Karl Rove Rigs The Oscars!

Worth every penny they're paying him.

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 11:28 AM

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