Category: media

TV ratings for Sunday night’s Oscar telecast were down 20 percent from last year’s all-time low. “The subdued 75th anniversary edition of the Academy Awards entered the record books on Monday as the least watched Oscar telecast ever.”

So what’s the next “Chicago”? How about “Guys and Dolls. “Chicago” studio Miramax has settled on G&D for its next musical project. “Nearly half a century after Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons starred in the original screen version, Nicole Kidman and Vin Diesel are being mentioned as possible contenders. Rumours are sweeping Hollywood that A-list actors are clamouring for parts even before the new script and score surface. ‘Actors are emerging who we never knew had good voices or who were capable of dancing. They are saying to their agents, ‘Hey, put me in a musical’.”

“Chicago” wins best picture at the Oscars, Roman Polanski wins best director. “The telecast walked a tight-rope. Splashy song-and-dance numbers and a biting monologue delivered by host Steve Martin had to compete with some of the most bracing news of the day.”

There is an impression that much of Hollywood opposes George Bush’s war on Iraq. But it’s more divided than that. “Producers, directors, writers and executives report heated disputes on sets, a sudden uptick in the use of the term ‘blacklist,’ an industrywide sense of confusion and a huge number of people changing their minds daily. There are not many conservative voices in Hollywood, certainly among the stars. But if you’re backstage, you hear a lot of sound people, makeup people and grips who are mostly supportive of President Bush. Even if they’re making $100,000 a week, actors like to think of themselves as rebels.”

India’s Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world, but it hasn’t been profitable for years. “Although revenue in Bollywood has increased during the last five years, losses have also increased, reaching three billion rupees last year. The number of films made annually is expected to fall from 1,200 to below 1,000, leading to an increase in the average revenue per movie.”

No one expected “Chicago” to become this big a hit. “But the movie’s domestic box office is now double that of ‘Moulin Rouge,’ the only other movie musical to fly in years, and, unlike that predecessor, ‘Chicago’ didn’t have to throw in David Bowie and Beck to entice the musical-phobic youthful demographic thought to spurn show tunes by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Young audiences have turned up anyway. Everyone has. The film has touched a nerve this year as no previous incarnation of Watkins’s play (there were two previous film versions) ever did.” Why? Even though the musical traces its roots back to 1926, its themes are timeless.

“They’ve pulled a dirty trick. They’ve snuck art into your entertainment.” So says Chris Vognar, in response to moviegoers’ complaints that today’s big-budget films are just too darn serious and depressing. After all, we go to the movies to escape from reality, right? Movies are supposed to delight and thrill us, not (shudder) make us examine our own humanity! If we wanted to think, we’d read a book! But it does seem to be the serious, introspective films which are winning awards these days. So is the film world out of touch with the public, or is the public out of touch with what makes a good film?

“If someone had planned to honor the best works in classical music or the visual arts this weekend, it’s unlikely anyone would complain that celebrating such art is in bad taste when a war is being fought. Yet movies are perhaps the greatest American popular art form as well as one of this country’s most influential, lucrative exports, and the Academy Awards ceremony ostensibly exists to recognize what’s best in the field. So the problem is… ?”

Disney says it may buy the Muppets. “Disney had been on the verge of buying the company more than a decade ago, but the deal collapsed after the death of founder Jim Henson.”

All guests, nominees and presenters at the Academy Awards will go home with “gift bags.” At one time the bags were a modest thing, but “designers and companies looking to win some high-profile promotion have been vying to have their products included in the Academy Awards gift baskets for years. At first a relatively modest undertaking, Hollywood’s version of the goodie bag has swollen to ridiculous size and value, with this year’s priced at approximately US$30,000.”