Yeah, it's Academy Awards night. Am I supposed to care?
Because I don't, not even a little. I mean, I've never given a rat's ass about the awards themselves, and I don't think anyone who cares about the art or science of film ever has. But the presentation, the ceremony itself, always used to have some guaranteed camp value, or something, but now it's just this pointless, outdated ritual enacted by the elite for their own amusement, and holy crap, that last part almost sounded like it could have been spit out by a pundit at Fox News, so why don't I stop right now?
But, to continue just a bit longer, is the movie business even worth celebrating these days? Because this week, when Hollywood is presumably trying to put its best foot forward and pretend that it routinely makes stuff that is even halfway watchable, some major studios and one big-time producer announced a series of projects that, uh, well...
Gilligan's Island? Seriously? A remake of Police Academy? A movie version of the vintage arcade game Space Invaders? All three of these terrible ideas come from the vast Time Warner empire, which is about a third of Hollywood right there. Paramount chimed in with the comparatively only mildly terrible notion of reworking Pet Sematary.
But hey, you want everything wrong with the movie business in a nutshell? Consider the fact that Gary Marshall--storied producer of Blansky's Beauties and auteur of The Other Sister--is planning to remake Frank Capra's State Of The Union. The original starred Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn; Marshall hopes to cast Richard Gere and Jessica Biel.
So no, I don't feel like the American movie business deserves any kind of celebration tonight. Hell, I don't even think it deserves saving.
