BBM forever

Rating: 10/10 (6 March 2006)

Ignore the Academy snub - BBM you will be loved. Hollywood didn't have the gumption to take on a film as honest as you. One should have seen it coming but the shock was visceral all the same when 'Crash' was declared the winner. I don't mean to disparage Crash but a film like BBM comes along once in a lifetime, and every year produces yet another ensemble movie where everyone gets to do a cameo. BBM enters your head and your bloodstream in the way only a great film can. It is a film whose time has come, but it requires an open mind, a warm heart and emotional maturity to appreciate it. It's power to move you has been recognized and rewarded by critics and audiences everywhere, so what does that tell you about the Academy? Still fearful of the ideologues who judge films by their right-wing moral agendas rather than on merit. The choice of Crash with its gritty social themes was a fig leaf by a profession that likes to proclaim easy liberal credentials for itself. So sorry Ang and Heath and Jake and Michelle and Anne, you deserved better from your peers, but thanks for giving us a haunting and unforgettable experience. Tinseltown has shown its true conservative colours and shallowness - you gave it a chance to grow up and it blew it.