Don’t Cancel the Oscars to Protest Trump

New opinion piece: 
Don’t Cancel the Oscars to Protest Trump

I’m sick of posts advocating for the cancellation of the Oscars to protest Trump. The Oscars are not food! Such a protest isn’t a hunger strike! Hollywood is composed primarily of people who strongly oppose Trump and his policies and I expect many of the year’s recipients and presenters to aggressively go after the Trump administration in the broadcast watched by nearly a 40 million people. If you care about the Oscars, you’re probably already a fairly liberal person. No one is going to say, “I used to really like Trump, but now that the Oscars were canceled in his name, I’m really starting to like Elizabeth Warren.”

But more importantly, Trump does not care about the Oscars. Yes, cancelling it would be a strong statement, but it doesn’t really affect him. Just because Viola Davis doesn’t get a statuette on national television doesn’t influence the Trump/Bannon executive order machine. In fact, considering all of the diverse nominees expected to win (even if La La Land sweeps many categories), I’m sure David Duke would be thrilled to hear of its cancellation as it removes any potential opportunity to show that white supremacy is idiotic.

I’m all for protest. I’d love to see a protest from the G8 until Donald Trump gets his shit together (though, actually that might be a bad idea as it would further isolate us, but you get the point). I love to see the footage of people protesting in Washington and at airports nationwide. These are protests which impact the smooth running of the nation and effectiveness of Trump’s inexcusable policies. But depriving the nation of the Oscars, which is an admittedly frivolous but usually enjoyable event anyways, just seems unnecessary.

Lastly, I believe that Fox News and OAN and Trump’s backwards logic will interpret such a cancellation as his victory over the Hollywood liberal elites rather than a loss at their hands. “I disrupted their lives so much, they canceled a Tinseltown tradition!” Donald Trump and Steve Bannon use fear and dread, rather than hope, as their primary weapon, making them, for the purposes of this article, terrorists, who want to disrupt their enemies lives. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

,Lane J. Lubell  signing off

Equals

Directed by Drake Doremus Writing …. Drake Doremus (story) Nathan Parker … (screenplay) Cinematography …. John Guleserian Runtime 101 minutes Color Aspect Ratio 1.85 : 1 Camera Ar…

Source: Equals

2016 Oscar Predictions

In keeping with prior years, I have listed my Oscar Predictions in three categories: WILL WIN, my best guess of what is on the cards, COULD WIN, a likely option- and finally SHOULD WIN, my personal…

Source: 2016 Oscar Predictions

Straight Outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton, opens the doors to the place and times that brought together five young men who formed The group NWA, the most influential, hardcore Rap group maybe of all time. The year is 1987, the streets of Compton, a stone’s throw from Los Angeles are a wash in drugs and the resulting gang-wars between the Bloods and the Crips. We are shown a world where to be black, especially, a young black male, seems to give the police the freedom to abuse you at will, and results in an extreme distrust between the cops and the poor black residents.

Source: Straight Outta Compton

OscarsSoWhite, but change is coming

In response to the backlash over this being the second year in a row with not a single person of color being nominated for an acting award, the Academy has taken action. When Cheryl Boone Isaacs was appointed to the possition of president, she made a commitment to open up membership and reach out to minorities as well as younger filmmakers. The idea was to have the voting members better reflect the industry as well as the viewing public. Despite her living up to her promise and increasing minority’s membership by more that any single year, the nominations were as white as ever.

The Academy has instituted a variety of  new rules include a commitment to doubling the number of women and minorities in the academy by 2020 as well as, for the first time, limiting lifetime voting rights.

“It’s the right thing to do,” academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in an interview Friday. “We’ve been a more than predominantly white institution for a long time. We thought, we’ve got to change this and reflect the community much better.”

In other years, perhaps there was a single “Black film” for people to rally around, this year there were top-notch performances in a number of films, that could have resulted in dividing the vote. That said, Hollywood should be able to easily support any number of quality films, and clearly there were several performances that deserved recognition, a number of which made my list.

Lane J. lubell

 

2016 Acadamy Awards Perdictions

Alright, it’s Oscar nomination day, half an hour before they’re revealed. To hold me to my word, here are my predictions for all feature film categories. Count the first five. The rest are alternates.

Source: 2016 Acadamy Awards Perdictions

Room

Source: Room

The Martian

Source: The Martian

A film Review.

“Equals” review world Premier at Venice Film Festival

I had the great opportunity of attending a film at this year’s Venice Film Festival on the the island of Lido while on a family vacation to Italy. Immediately when browsing the catalog, I was drawn to “Equals”. This Hoult-Stewart sci-fi romance did not let me down.

Equals

Storm damage hits Traverse City