I'll See You at the Oscars
Today's Jamboree: Megan Ellison mystery, HBO programming future
Here We Go Again!
And so, once more into the Oscars show discourse breach!
It’s almost adorable how every year we go through this exercise of asking, Are they going to freshen up the format? Bring the show up to date? Make it more respectful while also making it contemporary! Will Host X keep things moving?
Nice thoughts all, but once you get past them . . . we still have to watch them give out 23 awards! Twenty-three! Mostly to people we never heard of (but deeply respect, of course). So that we can wade through four hours to get to the big finale prize, about which there hasn’t been any suspense for a couple of months.
So yes, hopefully they will avoid some of the more obvious disasters of recent years, and we’ll dodge the bullet of any brutally painful misfires of comedy bits. Perhaps a winner or two will go off on totally unhinged rants about something totally inappropriate to give us something to argue about next week. I, of course, don’t wish for actual violence this time; we’ve tried that experiment.
But anything to break up the four-hour slog of heartfelt, earnest expressions of gratitude — 23 of them.
Jimmy Kimmel might be the funniest, most charming host since Cicero, but even Mark Antony never had to carry an audience through 23 award categories.
So let’s lower our expectations. It’s great that they’ve nominated a slate of massively appealing films across the spectrum, led by one viral sensation of a movie that will hopefully carry the show’s ratings on its tanned shoulders as it gamely strides to inevitable defeat. But the show is what it is, and expecting it, in this form, to connect with the culture of today is like expecting a hot dog eating contestant to be a contender in the Daytona 500.
All the same, if you’re a citizen of entertainment and you don’t get just a little tingle when the lights go down, then Gunnar Wiedenfels has a job for you.
I kid. Enjoy our special night. After all we’ve been through, Hollywood deserves to feel a little good about itself for a few hours, even four, and to remember that despite it all, we do some pretty extraordinary things around here, at every one of these messed up studios.
If you’re loitering around whatever they call the former Eastman Room Bar and see me scowling in the corner, come and say hello and toast the best of times and the worst of times with me.
Now on to the rest of this week’s Jamboree.
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Dueling Nimonas
One media monopoly, two visions of a Best Animated Film contender.
Yesterday, five days before the ceremony, on the very same day, two Penske Media publications featured extensive features on the background of the animated feature Nimona. Because, I mean, how could anyone watch the show without a working knowledge of Nimona’s journey to the screen?
Amazingly though — and peg this to the vicissitudes of awards season — from one company, headquartered in one building, come two very different versions of this hero’s journey.