Pammer Time: My Oscar Party was "Crashed!"

My Oscar Party was "Crashed!" The Academy has broken my heart. Shattered it to pieces.

Torn it from my chest and stomped on it. Why, you ask?

Crash won Best Picture.

Sure Oscar night was fun. My dear friends Greg and Jeanine Akers held their traditional Academy Award celebratory bash. Fun was had by all, and plenty of food was devoured.

Jeanine came up with this caramel, M M popcorn concoction that lifted my blood sugar to never-reached heights. It was awesome! Some partygoers even played Oscar Bingo.

I'm telling ya, it was outta control.

Some highlights from the telecast:

* Memphis Representin'!!

! - One sentence I never thought I'd type in my lifetime: Triple Six Mafia are Academy Award winners.
* The Best Actress Spoof Campaign Ads - Loved the montage of the English Dames going off on Judi Dench.

I think one lady was named Dame Helen Smith-Smythe Smithe. Funny.
* George Clooney's speech.

* Philip Seymour Hoffman's speech.
* Jon Stewart. I'm flabbergasted by the mixed reviews this morning.

Apparently, there weren't as many laughs in the auditorium then I thought.
* That Ben Stiller is a brave soul.

Anyway, everything was going swell.

Pretty predictable night. And then the Best Picture announcement. I literally had to walk out of the room in disgust.

I can't even type about it now. I certainly take these things too seriously, but I truly believe that the Academy went with the safe choice last night.

Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times wrote a wonderful piece about Brokeback Mountain's loss last night.

His opinion mirrors mine exactly. Here's a snippet:

I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made "Crash," and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they've made.

It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was "one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history," but "Crash" is not an example of that.

I don't care how much trouble "Crash" had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.

For "Crash's" biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.

So for people who were discomfited by "Brokeback Mountain" but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, "Crash" provided the perfect safe harbor.

They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what "Brokeback" had to offer. And that's exactly what they did.

Bravo and ditto to the max, Mr.

Turan. (To read the whole article, please go .)

I might write more about this in the future, but only if my heart ever heals.