The strange and industry-shattering year of 2020 at the movies is up for, um, celebration this Sunday night at the 93rd Oscars.
Predictions for viewership, based on anemic awards show ratings during the pandemic and the lesser-seen movies likely to win (along with the plunge of ratings in recent years) all point toward a historically small audience.
Which will be a shame because it promises to be a fascinating night of live television, with an in-person ceremony still shrouded in mystery. None other than Steven Soderbergh, the auteur whose films have managed to be relentlessly experimental yet undeniably mainstream and often popular for the past three decades, is producing the awards show. He’s teamed with Stacey Sher (who produced Soderbergh’s prescient “Contagion” a decade ago) and Jesse Collins for this daunting assignment. They won’t let it be boring – they’ve promised it will be COVID-safe but they have banned Zoom acceptance speeches and even sent nominees instructions on how to give a good speech.