Funny how this time of year we are obsessed with the awards shows, the red carpet the glitz, the celebrity story lines. This year, I enjoyed watching how so many celebrities are morphing their brands. Lady Gaga's knock-out "Sound Of Music" tribute, the honesty and passion in some of the acceptances speeches, be it Patricia Arquette's talking about equal wages, John Legend on equality across all barriers, or one of the night's top screen writers who encouraged young creative souls to keep it weird.

I love The Oscars. Every year, for a few hours, we get to celebrate the best of the film industry and peer inside the world of the ultra-famous entertainer. There will be winners and losers, both on and off of the red carpet, and regardless of the results, on Monday morning, people will be talking about the show.

One of my favorite movies is "Rushmore." The protagonist, Max Fischer, played by Jason Schwartzman, has that perfect amount of scrap, moxie, and is nothing short of a high school storytelling prodigy with the plays he writes, stars in and directs. His content makes him a king and kingmaker. If Max was in digital marketing, my hunch is that he would be a leading expert in content marketing.

Hundreds of print, online, and broadcast stories have been filed about the recent Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) crisis. Naturally, I had as much interest in the juicy gossip about the leaked e-mails and the (temporary) cancellation of "The Interview" as the next person. But as a PR professional, I looked at this through a more specific lens: What does it teach us about the way entertainment companies and personalities communicate - before, during, and after a crisis?