AwardsDaily's Daily

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:55:54 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen talk about the state of the film industry and the Oscar race. Sean Penn’s January 6th movie, the first AI movie, Disclosure Day’s box office, Uwe Boll’s new movie, and whether Obsession has any Oscar prospects.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:56:06 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. After a bit of a break, Sasha, Scott, and Jeremy are back to talk about Obsession and why the horror genre allows people to be more creative. We talk about the current Oscar race and whether Cannes will be a factor this year. We talk about AI and why it is not going away anytime soon.

We’re in a Fourth Turning now. If you know, you know. That can be boiled down to this: Out with the Boomers and in with the Millennials. Nothing showcases that theory better than Bari Weiss, Scott Pelley, and 60 Minutes. With just 9 million viewers per week (making it the number-one news program on network television, which tells you where network television is headed), 60 Minutes felt like the past. My mother never missed an episode, but my daughter?

When the rumor swirled that Lupita Nyong’o had been cast as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan’s epic, The Odyssey, my first thought was oh boy, here we go again. It’s the same old ritual about to play out. Piss off the target demographic, then watch the virtue signals fly. Turn what should just be a movie for everyone into a political battleground. We’ve gone through this so many times by now that imagining yet another major wave of controversy feels exhausting. We know the routine well.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:54:42 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Sasha Stone, Jeremy Jentzen, and Scott Kernen talk about the very early Oscar race, Tom Cruise in Digger, and why we are getting ahead of ourselves and how that’s not great for the Oscars. Also, can Jafar Jackson get a nomination for Michael or is the film too controversial and the Best Actor race in general. Plus, 9/11 conspiracy theories.

The merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. has uncorked mass hysteria reminiscent of 2016. The deal has been approved. At the moment, the “Resistance” is out in force trying to stop it for only one reason: Trump. Probably nothing has killed Hollywood more than its ten-year war on Trump and anyone who voted for him. They destroyed themselves trying to destroy him, and they’ve not given up the fight.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:45:14 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen discuss the Paramount/WB merger and why it’s better for Hollywood, the Cannes Lineup that has no American movies, and we talk a bit about the catastrophic year of 2020 and how it broke America. If you’d like to opt out of these emails you can do so in your subscriber preferences.

A recent comment by Andy Weir, the writer of Project Hail Mary, has gone viral. There were a few loudmouths who objected, but for the most part, no one can read his common-sense opinion and see it as anything other than a lifeline for writers and directors in Hollywood. There is a reason so many people from all walks of life can watch Project Hail Mary: there is no whiff of “my side is better than your side,” there is no judgment placed on the “lesser” half of America.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:26:19 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen ruminate on last year’s Oscar race and what mistakes were made, and how the Oscars can improve. Project Hail Mary and way too early Oscar predictions for Best Picture. Plus, will controversy chase the Michael Jackson movie? How will Greta Gerwig’s Narnia fare? You can stop getting these emails by clicking on your subscriber preferences.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Oscar ratings were down. They dropped about 2 million on network television (and streaming combined), landing around 18 million this year after hovering near 20 million last year. But the real story isn’t ratings vs. streaming. It’s much bigger and deeper than that. The decline has less to do with the fall of network TV and the rise of streaming than with a widespread lack of interest in films and Hollywood itself.