The Reeler

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March 06, 2006

Celebrating Oscar Calamity With New York Magazine

This is a tough morning for me. As if the literal hangover from crashing New York Magazine's Oscar party Sunday night were not bad enough, I face the migraine-inducing reality that what is so often hyped as the world's most austere, powerful film body actually awarded its Best Picture prize to an abortion like Crash. I mean, I saw a half-dozen better films last year that were not even nominated, but I saw hardly any as intensely awful and overrated as Paul Haggis's pedantic "drama"--as accurate an approximation of race relations as a Winnie the Pooh cartoon is an honest depiction of forest ecology.

I know, I know. "But Stu," you say, "it is the Oscars. It doesn't matter." Except it does matter, because the Oscars connote a legitimacy to millions that is worth millions. And fuck if I have to live in a world where the junk merchants at Lionsgate shit $100 bills while something like In Between Days or The Talent Given Us cannot even get distributed. This is either proof that God hates movie lovers or, more likely, proof that there is no God at all.

I hesitated in announcing this theory last night at The Spotted Pig, where the lovely people at New York Magazine had gathered scores of guests in the interest of fun rather than fear. In fact, I did not talk to anybody I probably should have: I did not track down NYM editor in chief Adam Moss to thank him for conjuring an alternative to Entertainment Weekly's fumigation-tent (see below), B-list clusterfuck uptown at at Elaine's; I did not call out Rep. Anthony Weiner for stealing my seat less than 15 seconds after I stood up for a better peek at the Best Visual Effects nominees; I did not get Malcolm Gladwell's thoughts on King Kong, which, for whatever reason (probably drunkenness), I thought he might want to share; I did not find out where NFL linebacker Brandon Short thought he might wind up after the Carolina Panthers cut him last week; I did not inquire about MSNBC host Dan Abrams' Oscar favorites and the legal recourse Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck might take against the Academy; and I did not review New York cinema with Republican gubernatorial candidate William Weld, but only because he left about 10 minutes before the awards began.

I did, however, finally meet Gawker co-editor Jesse Oxfeld, a kind supporter of The Reeler who said 2005 was not his best year for getting out to the movies. As such, he had no Oscar favorites. I sought his prayers for Amy Adams anyway. Obviously, either he did not pray or, like I surmised before, God is just a shitty listener.

Before Crash ruined everything, (L-R) Gawker's Jesse Oxfeld, NPR host Brooke Gladstone and film critic David Edelstein quite enjoyed New York Magazine's Oscar party(Photos: STV)

I left Oxfeld and settled against a wall to watch Jon Stewart's opening monologue, but I was blocking a pair of women at a table behind me and had to move. I walked around them and pulled out a stool from an adjacent table. I thought I recognized one of them--a tall brunette--but I could not place her. The three of us got to talking; I introduced myself.

"Nina," the blond woman said--I think. It was loud.

I turned to the brunette. "Hi, I'm Stu."

"Famke," she said.

But you see, I still heard something else, and my knowledge of X-Men or Hide and Seek is Oxfeldian at best, so quite pathetically, I had no idea I was talking to Famke Janssen. Which was fine, since neither of us really had anything to say to the other, anyway. Until I extolled the virtues of Junebug. Again.

"What's it called?" Janssen asked me.

"Junebug."

"What's it about?"

"It's about an art dealer from Chicago who travels with her boyfriend to visit his family, and there's this... You know, kind of a culture clash, sort of. It's really, really amazing."

"Oh, that," she said. "I think I read that."

Director Nicholas Jarecki stopped by to introduce himself, blocking the TV and looking at me as if to confirm that yes, there is indeed an anonymous douchebag sitting next to Famke Janssen. The ladies had ordered burgers, which arrived moments later; Janssen went for the Roquefort-drenched patty and left the bun untouched. I asked if she would watch my seat while I went to get another Red Stripe. "Anyone tries to take it, you know..." I slammed my fist into my open palm. "Fucking take 'em down."

"I'll put my purse there."

She and Nina left not long after I returned, and I gave up trying to see through the crowd that had amassed at the television nearby. A sort of VIP alcove took shape behind me, with NYM critic David Edelstein scribbling furiously in a reporter's notepad as he gazed at a TV almost directly above him. Some other magazine staff and old pals from Slate had joined him; Edelstein's presence virtually guaranteed it as the place to be if you actually wanted to hear anything beamed out of Hollywood.

Tony Danza, a bit player in Crash and regular EW Oscar party attendee, fucked shit up with his friends on Second Avenue following his film's shocking Best Picture win

Honorary Oscar recipient Robert Altman's acceptance speech especially moved him. I had closed in on the space a while before for a better view, and Edelstein emerged at the commercial break to praise the director. "I've never been a big fan," I said.

"Of Altman?" Edelstein said. "Really?"

"Yeah, I know, I know," I said. "Seriously, though. I'll give him Nashville, maybe The Player--"

"What about McCabe?"

"Ugh. You know what it is? It's the zooms. I can't stand the slow, tracking zooms."

"Yeah, look, here's the... Look," Edelstein said, explaining in persuasive (but not persuasive enough) detail why Altman's zooms work. We went on to discuss the mystifying momentum of Crash; Edelstein said he had watched the film with Armond White, who spent portions of the screening just laughing. We also talked about King Kong, a film we both thought to be underrepresented at the Oscars but that we agreed was far too long. I noted that Miramax evidently does not need Harvey Weinstein in-house to win a foreign film Oscar, and my head was buried about 10 seconds too long to know how anyone on that side of the room reacted to the stupid fucking stuffed-animal show put on by the best documentary winners behind March of the Penguins.

Later, there were plenty of groans raining on Reese Witherspoon's "I'm just trying to matter" bromide, and far more head-burying followed when Jack Nicholson announced Crash's Best Picture victory. Like a prison beating, the reality faded from consciousness even as it acquired appreciable physical resonance; Edelstein simply threw up his hands, stood up and shuffled away from the TV. "OK," he said, visibly drained. "I gotta go write now. You gotta go write now."

And it is true. For what it is worth anymore--or at least for what it feels like it is worth-- we gotta go write. God help us. Or not.

Posted by stvanairsdale at March 6, 2006 10:21 AM

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Posted by: Jason Okamoto at March 7, 2006 11:55 PM