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Overhype

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Mar 11th 2002 10:11am





Internet Used For Oscar Smear Campaign

from the but...was-it? dept

Apparently the battle for this year's Best Picture Oscar award has gotten nasty. Universal (the distributors of "A Beautiful Mind") are saying that they believe another studio has been planting various stories about how John Nash (the subject of the movie) was a bad person in ways not described in the movie. Bastions of ethical reporting such as the Drudge report and the NY Post have picked up on such stories and may be influencing voters. Ah, so much to say about this with so little space. I will sum it up this way: get a life, people. We're talking about a movie! Yes, I realize that the winner of the award will mean big money for that studio (and associated actors etc.) but come on. Trashing someone's reputation for an award? Besides, who cares if the movie left out some info about the guy. It's a movie! Of course you're going to leave out some information about someone's life. You only have 2 hours. The movie should be judged on the merits of the movie itself.

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  1.  

    "A Beautiful Mind"

    identicon
    Burt Masnick, Mar 11th, 2002 @ 11:31am

    I actually read the book, "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasser, after seeing the movie. Two things about the book (assuming it's accurate). John Nash was actually more of a genius than the movie shows. First, his contributions in many areas of deep and applied mathematics are astounding, deep and lasting. Second, he was MUCH MUCH nastier as a real life person than was shown in the movie. The long list in the book of really nasty stuff that he did when sane, let alone when he lost it, is chilling. When Cameron Crowe won the People's Choice award, he said that, "At the end of the day, A Beautiful Mind is just a movie and an entertainment". I think he had in mind that the movie was a necessary contraction of the complexities of the true story. So my take on the story is that the film-makers made a wonderful story that is uplifting and interesting. It's relationship to the true story is a bit "Disneyesque". However, it is true that John Nash essentially did cure himself of severe delusional mental illness, which, like many other things about him, is just remarkable.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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