Are ‘The Oscars’ just an antique, signifying the utter irrelevance of ‘Hollywood’? And its parade of aging actors, and their Leading Ladies, who all look like bad advertisements for Restylane and Botox ? Are Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, in that tired exhumation of ‘A Star is Born’, representative of the predictable future of ‘Hollywood’ in the 21st Century? ‘Remake’ followed by ‘Remake’, is now the operative strategy of The Industry, to insure the profitability of ‘The Dream Factory’? Recall the halcyon year of ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’ and the S & M kitsch of ‘Blue Velvet’ ?
The alternative to this is the low brow Universe, of the Marvel World of Stan Lee, awash in 1930’s & 1940’s concepts of the Super Hero, awash in a caricature of Masculinity , celebrated in tight Lycra, bulging pecs and well stuffed crotches!
Or should The Reader turn her attention to the latest of Movies about Movies, a venerable Hollywood tradition: ‘A Star is Born’ , The Bad and The Beautiful’, ‘The Goddess’ ‘Two Weeks in Another Town’, Feud: Betty and Joan & the latest entry into this genre ‘The Offer’, running on the internet by Paramount? The ultimate Hollywood Egoist Bob Evans, as one of the featured player/stars of this Hollywood Epic. Read Robert Evans’ ‘The Kid Stay in the Picture’, till you want to vomit, at his unslakable egotism, floating on his ‘charm’! This book was once the ‘talk of Hollywood’ in its audio book form, in his own seductive voice. The apotheosis of ‘Public Relations’! Bob even ‘produced’ a one hour an thirty three minute Movie Version.
Here is Hollywood sycophant Graydon Carter, in his ‘retirement’ from Vanity Fair, who publishes Dana Brown’s nostalgia for Oscar Parties Past, Mr. Brown is a low rent Saint-Simon, who reports on Hollywood’s would be decadence? The first paragraph of Mr. Brown’s report reeks of the hipster invited into the ‘inner circles’ decadence.
So I’m smoking a joint with Seth Rogen and Danny McBride. This might sound like the setup to a joke, and it would probably be a good one, but this is what the Oscar party was like. At least for me.
Are Seth Rogan and Danny McBride ‘A Listers’, to speak in the patois of the long forgotten Joyce Haber?
Your truly,
Myra Breckenridge