About the Oscars more generally...

I didn't watch all of the Oscars this year, and I'm actually rather tired of the (annual) "why the show doesn't work anymore" analysis.   But I will add my two cents worth:

*    the redesign to have the nominees sitting at tables instead of rows of seats made it look cheaper and riper for trouble - even if the guests were not being served drinks and food, like at the Golden Globes or the (ugh) Logies.   Ironically, it was the ease with which this made getting to the stage which probably contributed to Will Smith doing his slap - if he had to get past a few sets of knees while sitting in a row he might not have bothered.

*   it really did seem very, um, black, this year, even apart from the Smith incident.   The "diversity is good and needs to be celebrated" theme - which has run for many years, I guess - does now seem to me to be getting a tad OTT.   

*   stars and celebrities have always been not necessarily the sharpest, and its true that social media now means we can now learn directly about some of their dumber views and sometimes sordid personal lives.  But before social media, there were gossip and movie magazines which gave us some insight.   A good performance in a movie remains a good performance, regardless of dumb or nutty personal views.

*   basically, the world is in a funk due to a multitude of issues and I guess we shouldn't be surprised if this spills over into everything.  

On a related Hollywood note:  lots of people this week are feeling sorry for Bruce Willis, and sure, it's sad to hear of anyone getting that type of disease.  But I thought his career followed a really remarkable trajectory of downwards likeability in the roles he chose.  He seemed a particularly embittered man after breaking up with Demi Moore - I still remember an interview show he did with Bob Geldorf as another guest, in which he basically said all relationships end in pain and unhappiness, so he was never going to have another, or something like that.