Results tagged “Oscars” from ARTicles

There's a great scene near the beginning of the movie "In & Out" where Oscar nominee Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), walking the red carpet on the way into the ceremony, pauses for an interview with entertainment reporter Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck).

"Everyone's saying that you won't be going home empty-handed," the reporter says. "How do you feel about that?"

"Well, basically, to me, uh, awards are meaningless," the star replies. "Um, I'm an artist, uh, it's about the work, all the nominees are artists -- we shouldn't be forced to compete with each other like dogs."

"Well, I hear ya. Good point," the reporter says. "So then why're you here?"

"'Case I win," the star says, flashing a smile. Then he turns and waves to the screaming fans.

I mention this because all day I've been trying -- futilely, as it happens -- to resist the urge to respond to Ben Brantley's take on this year's drama Pulitzer. "I have never bought a book, read a poem or seen a play because it was by a Pulitzer winner," he writes in today's New York Times. "So any indignation being vented over this year's Pulitzer Prize in drama leaves me a bit mystified."

Even if he hadn't qualified his lack of respect for the Pulitzers by confining it to "the categories devoted to the arts" -- a handy asterisk for a newspaper reviewer -- that would be a curious, rather navel-gazing thing for a critic to say. He's right, of course, that "the Pulitzers have usually gone to firmly middlebrow works." Even so, dismissing the awards as measures of artistic merit is one thing; denying their power is another. The Pulitzer Prize may be a marketing tool, but that doesn't make it meaningless.

It would be priggish to ignore the run-up to the Oscars as the week's big arts story -- though it's safe to say none of us needs to read another piece comparing "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker." It is, after all, a packed field this year.

So packed, what with the 10 nominees for best picture, that the Kodak Theatre is getting uncomfortably crowded, at least in terms of the number of people jostling for orchestra seats. In a story about Oscar-ceremony ticket demand, Variety raises the specter of nominated producers being seated in the parterre. Horrors: the back of the house!

The Wall Street Journal does the math and concludes that a best-picture statue for "The Hurt Locker" would smash a record held by Woody Allen since 1978: lowest-grossing winner "in modern history -- and maybe ever." Women & Hollywood, meanwhile, contemplates what it means if Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win best director, and what it means if she doesn't.

The New York Times poses the question, "Do the Oscars Undermine Artistry?," while the Associated Press notes the corn industry's very different concern: that a best-documentary win for "Food, Inc." could damage its reputation.

Also, a bit of fun: The Los Angeles Times suggests chocolate dresses as a good look for the red carpet, and TheWrap offers a story and slideshow on a pair of human-size, "mysterious 'skeleton-Oscar' statues" that appeared Thursday morning in Los Angeles, one near the Hollywood sign.

When it comes to covering live events, print arts journalists often use blogs to either 1) dump stuff from their notebooks online that wouldn't otherwise get into print; or 2) write in the same style and format as the print edition.

When it comes to covering live award shows such as the Grammys and Oscars, however, the best thing is to think past the old mindset of the next-day wire-story-style wrap up. Use the advantages of the blog to create an immediacy and connection with your audience. We have a tiny staff at The Fresno Bee, but we manage to cover live awards shows that draws in readers in ways that a next-day wire story never could. Our pop music writer, Mike Osegueda, is really good at this with the Grammys. I did it last year with the Oscars as well, and we're already running promo house ads to join "Donald's Oscar Blog Party."

Here are some tips for making awards-show blogs work: