• New York magazine, Wednesday, January 25, 2012 3:45 PM

Here comes  press coverage of the Oscars, which were announced yesterday.

The New York Times did its traditional take, getting reactions from nominees. In its post on three first-timers, all the wit comes from songwriter Bret McKenzie (we love his anecdote about emailing his mother) rather than the actor formerly known for comic movies, Jonah Hill (although we do learn the somewhat amusing fact that his "Moneyball" co-star Brad Pitt actually recommended Hill's weight loss).

More interesting, if insidery, is Hitfix's piece on what the nominations taught us about members of the Motion Picture Academy: for example, with their snub of Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar," that "they finally paid off that debt to Clint Eastwood (whatever it was). For a number of years, it's seemed like Clint Eastwood has had the Academy in his back pocket. Did he have incriminating photos or something? Did he threaten to break their thumbs if they didn't nominate films like 'Changeling,' 'Invictus' and 'Hereafter' for at least one Oscar?"

Then there's movie producer Gavin Polone's column about how meaningless the Oscars really are. We've heard some of this before, but we liked his analysis of the ROI for an Oscar win: nonexistent for movie studios and everyone else involved, except for the winners themselves.

Read the whole story at New York magazine »