Thoughts after watching the 78th annual Academy Awards

• Small budget films took home big Oscars. Best picture, for example, went to Crash with a budget of $6 million and best actor to Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (budget of $7 million). Can Christian filmmakers take note and see this as an opportunity, a reminder that money is not the “end all” for success?
• Narnia earned more at the domestic box office than all the best picture nominees combined. It hauled in an estimated $288 million while Munich, Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, Capote, and Brokeback Mountain together earned an estimated $237 million. Why was Brokeback Mountain on the ballot while Narnia was left off? Clearly the Oscars do not reflect the popular choice in films.
• If Christians want to “change” Hollywood, they should support good films as opposed to boycotting negative ones. The Baptist boycott of Disney films, for example, didn’t even register with executives.
• Blockbusters (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, King Kong) had a mixed reaction. Are people more drawn to story than special effects? This year’s nominees for best picture were largely theme-driven (investigating revenge, conspiracy, racism, homosexuality).

Paul H. Boge and two fellow Winnipeg film enthusiasts founded FireGate Films last summer and recently premiered Espresso Junction, a 40-minute production that probes the intersecting lives of four people in a coffee shop.