As has been my custom for many a year now, I won't be watching The Oscars tomorrow night…and neither will the sizeable audiences that used to tune in for such events. Many reasons have been bandied about for America's mounting disinterest in award shows but I think it comes down to two…
REASON #1: Today, there are so damn many movies released and so many TV shows, that very few people have seen a majority of the nominees and therefore don't particularly care who wins.
REASON #2: We're kinda sick and getting sicker of all these world-famous rich people taking turns praising each other and acting like being in Show Business is the pinnacle of human existence. Too much of it sounds to me like the old Sammy Maudlin Show on SCTV where "stars" sat around trying to outdo one another in describing each others' greatness.
I don't think the host matters much…though they're always blamed if the ceremony underperforms in the ratings. I think seeing what the women are wearing matters a little bit to some viewers. I think it matters to some that it's a live event and there's the chance of something unpredictable happening. And there are always a few great acceptance speeches or presenter remarks…but you can catch them all on YouTube before the telecast runs its closing credits. (If I did a REASON #3, it would probably be that the show's just too blamed long.)
I have no predictions on who or what'll win, by the way. I saw two-and-a-half movies in the past year: Saturday Night, Wicked and half of Anora, all viewed not in a proper theater but on my home TCL screen. Saturday Night, I liked with reservations but I don't think it was Oscar-worthy and apparently neither did the nominators.
Wicked, I liked but because of its serialized format, it didn't feel like a complete movie to me. I also believe I made a mistake even watching it on a 40" screen. A film like that needs something way bigger and I'm thinking that when Part Two comes out — assuming Part One is available again in theaters then — I'll go see both in the proper sequence, maybe over two nights. And while I know a lot of people loved Anora, a lady friend and I gave it up halfway through and I've felt no compulsion to see the rest…so I really didn't see it. Maybe it's wonderful in toto.
So I'll just make this two-part prediction: That the Academy has hustled to make sure Gene Hackman is in or around the "In Memoriam" segment…and that Monday morning, there will be voluminous web posts from folks outraged at certain performers not being included and therefore being "snubbed." (Those who get outraged about such things only complain about omitting performers; never directors or writers or cinematographers or studio execs, etc.)
As you know, Conan O'Brien is hosting. I used to say that it felt wrong to me if the host was not (a) a big movie star or (b) Johnny Carson but a friend convinced me that nowadays, no big movie star would agree to host, lest a bad performance tar the career they really care about. I also hear that Johnny's hard to book lately, what with him being dead and all. Conan is a host I really liked during the first decade or so of his Late Night program but I expect he'll do fine, especially if he doesn't try to turn it into The Conan O'Brien Show. Like I said, the host doesn't matter much. Then again, neither do The Oscars.