Cheryl Boone Isaacs has sent this out on Twitter in light of Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett’s statements. She’s trying hard, I give her a lot of credit. Cut her some slack. And as I said in a prior post, it’s not her fault. Write to the studios, and to the filmmakers.

The next controversy in Oscar land is going to be the revelation that Ridley Scott didn’t shoot “The Martian” in outer space, but on a soundstage.

First, Spike Lee says even though he’s received an honorary Oscar in the last two months, he’s not coming to the ceremony. It’s a protest against the all-white actor nominations even though the head of the Academy is black, the producer of the show is black, and the host is black.

Then Jada Pinkett is upset because her husband, Will Smith, wasn’t nominated. She won’t come either.

Linda Perry, a really great songwriter, says Diane Warren, an Oscar nominated songwriter, is shilling for Lady Gaga, who shouldn’t be nominated as Warren’s co-writer because she didn’t help write the song they’re nominated for.

The New York Daily News is quoting an anonymous source at a junk website saying Chris Rock is being pressured to drop out of his role as Oscar host.

What’s next? The bear from The Revenant is hiring lawyers for something. You can feel it.

I’m sorry about Spike. He’s such a great filmmaker. He’s a trailblazer. His presence at the Oscars is a big deal. Not being there hurts everyone. I know why Jada is upset. Her video on Facebook is very accurate. We don’t have to take it, she says.

I don’t know Linda Perry got into her thing. Diane Warren and Lady Gaga’s song is great. They wrote it, produced it, it’s theirs. It should win.

The Daily News? They’re barely in business. No one knows what is going on there.

You cannot blame the Academy or the Oscars for the lack of black nominees. They do not make the movies. The filmmakers, studios, producers, and directors make the movies. They decide who gets in the movies. At that level, the implicit racism is systemic and chronic.

I can name you 100 good black actors under the age of 50 who could have been cast in roles in movies like The Big Short, Concussion, Spotlight, The Revenant, or a dozen other films including comedies, drama, and action films. Why is every major studio film all white? Or have one token character? That’s what should be addressed. It’s perplexing to me that theater can cast multi-racial but film does not. Why aren’t films integrated? Why is it only a “black film” that will produce nominees?

My one real regret this season is that “Straight Outta Compton” wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, F. Gary Gray for Best Director, and Jason Mitchell for Best Supporting Actor. Something didn’t translate in their campaigns. I attended a lunch in New York for “SOC” that was amazing. Mitchell wasn’t there, but Gray was, and so was O’Shea Jackson Jr. The only problem was, it was late already in the process. Had it been a month earlier, there might have been momentum. I don’t know what happened on the west coast. But I do know overall, I never got any sense of a push out of the gate for Mitchell. I wish there’d been one.

The awards shows do gravitate for “brand names.” The self appointed Oscar prognosticators on the various sites put up names of “stars” long before their movies are seen, good or bad. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence were alreayd on those damn lists and no one knew if they deserved it. It was just ‘assumed.’ That doesn’t give newcomers like Mitchell, or Michael B. Jordan, much of a chance. The #Oscarsowhite issues are rooted in lots of places that feed the Oscars. By the time the ballots are sent out, the trouble is already there. The Academy can’t do much about that.

Let’s hope this coming season we see some real changes.

The Critics Choice Award, which were aired on AMC and Lifetime, were as much about the schmoozing in the commercial breaks as the show itself.

Most of the biggest stars came right at the beginning of the show, after quickly whisking along the red carpet. Amy Schumer came in and went straight to the “Trainwreck” table, Judd Apatow and his wife Leslie Mann had just arrived, 0 Amy yelled loudly to them, “shove over,” which immediately cracked Apatow up. Amy was lovely to all who came up to her, maybe because her new beau Ben was by her side the whole night.

Holland Taylor and girlfriend Sarah Paulson were working the room. While Holland sat on a male friend’s lap at the “Transparent” table, Sarah had a chat with Rooney Mara, nominated for “Carol.” Sarah and Rooney were both leaning in, quietly chatting while the show was going on. Truth be told, pretty much the whole room talked right through the show. It’s hard to say whether it was louder than the Golden Globes, which set a record for audience misbehavior.

Jennifer Aniston– who came with husband Justin Theroux, nominated for “The Leftovers,” brought two burly security guards, just in case one of the celebrities got in her face. They stopped anyone from getting near her or taking a picture. Will Forte provided the overt comic relief with his half-shaven head, went over to Jen and posed for a picture, to which Jen quipped to the photographer, “Please fix his hair, while you’re at it, fix mine.”

The bodyguards did serve an unwitting purpose however. The blocked the view between Paulson-Taylor and Paulson’s ex, the great theater actress Cherry Jones, known to TV audiences from “24.” Ouch.

The other celebs had a much more low-key attitude about it all. A pregnant Liv Tyler was a late arrival to Aniston’s table, along with actor, writer Tracy Letts. “Carol” director Todd Haynes, sitting with Rooney Mara and his “Carol” crew, told me he¹s hard at work trying to find young deaf actors, and hearing actors, to cast in his upcoming film, “Wonderstruck,” which follows the intertwined narrative of two deaf children, Julianne Moore is starring. He also hopes to shoot that in New York.

Haynes made sure to go over to the next table to greet the lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was hanging with
her “Hateful Eight” co-star Walton Goggins. Adam McKay chatting with Matt Damon, telling him how much he loved the movie, “The Martian,” which Christian Bale then joined in. Two-time nominee Alicia Vikander, told me that she was surprised to finally get there because of the traffic that everyone was complaining about.

“Room” star Jacob Tremblay had the room entranced on stage and off by his sheer cuteness. Melissa McCarthy and Helen Mirren became fast friends. Christian Slater was genuinely shocked of his second win of the season for “Mr. Robot,” he just won the Globe. Lily Tomlin was the object of adoration of most of the actresses in the room, including “Jane The Virgin” star Gina Rodriguez, “Spotlight” nominee Rachel McAdams, “Fargo” winner Kirsten Dunst and Sharon Stone, who’s more spectacularly Sharon Stone than ever before.

In the end the Broadcast Critics did the right thing– “Spotlight” was their choice for Best Picture, which means Tom McCarthy’s is the likely winner of the Academy Award. The acting winners– Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, Alicia Vikander, and Sylvester Stallone– are likely to follow suit. The BFCA remains the best indicator of Oscar winners.

Rooney and Sara c2016 Showbiz411 by James Mandell