Reasons/blame for Whiteout 2?

[Okri]

Italiano, because the Nobel Prizes are both truly international and based on more objective standards, particularly in the sciences, I have more faith in their decisions. When you take a look at their most recent slate, for example, you'll see what I mean.

Big Magilla, what do you think about that piece?

[Big Magilla]

From the Hollywood Reporter:

This piece is by Stephen Verona, a member of the Academy's directors branch who received a best live action short Oscar nomination for 1969's The Rehearsal, is part of an ongoing series of guest columns by Academy members about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the Academy's response to it.

I, too, am an outraged Academy member.

I have been in the Academy since I was nominated in 1972. I am a member of the directors branch, serve on the foreign language committee. I’m one of those “old white guys” who was flabbergasted and then outraged when I saw the position taken by Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the Board of Governors.

I produced as well as co-wrote and co-directed The Lords of Flatbush, which brought my discoveries of Sylvester Stallone and Henry Winkler their first screen appearance long before Rocky and Fonzie. I also gave Gladys Knight her first dramatic acting role in Pipe Dreams.

I never, never hire anyone because of their race, religion or political beliefs. To be lumped in as "racist" by the likes of Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith is totally out of line. I believe talent is what should be honored — gifted individuals who help make movies great.

Try telling the NBA to hire more white, Latino, Chinese or Eskimo basketball players and see the backlash. And by the way, why doesn’t Spike Lee return his honorary Oscar if he’s so incensed? If people make better movies, they will be rewarded. That’s as simple as it can be.

[ITALIANO]

in part because of how we differ in our views of artistic achievement, but mostly because I take a look at their winners and you realize how far behind AMPAS really is in this debate.

What do you mean?!

[Big Magilla]

AMPAS has not done a very good job of explaining what they mean. They're now saying that anyone who has held voting rights for three ten year terms will have lifetime voting rights so that could mean anyone who was a member before 1986. Then again they could mean going forward.

Maybe they should just have a senility test for people over a certain age, say 75 or 80. Have them have a doctor certify that they still have all their marbles.

[Okri]

Italiano, I have a hard time taking your comparison to the Nobel Committee seriously, in part because of how we differ in our views of artistic achievement, but mostly because I take a look at their winners and you realize how far behind AMPAS really is in this debate.

The Hollywood Reporter has been publishing letters from AMPAS voters and many of them are quite dispiriting

[ITALIANO]

One hopes that such a long-standing institution as the Academy would deal with questions like this in a more rational - and even, let me say it, firmer - way. A la Michael Caine, or something like that. They can't be so moody, so easily influenceable, come on... This way they lose any dignity left.

As for allowing membership to more blanck and women, I mean, why not... But shouldn't talent be THE requirement? And anyne with talent would definitely recognize talent in others, regardless of color, sex, etc. It's very simple. And this is the way an institution whose purpose is celebrating talent (in cinema, in this case) should work. Can you imagine the Nobel committee recruiting more blacks and women just because they are blacks and women? It would be absurd.

As for having younger members - I'm not sure that young necessarily means more open-minded. Not always, at least. It will probably lead to movies like Mad Max Fury Road winning Best Picture, and not much else. God bless the older side of the Academy!

And in a field as fleeting and unreliable as the movies, where steady work doesn't necessarily mean actual ability (especially, I'd say, in the acting department) you simply can't base voting rights on THAT aspect.

[Precious Doll]

Here's an interesting article from three years ago in which several senile members talk about their votes.

I'm afraid ageism is becoming more fashionable and acceptable these days, at least going by the anti-older people part of the media that is flourishing in Australia in the moment.

[Big Magilla]

I don't know how many black actors Dolores Hart voted for, but I do remember her defending Brokeback Mountain against Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine's tirades.

Here's an interesting article from three years ago in which several senile members talk about their votes.

http://nypost.com/2013/02/15/my-vote-is ... rad-pitts/

According to Lou Lumenick, Walter Bernstein, 96, stays because he won an Oscar, Rita Gam, 88, stays because she amassed one credit each in a 30-year period even if her greatest claim to fame was she was once married to Sidney Lumet and was in Grace Kelly's wedding party. Arlene Dahl, 90, who is the mother of working Latino actor Lorenzo Lamas, goes because she was inactive between 1969 and 1991.

[Mister Tee]

And that's the crux of the debate, I suppose. How much merit is in Dolores Hart's career? I'm curious. The comment she might not see the films if she doesn't get a vote is telling in and of itself. But I take a look at her credits and see very little.

I took the money comment to mean money spent on promoting the film for Oscar consideration.

Dolores Hart's on screen career ended in 1963 when she became a nun. However, she has remained connected to the industry. Oscar winner Patricia Neal is buried at her Abbey. The 2012 documentary God Is the Bigger Elvis about her life was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature. She is featured as herself in the current Tab Hunter Confidential. As for her "might not" seeing the films, I doubt she'd follow through on that. One of her few worldly pleasures is sharing the screeners with the other nuns in the Abbey. I doubt she's shared Straight Outta Compton or The Diary of a Teenage Girl with the other nuns, but I'd bet she's watched them herself. She's not your ordinary nun.

I believe I mentioned that I met Mother Dolores back when my wife was sick -- the were getting gamma globulin infusions at the same time, and my wife had a long conversation with her, the tail end of which I joined. First to be said is she's a very nice, intelligent, thoughtful lady. As Magilla says, she's kept some connections to show business -- fostering a theatre company near her abbey, and advising Victoria Clark on how to play the Mother Superior in the stage Sister Act. I have no doubt she's diligent about watching all the films, and it's possible her taste is better than the default-old-timer-taste most would attribute to her.

All that said, it's hard to justify her as an Academy member if there's any kind of elimination being done. She obviously isn't going to make any creative contribution to film, and hasn't in half a century. If anyone goes, she ought to.

But that gets back to the point I've been trying to make all week: when your aim is to achieve a result (a more diverse set of nominees), you can take steps that you think might make that more likely, but, without reading minds, you can't be sure you're going to be successful. For all we know, Dolores Hart might be voting for more African-American candidates than Chris Tucker/

[Precious Doll]

Another article from The Guardian:

The are up putting one of more of these a day, though they have ceased allowing comments.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/ja ... ta-compton

Here is a paragraph I wish to highlight:

"Academy Awards president Cheryl Boone Isaacs noted that there were “four or five wonderful movies” featuring black actors that could have been nominated, mentioning Chi-Raq, Concussion, Creed, Beasts of No Nation and Straight Outta Compton."

My question to Ms Boone Isaacs is: What about Tangerine????? Clearly, completely off her radar. Would have been my no. 2 pick!

[Big Magilla]

From the article

(Of "the diversity business" that spurred the rule-change, she said, "People were chosen on merit. I don't think it had anything in the world to do with color. I mean, I would have picked Will Smith for Concussion — I think he did a marvelous job in that and it's very topical. But the reason that didn't get anywhere is the same reason that Truth didn't get anywhere: money talks.")

Concussion, of course, has made about as much as Steve Jobs, Trumbo, and The Danish Girl combined. Not speaking to it as quality (there doesn't seem to be much).

"which does not bother me too much. But I have voted, often, for Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson and other people of color. And such a procedure does raise the question of the nature of the Academy: is its membership based on merit and accomplishment or in-tune-ness with all that is currently popular?"

And that's the crux of the debate, I suppose. How much merit is in Dolores Hart's career? I'm curious. The comment she might not see the films if she doesn't get a vote is telling in and of itself. But I take a look at her credits and see very little.

I took the money comment to mean money spent on promoting the film for Oscar consideration.

Dolores Hart's on screen career ended in 1963 when she became a nun. However, she has remained connected to the industry. Oscar winner Patricia Neal is buried at her Abbey. The 2012 documentary God Is the Bigger Elvis about her life was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature. She is featured as herself in the current Tab Hunter Confidential. As for her "might not" seeing the films, I doubt she'd follow through on that. One of her few worldly pleasures is sharing the screeners with the other nuns in the Abbey. I doubt she's shared Straight Outta Compton or The Diary of a Teenage Girl with the other nuns, but I'd bet she's watched them herself. She's not your ordinary nun.

[Okri]

From the article

(Of "the diversity business" that spurred the rule-change, she said, "People were chosen on merit. I don't think it had anything in the world to do with color. I mean, I would have picked Will Smith for Concussion — I think he did a marvelous job in that and it's very topical. But the reason that didn't get anywhere is the same reason that Truth didn't get anywhere: money talks.")

Concussion, of course, has made about as much as Steve Jobs, Trumbo, and The Danish Girl combined. Not speaking to it as quality (there doesn't seem to be much).

"He continued, "I have news for you: older people who lived through the struggles for civil rights are way more sensitive to minority issues than young people who don’t understand what it was all about in the first place. It’s fucking knee-jerk liberalism without taking into consideration what is fair. "

.... Given that young people have lived through the struggle for gay rights and marriage equality, have seen cities vibrating with rage due to instutional and entrenched racism, I have to call bullshit on this.

And, he added, "I imagine the NAACP’s film group [the Image Awards] is also racist for not choosing Ava DuVernay for best director for Selma?"

The Image Awards don't have a best director category, according to Wikipedia. Selma did win best picture.

"which does not bother me too much. But I have voted, often, for Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson and other people of color. And such a procedure does raise the question of the nature of the Academy: is its membership based on merit and accomplishment or in-tune-ness with all that is currently popular?"

And that's the crux of the debate, I suppose. How much merit is in Dolores Hart's career? I'm curious. The comment she might not see the films if she doesn't get a vote is telling in and of itself. But I take a look at her credits and see very little.

[Big Magilla]

The old white guys (and gals) speak out.

Dolores Hart calls it age discrimination. Tab Hunter calls it "bullshit"

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/a ... ise-858388

[Okri]

Also Mark Harris' has been tweeting some pretty salient points.

[Precious Doll]

Here is a great link. It's an interview with Ice Cube and it touches on the Academy controversy. His reason is very classy and right on the money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w69qFJmnq-U

Message to Jada: This is how it should be done!