You never know what someone will say when under the cloak of anonymity – the only place safe enough to say what you really think without fear of personal or professional repercussions. Speaking with <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/an-anonymous-oscar-voter-reveals-1917-and-joker-will-win-big-diversity-problems-overblown">The Daily Beast</a>, one anonymous voter for the upcoming Academy Awards refused to toe the politically-correct line to daringly state that diversity problems are overblown.
&#8220;When the #OscarsSoWhite backlash happened, we were all thrown under the bus by our own Academy for seemingly being biased,&#8221; the voter told the outlet. &#8220;So they added a lot more members, making sure it was diverse. But what also came out of that was an extra fringe benefit of youth. Suddenly an entire group of voters was plugged into social media in a way the older voters were not.&#8221;
Despite those reforms, however, the voter noted that people are still unhappy with the nominations. The Oscar voter ultimately believed that the controversy buried something that was an industry-wide problem rather than an Academy problem.
&#8220;So now comes this year, where the grumblings are happening again, but this time it’s harder to throw the Academy members under the bus because we are more diverse now,&#8221; the voter continued. &#8220;I think it points to what the other issue was that got buried under the controversy, and that is the need to develop more projects that are richer in roles for actors of color and even stronger directing opportunities for women.&#8221;
After the Oscar nominations were released last week,<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/oscars-2020-outrage-erupts-after-lady-directors-snubbed"> social media went abuzz</a> over the lack of women directors in the Best Director category, especially Greta Gerwig for &#8220;Little Women.&#8221;
Back in 2016, when the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag rocked social media in response to the absence of minority actors nominated that year, the Academy caved to public pressure and instituted several reforms in order to make the voting bloc more youthful and diverse. Here are just a few that the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-takes-historic-action-increase-diversity">Academy described</a> at the time:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade.  In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award.</li>
<li>At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.</li>
<li>In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.</li>
<li>The Academy will also take immediate action to increase diversity by adding new members who are not Governors to its executive and board committees where key decisions about membership and governance are made.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
The Oscars<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/oscars-go-hostless-again-2020-ceremony-abc-1235617"> will once again be going hostless</a> this year, a trend that began in 2019 when comedian Kevin Hart was forced to drop out after members of the LGBTQ community resurfaced several offensive tweets and jokes he made years earlier.

89th Annual Academy Awards &#8211; Red Carpet Roll Out

Anonymous Oscar Voter: Diversity Problems Overblown

Oscars

Following his win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night, the Oscar-nominated Joaquin Phoenix attended a &#8220;pig vigil&#8221; outside a Downtown Los Angeles slaughterhouse.
Joining alongside several activists, the acclaimed actor told Jane Unchained News that he regularly comes to these &#8220;pig vigils&#8221; due to the &#8220;torture and murder&#8221; of animals he has seen in the meat and dairy industry.
“Most people don’t really know of the torture and murder in the meat and dairy industry,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JaneVelezMitchell/videos/192314958577321/UzpfSTc4NzY2MDE1ODA0MjQ3NToxNTk2NTM0MDIwNDg4NDE0/">Phoenix said</a>. “I’ve seen it for what it is, so I have to be here.”
Phoenix went on to lament that people have been brainwashed to believe animals live happy lives on farms, arguing that those who know the truth have an obligation to fight back.
“We have moral obligations to talk about it and expose it for what it really is,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We are so indoctrinated with these happy images of animals on farms, on the covers of meat containers, at restaurants and it’s a lie. I think people need to know the truth and we have an obligation to do that. Those of us that have seen it for what it really is, we have an obligation to expose it, so I have to be here.”
Despite the event&#8217;s somberness, Phoenix ultimately expressed hope and optimism.
“There is a change that is happening and it’s now just becoming undeniable. Slowly but surely we’re getting there,&#8221; he said. &#8220;As heartbreaking as it is when we’re here giving water to the pigs I have a certain optimism in our community and how committed everyone is. People come down here week after week after week so I had to come here tonight and support and it’s a little antidote to what I was just given, so I’m blessed to be here.”
Joaquin Phoenix has been an outspoken vegan and animal rights activist for many years. Speaking with <a href="https://collider.com/joaquin-phoenix-interview-you-were-never-really-here/#directing">Collider</a> in 2018, the &#8220;Joker&#8221; star said his passion for the cause came after seeing a fish killed on a boat as a kid.
&#8220;Really it was seeing these fish being killed when I was on a boat as a kid,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I guess to stun them, they were throwing them against the side of the boat. I just had a profound strong reaction. It felt like a real injustice. It wasn’t just me, it was my siblings, all of my siblings, except for the youngest, Summer, she wasn’t born. My mom was pregnant with her. I don’t know how to explain it. I think it made me distrustful, and angry, and frightened of humans, humanity. I just thought it was such a gross abuse of power in a way. I think that during that moment we knew that we were not going to eat meat anymore. We said to our parents, &#8216;Why didn’t you tell us?&#8217; It’s amazing. I remember my mom’s face, I remember her crying. She didn’t know how to answer. It became very obvious we weren’t going to eat meat anymore.&#8221;
While accepting the award for Best Actor at the Golden Globes, Phoenix also called out Hollywood for not practicing what they preach regarding climate change.
&#8220;It&#8217;s really nice that so many people have sent their well wishes to Australia but we have to do more than that,&#8221; <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/golden-globes-joker-star-joaquin-phoenix-makes-climate-change-plea-best-actor-speech-1266680">Phoenix said</a>. &#8220;Hopefully, we can be unified and actually make some changes. It&#8217;s great to vote, but sometimes we have to take that responsibility on ourselves and make changes and sacrifices in our own lives. We don&#8217;t have to take private jets to Palm Springs for the awards.&#8221;

US-ENTERTAINMENT-SAG-FILM-AWARDS-PRESSROOM

‘Torture And Murder’: Joaquin Phoenix Attends &#8216;Pig Vigil&#8217; Outside Slaughterhouse Following SAG Awards Win

Golden Globes

Hollywood

Los Angeles

Vegetarian

Todd Philips&#8217; &#8220;Joker&#8221; garnered a total of 11 Academy Award nominations this week, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. Though fans have expressed delight over the accolades, some in the media have either argued that the film&#8217;s presence during awards season further advances the narrative of white male dominance or that the makers of &#8220;Joker&#8221; manipulated their way into the top slot by painting themselves as victims.
Over at <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/joker-oscar-nominations-todd-phillips-joaquin-phoenix">BuzzFeed</a>, Scaachi Koul argued that &#8220;Joker&#8221; getting nominated is especially insulting in light of the fact that women and people of color were underrepresented this year. She further argues that the makers of &#8220;Joker&#8221; invented a victimhood narrative surrounding the film&#8217;s success by acting as if the world was out to sabotage the film:
<blockquote>There are other movies and actors taking up this space, but it’s more infuriating for Joker to do so, since it’s a movie that posits that women — black women particularly — are holding white men back. Look, The Irishman bored the sh** out of me, but it’s not a movie that suggests that maybe if women weren’t so f***ing rude when some dude just wants them to love him, he wouldn’t have to go on a killing spree, oooo-kay???
Joker’s commercial success — and now, its critical success — makes the filmmakers’ self-victimization even more absurd. What have Phillips and Phoenix been complaining about this whole time? Their movie has made hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars. They’re both nominated for Oscars after being nominated for Golden Globes. Like Arthur, they’re both operating in a version of the world that doesn’t exist: one where they don’t get what they think they deserve, when, in fact, they’re doing just fine. The makers of Joker aren’t responsible for the lack of nominations for women and people of color. They’re not the reason why the movie business is so reluctant to include anyone other than white men. But their response to any criticism at all — defensive, childish, prickly, even when things are going their way — is telling. Even when they win, they’re worried it won’t last.</blockquote>
A similar sentiment was echoed by Stephanie Zacharek over at <a href="https://time.com/5764725/joker-oscar-nominations-underdog/">TIME</a>, who said that &#8220;Joker&#8221; successfully painted its rise as some kind of underdog story that wasn&#8217;t.
<blockquote>That’s not to say that a movie adapted from a comic book can never be a work of artistry. Black Panther, also a crowd pleaser and the only other comic book adaptation to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, was a beautifully made picture with a generous spirit. But even if its many supporters were passionate, the discourse around it never reached the level of acidic aggressiveness that’s been swirling around Joker since its release. Everyone wants to be the put-upon underdog, and both Joker and the success of Joker play to that self-centered impulse. In a recent interview in the Paris Review, Anna Wiener — author of the newly published memoir Uncanny Valley — said, “I think people are incredibly reluctant to surrender that underdog identity, regardless of how true it was, then or now.”</blockquote>
Some responses to the film&#8217;s success have strictly focused on its quality, such as Dan Kois of Slate, who flatly said that &#8220;Joker&#8221; is just &#8220;dumb&#8221; and earned the accolades by feigning grittiness without much else to say:
<blockquote>Joker poses as a movie interested in exploring the anomie and alienation of contemporary manhood, the rage of the underclass, the fragile equilibrium of our cities. Joker is not actually interested in any of those things. It is interested in shocks and thrills, in valorizing its antihero’s put-upon haplessness, in exploiting potent and crucial protest messages for the lulz.
This, in the end, is what I find stupidest of all about Joker: how convinced the movie seems that it’s daring, that it’s showing us something we’ve never seen before.</blockquote>
Kyle Turner of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/13/oscars-love-mediocrity-thats-why-joker-got-11-nominations/">The Washington Post</a> hailed the film as a mediocrity that captured Hollywood&#8217;s impulse to appear in line with the cultural zeitgeist. Erik Kain of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/01/14/people-are-upset-over-jokers-11-oscar-nominations---heres-why-theyre-wrong/#47eb9dc16be5">Forbes</a>, however, argued that those upset by the film&#8217;s 11 Oscar nominations have missed the overall point that &#8220;Joker&#8221; is indeed a solid film, even if some people cannot quite figure out its themes.

Joker

The ‘Joker’ Best Picture Nomination Has Sparked Some Intensely Divided Reactions

Author &#8212; and reliable progressive critic of President Donald Trump &#8212; Stephen King made waves with the leftist online outrage mob Tuesday when he suggested that the Oscars honored &#8220;quality,&#8221; and that Oscar voters didn&#8217;t need to be concerned about &#8220;diversity.&#8221;
The Oscar nominations, released Monday, made their own waves in among leftists who complained that no women were nominated for Best Director (even though Greta Gerwig&#8217;s &#8220;Little Women&#8221; received a Best Picture nod) and that few people of color were nominated overall. The Academy Awards, they said, lacked &#8220;diversity,&#8221; and &#8220;#OscarsSoWhite,&#8221; a hashtag from several years ago, began trending again as social justice warriors grappled with knowing that the progressive elite Oscar voters had once again failed to honor women and minorities.
King revealed on Twitter that he is an Oscar voter, having penned several adaptations of his own novels for the silver screen. Feeling a need to explain the thought process behind the Academy Awards voting process, King said that the &#8220;diversity issue&#8221; &#8220;did not come up,&#8221; and that he, like others, made their choices based on &#8220;quality.&#8221;
&#8220;As a writer, I am allowed to nominate in just 3 categories: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay. For me, the diversity issue &#8212; as it applies to individual actors and directors, anyway &#8212; did not come up,&#8221; King wrote.
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As a writer, I am allowed to nominate in just 3 categories: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay. For me, the diversity issue&#8211;as it applies to individual actors and directors, anyway&#8211;did not come up. That said&#8230;
&mdash; Stephen King (@StephenKing) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1217058366394130433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;That said, I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong,” King continued.
King&#8217;s point is that the Oscars rewards films that are outstanding among the Oscar competitors and rewards directors, writers, and others, for achievements in their field, not simply because they fit a quota &#8212; but that is, of course, not how his fellow progressives feel about the issue.
King&#8217;s straight talk was met with a wave of anguish.
&#8220;With the utmost respect, I think this is quite a bit unfair. When films created by people of color, irrespective of quality, constantly get overlooked by institutions that are predominately comprised of white men, there is an implicit bias at work here,&#8221; one activist reminded King, quite condescendingly.
Others simply de-personed King for being among the oppressors.
&#8220;Sir, respectfully saying you as a white man can’t really say that. You had more advantages and opportunities than a person of color would have. They have been wrongfully held back in so many ways just because of their color skin,&#8221; claimed progressive podcaster, David Weissman.
Still others just simply called King what he now is, in their eyes: problematic.
&#8220;That is like saying &#8216;I don&#8217;t see color&#8217; and as problematic,&#8221; said one of King&#8217;s Twitter followers.
The avalanche of ire must be unusual for King who, as an outspoken Twitter progressive, is often among those calling out the un-woke, including &#8212; and perhaps most often &#8212; President Donald Trump. He has yet to apologize for falling short of the progressive standard, but he did reply to some of his critics acknowledging the importance of honoring minorities and women in the film industry.
&#8220;The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation,&#8221; King said. &#8220;Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.&#8221;
But he won&#8217;t be changing his Oscar vote.

Stephen King

Stephen King Says Art Should Be Judged On &#8216;Quality&#8217; Not &#8216;Diversity,&#8217; Gets Torched By Leftists Online

Following the unveiling of the 92nd annual Academy Award nominations, outrage has erupted in various corners of social media and the blogosphere over the complete absence of women filmmakers in the Best Director category, sparking outcries of sexism and patriarchal oppression.
During the presentation ceremony, actress Issa Rae echoed the frustrations of many when she specifically congratulated &#8220;those men&#8221; nominated for their achievements in directing.
“Congratulations to those men,&#8221; Rae said in a sarcastic quip recalling that of actress Natalie Portman when she famously stated &#8220;here are the all-male nominees&#8221; at the Golden Globes in 2018.
Though various women directors were listed in the many declarations of injustice, the name most frequently cited was Greta Gerwig for her work on the latest iteration of &#8220;Little Women.&#8221; Here&#8217;s how <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/no-women-nominated-best-director-at-2020-oscars-1268599">The Hollywood Reporter</a> (THR) framed the controversy:
<blockquote>For the 2020 ceremony, Lulu Wang (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/farewell-review-sundance-2019-1179427">The Farewell</a>), Greta Gerwig (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/little-women">Little Women</a>), Marielle Heller (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/a-beautiful-day-neighborhood-review-1237823">A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood</a>), Lorene Scafaria (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/hustlers-review-1237018">Hustlers</a>) and Alma Har&#8217;el (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/honey-boy-review-1178233">Honey Boy</a>) were all notably left out.
If Gerwig had been nominated, the nod in the category would have solidified her as the first woman to be nominated for directing twice. She was previously up in the category in 2018 for Lady Bird. Additionally, Wang would have become the first woman of Asian descent to be nominated.
Only five women had been nominated for the directing Oscar: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties), Jane Campion (The Piano), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and Gerwig. In 2010, Bigelow became the first and only female director to win in the category.</blockquote>
People were quick to voice their frustrations on social media in response to the &#8220;patriarchy&#8221; scoring yet another win.
&#8220;No Greta Gerwig for ‘Little Women,’ no Lulu Wang for ‘The Farewell,’ no Lorene Scafaria for ‘Hustlers,’ no Melina Matsoukas for ‘Queen &amp; Slim’ no Marielle Heller for ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.’ Once again, the Oscars nominated five men for best director,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/RaminSetoodeh/status/1216717038569259008?s=20">tweeted</a> Ramin Setoodeh of Variety.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not writing anything about the Oscars today because I&#8217;m off work with a fever, but these nominations can absolutely get in the bin. The Academy is sexist &amp; everyone just decided to ignore Tarantino&#8217;s Weinstein/Thurman issues in favor of Hollywood nostalgia,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/Hello_Tailor/status/1216751333010739207?s=20">tweeted</a> Gavin Baker-Whitelaw.
&#8220;Excited for The Oscars ceremony when whomever the woman they get to present Best Director makes a comment about how all the nominees are men and the crowd all cheers like crazy and we all retweet it a million times and then absolutely NOTHING changes,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/TVsCarlKinsella/status/1216722659205054464?s=20">tweeted</a> Carl Kinsella. 
&#8220;When The Oscars voting body is overwhelmingly white, male and with an average age of near the grave we really have to question what validation from them even means. Filmmakers like Lulu Wang, Alma Harel, Mati Diop and Greta Gerwig made the films that moved me this year not clownman,&#8221; said one Twitter user. 
Despite women being snubbed in the Best Director category, Brian Welk of <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/oscars-2020-women-record-31-percent-nominations/">The Wrap</a> noted that women overall scored 31% of the nominations this year.
&#8220;Despite the outcry over a second straight year without a woman nominated for Best Director, the Academy showed record progress in gender parity on Monday: Women made up 31.1% of this year’s Oscar nominees, the highest percentage ever,&#8221; wrote Welk.

US-ENTERTAINMENT-FILM-TELEVISION-GOLDEN-GLOBES-ARRIVALS

Oscars 2020: Outrage Erupts After Lady Directors Snubbed

Feminism

Sexism

The 92nd annual Academy Award nominations were released on Monday. Leading the pack with a total of 11 nods, including Best Picture, is Todd Philips&#8217; &#8220;Joker,&#8221; trailed closely behind by Martin Scorsese&#8217;s &#8220;The Irishman.&#8221; The streaming giant Netflix enjoyed a total of 20 nominations between &#8220;The Two Popes,&#8221; &#8220;Marriage Story,&#8221; and &#8220;The Irishman.&#8221;
Even though Taron Egerton received the Best Actor Golden Globe (Musical or Comedy) for his performance as Elton John in &#8220;Rocketman,&#8221; his name did not make this year&#8217;s Oscar list. Neither did Actress Jennifer Lopez for her supporting role in &#8220;Hustlers.&#8221;
Like the Golden Globes, the big upset generating all the buzz on social media is the total absence of women directors in the Best Director category, specifically Greta Gerwig for &#8220;Little Women.&#8221; Below is just a sampling of what some critics have been saying:
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The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OscarNoms?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OscarNoms</a> are such a mess like how are the director noms just male?? JLo didn’t get nominated?? All the supporting actress noms are white women?? Only one PoC up for Best Actress?? The Farewell being snubbed like that?? Why am I even mad like this is surprising??
&mdash; Fatima⁷ (@fatimafarha_) <a href="https://twitter.com/fatimafarha_/status/1216718586171068416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Here is the full list of this year&#8217;s nominees, courtesy of <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/oscar-nominations-2020-complete-list-nominees-updating-live-1267880/item/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>:
Best Picture 
1917 (Universal) 
Ford v Ferrari (Fox) 
The Irishman (Netflix) 
Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight) 
Joker (Warner Bros.) 
Little Women (Sony) 
Marriage Story (Netflix) 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony) 
Parasite (Neon)
Actor in a Leading Role 
Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) 
Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) 
Adam Driver (Marriage Story) 
Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) 
Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes)
Actress in a Leading Role 
Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) 
Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) 
Saoirse Ronan (Little Women) 
Charlize Theron (Bombshell) 
Renée Zellweger (Judy)
Actress in a Supporting Role 
Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell) 
Laura Dern (Marriage Story) 
Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit) 
Florence Pugh (Little Women) 
Margot Robbie (Bombshell)
Actor in a Supporting Role 
Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) 
Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) 
Al Pacino (The Irishman) 
Joe Pesci (The Irishman) 
Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
Directing 
Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) 
Sam Mendes (1917) 
Todd Phillips (Joker) 
Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) 
Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
Adapted Screenplay 
The Irishman (Steven Zaillian) 
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi) 
Joker (Todd Phillips &amp; Scott Silver) 
Little Women (Greta Gerwig) 
The Two Popes (Anthony McCarten)
Original Screenplay 
1917 (Sam Mendes &amp; Krysty Wilson-Cairns) 
Knives Out (Rian Johnson) 
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach) 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) 
Parasite (Bong Joon Ho &amp; Jin Won Han)
International Feature Film 
Corpus Christi (Poland) 
Honeyland (North Macedonia) 
Les Miserables (France) 
Pain and Glory (Spain) 
Parasite (South Korea)
Production Design 
1917 
The Irishman 
Jojo Rabbit 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 
Parasite
Film Editing 
Ford v Ferrari (Andrew Buckland &amp; Michael McCusker) 
The Irishman (Thelma Schoonmaker) 
Jojo Rabbit (Tom Eagles) 
Joker (Jeff Groth) 
Parasite (Jinmo Yang)
Cinematography 
1917 (Roger Deakins) 
The Irishman (Rodrigo Prieto) 
Joker (Lawrence Sher) 
The Lighthouse (Jarin Blaschke) 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Robert Richardson)
Visual Effects 
1917 
Avengers: Endgame 
The Irishman 
The Lion King 
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Costume Design 
Jojo Rabbit 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 
The Irishman 
Joker 
Little Women
Sound Mixing 
1917 
Ad Astra 
Ford v Ferrari 
Joker 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 
Sound Editing 
1917 
Ford v Ferrari 
Joker 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Original Score 
1917 (Thomas Newman) 
Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir) 
Little Women (Alexandre Desplat) 
Marriage Story (Randy Newman) 
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Documentary Feature 
American Factory (Netflix) 
The Cave (National Geographic) 
The Edge of Democracy (Netflix) 
For Sama (PBS) 
Honeyland (Neon)
Documentary Short Subject 
In the Absence 
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) 
Life Overtakes Me 
St. Louis Superman 
Walk Run Cha-Cha
Makeup and Hairstyling 
1917 
Bombshell 
Joker 
Judy 
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Animated Feature Film 
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dreamworks) 
I Lost My Body (Netflix) 
Klaus (Netflix) 
Missing Link (United Artists Releasing) 
Toy Story 4 (Pixar)
Animated Short Film 
Dcera (Daughter) 
Hair Love 
Kitbull 
Memorable 
Sister
Live-Action Short Film 
Brotherhood 
Nefta Football Club 
The Neighbors’ Window 
Saria 
A Sister
Original Song 
&#8220;I Can&#8217;t Let You Throw Yourself Away&#8221; (Toy Story 4) — Randy Newman 
&#8220;(I&#8217;m Gonna) Love Me Again&#8221; (Rocketman) — Elton John &amp; Bernie Taupin 
&#8220;I&#8217;m Standing With You&#8221; (Breakthrough) — Diane Warren 
&#8220;Into the Unknown&#8221; (Frozen 2) — Robert Lopez &amp; Kristen Anderson-Lopez 
&#8220;Stand Up&#8221; (Harriet) — Joshuah Brian Campbell &amp; Cynthia Erivo
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

25th Annual Critics&#8217; Choice Awards &#8211; Arrivals

2020 Oscar Nominations: ‘Joker’ Best Picture, No Women Directors, J. Lo Snubbed

Comedian Keven Hart has now expressed regret for how he handled the controversy last year in which he got booted from hosting the Oscars after members of the LGBTQ community resurfaced several offensive tweets and jokes he made years earlier.
According to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/kevin-hart-reflects-aftermath-stepping-down-as-oscars-host-1265024">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, the new Netflix documentary series, &#8220;Kevin Hart: Don&#8217;t F**k This Up,&#8221; will explore how the comedian disregarded the advice of his publicists and other members of his team, leading him to eventually conclude that he was acting &#8220;immature.&#8221;
&#8220;What I thought was going to blow over ended up becoming a bigger mess than I expected,&#8221; Hart says in the documentary.
&#8220;You need to learn how to stop and think,&#8221; Hart&#8217;s publicist tells a team member in the documentary. &#8220;He&#8217;s not used to being the person that&#8217;s not loved and cherished. He needs to just shut up and put his head down for the next few weeks&#8230;. What he needs to remember is he&#8217;s feeding 50-60 people. When he takes a sh***er, everybody takes a sh***er and that&#8217;s a big issue now.&#8221;
Kevin Hart had been slated to host the 2019 Oscars, but stepped down within 48 hours of accepting the gig after the Academy demanded he apologize for his past jokes.
“I’m not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I moved on, and I’m in a completely different space in my life,” Hart said in a video on Instagram at the time. “I’m going to be me; I’m going to stand my ground.”
Hours later, Hart stepped down from his dream of hosting the Oscars and apologized to the LGBTQ community for his “insensitive words.”
“I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscars &#8230; this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists,” he wrote on Twitter. “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”
Nine days after his stepping down, Hart then told members of his staff at an emergency meeting that he had no desire to keep addressing the controversy, fearing he would be &#8220;making it okay to go backward.&#8221; Looking back, Hart now feels that he &#8220;missed an opportunity.&#8221;
&#8220;I missed an opportunity to say simply that I don&#8217;t condone any type of violence in any way, shape, or form to anyone for being who they are,&#8221; Hart now says. &#8220;I f***ed up&#8230;. Instead, I said, &#8216;I addressed it.&#8217; I said, &#8216;I apologized.&#8217; I said, &#8216;I talked about this already.&#8217; I was just immature.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;re not Superman. You&#8217;re not invincible. You don&#8217;t know everything. Your way is not always the right way,&#8221; Hart told the cameras. “Sometimes it&#8217;s very valuable to stop for a second and assess. I know the things that I could&#8217;ve done better. I have no problem in saying I was wrong.&#8221;
Referring to his publicity team, Hart now says, &#8220;You can&#8217;t do it by yourself. You don&#8217;t let them do their jobs by being defiant. When you&#8217;re wrong, it&#8217;s going to hurt because you&#8217;re going to look back and go, &#8216;f**k, I should&#8217;ve listened.'&#8221;

Kevin Hart Hand And Footprint Ceremony At the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX

Kevin Hart Regrets How He Handled Oscars Controversy: ‘I Was Immature’

Kevin Hart

Donald Trump has been merciless toward Hollywood in recent weeks. After denouncing Tinseltown as &#8220;racist&#8221; for making &#8220;The Hunt,&#8221; the president then trashed the Oscars for going downhill in the ratings.
Speaking to supporters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, the president declared that &#8220;nobody wants to watch&#8221; the famed awards ceremony because Americans have grown weary of celebrities trashing &#8220;the people that won the election in 2016,&#8221; reports <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/457291-trump-mocks-the-oscars-ratings-are-bad-because-they-started">The Hill</a>.
&#8220;The Academy Awards is on hard times now,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;You know why? Because they started taking us on. Everyone got tired of it. That used to be second after the Super Bowl, and now all of a sudden it&#8217;s just another show, because people got tired of people getting up and making fools of themselves and disrespecting the people in this room and the people that won the election in 2016.&#8221;
The president&#8217;s hit at the Academy Awards comes less than a week after he called Hollywood &#8220;racist&#8221; in response to the controversy surrounding &#8220;The Hunt,&#8221; a social satire about Trump supporters fighting back against political liberals.
&#8220;Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate!&#8221; President Trump tweeted. &#8220;They like to call themselves &#8216;Elite,&#8217; but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!&#8221;
The ratings for awards shows, in general, have been steadily decreasing in recent years as more and more celebrities use the opportunity to grandstand about a political issue. Believe it or not, however, the Oscars being used as a political bullhorn is a relatively new phenomenon; even more shockingly, there once existed a time when celebrities heckled the few among them who dared to virtue-signal during the broadcast.
During the 1970s, there were more than a few celebrities who used their big wins on Oscar night to preach a political message or two. It all began, of course, with none other than actor Marlon Brando, who used his Best Actor win for &#8220;The Godfather&#8221; as a platform to talk about the portrayal of Native Americans in film. Rather than give a speech, Brando elected to have Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUacU0I4yU&amp;feature=youtu.be">refuse the award on his behalf</a>. At the time, the audience reacted with a mixture of boos, awkward silence, and lone applause.
Later in that same decade, actress Vanessa Redgrave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAcOsK9gRLk&amp;feature=youtu.be">used her moment</a> of winning Best Supporting Actress in the movie &#8220;Julia&#8221; to bash the country Israel and Jewish protesters upset over her documentary &#8220;The Palestinian,&#8221; which pushed the terrorist organization &#8220;Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).&#8221; Redgrave not only called the doc&#8217;s haters &#8220;Zionist hoodlums,&#8221; she also denounced Nixon and McCarthy for leading a &#8220;witch hunt&#8221; against communists in the 1950s. In a complete reversal of today&#8217;s order, the crowd went on to boo Redgrave, which was later followed by a speech from famed screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who bashed celebrities &#8220;exploiting the occasion.&#8221;
&#8220;I would like to say — personal opinion, of course — that I am sick and tired of people exploiting the occasion of the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own personal political propaganda,&#8221; said Chayefsky, prompting cheers. &#8220;I would like to suggest to Ms. Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, it does not require a proclamation, and a simple &#8216;thank you&#8217; would’ve sufficed.&#8221;

Trump Mocks The Oscars: ‘Nobody Wants To Watch’

Donald Trump

Steven Spielberg for now appears to have lost his war against the streaming giant Netflix, which he did not want to see stealing Academy Awards from movies with wide theatrical releases.
According to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/academy-board-does-not-pass-new-rule-targeting-netflix-1204295">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will not be implementing any new rules that will kick Netflix out of the Oscar competition, a sure blow to the cinema die-hards that were seeking to draw a definitive line between television and film.
&#8220;At its annual April rules meeting, the 54-person board of Governors of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to maintain Rule Two, Eligibility &#8212; the one requiring no more than a one-week run in an L.A. County theater to qualify for the best picture Oscar race,&#8221; THR reported.
In a statement late Tuesday, the Academy quoted outgoing president John Bailey as saying the organization still respects the theatrical experience as being integral to the cinema art form.
&#8220;We support the theatrical experience as integral to the art of motion pictures, and this weighed heavily in our discussions,&#8221; Bailey said, according to the Academy. &#8220;Our rules currently require theatrical exhibition, and also allow for a broad selection of films to be submitted for Oscars consideration. We plan to further study the profound changes occurring in our industry and continue discussions with our members about these issues.&#8221;
The war on Netflix kicked off after the streaming giant became a top contender at the Academy Awards earlier this year. Alfonso Cuaron&#8217;s &#8220;Roma&#8221; picked up three top Oscars: Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film. Though initial buzz was that &#8220;Roma&#8221; would take home Best Picture, the award ultimately went to the American race drama &#8220;Green Book.&#8221; Shortly after, Spielberg fired the first shot, proposing the first rule changes at an Academy Board of Governors meeting.
A representative for Spielberg&#8217;s production company, Amblin, said in a statement at the time that the award-winning director was simply trying to salvage the theatrical experience. &#8220;Steven feels strongly about the difference between the streaming and theatrical situation,&#8221; said the spokesperson. &#8220;He&#8217;ll be happy if the others will join (his campaign) when that comes up. He will see what happens.&#8221;
Prior to that, Spielberg had expressed dissatisfaction over Netflix competing for Oscars without a proper theatrical run and a window between release and streaming.
&#8220;Once you commit to a television format, you&#8217;re a TV movie. You certainly, if it&#8217;s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar,&#8221; Spielberg said in <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/03/steven-spielberg-thinks-netflix-films-dont-deserve-oscars.html">March of 2018</a>. &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.&#8221;
Despite Spielberg&#8217;s push, several other players in Hollywood were on team Netflix, especially indie filmmakers, all of whom viewed the streaming giant as a Godsend for new and upcoming talent. It also did not help, THR noted, that about a &#8220;<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/as-academy-confronts-netflix-question-streamer-has-friends-a-vote-1203465" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dozen members of the Academy board</a> have worked with or are currently working with Netflix, suggesting they do not harbor major reservations about the streaming service.&#8221;
The Academy did, however, implement a few changes. Going forward, the Best Foreign Language Film category will now be referred to as the Best International Feature Film category. Larry Karaszewski and Diane Weyermann, co-chairs of the International Feature Film Committee, said that the old reference was &#8220;outdated&#8221; and that the new way will promote an &#8220;inclusive view of filmmaking.&#8221;
&#8220;We have noted that the reference to &#8216;foreign&#8217; is outdated within the global filmmaking community,&#8221; the pair said. &#8220;We believe that international feature film better represents this category, and promotes a positive and inclusive view of filmmaking, and the art of film as a universal experience.&#8221;

Netflix Victory? Oscars Will Not Impose New Rules For Now

Netflix

Comedian and movie star Kevin Hart made the decision to remove himself as a &#8220;distraction&#8221; and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39134/kevin-hart-steps-down-oscars-host-amid-firestorm-james-barrett">step down</a> from his invitation to host the Oscars in December amid heightened controversy pertaining to the stand-up&#8217;s past comments about homosexuality. Appearing on the &#8220;Joe Rogan Experience&#8221; podcast over the weekend, Hart opened up about the firestorm, the insincere persistence of the so-called &#8220;outrage mob,&#8221; and why he refuses to become an &#8220;ally&#8221; of the LGBTQ community.
Hart explained to Rogan that the controversy last year stunned him, as he&#8217;s worked his whole career to stay away from &#8220;anything divisive.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t joke in the politics, I don&#8217;t joke in anything that has to do with the slander of others or other communities &#8212; I don&#8217;t do anything divisive. That&#8217;s my biggest thing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This past year was one that got a little weird. I was like, I really dedicated myself to bringing people together. I thought that was my goal. That&#8217;s my priority. I damn sure thought that was what I was doing, on a global scale. Everybody &#8212; all races, shapes, sizes, whoever you are, whatever you are &#8212; you can come to a Kevin Hart show and have a good time. So when it came out that I was a person that was divisive, that was tough.&#8221;
&#8220;Your&#8217;e talking about the Oscars,&#8221; Rogan clarified. &#8220;Well, this is a time that people are just looking to be upset about stuff,&#8221; the host continued. &#8220;They&#8217;re not looking at you as a human being &#8230; Think about how positive you are, and they are concentrating on some jokes you did, what, nine years ago?&#8221;
The comedian recalled his genuine apologies falling on deaf ears of the outrage mob, so he decided to just stop talking about the controversy and remove himself from hosting the Oscars.
&#8220;They&#8217;re never happy,&#8221; interjected Rogan, to which Hart responded: &#8220;It just became the constant conversation.&#8221;
It got to the point that Hart realized &#8220;this is no longer a conversation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So, guys, I&#8217;m gonna stop talking about it. &#8230; I&#8217;ve shown that I&#8217;m not hateful .. and that I&#8217;m genuinely sorry, and it just never stopped.&#8221;
Rogan applauded Hart for the wise decision, noting that &#8220;there&#8217;s nothing else you can do&#8221; to appease the critics.
&#8220;Nothing,&#8221; Hart agreed. &#8220;Nothing.&#8221;
The &#8220;Jumanji&#8221; star also discussed the pressure he felt to become an &#8220;ally&#8221; for the LGBTQ community in the wake of the resurfaced tweets. Hart essentially said such action would be insincere, that it was not his place to do such a thing because their plight was foreign to him; instead, he said that becoming informed was far more powerful.
Hart recalled &#8220;Empire&#8221; creator Lee Daniels telling him to &#8220;step up and be a voice&#8221; for the gay community. &#8220;And I said, Lee, I understand what your&#8217;e saying. But why did you expect me to know what&#8217;s been happening within this community in regard to hate and crimes. I&#8217;m just not aware. Some people can just not be aware.&#8221;
&#8220;When you tell me this information, I&#8217;m now educated and I understand. So, it&#8217;s easy to simply inform. Information is key,&#8221; Hart continued.
The comedian added, &#8220;When this happened, it was &#8216;become an ally, become a voice.&#8217; And that&#8217;s where there was just a miscommunication.&#8221;
&#8220;It was becoming tabloid bullsh**, as opposed to a real discussion,&#8221; Rogan said.
&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Hart agreed. &#8220;Click bait. Click bait.&#8221;
After tweets deemed insensitive to the LGBTQ community resurfaced online, once again, Hart said on social media that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences &#8220;had contacted him and said he either had to apologize for the past tweets, posted between 2009 and 2011, or they&#8217;re &#8216;going to have to move on and find another host,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39134/kevin-hart-steps-down-oscars-host-amid-firestorm-james-barrett">reported</a> The Daily Wire in December.
&#8220;I chose to pass. I passed on the apology,&#8221; said the comedian at the time. &#8220;The reason why I passed is because I&#8217;ve addressed this several times. This is not the first time this has come up. I&#8217;ve addressed it. I&#8217;ve spoken on it. I&#8217;ve said where the rights and wrongs were. I&#8217;ve said who I am now versus who I was then. I&#8217;ve done it. I&#8217;ve done it. I&#8217;m not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I moved on. I&#8217;m in a completely different space in my life.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="441" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aL185s8B4SQ" width="790"></iframe></div>

WATCH: Kevin Hart On Outrage Mob, Oscars Controversy, And Why He Won&#8217;t Be An &#8216;Ally&#8217; On &#8216;Joe Rogan Experience&#8217; Podcast

LGBT

According to an exclusive report in <a href="https://variety.com/2019/politics/news/doj-oscar-rules-changes-netflix-1203178413/">Variety</a>, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences warning that if the Academy alters its rules so that movies premiering on Netflix and other streaming services would not be eligible for Academy Awards, the Academy could violate anti-trust laws.
The letter obtained by Variety was written by Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson on March 21.
It stated, &#8220;In the event that the Academy &#8212; an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership &#8212; establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns.&#8221; The letter added that if the Academy altered its rules to exclude movies debuting on streaming services from an opportunity to win Oscars, it could violate the Sherman Act. The letter stated: &#8220;If the Academy adopts a new rule to exclude certain types of films, such as films distributed via online streaming services, from eligibility for the Oscars, and that exclusion tends to diminish the excluded films&#8217; sales, that rule could therefore violate Section 1.&#8221;
Variety reported that an Academy spokesperson stated, &#8220;We&#8217;ve received a letter from the Dept. of Justice and have responded accordingly. The Academy&#8217;s Board of Governors will meet on April 23 for its annual awards rules meeting, where all branches submit possible updates for consideration.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/2/18292773/netflix-oscars-justice-department-warning-steven-spielberg-eligibility-antitrust-law">The Verge</a> noted:
<blockquote>
Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and other streaming service providers have for years now been edging their way into traditional Hollywood awards shows, winning Oscars and Emmys for a variety of programming as the budgets, big-name talent, and subsequent quality of these shows and movies has drastically increased. But Netflix, more so than other streaming services, has typically done only limited theatrical runs for its films to meet award eligibility requirements.
</blockquote>
After Alfonso Cuaron&#8217;s Netflix production &#8220;Roma&#8221; won Oscars for best director, best cinematography and best foreign-language film, Detlef Rossmann, president of the art house cinema association CICAE, told <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/giving-awards-roma-is-a-devaluation-oscars-say-european-exhibitors-1190434">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, &#8220;&#8220;We consider giving three awards to Roma a devaluation of the Oscars.&#8221; CICAE released a statement urging the Academy to &#8220;redefine the Oscar nomination rules and terms to clarify the difference between film and television.&#8221;
Much of the impetus for making a change to the Academy&#8217;s rules has come from director Steven Spielberg, who <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/03/steven-spielberg-netflix-oscars-tv-clear-and-present-danger-to-filmgoers-1202353123/">told ITV News</a> in March 2018, &#8220;&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe that films that are given token qualifications, in a couple of theaters for less than a week, should qualify for Academy Award nominations. Once you commit to a television format, you&#8217;re a TV movie. If it&#8217;s a good show, you deserve an Emmy. But not an Oscar.&#8221;
In February 2019, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43627/spielberg-takes-another-swipe-streaming-films-paul-bois">The Daily Wire</a> reported, Spielberg took another shot at streaming services. <a href="https://variety.com/2019/scene/awards/steven-spielberg-cinema-audio-society-awards-streamers-1203141954/">Variety</a> noted that Spielberg, accepting the Filmmaker Award at the Cinema Audio Society&#8217;s CAS Awards, asserted:
<blockquote>
I hope all of us really continue to believe that the greatest contributions we can make as filmmakers is to give audiences the motion picture theatrical experience. I&#8217;m a firm believer that movie theaters need to be around forever &#8230; I love television. I love the opportunity. Some of the greatest writing being done today is for television, some of the best directing for television, some of the best performances [are] on television today. The sound is better in homes more than it ever has been in history but there&#8217;s nothing like going to a big dark theater with people you&#8217;ve never met before and having the experience wash over you. That&#8217;s something we all truly believe in.
</blockquote>
Netflix tweeted a response in early March, &#8220;We love cinema. Here are some things we also love. Access for people who can&#8217;t always afford, or live in towns without, theaters. Letting everyone, everywhere enjoy releases at the same time. Giving filmmakers more ways to share art. These things are not mutually exclusive.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We love cinema. Here are some things we also love:
-Access for people who can&#8217;t always afford, or live in towns without, theaters 
-Letting everyone, everywhere enjoy releases at the same time 
-Giving filmmakers more ways to share art
These things are not mutually exclusive.
&#8212; Netflix Film (@NetflixFilm) <a href="https://twitter.com/NetflixFilm/status/1102418557760024578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

DOJ Warns Motion Picture Academy: Don&#8217;t Exclude Netflix, Streaming Services From Oscars

Department of Justice

It&#8217;s amazing that ABC broadcast an overlong Academy Awards show where no one mocked President Trump by name. There were just a few snarky remarks about walls, but that&#8217;s pretty much it. It&#8217;s equally bizarre that the Oscar for best picture went to &#8220;Green Book&#8221; &#8212; about overcoming segregation in the South &#8212; and the leftists came away angry!
What makes this amusing as well as amazing is that Hollywood votes on these awards. This isn&#8217;t the People&#8217;s Choice Awards. It&#8217;s an insular Tinseltown popularity contest, and they&#8217;ve worked hard to add minorities to the Oscar electorate.
The networks announced that &#8220;Green Book&#8221; is a &#8220;controversial&#8221; choice. ABC&#8217;s Chris Connelly explained that racial uplift is the problem: &#8220;Well, time was when some movies featured black characters who have to show they are much better people than their white counterparts in order to be deemed worthy of being treated as equals. Problematic, you might think.&#8221; Jenni Miller at NBCNews.com underlined the animus, writing, &#8220;this movie was written, directed and produced by white people for white people.&#8221;
Horrors!
Liberal Twitter went viral with a video clip of &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; star Chadwick Boseman making a disparaging face, since &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; was also nominated. Twitter user Nerdy Wonka wrote, &#8220;Chadwick Boseman is all of us when &#8216;Green Book&#8217; was announced as Best Picture.&#8221;
Somehow, America is still backward, which raises the question: How in the blazes did &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; manage to gross $700 million at the domestic box office?
Then there was director Spike Lee, as spoiled as he is left-wing, who reacted to the best-picture pick by pitching a fit and reportedly trying to storm out of the theater. He returned to his seat and rudely turned his back on director Peter Farrelly during his acceptance speech, for having bested his film, &#8220;BlacKKKlansman.&#8221; Later, he complained that &#8220;the ref made a bad call,&#8221; a reference to tantrums he throws in the front row of New York Knicks games.
The hot hashtag used to be #OscarsSoWhite. That&#8217;s not at all what the winners list looked like this year. Best director went to Mexican Alfonso Cuaron for &#8220;Roma,&#8221; which many expected to win best picture. Cuaron&#8217;s film also won for cinematography and best foreign language film. Mexican directors have won five of the last six best director awards.
Best actor went to Rami Malek, the son of Egyptian immigrants. The best supporting actor and actress, Mahershala Ali and Regina King, are both black. The best animated film, &#8220;Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,&#8221; featured a half-black, half-Puerto Rican teenager as Spider-Man, voiced by Shameik Moore. &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; won for costume design and production design; black women held both Oscars.
Spike Lee actually won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay, and he used the spotlight for an anti-Trump rant (without using the name): &#8220;Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today, along with the genocide of its native people. &#8230; The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let&#8217;s all mobilize. Let&#8217;s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate.&#8221;
As National Review movie critic Kyle Smith asked, &#8220;Who throws a hissy fit because he wins only one Oscar?&#8221; And he predicted, &#8220;Lee&#8217;s crybaby act pretty much guarantees he&#8217;ll win an Oscar if he ever again makes a film that is a hair better than mediocre.&#8221;
These award shows no longer reward talent. They reward their very own brand of self-centered idiocy.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

BOZELL &#038; GRAHAM: Diversity Reigns At Oscars. Tantrums Continue

The Academy Awards actually saw an uptick in audience numbers Sunday night, for the first time in almost a decade, even without a host.
<a href="https://deadline.com/2019/02/2019-oscars-ratings-rise-spike-lee-protest-green-book-abc-1202564523/">Deadline reports</a> that the Oscars broadcast earned 29.6 million viewers, gaining 3.1 million viewers over the 2018 broadcast, making Sunday night&#8217;s show the second least-watched Oscars broadcast in history after last year.
&#8220;Up 12% in viewers and 13% in the key demo over the 2018 Jimmy Kimmel fronted show, the 2019 Oscars are the most watched non-sports show on all of TV since the 32.9 million who tuned in for the 2017 Oscars,&#8221; Deadline said Monday morning.
That&#8217;s good news for Oscars advertisers, who were so unsure of whether the Oscars would draw an audience that they demanded money-back guarantees for ads placed during Sunday night&#8217;s show. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences appeared to begrudgingly agree to the deal, given that the audience for Sunday night&#8217;s program was unpredictable, particularly without a big-name draw on the marquee.
But, it turns out, people seemed to like the hostless show, which started giving out awards almost immediately, without a 15-minute lecture from a late-night talk show host. The show also ran smoothly, and without lifetime achievement awards, an in-show explanation of the voting process, or a lofty speech from the Academy president, was able to shave around 30 minutes off 2018&#8217;s running time (though the broadcast still easily topped three hours).
Deadline and other Hollywood outlets suggest that the Oscars broadcast may have drawn more viewers because of its more accessible nominees, including comic-book blockbuster &#8220;Black Panther,&#8221; and a promised performance by Lady Gaga that appeared to deliver. But viewers may have also tuned in to see if the show&#8217;s year of public troubles affected the broadcast itself &#8212; in other words, they may have flipped over to the Oscars to watch a car wreck happen in real time.
Over the past 12 months, the Academy has struggled with how to bring viewers back to the annual awards show, which has seen double-digit declines in numbers over the past half-decade. They tried to recruit a snappier host in the form of Dwyane &#8220;The Rock&#8221; Johnson, but couldn&#8217;t compete with Johnson&#8217;s intense filming schedule, then tried to reel in comedian Kevin Hart. Twitter outrage took Hart off the agenda, and even though the Academy begged for his return, he refused, spending Oscars night working out at home, according to his posts on Instagram.
The Oscars tried to scale back the number of on-air categories, putting awards for cinematography, editing, and sound editing during commercial breaks, but reversed that decision after Hollywood became outraged. Instead, the broadcast dropped it&#8217;s annual &#8220;lifetime achievement&#8221; awards, shaving around 20 minutes off the running time.
Fewer long-winded speeches also meant fewer opportunities for political pontificating. Without an opening monologue, there were no direct attacks on anyone&#8217;s ideology for hours, until Spike Lee made a lukewarm plea to voters to &#8220;do the right thing&#8221; in the 2020 presidential election, and Javier Bardem made a vague reference to a &#8220;border&#8221; and a &#8220;wall.&#8221;

Oscar Audience Numbers Actually INCREASE Without A Host

They put up a good fight, but in the end, not even the howls of a thousand raging social justice warriors could keep &#8220;Green Book&#8221; from winning the Oscar for Best Picture on Sunday night.
Though &#8220;Green Book&#8221; deals with themes related to race relations and racism, wide swaths of the intersectional Left worked tirelessly to trash its chances of winning Best Picture from the very start, from Viggo Mortensen&#8217;s <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/viggo-mortensen-says-sorry-using-n-word-q-a-1159813">academic use of the N-word</a> to screenwriter Nick Vallelonga&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42031/golden-globe-winning-films-writer-under-fire-past-james-barrett">alleged</a> &#8220;Islamophobia.&#8221; Unlike Spike Lee&#8217;s &#8220;BlacKkKlansman,&#8221; Peter Farrelly&#8217;s &#8220;Green Book&#8221; commits the grievous offense of actually offering a resolution to American race relations, audaciously suggesting that only through mutual understanding can harmony overtake discord.
Writing at <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/academy-awards/2019/02/25/oscars-2019-green-book-wasnt-best-choice-best-picture/2977060002/">USA Today</a>, Brian Truitt said that &#8220;Green Book&#8221; stole the show from better deserving artists simply because they had black skin or because they pushed an anti-Trump political message:
<blockquote>
It&#8217;s also the wrong choice on a night where Lee stood exultant with the first non-honorary Oscar of his long career and Hannah Beachler of &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; became the first African-American woman to win for production design. &#8220;Green Book&#8221; ending the ceremony triumphant was odd, a dunderheaded decision at worst and a dull one at best. (Also, if your movie is about race relations, maybe don&#8217;t have your trophy-room pictures be only of white filmmakers?)
</blockquote>
Truitt and many other critics have decried &#8220;Green Book&#8221; as the worst Best Picture winner since &#8220;Crash&#8221; or &#8220;Driving Miss Daisy.&#8221; They all neglect the fact that 2017&#8217;s Best Picture winner featured a deaf woman becoming romantically involved with a magical fish; 2016&#8217;s winner depicted one teenage boy giving another teenage boy a handjob on a Florida beach. If anything, &#8220;Green Book&#8221; is a return to classical storytelling.
Writing at CNN, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/25/entertainment/green-book-politics/index.html">Lisa Respers laments</a> &#8220;Green Book&#8221; reinforces how America wishes to see itself in 2019:
<blockquote>
The movie of the same name has a scene with a white man teaching a black man how to eat fried chicken, while the white character drives him through the &#8217;60s South.
And it won the Oscar for best picture on Sunday night.
If that ain&#8217;t America, nothing is.
Just like the nation remains split over issues of ethnicity and identity, the film has caused a divide between those who see it as celebrating friendship and those who see it as racist.
&#8220;Green Book&#8221; chronicles the real-life friendship between piano virtuoso Dr. Donald Shirley, played by best supporting actor Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, and Tony Vallelonga, played by Viggo Mortensen, who served as his driver.
The film has faced <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/24/entertainment/green-book-best-picture-oscars/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">criticism</a> by some for seeming to reinforce the &#8220;white savior&#8221; trope used by Hollywood time and again in films having to do with race.
</blockquote>
Justin Chang at the LA Times<a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-oscars-green-book-worst-best-picture-winner-20190224-story.html"> went completely off the rails</a>, denouncing the &#8220;Green Book&#8221; upset as an &#8220;embarrassment.&#8221;
<blockquote>
Peter Farrelly&#8217;s interracial buddy dramedy is insultingly glib and hucksterish, a self-satisfied crock masquerading as an olive branch. It reduces the long, barbaric and ongoing history of American racism to a problem, a formula, a dramatic equation that can be balanced and solved. &#8220;Green Book&#8221; is an embarrassment; the film industry&#8217;s unquestioning embrace of it is another.
</blockquote>
Could the Academy really have awarded Best Picture to a movie that SJWs loathe? Maybe 2019 really will be the year Hollywood decided to make itself great again.

SJWs Triggered By ‘Green Book’ Winning Best Picture

A report in the <a href="https://deadline.com/2019/02/oscars-ads-abc-ratings-concerns-threshold-guarantees-1202562868/">Hollywood news outlet Deadline claims</a> that advertisers who have purchased slots during the Academy Awards are so concerned about audience numbers for Sunday night&#8217;s broadcast that they&#8217;re asking for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which puts on the show, to issue ratings thresholds guarantees.
The Academy is at the end of a year-long, failed effort to &#8220;update&#8221; the Oscars, which reportedly involved finding a more &#8220;relevant&#8221; host, adding new elements to the Oscars ceremony, potentially shortening the broadcast, and delivering some of the &#8220;less-interesting&#8221; awards during commercial breaks so as to focus the broadcast on awards the audience really wants to see.
Every effort was met with abject disaster. After failing to secure Dwayne &#8220;The Rock&#8221; Johnson for the host slot, the Academy hired Kevin Hart, who was immediately discovered to have tweeted some &#8220;anti-gay&#8221; opinions years ago, making him the subject of Hollywood social justice scorn, which eventually forced him to withdraw from the gig. After unsuccessfully trying to woo him back using former Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres, the Oscars were forced to admit they could not find a host, leaving them without a big name draw on the marquee.
When the Academy tried to &#8220;hide&#8221; some awards for editing, cinematography, and live-action short film in the broadcast&#8217;s commercial breaks, members of the Academy objected, forcing the Academy to re-extend the broadcast to include the &#8220;boring&#8221; awards.
An effort to award an &#8220;audience favorite&#8221; movie with an Oscar also hit the skids rather quickly.
Oscars viewership has been declining by double digit percentages for close to a decade, but until now, after the failed public efforts to reverse that drop, advertisers failed to take much notice, assuming that the broadcast, which still draws more than 20 million viewers, was worth the investment. It&#8217;s incredibly rare for advertisers to demand any audience thresholds for live events like the Oscars or the Super Bowl, even when they don&#8217;t do well.
According to Deadline, though, the parade of embarrassing issues dogging the Oscars broadcast has forced ABC, which airs the ceremony, to guarantee a &#8220;baseline&#8221; of viewers to advertisers, which could result in ABC having to give money back if advertiser expectations aren&#8217;t met.
&#8220;The Oscars are still a very big deal, but people aren&#8217;t stupid, and year after year of declining ratings are getting us to a danger zone,&#8221; a source told the Hollywood mag. &#8220;We are right on the edge of that danger zone &#8212; not close, but on it &#8212; and that makes advertisers very nervous.&#8221;
Fortunately for the Oscars, those audience thresholds are still pretty low, and they&#8217;re expected to clear them, even though far fewer people are expected to tune in Sunday night than in years before, according to an executive who spoke to Deadline.
It&#8217;s very unlikely that things will fall so radically this year that they&#8217;ll drop beneath those thresholds, but the fact is that there finally had to be such guarantees was a wake-up call to everyone,&#8221; the source said, adding that ABC is now motivated to make changes in the Oscars broadcast after dropping $85 million into a multi-year contract to air the show. The network has sold around $145 million in ads.
The Oscars air at 7 p.m. EST on ABC. The show is expected to run for at least three hours.

REPORT: Advertisers Expecting So Few Oscar Viewers, They&#8217;re Demanding Money-Back Guarantees

There was a time when The Hollywood Reporter&#8217;s annual &#8220;brutally honest Oscar ballot,&#8221; in which an anonymous Academy voter dons the thankless role of giving an unfiltered &#8212; and often politically incorrect &#8212; opinion on the slate of nominated films, was brutally honest. In 2019, however, that <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/brutally-honest-oscar-ballot-roma-just-an-expensive-home-movie-1187668/item/best-documentary-feature-brutally-honest-oscars-ballot-19-1187677">brutal honesty has been supplanted by virtue-signaling</a>.
Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences set the 2019 Oscars telecast on course for a complete ratings disaster when actor/comedian Kevin Hart dropped out of hosting the show after a woke troll campaign demanded he issue a apology over old LGBT-related jokes that were deemed controversial. Rather than use The Hollywood Reporter&#8217;s platform to get &#8220;brutally honest&#8221; about the Academy&#8217;s steamrolling of Kevin Hart, the anonymous Oscar voter, whom The Hollywood Reporter identifies simply as a &#8220;male member of the Academy&#8217;s 519-person directors branch,&#8221; elected to simply complain about the show being &#8220;hostless&#8221; while making no mention of Hart&#8217;s unfair treatment.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to watch the Oscars this year,&#8221; he told The Hollywood Reporter. &#8220;I&#8217;m just anticipating a very boring show. One of the best things about the show is the opening monologue, which is usually pretty good &#8212; it&#8217;s what happens after that that&#8217;s not great.&#8221;
The &#8220;brutally honest&#8221; voter leaves the controversy at that, saying nothing more about it. Regarding the Academy&#8217;s decision &#8212; now reversed &#8212; to relegate the Best Editing/Cinematography awards to the commercial breaks, the director&#8217;s language was far more pointed.
&#8220;It&#8217;s an abomination,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If ABC, which I&#8217;m sure was pushing for this, thought that dumping cinematography and film editing was going to bring back any of the viewers the show has lost in recent years, they&#8217;re idiotic. Cinematography and editing are so important. For f***&#8217;s sake, man, a movie director [Roma&#8216;s Alfonso Cuarón] is going to win the cinematography award this year for the first time ever, and we weren&#8217;t going to see it live? I don&#8217;t f***ing get it.&#8221;
When it comes to the actual nominations, the anonymous scold shamelessly admits that he voted for Spike Lee for Best Director because &#8220;it&#8217;s about f***ing time,&#8221; admitting the veteran filmmaker did not give his best offering with &#8220;BlacKkKlansman.&#8221;
&#8220;The greatest wrong in the history of the Oscars was Spike Lee not being nominated for Do the Right Thing, and BlacKkKlansman is like the other end of Do the Right Thing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve admired this guy&#8217;s work so much over the years. Until now, the Academy has almost completely ignored this genius, and it&#8217;s about f***ing time to correct that. I don&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s the best directing job of the year &#8212; I think that [The Favourite&#8216;s] Yorgos Lanthimos&#8217; decisions were more creative, interesting and daring &#8212; but I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;ll have another opportunity to vote for Spike, so I&#8217;m going to take this one.&#8221;
On the Best Picture nominees, the anonymous voter offers not even a shred of sardonic commentary about how nearly all the films (minus &#8220;A Star Is Born&#8221;) have received their torrent of accolades. In fact, he downright praises the films for their woke messaging, selecting Spike Lee&#8217;s &#8220;BlacKkKlansman&#8221; for Best Picture for taking a dig at Trump.
&#8220;I prefer to reward a movie that is solid and has something of social importance to say, like BlacKkKlansman,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Charlottesville footage at the end of it sealed the deal for me &#8212; it reminds us that things really haven&#8217;t gotten better.&#8221;
Finally, to really wave the bias flag for all to see, the anonymous voter admits to voting for the documentary &#8220;RBG&#8221; about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg &#8212; with whom he is none too happy due to her refusal to retire during President Obama&#8217;s tenure. He says, &#8220;I voted for RBG. I cannot say that I&#8217;m happy with Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a person &#8212; I&#8217;m really upset that she didn&#8217;t retire when Obama was still around, and if she steps down or dies now, this country is f***ed forever &#8212; but the story that they tell in that film is compelling and taught me so much and left me talking about it with my wife for hours afterward. For a documentary biopic, I found it to be fabulously entrancing.&#8221;

WEAK: The Hollywood Reporter&#8217;s ‘Brutally Honest’ Oscar Voter Goes Politically Correct

Political Correctness

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be getting her own tribute at the Oscars this year, taking the notorious cult of RBG to a whole new level. According to <a href="https://variety.com/2019/music/news/jennifer-hudson-rbg-ill-fight-oscars-1203125072/">Variety</a>, the nominated song &#8220;I&#8217;ll Fight&#8221; from the documentary &#8220;RBG&#8221; will be performed by Academy Award-winning singer Jennifer Hudson.
On Thursday, the Academy excitedly announced that Hudson will be performing the song, adding that &#8220;this has been our favorite tweet of the day.&#8221;
The Academy tweeted: &#8220;Things we&#8217;d like to announce today: 1. <a data-mentioned-user-id="33990291" href="https://twitter.com/IAMJHUD">@IAMJHUD</a> will perform the nominated song &#8220;I&#8217;ll Fight&#8221; on the <a data-query-source="hashtag_click" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash">#Oscars</a>! 2. This has been our favorite tweet of the day.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Things we&#8217;d like to announce today:
1. <a href="https://twitter.com/IAMJHUD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IAMJHUD</a> will perform the nominated song &#8220;I&#8217;ll Fight&#8221; on the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Oscars</a>!
2. This has been our favorite tweet of the day.
&#8212; The Academy (@TheAcademy) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheAcademy/status/1091072822900809729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Hudson&#8217;s addition marks the first official confirmation of any song from the <a data-tag="best-original-song" href="https://variety.com/t/best-original-song/">best original song</a> category being performed on the Oscars,&#8221; reports Variety.
The Oscars were reportedly planning on cutting down the number of performed songs this year to just two &#8212; Lady Gaga&#8217;s &#8220;Shallow&#8221; and Kendrick Lamar and SZA&#8217;s &#8220;All the Stars&#8221; &#8212; which means that the Academy changed the entire show&#8217;s already long running time to squeeze in a whole song dedicated to the left-wing justice. The Academy&#8217;s addition of &#8220;I&#8217;ll Fight&#8221; being performed at the show follows an intense public outcry, with many members of the film music community expressing disappointment that the song, written by Diane Warren, would be nixed from the show along with the other nominees.
While the song explicitly does not name Justice Ginsburg as its subject, it clearly portrays her as a warrior who will persist in the fight for justice no matter how weak she becomes. Full lyrics:
<blockquote>
When you feel you&#8217;re taking all that you can take 
And you&#8217;re sure you&#8217;re never gonna catch a break 
And the tears are rivers running down your face, yeah 
When your faith is low and you&#8217;ve got no strength left 
When you think you&#8217;ve gone as far as you can get 
And you&#8217;re too undone to take another step
Oh I will take up the struggle 
Oh I know it&#8217;s a fight
So I&#8217;ll fight, fight that war for you 
I&#8217;ll fight, stand and defend you 
Take your side, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m here to do 
I&#8217;ll be there to be strong 
Oh I&#8217;ll keep on, keep on the fight
When it&#8217;s dangerous, takes another piece of you 
Everybody takes all they can get from you 
Till you&#8217;re left with almost nothing left of you 
When each night is like a battle you can&#8217;t win 
And the pain is like a weight you&#8217;re carrying 
I will be the one to help you carry it
Oh I will take all your troubles 
Oh I know it&#8217;s a fight
So I&#8217;ll fight, fight that war for you 
I&#8217;ll fight, stand and defend you 
Take your side, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m here to do 
I&#8217;ll be there to be strong 
Oh I&#8217;ll keep on, keep on the fight
I&#8217;ll help your back when your backs to the wall 
I&#8217;ll catch the tears when your tears fall 
I will give it all I won&#8217;t give up the fight
</blockquote>
The Oscars will be a historic show this year by having <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/41981/its-official-oscars-have-no-host-year-paul-bois">absolutely no host</a>.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gOqHWrCjuY4" width="560"></iframe></div>

Jennifer Hudson To Sing Ruth Bader Ginsburg Song ‘I’ll Fight’ At The Oscars

Supreme Court

The 2019 Oscar nominees were announced Tuesday morning, and several social justice-themed films made the final cut. Here are the Best Picture nominees:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/blackkklansman" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BlacKkKlansman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/black-panther" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Black Panther</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/bohemian-rhapsody" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bohemian Rhapsody</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/favourite" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Favourite</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/green-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Green Book</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/roma" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Roma</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/a-star-is-born" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A Star Is Born</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/vice-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vice</a></li>
</ol>
With a total of 10 nominations apiece, both &#8220;Roma&#8221; and &#8220;The Favourite&#8221; are the dominant movies this year. &#8220;A Star is Born&#8221; and &#8220;Vice&#8221; hold second place with eight nominations, trailed closely behind by &#8220;Black Panther&#8221; with seven, Spike Lee&#8217;s &#8220;BlacKkKlansman&#8221; with six and &#8220;Bohemian Rhapsody&#8221; and &#8220;Green Book&#8221; with five each, according to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/oscar-nominations-2019-complete-list-nominees-1172407/item/best-picture-1172473">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.
&#8220;Meanwhile, in the directing category, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-spike-lee-earns-first-directing-nomination-1177894" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spike Lee earned his first-ever best directing Oscar nom for BlacKkKlansman, </a>while A Star Is Born director Bradley Cooper was <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-nominations-snubs-2019-bradley-cooper-director-mr-rogers-doc-1177867" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">among the snubs</a>, though he did earn a best acting nomination,&#8221; THR reports. &#8220;Lee will vie with Alfonso Cuaron (Roma), Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), Adam McKay (Vice) and Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War) for the honor of best director at the 2019 Oscars.&#8221;
Though it&#8217;s anyone&#8217;s game at this point, the frontrunner for Best Picture this year appears, at least initially, to be either &#8220;Bohemian Rhapsody&#8221; or &#8220;Green Book,&#8221; being that the latter won Best Picture Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes while the former won Best Picture Drama. However, as noted by <a href="https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/oscar-predictions-2019-best-picture-movies#">Thrillist</a>, a string of controversies have erupted in recent weeks that could knock &#8220;Green Book&#8221; out of the running:
<blockquote>
Get ready for a lot of it with this one. First up: Viggo Mortensen <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/viggo-mortensen-says-sorry-using-n-word-q-a-1159813" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">used the n-word</a> in full when discussing the movie at a recent Q&amp;A. While the point he was trying to make was about how the word was casually used in the time period in which the movie takes place, he faced immediate blowback for having uttered the word himself and has since apologized. <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/green-book-whitewashing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Negative</a> <a href="https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/11/27/18112880/green-book-race-viggo-mortensen-mahershala-ali-peter-farrelly" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">takes</a>, arguing that the story is centered around the racist white man at the expense of a nuanced approach to African-American history, have also intensified since Green Book&#8216;s release. Maurice Shirley, Don Shirley&#8217;s brother, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/truth-about-green-book-viggo-mortensen-mahershala-ali" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has also condemned the film for factual inaccuracies</a>, as have <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/green-book-is-one-awards-seasons-contentiously-debated-films-1174333" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other members of the Shirley family</a>. His great-niece Yvonne Shirley <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/green-book-is-one-awards-seasons-contentiously-debated-films-1174333" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told The Hollywood Reporter</a>, &#8220;They decided to create a story of a white man&#8217;s redemption and self-realization using an extraordinary black life and a history of black oppression in this country as their backdrop. Many viewers are simply tired of that devaluing narrative.&#8217;
</blockquote>
The Academy still <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/41981/its-official-oscars-have-no-host-year-paul-bois">has not tapped a host</a> to replace Kevin Hart, following a recent debacle in which political correctness forced him from emceeing Hollywood&#8217;s most glamorous night of the year. With just a little over a month to go, the night will most likely be led by an ensemble of A-list stars doing various SNL-style set-ups.
Best Picture
<ul>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>Bohemian Rhapsody</li>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>Green Book</li>
<li>Roma</li>
<li>A Star is Born</li>
<li>Vice</li>
</ul>
Best Director
<ul>
<li>Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War</li>
<li>Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite</li>
<li>Alfonso Cuarón, Roma</li>
<li>Adam McKay, Vice</li>
</ul>
Best Actor
<ul>
<li>Christian Bale, Vice</li>
<li>Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born</li>
<li>Willem Dafoe, At Eternity&#8217;s Gate</li>
<li>Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody</li>
<li>Viggo Mortensen, Green Book </li>
</ul>
Best Actress
<ul>
<li>Yalitza Aparicio, Roma</li>
<li>Glenn Close, The Wife</li>
<li>Olivia Colman, The Favourite</li>
<li>Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born</li>
<li>Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me? </li>
</ul>
Best Supporting Actor
<ul>
<li>Mahershala Ali, Green Book</li>
<li>Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born</li>
<li>Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me? </li>
<li>Sam Rockwell, Vice</li>
</ul>
Best Supporting Actress
<ul>
<li>Amy Adams, Vice</li>
<li>Marina De Tavira, Roma</li>
<li>Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk</li>
<li>Emma Stone, The Favourite</li>
<li>Rachel Weisz, The Favourite</li>
</ul>
Best Adapted Screenplay
<ul>
<li>The Ballad of Buster Scruggs</li>
<li>BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>Can You Ever Forgive Me?</li>
<li>If Beale Street Could Talk</li>
<li>A Star Is Born</li>
</ul>
Best Original Screenplay
<ul>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>First Reformed</li>
<li>Green Book</li>
<li>Roma</li>
<li>Vice</li>
</ul>
Best Foreign Language Film
<ul>
<li>Capernaum</li>
<li>Cold War</li>
<li>Never Look Away</li>
<li>Roma</li>
<li>Shoplifters</li>
</ul>
Best Documentary Feature
<ul>
<li>Free Solo</li>
<li>Hale County This Morning, This Evening</li>
<li>Minding the Gap</li>
<li>Of Fathers and Sons</li>
<li>RBG</li>
</ul>
Best Animated Feature
<ul>
<li>Incredibles 2</li>
<li>Isle of Dogs</li>
<li>Mirai</li>
<li>Ralph Breaks the Internet</li>
<li>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</li>
</ul>
Best Documentary Short Subject
<ul>
<li>Black Sheep</li>
<li>End Game</li>
<li>Lifeboat</li>
<li>A Night at the Garden</li>
<li>Period. End of Sentence.</li>
</ul>
Best Original Song
<ul>
<li>&#8220;All The Stars,&#8221; Black Panther</li>
<li>&#8220;I&#8217;ll Fight,&#8221; RBG</li>
<li>&#8220;The Place Where Lost Things Go,&#8221; Mary Poppins Returns</li>
<li>&#8220;Shallow,&#8221; A Star Is Born</li>
<li>&#8220;When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings,&#8221; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs</li>
</ul>
Best Production Design
<ul>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>First Man</li>
<li>Mary Poppins Returns</li>
<li>Roma</li>
</ul>
Best Cinematography
<ul>
<li>Cold War</li>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>Never Look Away</li>
<li>Roma</li>
<li>A Star Is Born</li>
</ul>
Best Costume Design
<ul>
<li>The Ballad of Buster Scruggs</li>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>Mary Poppins Returns</li>
<li>Mary Queen of Scots</li>
</ul>
Best Sound Editing
<ul>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>Bohemian Rhapsody</li>
<li>First Man</li>
<li>A Quiet Place</li>
<li>Roma</li>
</ul>
Best Sound Mixing
<ul>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>Bohemian Rhapsody</li>
<li>First Man</li>
<li>Roma</li>
<li>A Star Is Born</li>
</ul>
Best Animated Short Film
<ul>
<li>Animal Behaviour</li>
<li>Bao</li>
<li>Late Afternoon</li>
<li>One Small Step</li>
<li>Weekends</li>
</ul>
Best Live Action Short Film
<ul>
<li>Detainment</li>
<li>Fauve</li>
<li>Marguerite</li>
<li>Mother</li>
<li>Skin</li>
</ul>
Best Original Score
<ul>
<li>Black Panther</li>
<li>BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>If Beale Street Could Talk</li>
<li>Isle of Dogs</li>
<li>Mary Poppins Returns</li>
</ul>
Best Visual Effects
<ul>
<li>Avengers: Infinity War</li>
<li>Christopher Robin</li>
<li>First Man</li>
<li>Ready Player One</li>
<li>Solo: A Star Wars Story</li>
</ul>
Best Film Editing
<ul>
<li>BlacKkKlansman</li>
<li>Bohemian Rhapsody</li>
<li>The Favourite</li>
<li>Green Book</li>
<li>Vice</li>
</ul>
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
<ul>
<li>Border</li>
<li>Mary Queen of Scots</li>
<li>Vice</li>
</ul>

Here Are The 2019 Oscar Nominees. Yep, &#8216;Black Panther&#8217; For Best Picture

Last week, the Academy of Motion Pictures announced that for the first time in decades that the Oscars would abandon its traditional format of having a celebrity host. The decision was made after comedian Kevin Hart reaffirmed his decision to withdrawal from the nomination while on Ellen DeGeneres&#8217; daily talk show. Which brings us to the topic of this column. Ellen DeGeneres.
Historically, the annual Academy Awards has endured periods of both fallow and flourishment, subject to, among other things, the eminence of movies in a given year. But for the past half-decade, the Oscars&#8217; ratings have withered dramatically. Last year, the overall audience dipped below 30 million for the first time.
It&#8217;s imprudent to attribute the annual ceremony&#8217;s decline to any one singular impetus; there are several. However, if the Oscars are ever to recover, it is important to address one specific foible. At each Academy Awards ceremony over the past few years, there&#8217;s been a giant elephant in the room. Its bottom half is always red, and the top half blue, donning three white stars. It&#8217;s the Republican Elephant.
No matter the host, or the subject of films nominated, every Oscars ceremony in recent history has had one common theme: browbeating and haranguing Republicans from an ostensible moral high ground &#8212; and you don&#8217;t need to look hard for examples.
Just minutes into his opening monologue at last year&#8217;s Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel called President Trump a racist, claiming the first three-fourths of &#8220;Get Out&#8221; &#8212; a thriller about psychopathic white people hypnotizing and enslaving black people &#8212; was Trump&#8217;s favorite movie.
At this year&#8217;s Golden Globes &#8212; the precursor to the Oscars &#8212; Christian Bale, accepting the best actor award for his portrayal of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie &#8220;Vice,&#8221; thanked Satan (that&#8217;s not his father&#8217;s name; the actual, Biblical Satan) for &#8220;inspiration.&#8221;
Movie award ceremonies shouldn&#8217;t be subject to the insipid political musings of Jimmy Kimmel or Meryl Streep. If people want to hear left-of-center political ramblings, they can do that any time by changing the channel to CNN. Conversely, there&#8217;s &#8220;The Daily Show&#8221; (hosted by Trevor Noah); &#8220;The Late Show&#8221; (hosted by Stephen Colbert); or &#8220;Jimmy Kimmel Live!,&#8221; just to name a few.
This brings us back to Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres&#8217; show is enjoyed across America, by both liberals and conservatives. A 2013 poll <a href="https://uproxx.com/tv/the-most-popular-tv-personality-among-republicans-ellen-degeneres/">revealed</a> that Ellen DeGeneres was on par with former Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly as the most popular TV personality amongst Republicans. This is why Ellen DeGeneres should host the Oscars this year. The ratings speak for themselves: Since the start of the millennium, ratings have peaked exactly three times for the lux gala, two of which were times hosted by DeGeneres.
DeGeneres&#8217; success as a host largely derives from her innate ability to lighten the atmosphere in any setting or situation. Despite her tremendously fruitful career &#8212; earning a whopping 77-million-dollar salary &#8212; she&#8217;s never met an audience she couldn&#8217;t connect with. She&#8217;s one of the few Hollywood successes who, despite receiving reams of accolades, doesn&#8217;t consider herself a holier-than-thou arbiter of morality.
Though DeGeneres has hitherto reprimanded Trump, proclaiming that he was &#8220;against everything she stood for,&#8221; DeGeneres has always kept her personal political views off her show, and out of her public persona more broadly, opting to instead capture audiences with her genial and witty personality. Eschewing jokes at the expense of others, she once famously said, &#8220;Most comedy is based on getting a laugh at somebody else&#8217;s expense, and I find that&#8217;s just a form of bullying.&#8221;
The best-rated Oscars in decades (2014) did not disappoint. DeGeneres brought her amiable, charismatic persona, whirling jokes at the audience. While other hosts addressed the up-in-arms brigade of indignation at the Oscar&#8217;s meager diversity through pedantic, preachy lectures, DeGeneres instead did what she does best. She made a joke about it: &#8220;Anything could happen tonight! So many possibilities! Possibility number one: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility number two: you&#8217;re all racists. And now, please welcome our first white presenter, Anne Hathaway.&#8221;
There&#8217;s no evidence that DeGeneres harbors any hostility to Republicans or political conservatives. On the contrary, DeGeneres staffs an (openly!) conservative, Republican-voting (again, openly!) writer on her show: Adam Yenser. Last December, Yenser <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5aP2s-Y-eI">wrote</a> a comedy skit directed by The Daily Wire&#8217;s own Paul Bois lampooning a societal sacred cow: the fringes of the #MeToo movement.
Earlier this January, Jon Levine <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/01/05/forget-kevin-hart-why-actor-james-woods-would-be-the-perfect-oscars-host/">penned</a> an op-ed for the New York Post suggesting that the Oscars need more than an abandonment of politics. They need a whole new approach. Arguing that a conservative firebrand &#8212; James Woods &#8212; would be medicine for the award show&#8217;s near decade long trend of decline. &#8220;He [James Woods] may not be the host you want, but for struggling awards shows, he&#8217;s what America needs.&#8221;
As tempting as that sounds &#8212; flipping the Oscars on its head, handing the ceremonial reigns to a Trump-loving Republican &#8212; it&#8217;s as likely to happen as Hillary Clinton headlining the next Republican National Convention. The issue isn&#8217;t that the annual ceremony has been plagued by the wrong flavor of politics. The issue is that divisive, partisan politics have slithered into a cultural celebration of cinema in the first place.
The Oscars don&#8217;t need to become a conservative convention. It&#8217;s not preferable to have right-leaning actors like Vince Vaughn or Clint Eastwood take to the stage and flaunt their political views any more than to have Jimmy Kimmel deliver an opening monologue deriding the President as a racist.
The Oscars are a seminal celebration of culture in America. They should acknowledge and award creativity, talent, and art &#8212; all things that transcend petty political differences. And in an era where those political differences have become potently polarized, the Oscar&#8217;s ought to be an event of unity. Ellen DeGeneres&#8217; down-to-earth, good-natured and witty humor livened and lightened the Oscars twice before; they should do it again.
Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/harry1t6">Twitter</a>

KHACHATRIAN: Ellen DeGeneres Should Host The Oscars This Year

Ellen Degeneres

The virus of political correctness and woke sermonizing that has wormed its way into the Academy Awards for the past decade has all but turned Hollywood&#8217;s most prestigious awards show into a level of laughingstock that not even the Golden Globes has stooped to. In a breaking piece at <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/oscars-no-host-2019-kevin-hart-1203103010/">Variety</a>, Academy insiders close to the show&#8217;s planning have confirmed that Oscars 2019 will be entirely host-free, meaning no Kevin Hart, no Ellen Degeneres, no Chris Rock, not even Jimmy Kimmel.
&#8220;The <a data-tag="oscars" href="https://variety.com/t/oscars/">Oscars</a> are poised to embark on one of the most radical reinventions in the awards show&#8217;s long history,&#8221; reports Variety. &#8220;For the first time in nearly three decades, the biggest night in movies plans to go without a host, individuals with knowledge of the plans told Variety.&#8221;
In place of the wise-cracking host, the show&#8217;s producers will instead select &#8220;a crop of A-listers to introduce various segments.&#8221; Exactly how the Oscars will open the show sans the traditional opening monologue remains to be seen. For now, the Academy is scrambling to secure the top talent in the small window of time (six weeks) they have until the show airs on February 24.
&#8220;As it stands, no new offers are out, nor are any expected to be made to a single potential host to fill the void left by <a data-tag="kevin-hart" href="https://variety.com/t/kevin-hart/">Kevin Hart</a>,&#8221; reports Variety. &#8220;Barring an eleventh-hour pivot by the Academy &#8212; in the event that a superstar host materializes &#8212; the show producers are moving forward with a broadcast that will focus on starry skits and play up a high-profile year for music in film, thanks to likely nominees Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton, and Kendrick Lamar, one individual involved with the show said.&#8221;
After a show of support from fellow comedienne Ellen Degeneres, rumors began to circulate if Kevin Hart would set aside his differences with the Academy and host the Oscars anyway. Speaking with <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/kevin-hart-addresses-oscars-controversy-in-exclusive-interview-would-i-ever-do-it-again-no-im-done-1203099460/">Variety</a> last Friday, Hart put those rumors to rest when he unequivocally stated, &#8220;It&#8217;s done.&#8221;
&#8220;Would I ever do it? No, it&#8217;s done. It&#8217;s done,&#8221; Hart told Variety. &#8220;The moment came and it was a blessing and I was excited at the opportunity and I still am. In my mind I got the job, it was a dream job, and things came up that simply prohibited it from happening. But I don&#8217;t believe in going backwards.&#8221;
Worse still, members of the Academy apparently have no contrition for how they handled the Kevin Hart fiasco. In fact, they were reportedly upset when the famed comedian portrayed himself as a victim of internet trolls during his interview with Ellen Degeneres last week.
&#8220;The Academy had been considering welcoming Hart back if he had used the opportunity in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres to demonstrate contrition,&#8221; reports Variety. &#8220;But his sit-down with DeGeneres, a sympathetic friend, backfired when he was made out to be the victim of internet trolls and &#8216;haters&#8217; rather than the perpetrator of hateful remarks.&#8221;
The Academy was also none-too-happy with Ellen Degeneres for allegedly mischaracterizing a phone call she had with an unnamed Academy official to lobby in Hart&#8217;s favor:
<blockquote>
Moreover, the Academy, according to sources, was furious that DeGeneres, on her show, mischaracterized her phone conversation with an unnamed Academy official whom she contacted to lobby for Hart&#8217;s reinstatement.
DeGeneres implied that the Academy wanted Hart back at all costs, to the point of quoting someone in the ranks admitting the organization may have &#8220;said the wrong thing&#8221; in discussing Hart&#8217;s exit.
While the Academy never commented on the veracity of the call, or whom it may have been with, one person said DeGeneres took the remarks out of context. A rep for DeGeneres had no comment.
</blockquote>
The debacle on the Academy&#8217;s hands is one entirely of their own making, shot through by their sycophantic love affair with all things left-of-center and politically correct. Had the Academy just kept silent and not demanded that Kevin Hart issue a public apology over past jokes that some LGBT community members found offensive, the Oscars would be on its way to a ratings blowout. Instead, all of them will likely stand humiliated when the Nielsen numbers the following Monday reveal the show managed to outdo last year&#8217;s record as being one of the lowest-rated Oscars ever.

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