“We are in another of those historical moments, with grim death gargling at you around every corner and people being slaughtered like sheep. Of course, Academy voters could heed the incendiary Zeitgeist and vote for Babel, a film about international chaos, or Letters from Iwo Jima, depicting the last days of a losing war. The Queen shows a head of state stubbornly resisting the popular will, and The Departed is a chic bloodbath.
“Or, surveying this bleak terrain, the Academy membership might turn to the one feel-good movie nominated for Best Picture. Voting for a comedy that celebrates life — eccentric but essentially loving family life √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Ǩ¬ù would be an affirmation of what Hollywood has done since its Golden Age: try to make America forget what makes it gloomy, and bring it a little Sunshine.” — Time‘s Richard Corliss reading the post-Saggie tea leaves.
HE postscript: I’ve been asking myself for the last five or six minutes why Corliss (or his editor) has capitalized “zeitgeist.” Just as I know that sometime down the road, editors are going to stop capitalizing the words “internet” and “web.” Two or three years Wired magazine declared that capitalizing these two was inane/ludicrous/nonsensical….but once the east-coast editorial establishment decides on a stylistic affectation, there’s no getting them off it.