‘Crash’ won; time to move on

Look, I’m a fan of the film “Brokeback Mountain.” And I was sympathetic to the various readers who phoned and/or e-mailed their complaints that it took so long for the movie to come to Spokane – even though, as I pointed out in print, that very delay by the film’s distributors ended up making it a lot of money.

But this is ridiculous. A group emanating from the Web site Ultimate Brokeback Forum “has spearheaded a campaign to collect donations from around the world to place ads in trade and national publications in support of the movie.”

The reason: “The ad campaign was started … as a positive way to deal with their emotions surrounding Brokeback Mountain’s loss for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.”

Huh?

“I think most fans of the film were stunned by the Best Picture surprise, which raised the question of how and why the Academy could have been so out of sync with virtually every other organization that awarded Best Picture honors,” site organizer Dave Cullen said.

You’ll recall, of course, that “Crash” won the Oscar over “Brokeback Mountain.” First of all, this is hardly the first time that the Motion Picture Academy has confounded the expectations of movie fans.

How about the following far, far worse crimes against art: 2000, “Shakespeare in Love” over “Saving Private Ryan”; 1990, “Driving Miss Daisy” over “Born on the Fourth of July”; 1980, “Ordinary People” over “All That Jazz” or “Apocalypse Now”; 1968, “In the Heat of the Night” over “The Graduate” or “Bonnie and Clyde”; 1965, “My Fair Lady” over “Dr. Strangelove”; 1958, Gigi” over “Cat on a Hot Tim Roof”; 1952, “The Greatest Show on Earth” over “High Noon.”

Second of all, despite the Ulimate Brokeback Forum campaign’s contention that “only one major organization did not name ‘Brokeback Mountain’ as Best Picture, here are a few of the organizations that did NOT: the National Board of Review (“Good Night, and Good Luck”), Online Film Critics Society (“A History of Violence”), Chicago Film Critics Association (“Crash”), the National Society of Film Critics (“Capote”), Washington, D.C, Film Critics (“Munich”).

“Brokeback Mountain” may go down in history as a film that helped break down the discrimination against gays and lesbians in the country. It may, though I doubt it, be mentioned when “Crash” is long forgotten. Regardless, movements such as this don’t help the film, they don’t help those of us who like the film and they certainly don’t help cement the film’s legacy.

They do, however, give the anti-gay/lesbian crowd more ammunition in its ongoing drive to make that crowd and anyone who sympathizes with it look like nothing more than a bunch of big whiners.