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01/22/2008: "And The Nominees Are ..."

Every town has those industries with which they are forever identified - Pittsburgh and steel, Houston and oil, New York and mugging - even when those industries diminish their presence or move away. For Los Angeles, we will always be tied to the entertainment business, even as much of the work moves elsewhere. You can't go far in LA without stumbling across those cryptic yellow signs used to direct workers to location sets without attracting too much attention. In my case, every morning I drive past the southwest corner of Aviation and Rosecrans Blvds, where the building used as the police headquarters for CSI Miami is located. More often than not, there's some kind of filming going on there.

These days, though, things are strained in the movie and TV biz. Much of the activity that was once based locally has moved elsewhere as attractive tax deals north of the border and elsewhere siphon off much of the business (not counting all the filming in the west end of San Fernando, better knows as "Porn Valley" - now that's a growth industry ). Local municipalities and residents complain when freeways or major highways are closed for filming (they shot the action scenes in the latest "Die Hard" installment about 50 yards of my office in El Segundo). And then there's the current writer's strike, which threatens to kill the industry entirely.

There are still those high moments for the industry, though, and this morning was one of them, as the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards were announced. The nominating committee continued with their recent trend of rewarding particularly violent or depressing movies, as both "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" led the way with eight nominations each, followed by George Clooney vehicle "Michael Clayton" and the WWII love story "Atonement". Among the pleasant surprises were a pair of octogenarians receiving Best Supporting Actor/Actress nominations - 83-yr-old Ruby Dee for "American Gangster" and 82-yr-old Hal Holbrook for "Into The Wild".

Now, it's been a long time since my tastes and those of the Academy have been similar, so once again most of the films and performances nominated are strangers to me. Filmmakers these days seem to feel that in order to fill the big screen, they must be equally big in their violence, realism and shock value. Frankly, with all that is going on in the world today, the last thing I need in a move is realistic shocking violence. Hell, I can get that from the news. What I want is friendly escapism, which is probably why I only saw two movies this year - "Superbad" and "The Simpsons Movie", although I'll admit I want to see "Juno".

Of course, it could all be for naught if they don't straighten out the Writers' Strike, which threatens to eviscerate the Oscars the way it did the Golden Globes. The Academy wields a whole lot more clout than the Hollywood Foreign Press does, however, so expect things to work themselves out in time for Hollywood's big night.