will Hollywood give us a happy ending?

I haven’t been to the movies in months, I barely watch TV other than cable news these days, and I ration DVDs because there’s so little worth spending the time on.*** So I can see where Roger L. Simon is coming from: hasta la vista, Hollywood!

This new group of nominees - though worthy enough artistically - is of very little interest to the public. They didn’t want to see them for the most part when they were released and - although some will get something a bounce from the nomination - most will still not see them later. The usual core audience of teenage boys is more interested in computer games and the adult audience has far too much else to do. [Like bicker on blogs?-ed. Bickering is good.] This is yet another symptom of the overall decline of Hollywood as a force in our culture.

Despite that, though, I’d still like to watch the Oscars, even just for old times’ sake, because I used to be wild about the movies. So this downbeat assessment about the prospects of a real Oscar broadcast taking place was depressing.

Guild leaders have said that if the strike continues, they will not allow writers to work on the Oscars, either, which might leave nominees and other celebrities forced to choose between attending the biggest night in show business or staying home to avoid crossing picket lines.

“I would never cross a picket line ever. I couldn’t,” said Tony Gilroy, a directing nominee for “Michael Clayton.”"I’m a 20-year member of the Writers Guild. I think whatever they work out is going to be one way or the other but no, I could never cross a picket line. I think there’s a lot of people who feel that way.”

Just because I’m more interested in reality these days—how is it possible not to be interested in reality these days, by the way? the way the media plays up the “news,” we’re tuning in as if to a soap opera—it doesn’t mean I don’t want to be entertained. Indeed I do.

Reality is pretty damn troubling, as this post from Wretchard attests:

The Guardian describes an extraordinary manifesto authored “by five of the west’s most senior military officers and strategists … following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.” The gist of the proposal is that the West should stand ready to conduct a pre-emptive nuclear strike against “key threats” like “political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism” and “international terrorism, organised crime” which are on the brink of acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

And I am pretty bummed about Heath Ledger, who I first saw in 10 Things I Hate About You with my then-teenage daughter and who lived and died practically in my own backyard and who lived a quiet, low-profile life and worked hard at his craft.

And, really, this surge of people across the border from Gaza into Egypt—even if it was a huge PR coup for Hamas (earlier today I argued it isn’t so big because the U.S. media isn’t paying attention)—is a pretty unsettling thing, considering how much time and energy and prestige the United States has put into the continuing “peace talks” between “the Palestinians” [represented by only some of the Palestinians, of course---namely, Fatah] and the Israelis.

Dear WGA: Free the Oscars! (And buy Hollywood some cheap good will.)

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***one exception that I’ve been meaning to blog about but never got around to was the movie Once—an unusual and unusually gratifying movie, particularly for anyone who has ever been involved in some kind of artistic collaboration. Check it out: