Oscar Notes, Past & Present

It's Oscar Sunday.  I've seen all the Oscar nominees for Best Picture.  All except one, that is.  I'm still trying to get through BOYHOOD.  Or, as I call it, 12 YEARS A CAUCASIAN.  If this movie had been shot in one year, like most movies usually are, would it have received all those Oscar nominations?                                

A half hour into it, when I saw white kids playing golf, I said "Lord, help me, Jesus.  And there are two more hours of this?"  Part of me still feels that Boyhood got the Oscar attention that Richard Linklater's 2011 film, Bernie, should've gotten but didn't.  Jack Black should've been up for Best Actor and Shirley MacLaine should've been up for Best Supporting Actress.

Tonight, we'll see how the Academy feels about Boyhood.  And another thing -- Patricia Arquette is the lead female character in Boyhood.  How the heck did she get nominated for Best Supporting Actress?  She's the mother.  Who is she supporting?  To me, the daughter is the supporting character. The mom is the main woman.

The only time the Oscar ceremonies telecast was ever postponed until a later day was in 1968, out of respect for the assassination and funeral of civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King.  America was in mourning.  King was killed in early April, the time when the Oscars were usually presented.  This year, there's controversy over the Academy's lack of racial diversity.  This friction arose when the widely acclaimed SELMA got only two Oscar nominations -- for Best Picture and Best Song.  Nothing for actor David Oyelowo who gave a brilliant, compelling performance as Dr. Martin Luther King and no nomination for director Ava DuVernay.  I think Hollywood will try to smooth things out tonight by giving the song performance a standing ovation and/or giving a standing ovation to actor David Oyelowo when he takes the stage as a presenter.

Other than that, I would not be surprised if Clint Eastwood's AMERICAN SNIPER pulls off a sort of Grace Kelly over Judy Garland/Crash over Brokeback Mountain surprise victory.  I would've given the Oscars to Judy Garland (for A Star Is Born) and Brokeback Mountain.  But that's just me.

To get you in the mood for Hollywood Prom Night, here are some short clips with Oscar recipients.  Kirk Douglas received a special 1996 Academy Award.  His son, Michael, was Best Actor for 1987's Wall Street.  His first Oscar came for producing One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Best Picture of 1975. The legendary star of Spartacus, Lust for Life, Paths of Glory, Ace in the Hole and The Bad and The Beautiful was my sole guest on the premiere edition of my VH1 talk show.  Here, we chatted about his Oscar-winning son.

Michael Caine had won a 1986 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters when he was on my show.  He'd win another for 1999's The Cider House Rules.  He made his screen debut in 1964's Zulu, a historical war epic.  The producer, Joseph E. Levine, told young Michael Caine that he'd never be a star.

Shirley MacLaine won her Best Actress Oscar for 1983's Terms of Endearment.  The film also won the Best Picture Oscar.  The director, James L. Brooks, threw the actress a curve ball the night before principal shooting began.  She told me about that on VH1.

Cameron Crowe won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his wonderful 2000 film, Almost Famous.  He interviewed and was greatly influenced by famed director/writer Billy Wilder.  Crowe told me that he wanted Kate Hudson's Penny Lane character in Almost Famous to have an endearing quality like Shirley MacLaine's Fran Kubelik in Billy Wilder's The Apartment.

In a special 2000 hour interview, Crowe talked about his movie and his mentor.

Thanks for letting me take you down memory lane with a few Oscar owners.  Have fun watching the big show tonight.  If you're having an Oscar pool and need to print out lists of nominees, go here:
oscar.go.com.

On THE STAR and THE OSCAR

It's time once again for that world-famous, talent competition telecast.  Yes, the Oscars.  Also called The Gay Super Bowl.  And Hollywood Prom Night.  This year, however, it's more like Hollywood Prom Night -- at a school before court-ordered desegregation took effect.  Did you get a look at all the nominated actors and actresses?  I haven't seen a more Caucasian group since The Von Trapp Family Singers in The Sound of Music.

Oh, well.  That's Hollywood.  For now.

If you want some Oscars-related movie entertainment before entertainment reporters start asking "Who did your dress?" during Red Carpet TV coverage, I have a couple of DVD tips for you.  This is a fun DVD double feature that's good for grins with friends this Oscar weekend.

When I cut the short podcast attached below, my first pick was not on DVD.  Well, it is now.  It stars the late, talented and handsome Hollywood actor, Stephen Boyd.

William Wyler's 1959 remake of Ben-Hur made Hollywood history.  His new version of a 1920s silent film hit was a box office and Oscars blockbuster.  It won 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Charlton Heston) and Best Supporting Actor.  British actor Hugh Griffith won Best Supporting Actor for donning dark make-up and playing a warm-hearted Arab who helps the Jewish hero played by Heston.

That Best Supporting Actor Oscar, in my opinion, should've gone to Stephen Boyd for his fierce and memorable performance as Messala, the villainous Roman.  Messala loved the Jewish Ben-Hur deeply when they were both teens.  He hates him now that they are men and Messala is a Roman soldier following orders from his emperor.  Messala sends Ben-Hur into slavery during the time of Christ.

Boyd burns up the screen with that excellent performance.  He was never nominated for an Oscar in his film career.  But he was a greedy character nominated for Best Actor in 1966's THE OSCAR, finally on DVD.  This movie is so bad it's good.  Like Snakes on a Plane.  Boyd plays Frankie Fane, a tough street hustler who claws his way to Hollywood stardom.  He's fast with his wits, with his fists... and with his penis.

Frankie turns on the charm to use anyone and do anything to win that Oscar.  His best friend, the guy who knows where all the bodies are hidden, is played by singer Tony Bennett.  Bennett's current singing partner, Lady Gaga, performs on the Oscars telecast Sunday night on ABC, by the way.

The movie's action takes place when the Academy Awards ceremony was held in Santa Monica.  They later moved to downtown L.A.  Now they're in Hollywood.  The Oscar  is colorful trash with flash, star-studded cheese, and it has costumes by Edith Head.  Elke Sommer stars as the love interest.  Her hairstyles in The Oscar  would go on to inspire a generation of little girls who needed styling tips to be on cable's Toddlers & Tiaras.

The other DVD rental stars two-time Best Actress Oscar winner, Bette Davis.  She won both her Oscars in the 1930s and, after a lull in her film career, make a sensational, legendary film comeback in the 1950 classic, All About Eve.  That film brought her another Best Actress Oscar nomination.  THE STAR came out in 1952.  Davis plays down and out Hollywood star, Margaret Elliott.

The fading film star will drink and take her Oscar out for a drive.

 And she'll do a little time in a Hollywood jail.

However...a big, hot hunk o' beefcake will fall in love with her.

Seeing Bette Davis as a hot mess who needs a reality check is reason enough for some festive drinks and some food.  Here's my short podcast on The Star and The Oscar -- now both available on DVD:

bobbyrivers.podomatic.com/entry/2011-02-26T19_54_14-08_00.

These two old movies are way better than this year's The Wedding Ringer starring Kevin Hart and Johnny Depp as Mortdecai.  Trust me on this.  Enjoy the Oscars Sunday night, Feb. 22nd, on ABC.  Check out the ABC website for the Oscars®, which has printable lists of the nominees, here:
oscar.go.com.

KNX NewsRadio on Hollywood Diversity

"Is Hollywood the last non-equal opportunity employer?"  KNX 1070 NewsRadio in Los Angeles poses that diversity issue question in a special KNX Spotlight this coming Friday morning.  Listen on your radio or on your computer.  The live special is called "Fade to White."

I was slack-jawed when actor David Oyelowo and director Ava DuVernay were not announced as Oscar nominees for Selma.  Slack-jawed and disappointed.

Furthermore, as entertainment reports noted, the list of Oscar-nominated actors is whiter than Christmas with Rush Limbaugh.

What is going on in Hollywood behind the scenes?  Why the lack of diversity over ten years into a new century?  Personally, I feel the problem is not just in casting black and other minority actors.  It's in several outlets of entertainment and even news.  Not to put the attention on me, but here's my story and I know other black performers can relate -- because they've told me so.

Early 2008.  I met with the broadcast agent at ICM.  At the time, I was a full-time on-air regular member of Whoopi Goldberg's national weekday morning radio show.  I was seen in Monday through Friday daytimes repeats as host of a Food Network TV show that had been airing for six years .  Also, I was a comic actor seen as a recurring news character in comedy videos from The Onion.  Those pieces aired on MSNBC.  And I was the first black person to host a prime time weeknight celebrity talk show VH1, a performance that earned me a good review on my photo on the front page of the Arts & Leisure section in a Sunday edition of The New York Times in the late 1980s.  The ICM agent said, "I wouldn't know what to do with you."

Did anyone say that to Mo Rocca?  He did comedy news pieces for The Daily Show.  He hosts a show on the Cooking Channel.  And he does celebrity interviews on the CBS Sunday Morning program.  I heard pretty much the same rejection from three other top agencies.  I don't mean to imply they're bad companies.  No.  They are top agencies.  That was my personal experience as a black performer.  If you don't have a manager -- and I don't -- an agent can help you land auditions for future work.  All the work I mentioned above?  Those are all gigs I booked without the benefit of a broadcast agent.

I fully understand the frustration of minority talent in Hollywood.  We all constantly come up with ways to keep ourselves in the loop for work consideration.  We've got to get creative and make our own luck because the playing field is not level. We are grateful for all the support we can get.

Look at the frustration of black actresses as an example of the diversity problem.  Whoopi Goldberg and Viola Davis are the only black actresses with two Oscar nominations to their credit -- in the entire history of the Oscars.  All other black actress up for the award got one nomination and that was it.  Not because they weren't talented -- but because good script opportunities weren't there for them.  Most had to turn to TV. Whoopi Goldberg and Viola Davis turned to TV.  So did Oscar nominees Taraji P. Henson, Queen Latifah, Alfre Woodard and Gabourey Sidibe.  Jennifer Hudson followed her Oscar win for Dreamgirls with appearances on NBC's Broadway-based TV series, Smash.  She's not been given another big screen musical.  Veteran black and Latina actresses such as West Side Story Oscar winner Rita Moreno, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee and Angela Bassett got one Oscar nomination.  Jennifer Lawrence, still in her 20s, has three nominations to her credit that include one Oscar win.  No black actress in Oscar history has three nominations. Jennifer Lawrence has three.  And better script opportunities, I'm sure.

Director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo got the kind of rave reviews that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks got for Saving Private Ryan.  Those were Oscar reviews.  So when we didn't hear their names announced as Oscar nominees, it hurt.  Oyelowo was riveting as Dr. Martin Luther King.  Selma is a Best Picture nominee.  Its only other nomination is for Best Song.

African-American filmmakers have a big problem that's rarely probed in Hollywood news.  They're told black films don't sell and they play well overseas.  Only the big stars like Will Smith and Denzel Washington get their A-list films distributed to foreign audiences.  How can our work be marketable if it's not distributed abroad?  The recent red carpet premiere of Selma in Berlin, which director Ava DuVernay attended, proved that our films are greeted enthusiastically overseas.  Black filmmakers need lots more support getting their product distributed to foreign audiences.  The foreign audiences know and imitate black hip-hop music.  But they don't get our films as much as they get our music. If an Oscar nomination brings about an Academy membership invitation, how is a filmmaker going to get that nomination if audiences can't  see his/her work?  Also, do black filmmakers get shots at directing major Hollywood studio releases?  I asked Spike Lee that in the late 1990s when I interviewed him for Ch. 5's Good Day New York.  He told me he wished he'd be offered a Batman action/adventure to direct.  But it wouldn't happen.

Here's another major color wall:  Remember when network TV morning shows had regular movie critics?  Remember the critics on syndicated TV shows?  All white males.  We minorities have to push and push to get an on-camera spot reviewing movies.  It's 2015.  If you asked most white TV viewers to name three black people they've seen review movies regularly on national TV, they could only name two.  And those two would be the "Men on Film" duo from the comedy sketch show In Living Color back in the 1990s.

When it comes to film reviewers on national television, black critics have not been invited to take part in the film arts discussion.  That goes for Latinos and Asian-Americans too.

There needs to be more racial diversity in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.  Blacks make up 2%.  Latinos make up less than 2% of the membership.  I grew up in South Central L.A.  Those percentages do not represent the Los Angeles that I know.  It sure doesn't represent the New York that I've known for 20 years.

In all my years of meetings at top agencies in New York City and Los Angeles, rarely have I seen a black agent.  I saw one at William Morris in 1990.  The black and Latino employees at top agencies were usually the receptionists, the assistants or worked in the mailroom.  And they were the ones who knew more about my work than the Caucasian agents did. Why are there so few African American and Latino agents in the top agencies of Hollywood and New York City?

In the early 90s, I had a terrific time hosting a summer replacement syndicated TV game show (another gig I got without an agent).  We all hoped the show would get picked up for a full season but, unfortunately, it didn't.  A few years later, I had lunch with a member of the Hollywood game show's production team.  A very smart, very blond guy.  He told me that the camera crew dug me, and the writers dug me...but he was a bit surprised when the top producers -- after I'd gone home -- would discuss whether or not America was ready for a black game show host.  Again, this was the early 1990s.  I doubt talent like Rosie O'Donnell, Tom Bergeron, Carson Daly and Billy Bush ever caused producers to ask if America was ready for another Caucasian TV show host.  As I've written before...we minority performers aren't just lucky if we get the same on-camera opportunities white performers get, we're lucky if we can a chance to audition for the possible opportunities.  I still consider myself lucky and grateful to get auditions.  Hell, I wish I had a shot at covering the Oscars in Hollywood this weekend.

Progress has been made but there's still work to be done.  Bravo to KNX NewsRadio for taking on this issue.

Listen to the live KNX Spotlight entitled "Fade to White" on Friday, Feb. 20th, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific/1:00p.m. Eastern.  The hosts will take phone calls and read tweets.  The station's Twitter handle is @KNX1070.

Most of my readers have seen this already.  If you haven't, here's a sample reel of my VH talk show host work.  I could not get a good broadcast agent during or after this gig:

There's other work of mine on www.YouTube.com/BobbyRiversTV.

Yes, LOVE IS STRANGE

The touching, tender and timely story, LOVE IS STRANGE, got rated R.  We meet a gay male couple in New York City forced to find a new place to live when one loses his job in a city stricken with wildly escalating rents and housing prices.  This happens after Ben and George gather some family and friends together for their wedding.  Alfred Molina (George) and John Lithgow (Ben) are very much in love.  And they've been together for 39 years.

The sexiest thing you see in this film is a shirtless John Lithgow as Ben the artist.

Why did this poignant film receive the R rating?  Because of...language.  In the last 15 minutes of the movie, the gay married couple laughs over drinks in a local bar and recounts an event from decades earlier.  The two called some of the characters involved "...crazy motherfu**ers."  You hear that term three times.  You can hear that same kind of language from groups of high schoolers on the streets when classes are done for the day.  Love Is Strange deserved nothing more severe than a PG-13.  Or did the ratings board slap an R on this film because it's about a gay married couple?

In Love Is Strange, we see mostly upscale New Yorkers in Greenwich Village.  George and Ben have the kind of relatives and friends who'd use their big PBS tote bags to carry home groceries they'd purchased at Whole Foods.  But the dramatic wrench thrown into George and Ben's life is something that mainstream working class viewers can connect to because it's happening all over.  I know.  I lost my job, then lost my apartment.  I had to move in with relatives.  George was a music teacher at a Catholic school.  Corporate Catholicism and archaic views cut the good teacher away from his steady income.  The archdiocese has no problem with him being gay.  It has a problem with him being open about it and committing in a ceremony to the man he loves.  After years of fine service and contributing to the community, George gets fired by a priest.  Wow.  Would Jesus have fired him?

We're in a Recession.  George and Ben are an older couple.  Now they need a place to live while George hunts for a new job and while they sell their apartment for income.  They must separate and each live with different relatives or friends until they can get their own place again.  Some situations provide nice light comedy.  Others break your heart.  You care about George and Ben so much due to the extraordinary acting from Lithgow and Molina.  They truly seem like a couple that's been together happily for nearly 40 years.  These two loving individuals have grown into one unit over the years and to see them endure the separation, to see them work around it and remain a couple shows you that the title is accurate -- love is strange.  And powerful.

George lives with two young cops -- another gay male couple.  Ben lives with his nephew, a straight married family man.  His novelist wife, played by Marisa Tomei, gave a gushy and long toast (in which she reminds all that she's a novelist) at George and Ben's wedding reception.  She's not exactly gushy about having Ben live with them.  She's not mean.  She just likes the same predictable home life -- a daily life that's like a beige piece of linen. Something that doesn't wrinkle.  Ben is sweetly chatty and has a healthy appetite.  Ben's nephew has no problem with this.  The novelist wife sees Ben as a wrinkle, an inconvenience.  Yet she is younger.  She and her husband have their jobs and their own place.  As a novelist, she's blind to seeing the experience as inspiration, a window into a human condition that could illuminate her future writing.

The bar scene, sort of a date night for the separated George and Ben, is golden.  After all those years, after that major life disappointment, they can still laugh, love and discover new things about each other.

And this is the scene that got Love Is Strange an R rating.  Ain't THAT a motherfu**er.

If, last month, Love Is Strange had brought John Lithgow his third Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, I'd have cheered.  I would not been alone.  If it had brought Alfred Molina his first Oscar nomination, I'd have shouted "It's about time!"  He's never been an Oscar nominee.  That's hard to believe when you've seen his work as the under-appreciated partner to a sexually and artistically popular young British playwright in Prick Up Your Ears (1987), as Diego opposite Salma Hayek in the Frida Kahlo biopic, Frida (2002) and as the father to Carey Mulligan's character in An Education (2009).

I saw this on the big screen last year when critics loved the movie and hated the rating it got.  I loved the movie too.  I saw it again last weekend on DVD.  It touched me even more.  I shed a few tears thinking of much I still miss my late partner.  Love Is Strange director and writer, Ira Sachs, gave us a fine piece of work, free of stereotypes and full of heart.  If you're a classic film fan, Love Is Strange has echoes of Leo McCarey's 1937 masterpiece, Make Way For Tomorrow.  In that, an older couple is broke. Husband and wife lose their home.  None of their five adult kids, who are comfortable, will take them in together.  Mom and Dad must separate and live with a child while senior Dad attempts to re-enter the workforce.  It's also on DVD.

As for movie ratings, I have another recommendation for you.  The revealing and highly entertaining 2006 documentary by Kirby Dick.  He is one of the many frustrated filmmakers who wants to know who the members of the ratings board are and how they rate films the way they do.  Why does it seem that a semi-naked woman being chased in the woods by a crazy man with a hatchet is a PG-13 movie, but a happy mother breastfeeding her newborn child onscreen in a drama lands an R rating?  Is there some sort of sexist, homophobic vibe going on in Hollywood's ratings committee?  Who are the mysterious board members making ratings decisions?  Kirby Dick hires a lesbian private detective to get on the case.  She is a fabulous character. Check out Dick's documentary THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.

Several frustrated and noted film directors, actors and movie critics vent in this documentary.  If you see it, you won't be surprised at the injustice of Love Is Strange getting an R rating.

A New UNCLE BUCK

Remember the hit 1989 John Hughes comedy that starred the late John Candy?  There was a failed TV sitcom version in 1990.

Well...he's coming back to television.  He's slated to be on ABC.  And this time, according to Roger Friedman's Showbiz 411 online, "Uncle Buck will be black."  The casting notices reportedly seek actors for its all African American cast.  Uncle Buck will be "a free-wheeling force of nature."  He will have a serious brother who has 3 kids.  Out of work Uncle Buck will became the kids' male nanny.

Wow!  I couldn't be more excited.

Why?  Because this will mark the first time that black actors have gotten significant roles in a John Hughes project.

Yes, I know he was a beloved filmmaker.  His movies starring Molly Ringwald, John Candy, Matthew Broderick and little Macauley Culkin were fun.  But, c'mon.  Seriously.  Look at 1985's hit teen tale of high school detention angst, The Breakfast Club directed by Hughes...

...  and 1986's popular high school comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off, also directed by Hughes...

...and the huge box office hit comedy Home Alone, written by John Hughes.

Those comedies have action that takes place in Chicago or in the Chicago suburbs.  I spent a lot of time  in and around Chicago in the 1980s.  There were definitely black folks present.  Lots of them.  Remember Oprah's daytime talk show?  We saw black folks in her Chicago audiences every weekday.  Compare the Hughes entertainment mentioned above to the 1975 comedy Cooley High which The New York Times praised and called "the black American Graffiti."  It takes place on the North Side of Chicago.

In the John Hughes comedies, where were the black actors -- even in supporting roles?  The only ethnic actor/character from a John Hughes movie I can immediately recall is actor Gedde Watanabe from 1984's Sixteen Candles. And he played a high school geek called Long Duk Dong.

Black filmmaker Michael Shultz directed Cooley High.  A Milwaukee native, he also directed the big screen releases Car Wash (1976) and the big budget Hollywood musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978).  He's now a respected TV director having helmed episodes of such top network shows as Ally McBeal, The Practice, Brothers & Sisters and Black-ish.

John Hughes' The Breakfast Club turns 30 this week.  It'll be released on Blu-ray on March 30th.  Showbiz 411 also reports that The Breakfast Club will have special anniversary cineplex screenings on March 26th and March 31st.

Trouble in THE LOFT

Five husbands want a little nookie on the side.  They get a place for hook-ups with hot blondes.  Something goes horribly wrong.  There's a dead babe in the bed...in THE LOFT.  Who killed her?  It seems they've been set up by the murderer.  One of the guys nervously blurts, "Who'd want to frame us?"  I wanted to shout at the screen, "Probably the writer of the original script that inspired this cheesy remake!"

This is an American reproduction of a 2008 Belgian drama.  Our version was shot in 2011, but it was just released two weeks ago.  Released?  Escaped is more like it.

So...the five married buddies want to have occasional flings but need a secret location to be their Erection Central.  They get a loft.  By the way, all the sexually desirable bimbos in the movie are blondes.  The wives are brunettes.  None of these married men is really likable and that's a script problem.  It's also a casting problem because two of them are played by actors we've liked on weekly TV.  The attractive man standing is actor Karl Urban.  Next to him is Eric Stonestreet of ABC's hit sitcom, Modern Family and behind Stonestreet is Wentworth Miller, formerly of Fox's Prison Break.

In The Loft, Stonestreet plays a boozing, big-mouthed, hetero married man who likes banging chicks in the butt. But he doesn't like fat dames.  Yes.  Stocky Eric Stonestreet plays a man who won't buy a drink for a plus-sized woman.  Wentworth plays the brainy fixer of sorts.  If a floozy gets out of control, he talks a little sense into her head.  Also in the cast is handsome and talented James Marsden  as one of the loft guys.

The friends will freak out and start bickering when the body is discovered.  Stonestreet is really miscast.  He's a good actor, as are others in the movie.  But Eric Stonestreet has charmed America with his performance as the big, lovable gay dad on Modern Family so much that seeing him in this sleazy movie is like finding your grandmother drunk and twerking on the front lawn during your summer vacation.

The dead blonde was handcuffed to the bed and the killer wrote something in Latin on the headboard behind a pillow.

Except for Vatican City employees, who the heck speaks Latin nowadays?  What the heck was that all about?  Those horny married men didn't speak Latin.  The cops didn't speak Latin.  The screenwriter couldn't have put that headboard message in English or Spanish or Italian?  This is a raunchy murder mystery with hookers.  Not a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

If Julius Caesar had paid to see this movie, halfway through it he would've turned to Brutus and said, "Kill me.  Just kill me now.  Please."

I hate seeing good actors with bad material.  The Loft is a mess.