Oscars, The Age & other things

Jake G shares my pain.

It's been a rather crappy day.

For starters, I opened The Age this morning to discover a feature article about the film Transamerica. My own piece on the film has been filed with the paper's arts editor for three weeks now, so today's article by Steve Dow dashes any chances my article might finally see print. *sigh* And it's not just cos I need the money from freelancing at the moment - I also have a terse publicist breathing down my neck...

Then this afternoon I realised that I have to write up two articles for MCV tonight, which means I have to cancel the role-playing session I'd hoped to have; our first for the year.

Figuring that I could at least squeeze in a 6pm session at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival before I started work I went to see Third Man Out, an alleged gay thriller/detective story which was far from thrilling. In fact it was the crappiest picture I've seen at the festival so far.

Then I go to buy dinner and realise that I only have $15 dollars to last me until I get paid on Thursday night, and no food in the house. I am so fucking sick of living hand to mouth and always being broke.

Then finally, I discover that Brokeback Mountain failed to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards today. I shouldn't be surprised I guess (and hey, it won Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score and Best Director, which is damn good going - and thank you Ang Lee for your touching speech), especially given the Academy's shite history for giving the Best Picture prize to crowd-pleasing films instead of good films. Such as:

1941: How Green Was My Valley instead of Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon
1951: An American in Paris instead of A Streetcar Named Desire
1964: My Fair Lady instead of Dr Strangelove
1976: Rocky instead of Taxi Driver or All The President's Men
1994: Forest Gump instead of Pulp Fiction

Nonetheless I still found the film's loss depressing - especially because a second-rate ensemble piece like Crash was the actuall winner. Best film my arse!