For Mark Harris' take on this and beyond. I agree with most every word:
http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood ... t-now-what
As a general matter: Harris -- who's more lucid about the Oscars than Tom O'Neil on his best day -- is writing a weekly column about the Oscars at this site now, and I highly recommend following him.
The Brett Ratner Flap
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Mister Tee
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
I'd like to see Robin Williams take a stab.
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Mister Tee
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
How long before someone begs Billy Crystal to ride to the rescue? He's about the only one with enough cred to take this job now and not be viewed as sloppy-seconds.
And if Gil Cates hadn't just died, they'd be on speed-dial to him.
And if Gil Cates hadn't just died, they'd be on speed-dial to him.
Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
The Huffington Post has some more, as well as the Academy statement:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... f=homepage
Eddie Murphy Out As Oscar Host After Brett Ratner Resignation
Eddie Murphy is no longer hosting the 84th annual Academy Awards.
Following the exit of his good friend and "Tower Heist" director Brett Ratner as producer of the show last night over a series of controversial comments, the Academy announced that Murphy has withdrawn from his hosting duties, which he first took on in September.
"First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards ceremony," Murphy said in a statement sent out by the academy. "I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I'm sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job."
The withdrawal caps a tumultuous week for Ratner and the Oscars telecast. Last week, Ratner used a gay slur when asked a question about filmmaking. The director said that "rehearsing is for fags" in a Q&A session following a screening of his new film, "Tower Heist," at L.A.'s Arclight Cinemas. He apologized for the statement after NY Magazine published his remarks. He also made a series of crude statements about actresses Olivia Munn and Lindsay Lohan.
Statement in Full:
Beverly Hills, CA (November 9, 2011) - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announced that Eddie Murphy has withdrawn as host of the 84th Academy Awards. "I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well," said Sherak.
Commented Murphy, "First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I'm sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job."
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar® presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... f=homepage
Eddie Murphy Out As Oscar Host After Brett Ratner Resignation
Eddie Murphy is no longer hosting the 84th annual Academy Awards.
Following the exit of his good friend and "Tower Heist" director Brett Ratner as producer of the show last night over a series of controversial comments, the Academy announced that Murphy has withdrawn from his hosting duties, which he first took on in September.
"First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards ceremony," Murphy said in a statement sent out by the academy. "I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I'm sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job."
The withdrawal caps a tumultuous week for Ratner and the Oscars telecast. Last week, Ratner used a gay slur when asked a question about filmmaking. The director said that "rehearsing is for fags" in a Q&A session following a screening of his new film, "Tower Heist," at L.A.'s Arclight Cinemas. He apologized for the statement after NY Magazine published his remarks. He also made a series of crude statements about actresses Olivia Munn and Lindsay Lohan.
Statement in Full:
Beverly Hills, CA (November 9, 2011) - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announced that Eddie Murphy has withdrawn as host of the 84th Academy Awards. "I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well," said Sherak.
Commented Murphy, "First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I'm sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job."
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar® presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
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Big Magilla
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
I don't get Murphy's statement “I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job.”
It reads like he was asked to leave as opposed to his having left because his friend left. I thought Don Misher and Brett Tatner, as joint producers, had made the joint decision to hire Murphy and that "job" was not in jeopardy. But it's just as well, he was too closely asscoiated with Ratner to completely remove the stench if he stayed. Will the Rattner/Murphy "comedy" writers quit as well?
Who will Misher hire to bring some class back to the awards? It could be a job for Oprah.
It reads like he was asked to leave as opposed to his having left because his friend left. I thought Don Misher and Brett Tatner, as joint producers, had made the joint decision to hire Murphy and that "job" was not in jeopardy. But it's just as well, he was too closely asscoiated with Ratner to completely remove the stench if he stayed. Will the Rattner/Murphy "comedy" writers quit as well?
Who will Misher hire to bring some class back to the awards? It could be a job for Oprah.
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Big Magilla
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
In case you have trouble reading the N.Y. Times piece, here's what it said:
Eddie Murphy Drops Out of Oscars Telecast
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
LOS ANGELES — Eddie Murphy is dropping out as the host of the Oscars telecast, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Wednesday, just one day after the show’s producer, Brett Ratner, stepped aside amid a storm of criticism over his use of an anti-gay slur.
The hasty departures represented an embarrassing collapse of the Academy’s plans with less than four months before the ceremony, and left it scrambling to fill key roles on a show that is one of the most elaborately staged on television.
Mr. Ratner, who was named the Oscar co-producer on Aug. 4, resigned on Tuesday morning because of the furor provoked by his public use over the weekend of an anti-gay slur, and a subsequent, salacious discussion of his own sexual habits on Howard Stern’s radio program.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation strongly objected to the derisive remark about gays, and a flood of objections by academy members and media commentators quickly made clear that the Academy’s Feb. 26 Oscar show on ABC, if Mr. Ratner remained in charge, was going to be as much about Mr. Ratner as the movies.
Mr. Murphy on Wednesday followed Mr. Ratner — his friend, and the director of his latest film “Tower Heist” — out the door.
“I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well,” Tom Sherak, the president of the academy, said in a statement.
In the statement, Mr. Murphy said he understood and supported “each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers.”
“I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job,” he said.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Sherak tried to salvage something by casting Mr. Ratner’s resignation as a teachable moment. “It is our sincere belief — as well as Brett’s — that this terrible event may ultimately raise awareness and yield some good,” Mr. Sherak wrote in an e-mail sent directly to the academy’s approximately 6,000 members.
In an industry where relationships can fracture quickly, Mr. Ratner’s connection to the show at least lasted longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage (by 24 days). But if the Academy is squinting for a silver lining, it might also look to another bright spot. With Mr. Ratner and Mr. Murphy moving on, the academy and its governors get another shot, sooner rather than later, at rebooting an annual ritual that still draws around 40 million viewers in the United States (and many more abroad), and remains one of television’s biggest events, despite a widespread sense that it is losing its connection with an audience that wants to love it.
Mr. Ratner was to co-produce the show with Don Mischer, a past Oscar producer who remains in place. Though plans for the program were still being formed, the two producers had made clear that they intended to bring an extra-heavy dollop of comedy — hence Mr. Murphy — to a ceremony that might not have looked much different than the variety show-style ceremonies of years past. Whether that approach will endure with Mr. Murphy’s exit is unclear.
In truth, the rigidity of Oscar tradition, which insists on thank you speeches, celebrity presenters and the inclusion of myriad awards for obscure short films and the like, leaves little room for a producer to maneuver. Only a bit more than thirty minutes of a show that typically lasts for about three and a half hours is actually devoted to programming. Speeches by winners and presenters fill perhaps twice as much air time.
But the academy, as it goes hunting for a new producer, might yet find someone with fresh notions about how to connect viewers with the show, and, by extension, with the movies themselves.
Certainly, some striking innovations have been debated within the ranks and leadership of the academy — which is never quick to adopt change, but not wholly averse to it, either. One such notion would involve using techniques from reality television to break through the plexiglass wall that seems to separate stars from everyone else at the Oscars, and create at least the illusion of intimacy.
That could mean something as simple as unconventional camera work, designed to put the audience in seats with the stars, or as daring as an attempt let celebrities do some of their own grassroots programming, via social media, cell phone cameras or otherwise.
Specific techniques, whatever they might be, probably count for less than finding a new spirit for the show, which, right through last year’s too-cool performance by the hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, had still had Us watching Them, rather than joining all those famous people at what, after all, is a pretty grand party.
The 2009 broadcast, produced by Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, found much of that spirit, as Hugh Jackman, a formidable song-and-dance man, pulled the audience in, without really changing the old format.
But the party is already much smaller than it was in 1995, when almost 49 million viewers tuned in to watch “Forrest Gump” named best picture, or in 1998, a peak year, when more than 57 million viewers in the U. S. saw the top prize go to “Titanic.” It doesn’t help that movie attendance is shrinking even as the population grows — and looks elsewhere for diversion.
Even a brilliant twist to the show’s dynamics can’t fix that problem. But it might help, by getting fresh viewers to sample the magic of film.
Unhappily for Mr. Sherak and the academy’s chief executive Dawn Hudson, it is a bit late in the process for major changes. But as recently as 2009, Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman were not signed up as the Oscar producers until the third week of October.
So there is time, if someone among Hollywood’s myriad producers, directors and executives has the vision, and the will, to find some good in the week’s debacle.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 9, 2011
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of Brett Ratner as Rattner.
.
comments
Eddie Murphy Drops Out of Oscars Telecast
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
LOS ANGELES — Eddie Murphy is dropping out as the host of the Oscars telecast, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Wednesday, just one day after the show’s producer, Brett Ratner, stepped aside amid a storm of criticism over his use of an anti-gay slur.
The hasty departures represented an embarrassing collapse of the Academy’s plans with less than four months before the ceremony, and left it scrambling to fill key roles on a show that is one of the most elaborately staged on television.
Mr. Ratner, who was named the Oscar co-producer on Aug. 4, resigned on Tuesday morning because of the furor provoked by his public use over the weekend of an anti-gay slur, and a subsequent, salacious discussion of his own sexual habits on Howard Stern’s radio program.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation strongly objected to the derisive remark about gays, and a flood of objections by academy members and media commentators quickly made clear that the Academy’s Feb. 26 Oscar show on ABC, if Mr. Ratner remained in charge, was going to be as much about Mr. Ratner as the movies.
Mr. Murphy on Wednesday followed Mr. Ratner — his friend, and the director of his latest film “Tower Heist” — out the door.
“I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well,” Tom Sherak, the president of the academy, said in a statement.
In the statement, Mr. Murphy said he understood and supported “each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers.”
“I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job,” he said.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Sherak tried to salvage something by casting Mr. Ratner’s resignation as a teachable moment. “It is our sincere belief — as well as Brett’s — that this terrible event may ultimately raise awareness and yield some good,” Mr. Sherak wrote in an e-mail sent directly to the academy’s approximately 6,000 members.
In an industry where relationships can fracture quickly, Mr. Ratner’s connection to the show at least lasted longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage (by 24 days). But if the Academy is squinting for a silver lining, it might also look to another bright spot. With Mr. Ratner and Mr. Murphy moving on, the academy and its governors get another shot, sooner rather than later, at rebooting an annual ritual that still draws around 40 million viewers in the United States (and many more abroad), and remains one of television’s biggest events, despite a widespread sense that it is losing its connection with an audience that wants to love it.
Mr. Ratner was to co-produce the show with Don Mischer, a past Oscar producer who remains in place. Though plans for the program were still being formed, the two producers had made clear that they intended to bring an extra-heavy dollop of comedy — hence Mr. Murphy — to a ceremony that might not have looked much different than the variety show-style ceremonies of years past. Whether that approach will endure with Mr. Murphy’s exit is unclear.
In truth, the rigidity of Oscar tradition, which insists on thank you speeches, celebrity presenters and the inclusion of myriad awards for obscure short films and the like, leaves little room for a producer to maneuver. Only a bit more than thirty minutes of a show that typically lasts for about three and a half hours is actually devoted to programming. Speeches by winners and presenters fill perhaps twice as much air time.
But the academy, as it goes hunting for a new producer, might yet find someone with fresh notions about how to connect viewers with the show, and, by extension, with the movies themselves.
Certainly, some striking innovations have been debated within the ranks and leadership of the academy — which is never quick to adopt change, but not wholly averse to it, either. One such notion would involve using techniques from reality television to break through the plexiglass wall that seems to separate stars from everyone else at the Oscars, and create at least the illusion of intimacy.
That could mean something as simple as unconventional camera work, designed to put the audience in seats with the stars, or as daring as an attempt let celebrities do some of their own grassroots programming, via social media, cell phone cameras or otherwise.
Specific techniques, whatever they might be, probably count for less than finding a new spirit for the show, which, right through last year’s too-cool performance by the hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, had still had Us watching Them, rather than joining all those famous people at what, after all, is a pretty grand party.
The 2009 broadcast, produced by Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, found much of that spirit, as Hugh Jackman, a formidable song-and-dance man, pulled the audience in, without really changing the old format.
But the party is already much smaller than it was in 1995, when almost 49 million viewers tuned in to watch “Forrest Gump” named best picture, or in 1998, a peak year, when more than 57 million viewers in the U. S. saw the top prize go to “Titanic.” It doesn’t help that movie attendance is shrinking even as the population grows — and looks elsewhere for diversion.
Even a brilliant twist to the show’s dynamics can’t fix that problem. But it might help, by getting fresh viewers to sample the magic of film.
Unhappily for Mr. Sherak and the academy’s chief executive Dawn Hudson, it is a bit late in the process for major changes. But as recently as 2009, Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman were not signed up as the Oscar producers until the third week of October.
So there is time, if someone among Hollywood’s myriad producers, directors and executives has the vision, and the will, to find some good in the week’s debacle.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 9, 2011
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of Brett Ratner as Rattner.
.
comments
Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
The New York times have just reported the Eddie Murphy has also dropped out of next years Oscars...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/movie ... ml?_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/movie ... ml?_r=1&hp
Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
I was somewhat concerned that Ratner would "hip-hopify" the Oscars in the neverending pursuit to appeal to the twentysomething dimwit demographic.
Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
Good call. Forgot about him.anonymous1980 wrote:You're forgetting Michel Gondry.Dien wrote:I just did a wikipedia search on the guy for fun. Now, I knew his movies stink, but I didn't realize he was a prolific shitty-music video director too. Even McG has a few good music videos. Hmm... are David Fincher and Spike Jonze the only music video directors with a respectable career?
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anonymous1980
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
You're forgetting Michel Gondry.Dien wrote:I just did a wikipedia search on the guy for fun. Now, I knew his movies stink, but I didn't realize he was a prolific shitty-music video director too. Even McG has a few good music videos. Hmm... are David Fincher and Spike Jonze the only music video directors with a respectable career?
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OscarGuy
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
The personhood amendment went down? I hadn't heard. That IS good news...the way they were talking earlier this week they were sure it would pass.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
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Big Magilla
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
And Mississippi rejected the personhood amendment, the author of the Arizona immigration law was recalled and Georgia voters approved sales of liquor on Sunday. It was a good day all around.Sonic Youth wrote:Brett Ratner, Berlusconi, and Issue 2 on the Ohio ballot all rejected in one day? My mind can't process all of this at once.
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Sonic Youth
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
Brett Ratner, Berlusconi, and Issue 2 on the Ohio ballot all rejected in one day? My mind can't process all of this at once.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
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anonymous1980
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
Good riddance!
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OscarGuy
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Re: The Brett Ratner Flap
On a separate note is this the first time someone has stepped down or been fired as Oscar show producer?
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin