Crashing the Oscars!

First off, this must be known: Crash winning Best Picture is nowhere near as bad as Gladiator winning back in 2001. Yes, it was the worst of the five films nominated and ranked about 25 spots below Batman Begins on the top movies of the year list. But no matter: Despite its hit-you-over-the-head with-a-giant-mallet theme of “racism is bad” and “boy we sure are all different and similar at the same time,” it was still an enjoyable two hours. It’s not like Son of the Mask won Best Picture. (By the way, Mask was screwed out of the Worst Picture Razzie.)

The highlight of Oscar night was the misspelling of Will Ferrell’s name on the giant marquee above the stage, and also Ben Stiller’s worst presenting speech ever, where he said “I’m blowing Spielberg’s mind!” and the camera caught Steven going “No you’re not.” Of course, don’t feel bad for Stiller, since he gets to go home and sleep on his bed of money.

As noted by Jon Stewart, the happiest people last night were Three 6 Mafia, who represented Philly as much as Will Smith (despite being from Memphis) and won Best Original Song for their song “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp.” Hey, that’s pretty progressive for mainstream hip hop.

Also entertaining was Reese Witherspoon’s line that she was trying to just make films that matter to someone. I think it’s safe to say that she was talking about Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde.

It is always fun to look and see what movies winners did before they made their big movies, although it will be hard to top Jamie Foxx, who won for Ray last year, which is his second-best film behind Booty Call. And so this year, we remember George Clooney’s The Peacemaker, Rachel Weisz’ The Mummy and its sequel and Witherspoon’s Legally Blonde and its sequel. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, winner for Best Actor, has decided to do his best movie next, when he’ll star opposite Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III. Sigh.

Oh, yeah, and Jon Stewart wasn’t bad. But, clearly, not as good as he was as an evil alien teacher who tries to kill Frodo Baggins in The Faculty.

We Are All In This Thing Together: Liveblogging The Oscars [Defamer]
‘Crash’ burns ‘Brokeback’ [DN]