With Televised Golden Globes KO’ed, Suggestions How To Handle The Oscars?

COMMENTS (34)

• I’ll bet that the WGA will make a deal with the AMPTP before the telecast. The Golden Globes will be enough of a strike against the producers – boycotting the Oscars may be overkill. In turn, attendees could make the WGA strike the talk of the red carpet as well as recipient speeches.

  Comment by David Markland — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 11:12am PST  Reply to this post

• The WGA and SAG are both open for legal prosecution with regards to discrimination. WGA won’t grant a waiver for the Globes but it will allow guild members Leno, and O’Brian to continue to appear on their respective shows? SAG says it’s members will boycott the Globes. However, SAG members are free to appear on the above mentioned WGA member shows. In addition SAG members will cheerfully attend the SAG awards. These guilds like to pick and choose which productions, and what members will be allowed to participate in, that is to discriminate between one or the other.

  Comment by AnonFrab — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 11:51am PST  Reply to this post

• Here’s one:

  Make a fair deal with the writers and the Oscars will go on as planned.

  File under DUH.

  Comment by Klaatu — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 11:58am PST  Reply to this post

• Scrap the actual televised show (it’s a bore anyway) and just announce the award winners on a special digitally animated Academy Awards Night website.

  Every 5 minutes or so, give the result of another award, building up to the big awards at the end of the evening.

  The hosts should be virtual versions of Douglas Fairbanks and Willam C. DeMille, and with any luck the suits can put this all together at 1929 rates!

  Comment by Vinnie Vegas — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 12:29pm PST  Reply to this post

• “The WGA and SAG are both open for legal prosecution with regards to discrimination.”

  Um…yeah. In the sense that if you marry one person, someone else can sue you for discrimination because you didn’t marry him or her.

  “These guilds like to pick and choose which productions”

  Yep, the WGA has no legal mandate to make any deal with any independent production company. They can choose who they want to deal with and who they don’t, according to which deal is beneficial and which isn’t. They can choose not to make any separate deals at all. They don’t have to agree to allow everyone who asks whatever they want.

  If there is one benefit to the WGA in granting a waiver for a one night promotional event for struck comanies, what would that be?

  Comment by Seriously — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 1:55pm PST  Reply to this post

• I don’t understand why the Academy doesn’t do what it did in 1928 and throughout the 1930s – hold a banquet and simply give out the awards. No musical numbers, no funny patter. The show will be 90 minutes and the ratings would be huge.

  Comment by Jerry Beck — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 2:53pm PST  Reply to this post

• The WGA and the AMPTP should put aside their differences and broker a peace for Oscar eve – kind of like those American and German soldiers did for Christmas in WW2.

  Many people have used the bully pulpit of the Oscars to advocate for personal and political reasons, how great would it be to have winners advocating for the Strike to end?

  Added Bonus: This being the Oscars (and not the Emmys) it would flush out the big stars who have been laying low during the strike – standing at the podium, having thanked God and their agents, they would look like turds if they did not side with the writers.

  Bring it on.

  Comment by seoulbrother — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 4:10pm PST  Reply to this post

• Ummm… it’s not like writers are all a bunch of mouthbreathing hermunculi. Why not use the publicity and the audience for the Golden Globes and the Oscars to our advantage?

  Let BOTH shows go on, with one minor change:

  Instead of two tv and movie stars on the podium as presenters, make it ONE STAR and ONE WRITER each. Send Greg Daniels onstage with Steve Carell to present for best actress in a comedy series. Send Paul Haggis up with Clint Eastwood to present for best foreign film.

  This is the WGA’s strike — we have an opportunity to negotiate and compromise, to show the public we can meet in the middle in a way the producers have not. They can have their awards ceremonies, and we can use the shows to drive home the point that behind every actor is a writer who creates entire movies by starting with a blank computer screen and an idea.

  Why not use the Golden Globes and the Oscars to put a face to the writers on strike, to the largest audience possible? (And in a tux or ball gown, no less, instead of red strike T-shirt.)

  Just thoughts.

  Comment by Scott Lobdell — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 8:03pm PST  Reply to this post

• No one has mentioned the conflict of interest that SAG represents when Alan Rosenberg makes a statement that he does not want members of SAG attending the Globes.

  The conflict of interest is that if Rosenberg knocks-out the Globes, then the SAG Awards which take place the following week will have a bigger viewership, will take the place of the Globes, and will grow in stature as all of the SAG Members will be turning out for that show as Rosenberg has obtained a waiver with the WGA. And The SAG Awards will be broadcast live on Cable TV- so the better the SAG Awards do, the more money SAG will receive for commercials, for future licensing fees, etc. BIG CONFLICT OF INTEREST ROSENBERG- He’ll do anything to K.O. the Globes due to the fact that his own show follows just one week later.

  Comment by Don't wish to say my name — Saturday January 5, 2008 @ 11:17pm PST  Reply to this post