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How to write an Oscar-winner

From: Hobe Von Feldt, Colorado

Here's an Idea: Write a movie with a whole bunch of black & white American actors
set in LA. That way...

1) They and all their LA friends can vote for it at the Academy

2) Older voters who won't have the courage to vote for "Brokeback Mountain" can still slap themselves on the back and congratulate themselves for being progressive (when they should have been doing this 20 yrs ago)

3) The black membership and LA setting will be appealed to.

Too bad no one's looking at "Crash" for what it really is...forced, unbelievable, many over-the-top performances and mediocre. I was so excited to see "Crash" when it first came out on video and so disappointed after I'd viewed it.

So I was stunned when you and Roeper put it in your top 10 (and you at Number One?!). Gene Siskel would be turning over... I'm afraid, like the Beatles when John passed on, you've lost your edge. I miss how you didn't put up with the mediocre. It used to be, a good review from you was something to sit up and take notice of. Now it seems you like everything.

The Academy is often exclusive and behind the times, and I've seen the look on actors' faces who are rumored to be in the closet... the kiss of death in Hollywood. So why would we expect the academy and its reviewers to step up for "Brokeback"? Guess I'll put more weight on the Golden Globes in the future.

One bright note...you did a heck of a lot better then Joan Rivers with the pre-oscar Q&A. Intelligent questions, for a change!

P. S. I'm a 62 yr old married woman, avid movie-lover in Colorado, children's writer & illustrator. My 25 yr. old daughter, a school councilor, feels the same.

P. P. S. I stayed up for Jimmy Kimmel's late Academy Awards show and was appalled! He and guest Quinton Tarantino made horrible fun of "Brokeback" and then had a tasteless audience skit where the audience-picked "actors" won a car for best acting... kissing, etc., in a "Brokeback" movie scene while the host and Quenton laughed uproariously & egged them on. Scary! No wonder we have bullying problems.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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