Agreed re. the copyright issues. Should the US Oscar org actively ignore one challenge to their trademark, it'd quickly weaken their claims in other areas. But this comment rubs me the wrong way:
> One thing I dislike about US movies is their cavaliere > attitude towards historical facts (as I know them, at least). What is it about *US* movies and their attitude towards historical facts that rubs you the wrong way? That they don't tell your version? That they tell good stories? That, like mainstream movies from every filmmaking nation around the world, they're sacrificing hard facts for the sake of stories? Or telling their versions of history? How about Chinese movies from the Cultural Revolution, which present a completely imagined history as ironclad truth? Or today's Chinese blockbusters, which again do exactly the same (see the recent government-sponsored star-studded historical epics for five or six very recent examples.) Do those bother you less? They take the proactive starvation of hundreds of millions, and present it (respectively) as a rosy dance through the fields and a skipped meal around lunchtime. How about Japanese movies celebrating their atrocities during the war? And here in India -- while my Hindi historical fiction experience is slim -- how authentic is Lagaan, or the historical flashbacks of Rang De Basanti? By "US" did you actually mean "Popular Film"? Or is it just that the historical blockbusters you watch are predominantly American? Is it that American films take on an American textbook response to history? (And American historical textbooks, much like those from Japan, China, and, yes, India, are notoriously unreliable.) And not sure what connection there is to the downfall of US cinema, either. Appears to me that they're thriving. More of my coworkers thrilled to see the release of Fast & Furious 6 (7?) and Iron Man 3 than any specific Hindi or Kannada film. In China the only thing keeping the audiences from the US films is the mandatory limit on the number released. Frankly, I'm worried about the rise of US film...
