While everyone can agree that the writers' strike has gone on for too long, they all also secretly agree that it'd be nice if it just went on for long enough to screw up the Oscars.
However, as signs of a deal tentatively edge ever-closer, it looks like the Oscars might be business as usual again. And all the Oscar nominees had the traditional Oscar nominees' luncheon yesterday to prove it, with Academy president Sid Ganis promising that the show would go on regardless of the strike.
But that begs the question: what will the Oscars be like with no jokes, no song-and-dance numbers and no fun? Why, they'll be just like the Oscars, you halfwit.
The writers' strike has naused up Hollywood something rotten lately. Thousands of crewmembers are out of work, Lost is only going to be on for eight episodes instead of sixteen and the Golden Globes met a grisly end. But can the writers' strike kill the Oscars? Um, well, there's a possibility of that, we admit. But can the writers' strike kill the sort of luncheon thing that the people nominated for Oscars usually go to each year? NO!
How could the annual Oscar nominees' luncheon possibly be cancelled when it's responsible for golden Hollywood moments like Keira Knightley talking about herself? That's why every single actor and actress nominated for an Oscar attended yesterday's luncheon, with the exception of Cate Blanchett. And Johnny Depp. And Tom Wilkinson. And Daniel Day-Lewis, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton and Tommy Lee Jones. And Philip Seymour Hoffman. But everyone else turned up. Well, George Clooney and the girl from Juno did, anyway. The Los Angeles Times reports:
The Oscar nominees' luncheon — a long-held tradition at the Beverly Hilton Hotel that usually kicks off the giddy weeks before the televised ceremony — couldn't quite shake the long shadow cast by the 13-week writers strike, despite news that a settlement could come as early as Friday. George Clooney, nominated for his performance in the legal thriller "Michael Clayton," strode into the press room looking tan and trim and joking that he had just returned from "two weeks in four conflict zones" and was entering yet another.
And what's more, the president of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Scientists Sid Ganis whipped the crowd into a quasi-biblical frenzy with his never-say-die attitude to the writers' strike:
"The Oscar exists because the academy founders believed movies were not just a business and people need to be reminded of this. We did it 80 years ago in the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and we'll do it again at the Kodak Theatre in three weeks."
Yeah! Except if the strike is still in effect on Oscar night then none of the actors will turn up because they don't want to be seen crossing a picket line, and there won't be anyone to present or accept any awards, and nobody will have written any jokes for the opening speech. And it might go down as one of the biggest embarrassments in showbusiness history.
But on the other hand, if all that happens we won't get to see Eva Longoria gonking up and down a red carpet dressed in what looks like a seat-cover from a 1983 Ford Sierra minicab. So it probably all evens out, really.
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Oscar nominees are eating lunch in this town again – LA Times