Oscar: The Perpetual Motion Machine

I've been at this a long time. The other day, another long-termer pal was commenting that they had started following Oscar publicly the year Gladiator won Best Picture. I was in a tux on on E! that year, swearing that, "As God as my witness, Gladiator will not win Best Picture."

God let me and Steven Soderbergh down (not in that order).

This particular Oscar season has been, shall we say, challenging to me. I am 100% pro-streaming. And I am 100% pro-theatrical. These things are not in conflict, you see. I know that is the screed of much of the media. But they are, simply, wrong. There is a world in which we all end up on our couches and chairs and beds forever more, flipping channels and switching apps. But I don't think we are ready to become the third act of Wall-E.

To have an Oscar season where hardly any of the films nominated have been seen by anyone - Academy members, the public, the press - on anything but a TV in the safety of our homes makes no sense to me. Emmy? Absolutely! Osc…