TheQuartering [4/26/2021]

The viewership for the Oscars is down 50% year after year, and down 13 millions viewers. I love it.

According to the New York Post:

If you opened the window and listened closely Sunday night, you could hear it: the sound of millions of remote controls changing the channel during the 2021 Oscars. 

And after last night’s debacle — the worst Academy Awards of my lifetime — they may never return.

Producer Steven Soderbergh, the man who directed “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich,” among many other fine films, helmed the broadcast and was determined to make it more intimate and cinematic than usual. All right, as a movie critic, I’ll play ball.

“Steven Soderbergh’s The Oscars” gets 1 star. The night was nearly non-stop drudgery, zero humor and a format that tried even the most resolute of attention spans. 

Too bad. The ceremony started out promisingly. Presenter Regina King confidently strutted through Los Angeles’ Union Station, which was reconfigured to host the event, like it was a catwalk during Fashion Week. And she arrived to a neat Art Deco-looking banquet hall where the trophies would be handed out. Cool, new, fun!