Frank Rich on 2019 Academy Awards

Excerpt from Frank Rich’s recurring column for NEW YORK magazine:

At some level I must say I just don’t care [who hosts the Academy Awards]. Old media, especially print media, still think the Oscars are a big deal and cover them as if they matter culturally and commercially. But it’s not clear the public cares much anymore. The precipitous decline in Oscar ratings says as much about the decline of Hollywood movies as a centerpiece of American pop culture in the digital age as it does about the tedium generated by the awards show itself.

It certainly doesn’t help the cause that the Academy is about as well run as the Trump White House most Academy members despise. A particularly bizarre move was the attempt — now rescinded — to create a new category for “popular” movies that would have had the effect of segregating a blockbuster like Black Panther from the other contenders at the very time the industry is trying to address its many shortfalls in racial and gender diversity. No wonder it is as hard for the Oscars to recruit a host as it is for Trump to find a chief of staff.

Given that a campaign has been brewing on Twitter for a Muppets-hosted Oscars, I would propose as an alternative Triumph the Insult Dog, whose riotous, Joan Rivers-esque appearance as a commentator on the red carpet at the Tony Awards a decade or so back was as enjoyable an awards-show entertainment as I can recall. Meanwhile, the deposed Kevin Hart might yet be a candidate to succeed John Kelly in the White House. With his history of homophobic tweets, he would fit right in.

Re the undoing of Kevin Hart as Oscars host

It’s a more inclusive, less mocking world than it used to be.  One would have thought Kevin Hart, Disney/ABC and the Academy would have foreseen the potential consequences of old homophobic tweets or gay panic stand-up routines before Hart’s announcement as Academy Awards host was made public.

And it’s back to Square One for an institution and a television network trying to land an all things to most people host, instead of accepting the realities of audience fragmentation and the Academy Awards ceremony in classic form as an institution in irreversible decline.

AMPAS and Disney/ABC now have to endure the inevitable fallout from comfortable-with-prejudice viewers sneering at the “political correctness” of Kevin Hart’s enforced departure.

Final comment via Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY:

The fact of Hart’s tweets, and his defensiveness about them, boils down to this: He’s someone who‘s still essentially on record as thinking of people who identify as LGBTQ as “those people.” And that couldn’t be further from the defiantly inclusive spirit of Hollywood today.

Are we learning anything new from Sony e-mail hacks re Hollywood?

I'm not linking to them here, but there have been plenty of lip-licking posts from various gossip and news sites about the private e-mails of Sony executives being recently hacked and revealed to the public.

Here's a few things I processed from what little I've read:
1. Studio execs still love to bad-mouth actors.
2. Women still aren't being paid as much as men.
3. It's more likely that disgruntled employees are behind this--not North Korea.
4. THE INTERVIEW had its climax toned down for the US version--and it will be removed for overseas viewing.
5. For an exec and a producer, it's not yet a post-racial society (regarding certain comments about President Obama and what movies/actors he may/may not like).

In conclusion, today's Hollywood isn't much different than, say, four decades ago.

[UPDATED 4/16/15: Wikileaks has re-released files; Sony has objected on privacy grounds.  At this point, the only thing I found worthy of public notice is current Sony exec Michael Lynton is on the board of famous think tank The Rand Corporation.]

Observing the art form of mid-budget Hollywood remakes.

This afternoon, I saw Kimberly Peirce's (BOYS DON'T CRY, STOP LOSS) remake of Stephen King's CARRIE--the definitive version was made in 1976 by Brian De Palma, with a star making lead performance by Sissy Spacek,

When the preview trailers were playing, I saw other remakes to come in early 2014.  ABOUT LAST NIGHT (based on a David Mamet play titled SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO and a 1986 Rob Lowe/Demi Moore yuppie romance smoothed out from the apparently darker and more cynical play) has been moved from Chicago to L.A. and seems to be mostly a vehicle for super hot comic Kevin Hart in the role once played by Jim Belushi.

And then there was the trailer for ENDLESS LOVE, a remake of Franco Zeffirelli's 1981 teen sex drama with Brooke Shields (a film which is half-forgotten now and not as successful as Shields' previous teen sex drama THE BLUE LAGOON).  In the new version, Brooke Shields' role is taken by Gabriella Wilde--who plays Amy Irving's old role of well-meaning teenager Sue Snell in the remake of CARRIE.

Following the current logic of mainstream films made by Hollywood studios, I'm expecting GabriellaWilde to appear soon in a remake of THE BLUE LAGOON.