Ace of Spades HQ

January 31, 2006

Karl Rove Rigs The Oscars!
— Ace

Jared Jarecki's "Why We Fight," a stupid burble of military-industrial-complex conspiracy-theorizing, isn't eligible for an Oscar for Best Documentary because it failed to follow the Academy's often-changing rules for a theatrical presentation. (Usually they require that a "movie" actually be exhibited in theaters before television, which seems to make sense.)

Clauses in the rules providing a limited exception to this rule were changed before "Why We Fight" premiered on (shocker!) British television, and Jarecki and his producers didn't notice the changes. (Supposedly.) So this dope suggests-- it's all Bush's fault!

Hollywood: Does BushCo Have Its Hand On Oscar?

by Jerry Politex

It's just a question, but it's a question worth asking, since we saw the excellent documentary "Why We Fight" and read "The Oscar Nominees Aren't..." in the NYT yesterday, explaining why Hollywood rules keep it from being considered for an Oscar. It appears that what's happening in Hollywood is that the Academy keeps changing its rules to keep out documentary films that, in one way or another, oppose the policies of the Bush administration.
...

At best, one could believe that the Oscar rulemakers are simply incompetent, or perhaps even biased toward certain kinds of documentary content, as Anderson implies elsewhere in his article, but in the same piece we learn that "at one point the academy's board of governors wanted to eliminate the short-documentary category altogether and banish documentary features to the science and technical awards, which are presented in a separate ceremony." Hollywood would look pretty silly doing so, given how closely the documentary film is woven into the fabric of film history and aesthetics, but this would not be the first time that Hollywood caved in to Washington. The bottom line is the Academy was put on the spot, politically, when Michael Moore won an Oscar for "Farenheit 9/11," and was cut off during his short but political acceptance speech amidst both cheers and boos, and what we're seeing now are attempts to prevent such an event from happening again. Given what we have learned over the years about Bush news management and propaganda, a White House hand in Hollywood is hardly out of the question.

It should be noted that Jarecki's film debuted theatrically on January 20, 2006, making me, at least, not terribly surprised he's not eligible for a 2005 Oscar.

Thanks to HD.

Posted by: Ace at 06:28 AM | Comments (17)
Post contains 406 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Well, at least the Oscars have come out of the closet, so to speak. Not about the gay thing, because gay is the way to an oscar, just ask American Beauty-the incredibly overrated "republicans are the gaywads" movie. Nope, the Oscars are now the Politics of Truth for Liberal Nonsense Awards.

The nominations are crammed, elbow deep, with lefty propaganda. Of course, Sheepherder-the movie, is nominated 8 times. Gay is the way, after all. But what about all this lefty dreaming like Syriana or lefty historizing like Good Night. Oh, there are also odes to Unions. And there are even lefty appeals on how we should not fight the terrorist, like Munch. Do these films really have anything going for them except for attempting to frame a political discussion?

So, anyone see any good movies recently? I hear that there was a 3 hour movie about a monkey.

Posted by: joeindc44 at January 31, 2006 06:38 AM (8TcCs)

2 That Jerry guy is an idiot. He can't even spell 'politics' right.

Posted by: John from WuzzaDem at January 31, 2006 06:55 AM (Pt3Le)

3 Odd...

Everyone I've ever known who was working on a documentary of any sort planned on running the film at least once, in some sort of theater, for just this reason. There's always some dinky little art house somewhere that's happy to run a "world premiere" for an aspiring filmmaker.

Missing the "gotta show it in a real movie theater before TV" rule puts the filmmakers into the "too dumb to succeed" category.

Posted by: cirby at January 31, 2006 06:55 AM (YKfHF)

4 There's always the Emmy. Douchebag.

Posted by: roc ingersol at January 31, 2006 06:59 AM (m2CN7)

5 Well, there is more to it, if you read the article (which I don't suggest you do). Apparently the rule about first-time-in-a-theater was partly suspended, with caveats, for a time, then they changed some of those caveats. Jarecki missed the safe harbor, whatever it was.

Did Karl Rove command him not to read the rules of theatrical exhibition regarding documentaries? Apparently so.

Posted by: ace at January 31, 2006 07:06 AM (UxtY9)

6 Seems to me I remember some rule-bending a few years ago in favor of Michael Moore, who's "documentary" was shown on TV in Cuba.

Am I wrong?

Posted by: Anachronda at January 31, 2006 07:08 AM (/c74s)

7 Usually they require that a "movie" actually be exhibited in theaters before television, which seems to make sense.

How many theaters? They must have a number, otherwise, you could rent a theater, charge your friends admission, then sell the film to television.

Posted by: shawn at January 31, 2006 07:19 AM (D90f7)

8 Suck it!

Posted by: Karl Rove at January 31, 2006 08:14 AM (O+1/6)

9 The reason most get dq'd is that they don't have theater releases. They do that to pump up buzz about their film because they know that mainstream America won't either care about it or go see it. Brokeback is a good example. No buzz, it hits the movies and gets a mediocre showing but Hollywood still lauds praise on it's social commentary. But by limiting it's release, it self-stirs the controversy surrounding it. Cavuto said it best when he said that Hollywood was out of touch with the rest of America.

Posted by: Pixeflash at January 31, 2006 08:20 AM (O+1/6)

10 Michael Moore didn't win an Academy Award for "Fahrenheit 9/11." It wasn't even nominated. I think the rules did in fact keep him out, but Moore chose to defy the rules when "Fahrenheit" aired in Cuba. They weren't changed just to keep him out.

Posted by: Mark V. at January 31, 2006 08:29 AM (2ipxY)

11 The oscars are a waste they are all rigged why else would MICHEAL MOORE receive a award for his phonie documenntry and why else would they ignore THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST while lavishing everything on crap like MILLION DOLLAR BABY and SIDEWAYS

Posted by: spurwing plover at January 31, 2006 10:07 AM (uTBPj)

12 Here trollie trollie trollie, they're talking about Michael Moore your favorite sumo wrestler! Michael Moore, who implied that Bush set up 9/11!

Posted by: Sue Dohnim at January 31, 2006 10:12 AM (rE+jU)

13 The oscars are a waste
they are all rigged
why else
would MICHEAL MOORE receive a award
for his phonie documenntry
and
why else
would they ignore THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
while lavishing everything on crap like MILLION DOLLAR BABY and SIDEWAYS

Posted by: The Chronicler of Spoetry at January 31, 2006 10:17 AM (nVA0o)

14 All the sheep said Brokeback was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

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