what’s next, you’ll post a shaky video of a hand written poster describing latest news? or silent film of heralds singing the news, with ornate subtitles declaring what is being said? with “yakkity-yak” playing in the background?

get on with the times. video news and talking heads are dead.

who can keep track, or wants to keep track, of all the award shows?

Perhaps if ‘Hollywood’ ever pulls its head out of its *ss and tries to make movies ordinary people could enjoy I’ll reconsider. However, I doubt I’ll live long enough for that.

Oscars? Oh. Wake me again when they’re over.

What they’re over already? For good?

Say, now that is good. Good riddance, too.

AATW

First, I don’t know what Roger or Lionel said. And as long as their opinion is on PJTV, I’ll never know. I’m at work, and can’t watch video. It’d be nice if I could take a couple of minutes and READ their opinion, but I can’t (and really, don’t WANT TO) watch a video clip. If I wanted to watch TV, I’d go home and watch TV.

Second, yes, people still watch and still care. Fewer and fewer, though. Specifically, I can’t imagine too many men watching it if not forced to by a woman. The glitz of Hollywood still holds an appeal, and as others have mentioned, the fashion provides for another point of discussion. Neither of these hold much appeal for men. A lot of otherwise casual viewers, male and female, won’t bother to tune in when they’re guaranteed to be lectured at and talked down to. And there’s no rooting interest for people to tune in to see if *MY* movie wins, when the Academy continually nominates movies nobody watches. America went ape-s**t over The Dark Knight, yet it only has one nomination in a category a non-cinephile could name (and had its co-star not died of an accidental drug overdose, it might not even have that). Instead, we’re expected to tune in to see whether Hollywood regards as the best movie of the year one of the following: Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, or Slumdog Millionaire. Were it not for Oscar coverage, I wouldn’t have even HEARD of three of those movies; why should I care which one wins? So yes, people will still watch, but the numbers will be down again, and will continue to go down. Not because Hollywood movies are particularly bad (they aren’t), but because the nominees are.

I disagree. When you can, on the one hand, cherry-pick a list of great movies that people remember from a decade (or several decades), and compare it to a single current year where all the bombs are fresh in our minds, of course the past is going to look better. Why not pick ONE year at random from the “golden age” of movies, look at both the good and the bad movies of that year, and compare it to a recent year? I think the comparisons will be much more favorable. In 2029, the dregs of this past year will be forgotten, and we’ll be wondering why they don’t make movies like that anymore. I haven’t even seen Slum Dog and Gran Torino, so I don’t know how they’ll hold up over time. But I think any year that gave us Wall-E and The Dark Knight is a bad year to be proclaiming the death of Hollywood.