Scott Kirsner passes along the news that even though the Academy has an official Oscar YouTube channel, they’ve so far failed to use it to showcase clips from last night’s show. Not only that, but they have YouTube hard at work removing clips from the show uploaded by other users––this clip, and this one, and this one were all removed within three hours of their upload.
And not only THAT, but with the exception of a clip from last year’s Jack Black/Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly medley, most of the recently uploaded clips from actual Oscar telecasts date back to the 75th edition of the show––which, of course, took place in 2003. So if you’re just now getting around to blogging about Adrien Brody kissing Halle Berry, you’re in luck! Or, you would be, if the entire channel didn’t disable embeds.
Chris is coming up with a list of things the Academy can do to improve telecast ratings, so check back later this afternoon for that. But this kind of thing has got to be one explanation for last night’s show doing so poorly. The new generation of celebrity porn addicts don’t even know they’re supposed to obsess about the Oscars, because the Perez Hiltons of the world are instead blogging about Jennifer Aniston’s frozen eggs, because at least they have visual aids for that.
Unlike other major papers, which mostly went with a cover shot of a resplendently emotional Marion Cotillard, the ever-classy New York Post puts “former stripper” Diablo Cody on the cover of their Oscar morning-after edition, letting her outdated job description stand in for her name. And with THAT, the rags-to-riches transformation from strip club Cinderella to Oscar winner, as well as the little indie-choo-choo-that-could fiction that made it happen, (the Post story actually uses the phrase “the little indie that could”, and refers to the win itself, which was the second-biggest lock of the night behind Javier Bardem, as a “shocker”) is complete.
Oh, and did we mention that the Post, like Fox Searchlight, the teeny-tiny independent company that made and released Juno, is owned by Rupert Murdoch? Vertically integrated corporate strategy is a beautiful thing.
Above: Mel Brooks’ The Critic, which won an Oscar in 1963. Found via this compilation of YouTube links to virtually every Oscar-winning animated short since 1932. Via Fimoculous.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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