Pre-show shorts.

In a lead editorial - no, seriously - the New York Times calls for the Academy Awards ceremony to play more like reality TV. Which, of course, would be a complete misreading of the evening's original allure if - it can only be hoped! - the editors' tongues weren't lounging lazily in their cheeks.

There's more: two op-eds, the first contributed by Michael Marmot, a prof who's studied how status affects longevity. Evidently, winners live longer. No one would want to belittle research proving that poverty is indeed detrimental to your health, but it is a surprise to learn in his piece that so much hardcore science has been devoted to the Oscars.

In the second, Conrad E Palmisano, president of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, calls on the Academy to meet with reps from four of the largest groups of stunt performers and start talking about a stunt category.

Producers of the show have already done some clamping down, forcing Robin Williams to cut a number poking fun at conservatives' campaign against SpongeBob SquarePants. David M Halbfinger reports.

The Magazine features two dozen photographs by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, "Great Performers" chosen by the editors for contributing something unique and unforgettable to the movies in 2004.

Also in the magazine: Going by the trailer alone, Assisted Living looks like it may well deserve the awards it's already won. But, as David Grand writes, its making raises a few disturbing issues. Did the nonactors who appear in the film under their own names - many actual nursing home residents - understand what they getting into when they took on speaking roles?

David Thomson votes for Million Dollar Baby:

I would give it best picture, best director, actor, actress and best supporting actor - and best adapted screenplay too (it is by Paul Haggis from stories in Rope Burns by F X Toole). It is best picture this year by a mile, and its tragedy is a kind of harbinger of what may be a century of tragedies for the USA. More than the country can stand without turning violently to the right? Perhaps so. But The Aviator never grasps the root of failure, and Sideways elects to be whimsical about it. Eastwood's picture knows that the failure is a given, granted the obligatory pursuit of happiness.

Also in the Independent: Jonathan Romney spends quite a while contemplating the enigma of Isabelle Huppert.

Paul Lieberman's backgrounder on Martin Scorsese's career is a reminder that the Los Angeles Times special section, "The Envelope," is worth one last check.

In the Observer:

• Leaning heavily on that piece in yesterday's LAT, Vanessa Thorpe and Nicole Mowbray re-emphasize how much is spent to win an Oscar.

• Erik Hedegaard turns in a long profile of Johnny Depp.

• Jason Cowley: "I spent much of the past week watching the various movies about Rwanda and re-reading [Gil] Courtemanche's book [A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali], as well as reading a forthcoming novel by Andrew Miller, entitled The Optimists, which uses the Rwandan catastrophe as a back story. The first thing to say is that none of these art works is exploitative or irresponsible."

• Brief book reviews: Carl Wilkinson on Clinton Heylin's Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios and Stephanie Merritt on Michael Chabon's The Final Solution.

Defamer's planning to blog the show live and there'll be a gathering of commenteers at the High Sign.

Online viewing reminder. If the show doesn't put you to sleep, there's Vanity Fair's webcam afterwards.

Posted by dwhudson at February 27, 2005 8:47 AM