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OSCARS ALERT: I will be live-blogging (more like live-snarking) the Academy Awards tonight. Come for the cynicism. Stay for the subversion. Add your comment. Warning: Not for the easily offended or shocked.
The people who put on the Academy Awards are in a flopsweat panic as the hours tick away before this year’s big broadcast, which is having its major rehearsal and technical run-through today. For weeks now, they’ve been begging me and the other journalists who cover the Oscars not to trash the planning and performances for this year’s telecast like we have in years past. Because their frustration and fear is that, if Sunday’s top-to-bottom reworked show can’t bring back viewers after 2008′s sunk to its lowest ratings ever, then nothing will. And the worst part is that not even Hollywood wants to participate in the Oscars anymore.
I can report that this year’s producers are privately complaining that the biggest movie stars in the world like Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Kate Winslet gave them reasons galore — some serious, some trivial – for why they didn’t want to present awards, once considered a huge honor. (For instance, Kidman said she couldn’t appear onstage without the “right” hairdresser. George Clooney wouldn’t reschedule his current visit to Darfur refugee camps in Africa. And Winslet, the Best Actress shoo-in, claimed she was too “nervous” to take it on.) One of the few bigtime actresses who didn’t balk was Reese Witherspoon. These behind-the-scenes embarrassments are one reason why the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences took the unprecedented step this year of failing to make public the list of Oscar presenters. There’s even talk now of bringing back those official $100,000+ Oscar baskets of expensive freebies that used to be given to the show’s presenters and performers (before Uncle Sam decided to tax the giveaways) as a way to bribe Hollywood into lending its star power.
And the lack of major celebrities is one reason why the producers may finally be able to keep the show’s running time to their goal of 3 hours and 15 minutes instead of the usual dragfest that has driven away TV audiences with every passing year. But, in the process, the producers lost Peter Gabriel who refused to sing his Best Original Song from Wall-E, “Down To Earth”, in what he claimed was the insulting allotted time of only 65 seconds for each of the 3 tunes in a medley. The producers also have dissed last year’s actor winners by deciding that France’s Marion Cotillard (Best Actress for La Vie En Rose) and Spain’s Javier Bardem (Best Supporting Actor for No Country For Old Men), Scotland’s Tilda Swinton (Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton) and even England’s Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor for There Will Be Blood) weren’t big enough names to carry on the time-honored tradition of announcing this year’s winners by themselves. So, I’ve learned, the unusual step will be taken to bring onstage from a riser 5-person groups of other Best Actor or Best Supporting Actress winners from past eras in order to add more glitz and glamor to the presentations. (Not to mention that Australia’s Heath Ledger won’t be picking up his Best Supporting Actor award this year.) Oh, but don’t worry: last year’s winners will still get to open the envelope and announce who won.
So much for this year’s Academy Awards shaping up as the most international ever: AMPAS is truly concerned that Americans don’t care about Bollywood’s Slumdog Millionaire, the shoo-in for Best Picture, its director Danny Boyle for Best Director and other 2009 honors. Even the choice of host this year, Australia’s Hugh Jackman, was intended to pump up the overseas interest in the Oscars. But on Friday, people close to the X-Men and upcoming Wolverine star still felt the need to release a viral video on YouTube of a very buff Jackman, his biceps bulging, making fun of the jokes from previous Oscar hosts as he rehearsed a song-and-dance number with a Top Hat and cane. (Oh, that’ll bring the under-24 demo back in front of their TVs.)
And the fact that so many Oscar categories have been locked in since December, and therefore marquee nominees like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie locked out for months, have only added to the anxiety among organizers. They even tried, and failed, to convince celebrity publicists to bring clients around to a side entrance at the Kodak Theatre instead of onto the Red Carpet Sunday in order to keep secret what the stars would be wearing so it could be a surprise for the telecast. Like, duh, the arrivals’ fashion show (this year with commentary by Project Runway’s Tim Gunn) are considered by many to be the broadcast’s best part.
One new idea thought up by the producers that will be seen Sunday? Trophy boys. The result is that very handsome young men will now join very beautiful young women on stage carrying out the Oscar statuettes. If that’s not an acknowledgement that viewership for the Academy Awards these days is limited to only females and gays, I don’t know what is.
Meanwhile, a group of online bloggers has led an audience boycott of the Oscars among the predominantly male fans of The Dark Knight because of the Academy voters’ snub of the $1 billion-in-worldwide-grosses comic book caper for a Best Picture nomination and its Chris Nolan for Best Director. And that’s yet another problem that hurts viewership: this year, too, the most popular movies aren’t in contention for the major category Academy Awards. That drives away younger viewers. So it’s little wonder that ABC in this economic freefall scrambled to drop prices for 30-second ads and replace two of the key sponsors for its Sunday broadcast, General Motors and L’Oreal. Not even the prospect of 30+ million U.S. viewers could lure advertisers who’ve cut their TV budgets to the bone. Prices for Oscars spots averaged $1.7 million last year, but now are going for as cheap as $1.4 million. The result is that, in a departure from tradition, parent company Walt Disney had to let its rival movie studios buy time on the telecast.
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Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Why bother to watch the Oscars? Just plain crappy liberal fare, The Constant Gardener, MILK, or whetever.
I live in Los Angeles, and I had it with the liberals – last fall I stopped buying & reading LA Times because it simply became a nauseating Glibama billboard, I don’t watch movies because they’re uniformly anti-American, and I sincerely hope that Hollywood and the Oscars will go they way NY Times went out.
And guess what? I work in the Industry and I am not the only one who watches with satisfaction Hollywood’s decline.
Prediction: Oscars confidential, this will be this show’s audience – as far as myself, I’ll tune to any weather report on the planet.
It is heartening to see that the American public is turning away from Hollywood and its self-congratulatory circle j***s such as this one.
1. Bill Condon’s Jackman/no presenters decision has already made the show boring. There should’ve been a presenters press release early Friday morning, so it could be discussed on the talk show circuit. Also: PEOPLE LIKE COMEDIANS.
2. Snubbing of The Dark Knight, Wall-E & Gran Torino was the nail in the coffin. The first two is understandable (by Oscar standards), but Gran Torino? Gun meet foot.
Too few actors, but an endless supply of celebrities. The biz is filled to the brim with former rappers turned actor and weak actors who are posing as stars. Bad actors with public bedroom pedigrees can be traced like kennel dogs, who often leave video proof of there humping talent, who figure any news is good news.
Not much acting talent of people who claim to be actors on their W-2′s.
Most of the public doesn’t know the difference between celebrity fascination and acting, but it shows up in the general disinterest at the box office and award shows. Still, they get the feeling that something is missing.
Listen, no one cares about the Oscars. The awards are given to movies that normal people couldn’t give a rat’s behind about. “Honey, it’s been a long day at work – let’s crack open a cold one, relax on the couch and watch that Doubt movie about the possible pederast priest.” Yeah, right.
Also, no one wants to watch dumb actors and actresses get up on stage and reveal their stupidity with their moronic political screeching.
Hey, Hollywood. Your box offices are dropping. Here’s a clue. Why don’t you make movies that people want to see? Straight-forward adventures, feel-good romances, well-plotted thrillers (and try to put in some good, clean heroes and heroines instead of protagonists that are just as unlikable as the antagonists).
Geez. It’s almost like all the studios (except for Pixar) are run by nitwits. Oh, that’s right. They are.
So according to you Chris, Hollywood should just make mindless low brow crap and forget about real art or good films. Sweetheart, 2008 was the higest grossing box office year ever in film history, the box office is doing well despite what you thought. And if real people didn’t care abotu actors or movies than movies wouldn;t make millions and actors wouldn’t make millions. Despite your opinion most people are fascinated with celebrity culture, get over it.
Yup, Hollywood, like the rest of this country’s culture and the mainstream media, have really gotten intolerably boring and barren of any redeeming qualities. I never even heard of most of the movies being noted this year, and aside from the Batman flick, the ones I have heard of look to be pretty much a pile of loose doo-doo.
Who the hell wants to watch the snoozefest posing as a “political statement” featuring that nutjob Sean Penn? What the hell happened with the movie industry?? Where are the actors with a presence worth projecting???
They tried pushing George Clooney for like two decades (even after he single-handedly destroyed the original Batman theatrical franchise) — he NEVER WAS the modern equivalent of Clark Gable, didn’t you producer folks know? — and it’s not that lisping little liberal sissy Matt Damon, either, nor is it the disappointing and now underwhelming and basically washed-up Tom Hanks (who could have been a true great but instead ended up an underachieving poseur), nor is it the latest spate of no-class bad-tempered crappy-personality British and Aussie imports.
We’re celebrating Mickey Rourke. Yeah. I enjoyed The Pope of Greenwich Village, that was actually a good flick. Mickey Rourke. Move over, Jack Nicholson. You too, Pacino. Outta the way, Olivier.
Maybe if the effete liberal brainless wonders in Hollywood would quit telling the rest of us how to live (while they hypocritically ignore their own advice) and quit pushing their el queero agendas and quit pronouncing the “urgency” vis-a-vis their latest sky-is-falling scams, then they might just have a little creative energy to put out something that’s actually entertaining.
But yeah, the only reason to watch the Oscars (or the movies they “celebrate,” for that matter) is if you have bad insomnia and wish to fall asleep really early for once.
Hollywood, who you kidding?
Hi there, Tom Hanks washed up ? Is this a joke ? His last film (Angels and demons) was a huge box office hit and the guy has 2 Oscars. Get over yourself.
Screw those Commie Left Hollwood Jerks! They reap what they sow. They are Unamerican!
I’ve not watched the Oscars in over twenty years. I do not care about talented actors and actresses who live in a fantasy world who dare to speak about politics. Most are so ignorant of reality that I cannot watch them without thinking about how stupid they are… not to mention so far overpaid it isn’t funny. Then there are the crappy movies, which I won’t see because of foul language, gratuitous violence or sex, and vile anti-Americanism. I’m not even going to discuss the “green” phenomenon…
Why should I tune in to a bunch of Anti-American idiots drool over Obama or bash the Republicans. The movies that have been produced, most are not worth the price of admission to a matinee, unless you are into sophistry/hiphop. Why watch an award show for this? Hollywood needs to take it’s collective head out of the sand.
These producers don’t know what they’re doing. When they try to “innovate” the Oscars to attract viewers, they screw it up. For example a few years ago when the “lesser” winners had to accept from their seats, tacky. This break from tradition where the previous winners present the awards to the new winners is a major mistake that I’m sure will be fixed next year. Just so dumb.
The mistake made every year is this notion that the audience does not want to hear the winners speak… I would cut the sappy montages and cirque de soleil “interpretations” and the horseshit and give each winner 3 minutes rather than 30 seconds. I guarantee the show would be more interesting. What has always drawn people to the Oscars is the chance to take a look inside the film industry, all the cheesing it down to a lame Vegas show is what hurts it, not the length of the show (do people skip the Superbowl because it’s too long?), not the “star-caliber” of the nominees.
And finally, those fanboys who’re boycotting over the Dark Knight- first of all they wouldn’t watch anyway because there’s no lightsaber battles onstage, but second of all they’re just dumb because The Dark Knight was not nearly one of the 5 or 10 best films of this year. It was good, but not great. The major misstep was not nominating Synecdoche, New York, which was a brilliant film.
The Academy has to face facts, the films that put bums on seats (or viewers eyes on TV screens) are totally undeserving of awards. I loved Dark Knight, but leave MTV and the People’s Choice to honor it.
To pretend the average American can recognise a decent film or a decent performance is unfortunately just not the case, so stop trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Meanwhile don’t shoot yourself in both feet by (1) giving Best Picture to such totally undeserving films as No Country, Departed (a remake for God’s sake) and Crash (2) having presenters sing or dance or (3) tinkering with the format (e.g. insulting last year’s acting winners)
Screw the Oscars and all of hollywood idiots!!!! True America Dont need any of em!!!!
I dont really care about these actors anymore. They stick their noses into things they dont know anything about, and think they are better than everyone else.
They’re not letting last year’s actor winners present this year’s actor Oscars? WTF?!?
That is one Oscar tradition they should NOT change.
do ya think it might be because of the people you are honoring….these so called celebrities are for the most part jokes…spoiled jokes…making 3rd rate movies that really nobody wants to see…bring back the likes of the stars of the past, and make movies that tell a story that people want to hear….Sean Penn..these are the reasons Hollywood is hitting bottom…nobody wants to spend american dollars watching a traitor portraying a homosexual who 99 percent of the country never heard of…..
The first generation creates it. The second generation enjoys it. The third destroys it. As we’ve seen with the newspapers, the auto companies and Network TV, so goes Hollywood. Driven by personal ambition, cloying pandering to the elite left, outspoken liberal politics and the death of the old Hollywood star system (as driven by the old line studios) the glitz and lure and fantasy of “Hollywood” is dead. Bring on Bollywood.
I stopped watching when they kept inserting their political views and started trashing the US.
Funny the article talks about “big stars” like Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Angelina Jolie…
It is precisely people like that — who are all hype and little what passes for talent these days — that have degraded cinema in general and the Oscars specifically, to the point not many care any longer.
How many of us are sick to death of sundry “stars” using the show as a rostrum for assorted, whacko political views and Global Warming spiels — a tradition started by the challenged Vanessa Redgrave.
As Paddy Chayefsky said in his rejoinder to the big-mouthed Redgrave: “A simple thank-you would have sufficed…”
Ditto that !
There is very little at the Academy Awards in the last 20 years that is worth celebrating, much less awarding the statues to.
A mere shadow and sad caricature of what was once, truly, an evening populated with bigger-than-life stars and personages.
Can I just point out – that, weeks ago, when there was such hue and cry about the SAG awards being politicized, there were some people sort of equating that with, you know, HELLO! – “the sky is blue?”
I mean, come on. Is this not yet ANOTHER sign that Hollywood is changing and that SAG actors better get their shit together and take care of each other, because these people view us as fucking props?
And yet, SAG is on the verge of laying down – and the charge to lay down is being led by – who else? – THE STARS!
Yet – READ THIS POST. You think Hollywood – the AMPTP – doesn’t NEED SAG actors?
Yes, they only REALLY need the STARS for THIS event. But the movies that were made allowing THESE people to be nominated to ATTEND this event? And get EYEBALLS to come to SEE this event on TV and therefore watch the COMMERCIALS that paid so much money to the network SHOWING this event.
The AMPTP – without SAG actors – ALL of us – is NOTHING. It is IRRELEVANT.
SAG actors have the power to DO something about this outrageous power grab and money grab – OUR MONEY – by the Greed-head -show-biz weasel suits – if we can JUST GET TOGETHER AND DEMAND OUR RIGHTS.
STOP FUCKING ARGUING AMONGST OURSELVES.
You think, SAG ALONE – standing up for the rights of the middle-class actor, won’t send these reptiles running!
Bullshit.
And imagine if we had IATSE with us?
These people may treat us with contempt and indifference in the negotiating room, but if SAG goes out, so that middle-class actors can be be given the PRIVILEGE(!) of being paid a fair wage and residual off their BILLIONS THEY MAKE off of OUR WORK?
They HAVE TO RESPOND.
And does ANYONE think – that Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep or George Clooney or ANY star is going to go anywhere NEAR crossing a SAG picket line, if we have to do that to get our rights?
They wouldn’t fucking DARE. You watch. They’re ALREADY on the middle-class actors shit-list. There’s NO wiggle room for their support if we have to walk the line – JUST NOT NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT A CONTRACT OF ROLL-BACKS AND GIVE-AWAYS BUT KEEP WHAT WE HAVE!
We can’t be paid fairly and get fair residuals because it’s a new delivery system?
BULLSHIT.
we have to dress up as cans of PLEDGE in a TV show or movie because the suits want us to hock THEIR fucking advertising?
BULLSHIT.
WE have to lose control of our right to control our OWN images, so producers can exploit it anywhere, anyway, anytime they want – AND NOT ASK OR PAY US?
BULLSHIT
Can we please be paid? Is that too much to ask?
Does anybody really care? I feel so bad for Hollywood… Reality sucks!
Big f’n deal. Who wants to hear a bunch of ungrateful, spoiled whiners give their political views. America is sick of it.
I rather watch re-runs of the Brady Bunch.
Who the hell cares about the Oscars’ anymore? Earth to Hollywood: YOU SUCK.
The New York Times is sinking fast and now it would appear that the Oscars and Hollywood itself is also fadding.Both are big havens of leftist thinking today,—–HUUMM.
Wow!! The Academy Awards used to be about American movies. America is no longer in style for the celebrities. In fact, many of these millionaires/billionaires could care less about the USA, so why should any of us care about their self absorbed lives except the ignorant parts of our population.
I actually know of several people who liked “Slumdog Millionaire.” The problem is they’re not interested in any of the other nominated films or stars.
Maybe next year the Academy could give a little thought to nominating films that people actually watched.