Oscar Wrap... Allow me to revise and extend my remarks.

I should clarify a couple things about the Oscar post:

I think it's worthy to have passionate beliefs in art, and when that's well told, fantastic. I certainly think several films nominated this year did that. But you also need to keep yourself in perspective, a hard thing to do out here where people will greet you with their resume. "Hi, how are you?" "Great, I've had two meetings, my agent's got me booked on something..." I also think these the movie that tackles issues and succeeds without being clumsy is a rare achievement indeed. It simply works better in documentary form.

The good thing about LA is that the pretentiousness is all completely up front, making it easier to avoid. I rarely need to experience it because I know where the lemmings go.

Crash also won because it was supposedly about LA ("our city, our struggle!"). It's amusing to hear people defend it by saying that "Yes, it's exaggerated, because the characters aren't meant to be realistic, they're saying what's in their heads," and then saying how it reveals human truths. What? That's like saying a movie about unicorns reveals the truth about horses. If the characters aren't meant to be realistic, how can I take anything away from how they interact? There's a difference between allegory and simply portraying something that doesn't ever happen. I'm not saying that racism doesn't happen, but it's simply not 100% overt, not always informed by an equal and opposite reaction (Matt Dillon's character only hates blacks because they gave his father's janitor job away through affirmative action, see!), and not occurring by every person of every race at every waking moment. There's a story to be told about the racial divide in America: doing it as a fantasy doesn't do justice to the tale.

It's also, in the end, just movies. The ones they're making now won't be out until 2009. The nature of the business informs how impossible it is for them to have their pulse on America. That and the fact that the lowest common denominator mentality has turned every Hollywood movie into a blockbuster event with "something for everyone!" I'm glad the Academy at least tried to honor achievement last night, with the nominations. I've given up on the blockbuster over the last several years.

Now... let's get back to politics!

P.S. But before that... I do urge you to see "Junebug," a movie out of Hollywood that respects the South and its traditions, gives every character a humanity and says a lot about who we are and how we communicate. You never hear critics on the right (who never see the movies they accuse of liberal bias, but KNOOOWWW it's in there) dare to champion a film like this.