I received this email today from Gene Oliver, of the RKO ALLRED5 movie theater in Pryor, Oklahoma. He’s responding to Sunday night’s Oscar diss of cineplexes by Jerry Seinfeld. (Said the comedian: “In movie theaters now, they’re trying to get you to pick up the garbage around your seat. I’m picking nothing up. I’m the…

Post-Oscars Paramount is going announcement crazy today. Guess it’s that studio’s way of over-compensating for Babel‘s Best Picture loss. (Chin up, guys: at least you got the An Inconvenient Truth documentary win.): Newly crowned Oscar winner Marty Scorsese will join with Mick Jagger and direct The Long Play, a film…

Just remember, you heard it here first: I predict Jerry Seinfeld will be next year’s Oscar host, and he’ll have the gig for several years. His memorable appearance on the 79th Academy Awards was tantamount to an audition — not just to see if the show liked him, but to see if he liked the show. After all, with his Seinf…

UPDATED: *According to news reports, ratings for the 2007 Oscars improved a little over last year’s telecast. An average of 39.9 million people watched the 79th annual Academy Awards on ABC last night. That’s an improvement of 1 million viewers over last year’s Oscar telecast. The show ran about 3 hours and 50 minutes…

I heard Alan Horn’s name (Warner Bros.). And Brad Grey’s name (Paramount, along with John Lesher’s at Paramount Classics). But one merciful first of this Oscars broadcast was that hardly any lawyers or agents were thanked this time around. There’ll be hell to pay come Monday morning for that oversight, trust…

There’s no great mystery as to why The Departed won Best Picture and Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was a terrific film. It made a lot of money so the public liked it enormously. It had classy actors and a crackling script. Marty Scorsese was the sentimental favorite going into…

I’ll remember this 79th Academy Awards show as a mostly black-and-white amateur hour shot in the style of the 1950s. I feel compelled to ask whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is aware that the world now has color television? Where James Taylor singing Randy Newman’s song “Our Town” from Cars…

Erroll Morris’ interviews of the nominees kicks off the show. And it lays a huge egg. The package is too inside. And the TV viewing audience has no idea who most of these people are. When, oh when, is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences going to stop being so “insider” on their telecast. How, in the world…

Hey, weren’t the Oscars supposed to start early this year? That’s what the official Academy Awards website kept saying. That’s what the ads said. So basically, the public was lied to! With the show starting 30 minutes later than expected, it’s doubtful that people on the East Coast are going to stay up to see the end…

Joan Rivers is sounding sane, although someone has given Melissa a thingamajig to “illustrate” the Red Carpet activity. So, on your TV screen, all you see are white scrawl marks. Will Smith’s son, who starred with him in The Pursuit of Happyness, will be presenting tonight, Will tells Joan. Clearly Rivers is trying…

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