It’s the end of a great era. There will be no more live audience for the Oscar nominations. No more lavish breakfast at the Academy at 5am Pacific time. The bacon was always crisp and the orange juice was tangy!
This afternoon the Academy announced that the announcements would be via ABC TV and the Oscar websites live streaming.
Jennifer Hudson, Brie Larson, Emmanuel Lubezki, Jason Reitman and Ken Watanabe will join Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs to announce the nominees at 8:18am Eastern, 12 minutes earlier than usual.
No explanation is given, but I’m told it had something to do with maple syrup stains on the furniture.
What a shame, though. It was always fun to hear that little live audience of media and publicists gasp, or clap, or say “Oooooh” when a name was called or wasn’t. It gave the announcements their own little drama. But time marches on. Another tradition ends.
