Kevin Hart and a Crisis of Oscar's Own Making

by Nathaniel R

If you don't have anything nice to say... don't say anything? No, no, but we must. The Film Experience has been uncharacteristically mum about the will they or won't they, would he and does he still, why'd she say that, and who next D-R-A-M-A  surrounding the 'Kevin Hart no not Kevin Hart but maybe NO not Kevin Hart again' Hosting duties of the 91st Academy Awards.

A quick heavily editorialized summary and some Oscar hand-wringing.

Chapter 1. December 4th. Kevin Hart hired to host.

Chapter 2. December 5th. LGBTQ people and their allies complained about his extremely obvious homophobia as evident in unfunny jokes about gay people or gayness including a threat of physical violence if he caught his son playing with dolls...

Homophobia and misogyny are bosom buddies, you know.

Chapter 3. December 6th. Kevin Hart is asked to apologize and refuses to...

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Tweetweek: Endgame

RELATABLE CONTENT! 

this is the moment in the ten-best-list-making process when elation about the number of excellent movies released this year turns into despair about the number of excellent movies released this year.

— 32 across (@aoscott) November 29, 2018

if glenn close and amy adams both win oscars this year the only thing i'll be able to talk about in therapy will be my fear of intimacy!! ugh

— Ben, doing festive for EYES WIDE SHUT season (@RealToddHaynes) November 26, 2018

LOL. 

After the jump more curated short-attention-span amusements for you weekly skimming pleasure. Social media is fun if you take it in small doses (and not too seriously). Tweets follow featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rock Hudson,  Roma jokes, suggestions to replace Kevin Hart at the Oscars, and selected reactions to the Avengers: Infinity War teaser and the Globe nominations...

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Hugh Jackman at 50

by Eric Blume

Hugh Jackman celebrating his 50th birthday.

Let’s all take a moment to celebrate the half-century birthday of one of our most versatile and underrated actors, Hugh Jackman.

Underrated, you question?  Sure, Hugh has a Best Actor Tony for The Boy from Oz, an Emmy Award for hosting the Academy Awards, and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Les Miserables.  But if you asked folks to list ten of the best working actors, would most people remember to put him on their list?

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Jimmy Kimmel Is Your Oscar Host

Chris here with a long-awaited announcement. After months of waiting we finally have our Oscar host: comedian Jimmy Kimmel. The choice is somewhat expected considering The Oscars will be on ABC and he's their current flagship late-nighter. If Kimmel is either overly safe or uninspired, remember things could be even worse: Jimmy Fallon is hosting the Golden Globes and James Corden is hosting the Grammys. Maybe we should find hosting options beyond the James/Jimmys of the world?

The next concern is what a Kimmel-hosted Oscarcast will look and sound like. Oscar hosts typically have at least nine months to prepare, so might he just rely on his standard late-night schtick? One shudders to think what a Mean Tweets segment might look like with our favorites like Viola Davis being potential victims. However, wouldn't it be something to see Isabelle Huppert lead one of those "I ate all of your Halloween candy" pranks - like duping the eventual nominees into believing their nomination has been revoked?

Kimmel pulled off some good notices for hosting the Emmys, but he doesn't have much of a film background. We'll see if he does enough catch up on this year's films to make the smooth transition. What do you think of Kimmel as a host?

Chris Rock is Your Oscar Host ...Again

Kieran, here. It was officially confirmed earlier this morning that Chris Rock will host the 88th Academy Awards. This will be Rock's second stint as Oscar emcee after his gig at the 2004 Oscars (held in 2005...get it right). I want to first say that I am a Chris Rock fan. His social commentary, particularly about race in America, is incredibly incisive. That being said, I can't say I'm super eager to see Rock as host again. If you hold Chris Rock up against the people who have hosted since he first did, he'd rank him somewhere in the lower middle; he didn't reach the gold standard that was Hugh Jackman in 2008 nor was he the abysmal basement that was Seth MacFarlane in 2012.

With many eyes on the annual announcement of the Oscar host, we wonder why more attention isn't paid to who's actually producing the show. They're the ones determining the architecture of an Oscar telecast much more so than the host. Jackman was a terrific host but Bill Condon really deserves a lot of credit for hiring great writers and coming up with that simple yet cohesive structure of the show. On the lower end of the spectrum, Anne Hathaway has a better Oscar hosting gig in her than what we saw -- blame the writing and the production (and James Franco) for that show. 

The Chris Rock announcement is unsurprising (save for their earlier buzz that we'd have two hosts... perhaps a duo turned them down?). AMPAS often retreats to someone familiar after they experiment with a frisky choice and it (arguably) doesn't go well. Think Billy Crystal in reaction to Franco and Hathaway and Ellen DeGeneres in reaction to Seth MacFarlane. After Neil Patrick Harris' hosting gig received mixed response at best, I suspected that a familiar face, most likely a stand-up comedian would get the job. Fingers crossed that Rock has learned his lesson and doesn't make an ill-timed "Who is Michael Fassbender?" joke. 

Are you excited to see Chris Rock return as host?