In Contention

Tag: Bruce Cohen

  • The model for this year’s acting presentations?

    I mentioned yesterday that the multi-presenter format used for the acting awards in the last two Oscar ceremonies is being scrapped this year. However, while we’re doing away with the five-way individual tributes, producer Bruce Cohen claimed they were adopting an idea from the “1970 Oscars” that would ensure every nominee gets duly celebrated.

    Looking at footage from that year’s awards, it wasn’t clear what he meant — though it seems he might have been misquoted, and actually said “1970s Oscars.”

    With that in mind, helpful reader Michael Amir Bina got in touch to inform me that this presentation format (embedding disabled, I’m afraid), from the 1979 awards, is what we should be expecting. Nothing groundbreaking, just brief rundown of each nominee’s career and achievements to date. Fine, I suppose, though it slightly steps on the notion of the Oscar being for a single performance. Meanwhile, how much telecast time will the show’s writers be able to wring from poor Hailee Steinfeld’s résumé?

    [Photo: Libero.it]

  • Oscarcast loses montages and acting tributes

    Forgive me if this news, from the Hollywood Reporter, is a couple of days old — I’m still catching up on Oscar-related nuggets I missed while I was in Berlin. But I was so pleased by these details relating to Sunday’s telecast that I had to share them.

    I’m on the record as saying I thought last year’s show, produced by Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic, was one of the sloppiest I’d seen in my lifetime of Oscar-watching, and I know a number of others were similarly dismayed. So as far as I’m concerned, the duo steering this year’s ceremony, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, would benefit by doing things as differently from Team Shankman as possible — and indeed, that seems to be their MO this year.

    Their first good move came with the reinstatement of the nominated song performances — disrespectfully binned last year to make room for such gems as breakdance routine to the “Hurt Locker” score — though Cohen admits to being “disappointed” the Academy’s music branch didn’t give them a Cher number to work with.

    (more…)

  • Cohen, Mischer tapped as Oscarcast producers

    What a novel idea, getting a jump on things.  The press release, in part:

    Academy Award®-winning producer Bruce Cohen and acclaimed television producer/director Don Mischer will produce the 83rd Academy Awards telecast, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announced this evening. Mischer will also serve as the telecast’s director. This will be the first involvement with the Oscar® telecast for both men, though the two worked together on the Academy’s inaugural Governors Awards event in November of 2010…

    “I fell in love with the Oscars as an eight-year-old kid, the night my grandmothers let me stay up to watch for the first time,” said Cohen. “It is a dream come true for me to now be producing the show with the phenomenal Don Mischer, whom I’ve had an incredible time working with in the past. We hope to create a show that celebrates what people around the world love about the Academy Awards year after year – the excitement, glamour and tradition of Oscar Night itself.”

    “During my previous collaborations with Bruce, I have come to know him as a passionate, smart and creative producer, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to now be working with him on the Oscars,” said Mischer. “As a producer and director, I have always been inspired by the live broadcast of major, high-profile events and when it comes to that, it doesn’t get any bigger than the Academy Awards. The Oscars are truly ‘appointment’ television, they’re eagerly anticipated around the world, and they offer a unique opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary artists who take us on a journey every time we step into a movie theater.”