's true, but he's not the only one.

IMO Crash was a good, not great, movie. It did not rock my world, but it did not "fucking suck" either. If it hadn't won the Oscar no one would be so up in arms about it. But it was my third choice of the five nominees. So not everyone agrees with Marc. Or Annie.
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Trish
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:13 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
but many do!! As I pointed out earlier - on the Premiere Hottest (critically) 100 list - all the other best picture nominees were in the top ten (or damn close) Crash was #50-something (I'm too lazy to look up my old post) That's why it's a damn catastrophe it won

a triumph of fear and self-loathing
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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:18 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Trish wrote:
but many do!! As I pointed out earlier - on the Premiere Hottest (critically) 100 list - all the other best picture nominees were in the top ten (or damn close) Crash was #50-something (I'm too lazy to look up my old post) That's why it's a damn catastrophe it won


Trish--By now I think we're all aware that you hated, loathed, detested, etc., Crash. As did many others. But there are many who don't. And that's what makes horse races. If Crash had not beaten the iconic Brokeback Mountain for the Oscar no one would be talking this much about how good or bad it was.

The fact is that I agree with Tim's comment about the utter ungraciousness of Annie Proulx's reaction to Crash's win. Her "slip of the pen" in calling it "Trash" is unworthy of Harold Robbins, much less a "classy" writer like Proulx.
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Mr. Brownstone
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:01 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450
Trish:

It's not a "catatrosphe" that Crash won. Get some effin' perspective.

Shannon:

"Does this situation (the 2004 presidential election) bear any simularity to the Crash win?"

No. The presidential election has given us more fear, xenophobia, invasions of civil liberties, war, bloated budgets, extension of the Patriot Act, etc., etc. Crash winning an award means Haggis can get a couple more movies greenlit. I would respond to your post with your own retort: Over-react much?
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Trish
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:08 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
Mr. Brownstone wrote:
Trish:

It's not a "catatrosphe" that Crash won. Get some effin' perspective.



In the Screen world it is, in everyday life - no

Haggis' reign as Hollywood's premier screenwriter - I shudder
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