Oscar + Mayer = Good

. (Oscar by itself... not so much.)

I spent some of my valuable time last night watching the movie Crash, which won Best Movie this year over Brokeback Mountain. I thought of writing to applaud the courage of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for voting for a movie which no one had actually seen. Including the reviewers.

Saddled with a mangled, arthritic plot, it tries to be a poor man's Pulp Fiction. As easy as that sounds, it fails. I was a big fan of Sandra Bullock, right up to her first appearance in this film as the moody, world hating wife of the district attorney. Then I realized that she was just typecast. I guess being Mrs. Monster Garage is not all that it was cracked up to be.

Racist cops magically transform into angels of mercy. A good cop's little bro becomes accomplice to a Hamlet of a hoodlum, who cannot decide whether to be or not. (SPOILER) A middle eastern immigrant, liabeled as a rag head, tries to murder a Mexican locksmith with a new gun; shoots the Mexican's daughter instead; but the gun is loaded with blanks.

The FILM is loaded with blanks.

I should not be so negative. Actually, the film (we call it a movie only after three rounds at Jimmy's Bar & Grill) has a positive note: every ass we ever hated is involved in The Crash, one way or another. Except for Ang Lee.

As I watched, I reflected on another movie which I saw again yesterday: Back To the Future. Isn't it too bad that Steven Spielberg forgot how to make great movies like that?

So, the choice for the academy came down to this one, or Brokeback. Pretty apt phrase, "down to". Which academy was this? Police Academy?

I later realized that if I were voting for the Oscar, and my vote for the movie meant I wouldn't have to actually watch this piece of dung, well, it would be a small price to pay.