THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED
I’ve been a little out of the WGA strike loop unless you count playing Laura Linney’s Speechless short film on loop (Hilarious even the 80th time!) I don’t know what’s going on anymore… just that all the news seems to be bad news. But ModFab pointed me to a Hollywood Insider article about the latest setback: WGA not granting waivers to the awards shows. Quite possibly that could mean no film clips.
ModFab wisely suggests more Debbie Allen interpretative dance numbers to fill up the 3 hour broadcast. That’s a great suggestion. Imagine what she could do to… excuse me... for No Country For Old Men. Imagine the tap break possibilities for Into the Wild5 Ways to Make the Oscars Insanely Entertaining Without The Use of Film Clips
1. Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There) forced on stage to impersonate all of her fellow supporting actress nominees. Can she “do” Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) as well as she apes Dylan & Hepburn? Would capturing the precocious bad seed Saorsie Ronan (Atonement) finally prove too much for her estimable technique? If she pulls it off can they hand her 6 Oscars on the spot. One for each mimicry job + Bob Dylan.
2. All best actor candidates thrown naked into a Russian bathhouse set to fend off real life assassins with their bare hands. Only Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) is exempt from this challenge, already having demonstrated his bad assery…and his ass.3. They could nominate five truly great songs instead of schmaltzy power ballads and then give the actual performers ample time to si-- I'm sorry. That's too radical. What was I thinking? sheer anarchy.
4. A walk off for costume design. Keira Knightley (Atonement) in the green dress, Helena Bonham-Carter (Sweeney Todd) in decaying gothic fineries, Someone else in something else… yes, that!
5. Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd) shaves Phillip Seymour Hoffman live! I’m sorry but someone needs to. He doesn’t even try to clean up for these things.5 More Ways To Enliven a Writer-less, Clip-less Oscar Ceremony as Suggested By Readers
6. The Opinionated Australian says... "Perhaps, they can take advantage of the extra time they'll have, and stage both Oscars and Razzies on the same night? I can hardly ever tell them apart anyway." snarky... I love it.
7. Daily Tanenbaum says... "Have all the nominees in each category live in a house together and see what happens when actors stop being polite and start acting real." Funny. Do they get to vote each other off... ? cuz that's all the rage.
8. Katey says... "Coin toss with Anton Chigurh-- if you lose, Javier Bardem gets your Oscar."
9. Middento says ... "instead of the honoring the dearly departed over the past year, the Oscars hold a seance instead? The most corporeally rendered gets the loudest applause, naturally." I'm guessing that that goes to Joan Crawford who comes into nearly perfect focus (soft focus!), just itching to get back on that stage.
10. N8 says... "Hold the Oscar ceremony in an outdoor venue and invite the public. It'd be wild" Um, yes. It sure would. Why do I imagine that Sally Kirkland ends up entertaining the masses when the A-list are too afraid to show?*
You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog programming. Nathaniel is unfortunately not a member of the WGA and is therefore still type-type-typing away...
