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The alleged truth for why Crash won the Best Picture Oscar over Brokeback Mountain

posted 6 years ago by TMC-4 (20181)
20 replies | jump to latest

http://www.agcwebpages.com/BLINDITEMS/2018/NOV.html

79. ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER 11/06 **#15**

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2018/11/todays-blind-items-money-talks.html

Money Talks: I think maybe once or twice a year, I start a blind off by saying something to the point of my jaw dropped when I heard it. It doesn't happen often at all. The thing is though, I guess it really shouldn't have shocked me. Games in sports have been frequently fixed and if there is enough money involved, why couldn't something else be fixed. You would never have thought the entire McDonald's Monopoly game could be fixed for a decade, but it was. Too many security protocols in place. There are never too many if there is a lot of money to be made. For a long time, bookmakers have taken bets on the results of certain award shows. One of the first few years there was online betting for a certain award show is when this all happened. It caught the online bookmakers by surprise when they finally realized what was going on. Instead of taking the bet off the board though, they quickly lowered the odds as fast as they could without giving away the fact they knew there was inside information somewhere. What they also did was make the favorite a longer shot which the general public then started betting because everyone knew it was going to win. Boy were they wrong. Apparently to fix the result in this race actually only took the bribing of two people. That is it. The amount of money they were supposed to have been given is $500K each. They each received their upfront money of $250K, but nobody knows if they got the second half of the payment. Also, it isn't like they could go complain to someone if they didn't. When the betting line opened for this particular award, the favorite was almost even money. That is pretty rare for this award. The second favorite was basically a long shot and opened in some places at 15/1 but most had it about 10/1. The people fixing this particular award were smart. Throughout the month of betting they did small bets. They did a lot of small bets, but nothing that would trigger any alarms. They managed to bet about $500K at this higher odds without ever betting more than $100 at a time. Meanwhile, so many people were betting on the favorite that neither line budged. Then, with three days left before the award, the fixers bet another $500K almost at once spread across the numerous sites that had wagers on the award. Alarms went off on all these sites and the decision they made was to dramatically lower the odds on this particular nominee while raising the odds on the favorite. The public had no idea what was going on They saw the nominee they knew was going to win suddenly looking way more attractive and they poured money into it. It was never going to be enough to cover the losses if the fixed nominee won, but it would certainly help. Sure enough, the night of the show, everyone at home and at the show all had their jaw drop when this nominee won. The payouts totaled about $12.5M. "Crash" winning Oscar for Best Picture over "Brokeback Mountain" 2006

[–] RoIn22 (3) 6 years ago

Or, maybe a plurality of the Academy thought this was the best of the BP nominees that year. Art is subjective, you know.

Besides this win was maybe a surprise, but not a shock, to those who were actively paying attention and heard prognosticators indicating that a movie set in contemporary Los Angels dealing with issues in modern urban life, was resonating more with Academy members than a movie set in rural Wyoming in the 1950's.

A similar dynamic occurred the year "Shakespeare In Love" won over "Saving Private Ryan." In the last week or so many were saying that SIL was gaining because it played better on home screeners than SPR. That win two was a surprise but not the shock some make it out to be.

[–] modica (4169) 6 years ago

Crash was such a horrible movie though. It made no sense that it won.

[–] RoIn22 (3) 6 years ago

Art is subjective. One person's "horrible movie" is another person's masterpiece.

Personally I think "Crash" falls somewhere in between those two extremes and it would not have been my vote if I had an Oscar ballot but it got solid reviews from critics upon its release and at least a plurality of Academy voters concurred with those reviews.

[–] modica (4169) 6 years ago

Ok, the movie had its moments, but some of the scenes were just ridiculous. If a movie about racism was to win, I certainly can think of many others that were more deserving. Even the director agrees that Brokeback Mountain should have won.

[–] TMC-4 (20181) 5 years ago

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/25374920-academy-members-viciously-reveal-why-lopez-sandler-murphy-got-snubbed-from-oscars

The Academy reflects the collective thoughts, prejudices, biases, bad attitudes, etc. of its members.

Remember in 2005 when Brokeback Mountain failed to win Best Picture, because some mental midget has-been like Ernest Borgnine couldn't wrap his pea brain around a movie that involved MTM sex.

My point being don't expect a lot of forward thinking from a lot of huge assholes, which is why, outside of Hollywood, nobody pays any attention to the Oscars.

—Anonymous
reply 5 11 hours ago

[–] modica (4169) 5 years ago

The Oscars is a lot of BS. The best rarely wins or is even nominated. That is why I generally don't care about most award shows.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 2 years ago

EVERY SINGLE AWARD about art is preposterous bullshit.

ART IS NOT A COMPETITION

[–] SlackerInc (1101) 2 years ago

I think it's a great movie. But I'm just some dude. You know who else thought it was great? Pulitzer-Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert:

https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/the-fury-of-the-crash-lash

[–] davebuffalo (3507) 2 years ago

Tl;dr

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8759) 2 years ago

I mourn the death of the attention span in the 21st century.

[–] davebuffalo (3507) 2 years ago

I mourn the lack of paragraphs and line feeds in that passage, which would have made it more legible. I see 1000 words all crammed together , no way I'm reading that.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8759) 2 years ago

I actually don't blame you. It is indeed a massive block of text.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (12144) 2 years ago

"Crash" was an awful movie. "Brokeback Mountain" was a soap opera with a great message, but it was not a great movie.

2006 was a bad year for movies that those two were even nominated.

[–] Noufa (398) 2 years ago

Never saw Crash. Tried but instead got the gross car-fetish movie by the same title. Which, BTW, feels even more timely in the age of social media.

But the hate for this Crash always bugged me. Because it mostly comes from the clout-chasing, yaoi fanfiction crowd who insist Brokeback was some bold statement. It's not even the 1st "mainstream" movie with a gay hero. Philadelphia was made back in the early 90s. The Color Purple picked at this taboo in the 80s.

Anway, thanks for the even-keeled take on both movies. Made me more confident about passing on this one.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (12144) 2 years ago

The car-fetish movie was probably better than Crash. Haha.

[–] whynotwriteme (7725) 2 years ago

I just assumed Crash won because blackness was higher than gayness in the Hollywood Liberals' pet victim hierarchy at the time. Today, Transness occupies the top spot.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (12144) 2 years ago

I think they respected that Brokeback was the first real gay love story in mainstream film. It was a landmark film for that reason. But they realized it didn't qualify as Best Picture.

How is Crash "blackness"?

[–] whynotwriteme (7725) 2 years ago

It's all about a white racist learning that even though black people robbed and hurt him, it's no excuse for racism, and presents a bunch of other lessons to be learned on racism. So all that racism stuff means it is about blackness.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (12144) 2 years ago

Meh, I just remember Sandra Bullock was annoying and Ryan Phillippe was cute and the black guy was sappy. It just failed to hold my attention and I was glad to get out of the theater.

[–] Foster (878) 2 years ago

The only reason there was a backlash was, as usual, in 2005 Hollywood wanted to normalize homosexual behavior, SO they pushed BrokeBack Mountain, wasn't to long after that they started teaching it in grade schools
I saw all the nominated pictures that year,
My personal favorite was Good Night Good Luck --- I rated BB Mountain at the end of the list