Boom Mic Mountain

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain last night, just in time to see it, more than likely, take home the best picture award at the Oscars tonight. And it was a great film. Romantic, tragic, great acting, a social message that I completely support and a gorgeous backdrop. Really some fine filmmaking and deserving of all the award nominations it has gotten. Except one.

I love Ang Lee's films. I think he is a great director, as long as you ignore Hulk. But he should not have been nominated for best director this year. Now, yes of course Brokeback was beautifully directed and filmed in general. All shots were wonderfully created and thoughtfully put together. But he should be disqualified from the award. The reason? I counted no less than three times (and I think it was four) that I saw the boom microphone in the shot. And one time it was really bad. Earlier in the movie the boom mic would quickly come in and out of the shot that I wasn't positive at first. But in the scene where Ennis walks into the Kitchen after the emotional scene he just had with Jack's coat toward the end of the movie that thing came swinging so far into the shot that I could make out the whole thing and the boom that holds it and the wire leading into the mic. It was one of the worst boom mic spottings I've seen in a movie since Sling Blade, which is the king of boom mic movies.

You just shouldn't be eligible to win an Oscar for best director with such amateur mistakes like that in your movie. It's like in sports, there's a ball player who hits .348, slugs 53 homers and has 130 RBIs. But if he also commits 60 errors on the field you don't give him the MVP award. If a bowler throws a strike it doesn't count if his toe went over the line. At the Olympics, after two false starts you're out of there. Race over, hit the showers.

I mean, come on. In these days of movie making you have "rush" shots on video right there on the set to look at what you just shot. How could he miss these? And then, even after that, with all the technology at your finger tips in this day and age it's not that hard to erase the mics from the scene. I watched the movie a total of once and I noticed them, Ang presumably saw each scene hundreds of times and missed them? Or decided it was OK or no big deal?

Sorry Ang, it is a great movie and you should be proud of yourself. But with such rookie mistakes you just don't deserve to be called the best director of the year.