Posted on 03/31/2024 11:19:44 AM PDT by Twotone
"Hooray for Hollywood" is the name of the song, not my general disposition toward that industry in its contemporary incarnation. For almost the more than two-decade history of this website, we have marked Oscar Night by celebrating an Oscar-winning song from the last nine decades, even though the Best Original Song category was one of the first to start running on fumes. Now the whole show is. I wasn't even aware tonight was Oscar Night until it was pointed out to me, and I would wager that general lack of interest will be confirmed by the ratings: it's a long time since the hosts have been able to do that shtick about "a billion people" watching around the world.
A few years back, it became traditional to attribute the ratings bomb to the lack of blockbusters among the nominees. But as Mrs Prodos put it in our comments section:
I never cared what movies were competing at the Oscars, whether I had seen any of them or had a favorite or not, or whether there was a blockbuster among them. I tuned in for the glamorous spectacle, all those stars in one place, all dressed up and witty and larger than life.
For half-a-century, from the dawn of television to the Nineties, from Bob Hope through Johnny Carson to Billy Crystal, audiences tuned in not out of interest in the nominees but because the real star was the show itself. Here is a fairly typical moment from the midpoint of that era, which we re-post here in memory of Steve Lawrence, who died on Thursday at the age of eighty-eight. Steve was a beautiful singer, a lethal comedian, and a credible actor, a leading man on Broadway and much sought after for cameos in Hollywood...
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Ping. For those who appreciated my pithy comments about Oscar-winning songs on New Years Eve at the Canteen.
A long time ago, the Oscars were sometimes interesting, and ALMOST important. Almost.
Same with The White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Once, years ago, it was interesting, and almost relevent.
But both have long-ago morphed into pointless, indulgent, naval-gazing acts of self-worship. They’ve become stupid, dull, and irrelevent.
Both have become over-hyped clown shows.
Another self award show I’ll never notice
They’re so fake you won’t even notice when they’re replaced by ai
You did sooo good with that New Year’s Eve “show”! :)
There used to be live mega-threads here on FR that would receive 800-1000 posts during the telecast.
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