Well, themostly predictableOscarnominationsarrived Tuesday morningwith no disasters or truly egregious missteps.
Such normalcy is too bad.
And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
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Let things go well or follow an expected path, and theOscarsturn into a yawn.
Errors are an asset.
The Academy is never so interesting as when it is just, plain, obviously wrong.
This is not a casual mechanism.
Pieties and proper judgment are boring.
Pratfalls are fun, especially when they catch the glamor crowd taking itself too seriously.
Perhaps the best-behaved Oscar show in recent memory was theHugh Jackmanceremony of 2009.
What more could you want?
(Academy officials actually asked Jackman back this year but got a turn-down.)
In audience terms, it was neither here nor there.
As for nominations-day disasters, nothing can match the back-to-back all-white acting rosters of 2015 and 2016.
Those spawned an online movement and triggered changes in Academy membership and rules that are unfolding to this day.
But they also drew more attention than the Oscars have seen since.
Alas, trouble pays.
And, of course,the slap.
For which, I suppose, the Academy should be grateful.
Temporizing officialslet him stick around.
Applauding stars completed the embarrassment when he laterpicked up an acting Oscar.
Come March 12, this years Oscar host,Jimmy Kimmel, clearly will have to deal with it.
And that, after all, is what keeps things moving.
