My Oscar picks

From pinoyexchange:

MEM2: what was your oscar pick?

Well, if I had my druthers...the Best Picture Of Last Year (actually Of The Past Two Years, it's back in 2003) was Nathaniel Khan's documentary My Architect. Lav Diaz's 10 hour long Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family). Mario O'Hara's Babae sa Breakwater (Woman of the Breakwater). Maybe The Aviator as the best Hollywood mainstream movie.

For fun, I'd throw in Hellboy, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and uh Prisoner of Azkaban.

I need to see Tsai Ming Liang, Godard, Hou Hsiao Hsien and Kiarostami's latest.

And as for the Oscars not awarding overdue awards...wow, name your example: William Holden got an 'overdue Oscar' for Stalag 17 because he lost for Sunset Boulevard; Bogart got one for African Queen because he lost for Casablanca. I could go on and on.

And if you think it doesn't happen anymore, Paul Newman got one for Color of Money, his least interesting performance to date, while Pacino got his for yelling his head off at O'Connell in Scent of a Woman (Pacino, who did Godfather 1 and 2?).

The Oscars are a joke. I don't think Scorsese, or Filipino films really need them; an Oscar winning Filipino film would 1) have a big budget (around 15 million dollars--you do the math); have some easy-to-digest theme or moral (mentally or physically handicapped heroes would be nice; kids too), and have a feel-good ending, or a really feel-bad one.

Anything really interesting--like imagination, or a sensibility or complex point of view, or a storyline you can't reduce to three sentences, or concern for character or real acting--would only harm its prospects.

They should just go and make good films, is all.