The Rainbow Globes

In case you live in a cave, the "lifelong connection" isn't exactly of the "just friends" variety.Capote, Winner of Best Actor in a Leading Role - Drama for Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Summary, from IMDB.com:

In 1959, Truman Capote, a popular writer for The New Yorker, learns about the horrific and senseless murder of a family of four in Halcomb, Kansas. Inspired by the story material, Capote and his partner, Harper Lee, travel to the town to research for an article. However, as Capote digs deeper into the story, he is inspired to expand the project into what would be his greatest work, In Cold Blood. To that end, he arranges extensive interviews with the prisoners, especially with Perry Smith, a quiet and articulate man with a troubled history. As he works on his book, Capote feels some compassion for Perry which in part prompts him to help the prisoners to some degree. However, that feeling deeply conflicts with his need for closure for his book which only an execution can provide. That conflict and the mixed motives for both interviewer and subject make for a troubling experience that would produce an literary account that would redefine modern non-fiction.

In case you live in a cave, "partner" doesn't mean co-worker in this case.

Transamerica, winner of Best Actress in a Leading Role - Drama for Felicity Huffman, who also happens to star in Desperate Housewives.

Summary from IMDB.com:

Bree, a pre-operative, male-to-female transsexual, holds down two jobs and saves every penny so that she can pay for one last operation that will make her a woman at last. One day, however, she receives a strange phone call. It appears that on the other side is Toby, apparently her son, who must be the product of a somewhat clumsy sexual encounter years ago when she was a man. He stays in New York, incarcerated. Bree flies from Los Angeles to New York in order to get the boy out of jail. At first she is reluctant to do so, but her therapist convinces her to face up to her past. The boy is handed over to her without a word of explanation and Toby believes the woman to be some Christian missionary determined to convert reprobates to Jesus; Bree sees no reason to clear up the misunderstanding. However, she finds out that the boy just wants to escape from her and hitchhike to Los Angeles. She persuades him to accompany her back to the west coast–secretly planning to leave him at his stepfather's along the way. Toby is happy to take her up on her offer.

Even if you live in a cave, I probably don't have to explain any of this to you.

It used to be that to win an award in Hollywood, all you had to do was play a mentally challenged character and you were pretty much guaranteed a nomination (I am Sam, Forrest Gump, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, among others). As Heather Havrilesky put it in an article entitled What's wrong with the Oscars?, these awards are handed out by "voters who prefer epic, sweeping dramas centering around mentally retarded or unstable characters set to melodramatic, John Williams-style orchestration." Until recently, the shortest distance between an actor and a shiny new ornament for the mantle was a character with "special needs."

But, the Golden Globes may have set a new precedent this year. The Globes were good to gay cowboys, gay authors, and transsexuals this year, and may be a forecast of what to expect at the Oscars in March. The pattern is a familiar one, only "special needs" has been replaced with "homosexuality." Films that are widely ignored by 99% of the movie-going public are being heralded as break-through cinematic achievements because at least one of the main characters is gay/lesbian/transgendered/transsexual/whatever, while films that the rest of us enjoy are overlooked. Bill O'Reilley said today that Peter Jackson's biggest mistake in making King Kong was that the big monkey picked up an actress instead of an actor. Had Kong been gay, the movie could bank on a king-sized share of awards next year. But, I would predict that at least one or two homosexual-centric films will be released this year, all but guaranteeing Jackson and his ape will be left out in the cold.

I propose they rename the awards to the Rainbow Globes in order to be more accurate.

The good news is that Americans have all but ignored films like these at the box office. Despite mountains (sorry, bad pun alert) of free hype and press from "The Media," Brokeback's box office take has been less than spectacular. It has made $30,800,000 since its Dec. 9th release date, which might sound like a lot until you realize that Narnia, which was released on the same day, made $261,400,000 in the same six week period, or roughly 8.5 times as much. If movie goers are voting with their dollars, the gay cowboys don't stand a chance against British kids and talking animals in this election.

I guess you could archive this post in the "Hollywood is out of touch with the rest of us" file.