I’ve been coming across the words “liberal guilt” often lately. My first encounter was via Salon.com’s film critic Andrew O’Hehir’s more or less tongue-in-cheek Liberal Guilt Awards (or Guilties). In this scenario, “Hollywood congratulates itself for its general condition of progressive enlightenment and lectures the rest of us from its newfound position of half-baked moral seriousness.” Website Link

     Next was Steve Lopez’s March 12 column in the Los Angels Times, in which he discusses the furor around Crash. “I’m guessing,” he wrote, “as others have, that some Oscar voters were assuaging liberal guilt over the safety of their own isolation when they feted ‘Crash’ for ‘tackling’ that old devil racism.” This is, of course, similar to what L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote about the Academy’s decision to award the Best Picture Oscar to Crash instead of Brokeback Mountain.

(Editor’s Note: The heavily promoted Steven Spielberg film “Munich” was slow to catch on with fans for the first weeks following its Dec. 23 opening. This Sunday  night at the Academy Awards presentations, however, it will be one of the most closely watched productions. “Munich” has been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture.) 
 
     As a general rule, I try not to read reviews or too much news about a movie before I’ve seen it, particularly when, like “Munich,” it comes with a strong buzz. (Call me crazy, but I have enough going into a movie with my own biases that I don’t need other people’s.) Of course, it isn’t possible to be completely insulated. Naturally, tidbits of information and opinion inevitably filter through. In this case, it was that “Munich” is a  “controversial” movie.