Category: media

“The thought of what might be said at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony – four hours of spotlight-loving liberals making live speeches to a worldwide audience of billions – has to be giving George W. Bush’s spin doctors the spins. While presenters have been sternly warned to stick to their scripts,” there is no policy concerning the acceptance speeches. “The only instruction nominees have been given is that they not begin a lengthy list of names that most viewers are unfamiliar with. Other than that, winners can choose to use their time on stage to air their opinions about anything else going on in the world.”

At what point should the Oscars be cancelled? The red carpet has been rolled up and a few presenters have dropped out, writes Roger Ebert. “Whatever the reasons given by the dropouts, they added up to a dilemma for the Academy: If there are enough cancellations, does there come a turning point when a pall settles over the Oscars, and Hollywood loses the spirit to carry on?”

Should the Oscars cancel? Not if the American people have their way. A poll reports that 9 of ten people asked believe the show should go on. “This is a true testament to the American spirit. While nearly everyone is concerned about our troops, in post-Sept. 11 America, people strongly feel that we all must continue living our lives.”

What will people be listening to on the radio as the war goes on? Pretty much the same thing across the country. “I don’t think it will be anything like radio during the Vietnam War when radio was the voice of the revolution and the voice of the other side. Now you’re not going to get any of that: you’re going to get the voice of the corporate world.”

Previews of movies “embody the great promise of modern consumerist entertainment: that there will always be more. They are like the still-wrapped packages under a Christmas tree: the one you are about to tear into might turn out to be a pair of wool socks or a cheap knockoff of the toy you really wanted, but there is still all this other stuff yet to be opened up. Whatever disappointments the movies themselves might bring are safely in the future, as you feel the rush of all their expensive promise — the fights, the explosions, the computer-generated imagery, the macho repartee — in compact, thrill-packed doses. Big, commercial movies may rarely be surprising these days, but the possibility that they might be is always there.”

Are there movies being made today that will be judged as cinematic classics? Yes. But it make take years before they’re recognized as such. “The great movies tend to have a level of complexity to them that isn’t entirely obvious to the viewer at first glance. Sometimes there’s this stealth factor at work. A movie just plants a seed in you. And you don’t realize it until you’ve gone home, and you’ve tried to forget about it – and you can’t.”

Should the Oscars go on as scheduled? Jack Mathews thinks not. “To go on with the Oscar telecast now would be wrongheaded in more ways than the average Joan Rivers red carpet interview. The awards show has great professional and financial importance to the participants, but it’s a cultural bagatelle to the rest of us – a good reason for a high-carb party and some jocular elbowing over the relative merits of our favorite movies, and nothing more.”

With Gerge Bush’s Iraq war, there are some entertainment programming changes in America. The Academy Awards “announced Tuesday that it will eliminate this year’s red carpet festivities, citing concerns among many attendees about how such a celebration would look in light of world events. In addition to television, that decision has repercussions for other industries, such as publishing and fashion, which build glitzy events around the Academy Awards.”

Oscar handlers are changing their prep for Sunday’s Oscars. “No Lara Flynn Boyle tutu moments. No hordes of snapping photographers. No embarrassing faux pas from perennial gadfly Joan Rivers. And for the fashion world, millions of dollars in lost publicity. ‘This is a huge disappointment for the industry. The Oscars are the emotional crescendo of the fashion and glamour season – the No. 1 most important showcase for the latest fashion and jewelry. Now it’s no bigger than the SAG awards’.”

Tuesday, after George Bush declared war on Iraq, Oprah Winfrey used her TV show to ask “why do so many hate the United States?” The show “presented a distinct alternative to the perspective presented by every mainstream American broadcaster in the last few months.” In normal circumstances, “the perspectives she presented would not be truly notable, but in the contemporary context, they were amazing. The problem is that the program said more about the rest of American television than it did about Oprah Winfrey.”