CNN: Are the Oscars stuck in the past?
By John Anderson, Special to CNN
updated 9:33 AM EST, Mon February 27, 2012
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It wasn't the Academy's fault that the show's director-elect Brett Ratner self-destructed, or that Ratner's hand-picked host Eddie Murphy bailed, or that the plucky Billy Crystal had to be called in to host a show he hadn't done since 2004. It isn't Crystal's fault that he's 63 years old. But someone -- producer Brian Grazer, perhaps -- should answer for why a show celebrating an industry in so much trouble chose to cast itself as something so profoundly passé.
At a time when audiences are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the very "theatrical experience" the Academy spends so much time championing, why would the show's writers and producers characterize the idea of going to the movies as something quaint, nostalgic and on the way out? Time and again, participants reflected on moviegoing as something they remembered fondly from their childhoods. They might have been talking about the Civil War.
It was a strange tone to take, especially since anyone who pays any attention at all to the media -- or lives in Hollywood, or talks to other people -- knew that "The Artist" was poised to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (which it did). When you have an 800-pound metaphor pending delivery, why add insult to injury?
It didn't help, of course, that the show was being held in the erstwhile Kodak Theater, which had a name change since the venerable company filed for bankruptcy. Crystal never mentioned the word "Kodak," probably believing that it might make people in the film industry nervous that the company synonymous with film would be going out of business.
Read more at: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/27/opinion/anderson-oscar-night/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
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... it's gotten to the point that I flip around during the Red Carpet shows just to see what people are wearing, but when the awards themselves start, I find something else to do. And not just the Oscars, but pretty much all awards shows anymore.
Maybe I'm just too old and jaded.
