One of the smartest things someone ever did was put Mark Harris in front an Oscar blog to write up the season. Like Damien Bona, Harris’ writing on the Oscars combines both a knowledge of the awards themselves, with a passion for the topic. That makes him a compelling read and a bit of a force to be reckoned with. I mean, let’s face it, he’s not exactly the train wreck that we here at Awards Daily are — he’s respectable and stuff. Here he is on his Oscarmetrics column ruminating on the fallout of the Ratnergate:
Meanwhile, as they search for a producer, I’m hoping that the choice is someone who can bring new ideas to the show while respecting its virtues — which at the telecast’s infrequent best have included a sense of history and tradition, sentiment, humor, surprise, and even taste. Personally, I wish they’d call Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, who produced the 2009 show, the best of the last decade (Condon, as the director of Dreamgirls, also has an Eddie Murphy connection, and as the director of Breaking Dawn, could probably placate those at the network who think that the show would be just super-awesome if only movies like Breaking Dawn could win Best Picture). Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports that Harvey Weinstein has floated the idea of Lorne Michaels and Tina Fey, which would also be an interesting and even exciting choice.
Meanwhile, the folks at Funny or Die take a muggle’s stand against what they think is a good parody of Leo and J. Edgar. The problem is that they wrongly cast Leo as the guy who wants to win an Oscar at all costs. To me it illustrates how much the snarky chatter online has it in for Eastwood and this film. It would have been funnier to me if it had been right. At any rate, see for yourself.
Kris Tapley reports on Stan Lee honored for a Lifetime Achievement award by the Producers Guild.
Aaron Sorkin profiles David Fincher for Vanity Fair telling us what we already knew about him – he was the last person who cared about losing the Oscar to Tom Hooper except for the fact that people kept wanting to console him. Fincher was never the one who wanted to win. Some of us thought he deserved to, is all.
