Oscars
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Slideshow: What If the GOP Candidates Were Movie Stars?
The 84th Academy Awards are on Sunday, and this year’s nominees are a large group of crowd pleasers who spend a lot of time—sometimes too much—addressing war, infidelity, the sanctity of life, and nostalgia for the 20th century. Sound familiar? It should: That also sums up the GOP’s 2012 presidential field.
The Problem with Oscar Voters: They All Look The Same
You may recollect that at the Academy Awards show last year, the hosting job went to Anne Hathaway and James Franco. She was 29 and he was 33, and there was a vague hope that they were young and hot enough to pull in the junior crowd for the television marathon. It didn’t work: Franco seemed bored, while Hathaway was trying too hard. There was no chemistry between them, and very little fun. So this year the host was going to be Eddie Murphy, but he backed off when the producer’s job was withdrawn from Eddie’s chum, Brett Ratner, on account of anti-gay remarks.
The Oscars’ Disgraceful Nominees for Best Song
An academy more ephemeral than Kaplan University, the body of movie-industry workers who vote for the Oscars acted with rare judiciousness this week and made only two nominations—the lowest number in Academy Award history—for Best Original Song. To qualify, a tune must have been composed especially for the film in which it appears, and it must play within the body of the movie or immediately at the end.
Why Oscars Are Left Wing
You hear a lot of rubbish from conservatives about how left-wing Hollywood is, but in one overlooked respect it really is left-wing. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses, in its nomination process, a complicated form of voting that's somewhat similar to the proportional-voting scheme that sank Lani Guinier's chances of getting confirmed assistant attorney general for civil rights during the Clinton administration. If the big Hollywood studios paid any attention to the way Oscar nominations get tallied they would probably have a cow.
