The Oscars! Who is watching?

Last year's ratings were the lowest ever. This year's ratings weren't even half that high. Apparently viewers are turning off the combination of obscure films and "woke" politics.
 

Here's the critics' write up of it in the UK media...

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If there was an Oscar for Worst Horror Story, it would go to whoever decided it would be a good idea to hold this year's event in a train station. Though ironically, that turned out to be the most perfectly appropriate venue for a grim, soulless three-hour ordeal that was the complete opposite of what Hollywood's biggest night is supposed to be about.
The Oscars had one job after the whole world had endured a year of hell with the coronavirus pandemic: make us feel better. Everything about it stank.
But nothing quite prepared me for the opening of the show itself, or rather lack of opening. Regina King (left) tripped as she reached the podium and then announced: 'I know a lot of you people at home want to reach for your remote when you feel like Hollywood is preaching to you.' Yes, we do, which is why Oscars' ratings have collapsed in recent years as the woke lectures have increased in both volume and scale of sanctimony. The Best Picture winner Nomadland grossed just $2.5 million, meaning pretty much nobody watched it. It's a beautifully made film, and Frances McDormand (bottom, right) gives a typically superb performance.
But the scene where she literally sh*ts into a bucket could have been a metaphor for its box office popularity. To complete a host of crazy decisions, producers decided to ditch Best Picture from its usual place as the thrilling finale and replace it with Best Actor.
Cynics believed they did this to exploit feverish anticipation that the late Chadwick Boseman had posthumously won the coveted Actor gong which would provide a highly emotional denouement to the show. But in the eventuality, it went to Sir Anthony Hopkins (top, right). The problem was that Hopkins wasn't there and didn't appear by video-link either. It was a comically unexciting conclusion to a mind-numbingly tedious night.
 
Of the Best Picture nominees, I saw Nomadland, Mank, and The Trial of the Chicago 7 and I'd rank Nomadland third of those three. It was okay, but Frances McDormand starting off into the distance only goes so far as far as "entertainment."

Nomadland tries to glamorize and romanticize babyboomers living in campers, opening the camper door at the break of dawn to look out over a asphalt parking lot the way wilderness explorers look out from their tent in the mountains to watch deer nibbling on leaves in front of a pristine lake. Gosh. I wish I lived in a camper.

The main character, Fern, I believe was her name—named that because she's about as intellectually curious as a fern. She doesn't seem to have any books or hobbies other than working on her camper and looking out longingly at a mediocre sunset. Hell, if that's all you're gonna do, go down to Florida where they have spectacular sunsets! Not in the Badlands of South Dakota. While they do have some cool rock formations, it's too dry there to have great sunsets.

There are probably some pretty deranged characters living out of campers. A movie about them might have been more interesting.
 

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