Filmbrain's (brief) reaction to the Academy Awards

Filmbrain's inbox was flooded today with emails from friends and readers curious about his thoughts on Million Dollar Baby sweeping the Oscars. Beyond a personal dislike for the film (an extreme one at that), it does seem to prove, once again, that the idea of "liberal Hollywood" is little more than a myth. That a film as reactionary as Million Dollar Baby could walk away with nearly all the major awards is a bit disconcerting. [Warning - spoilers follow.] A film full of contempt for the poor and working class (including the most offensive white-trash caricatures to grace the silver screen in some time), who are depicted as welfare cheats and gold-diggers. A film that has black thugs at the gym who beat up an intellectually challenged character who was himself the butt of jokes for a good portion of the film. Let's not forget the villain -- a former East German prostitute -- once a godless communist who sold her body for money, now the dirtiest of fighters. Then there's the handling of the moral dilemma that the film offers -- Clint has one quick conversation with a priest, sheds a few tears, and then decides he has to take matters into his own hands, much as he did back in his Dirty Harry days. (Which, as the Times of London recently pointed out, Pauline Kael attacked for its "remarkably single-minded attack on liberal values".) And what does the film say about women? That even when strong, they are helpless without a man -- they can't even die without them. (Do we really need another film where a man's redemption comes through the death of a woman?)

But this isn't the first time Hollywood rallied behind a right-wing film that gave the appearance of being leftist. Forrest Gump, anyone?

Now, Filmbrain needs to get back to his (terribly overdue) Berlinale reviews -- there are at least another fifteen films he wants to write about. . .

Comments

[Greg Samsa]

I am well aware of Schrader and his filmography (and of course I like his films as well), but to imply that the director of Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Age of Innocence, The Kind of Comedy, Casino, etc. needs Schrader to give his films some kind of indie credibility and keep him from falling to the level of 'hack director' is pretty absurd. I consider the above films as good as anything Scorsese has done with Schrader, and of course better than Bringing Out the Dead wich he DID do with Schrader.

[la_depressionada]

cape fear: sucked
age of innocence: pretty much sucked (some nice performances)
casino and goodfellas: aren't they the same movie and aren't they remakes of mean streets?
listen, i'll never forget the day that my father and i walked out of mean streets. we were speechless for about 10 blocks, then he turned to me and said: i vitelloni, and i nodded. (hey i was only like 10 or something).

scorcese is no doubt a masestro; schrader, oth, violent and original. alot to be said for that.

o, and i kind of liked bringing out the dead, particularly the tone which was all schrader; it was the acting that put me off that one.

[la depressionada]

or maestro if you want to be picky.

[la_depressionada]

Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, DeNiro started sucking around Cape Fear. I remember thinking when I saw that movie, he was "off." Now, in retrospect, it was just the beginning of a long slow decline into hackitude.