THB #336: Once In Love With Oscar

Aging Oscar via Dall-E

I will be very happy to see The Academy find its way out of the devaluation of Oscar. Some changes this year, I am hopeful about. Others seem like the same old mistakes.

But as we head into The Sunday, what I have found missing is the most basic conversation… why do any of us care?

The machine, including some of the best intended and the worst, feeds on its own planetary atmosphere. I’m not talking about what keeps the machine moving today.

I’m talking about love.

I’m talking about gathering in rooms with people you like - some you don’t - and watching and eating and arguing in a heartfelt way about a singular moment every year in which actors are exposed as real people and films we are passionate about, high art and low, get answers from a slightly mysterious voting booth with the switch being pulled by people who are definitively inside The Bubble of working and highly established members of the industry.

This, which was a reality for me for the first 40 years of …