Well, the Oscar nominations were released yesterday – which means it’s time for all those upset to start complaining about “snubs.”
 
I don't want to get into a debate over specifics this year and whether or not the Academy "snubbed" anyone, because people rant about it so much all the time, and honestly...I just don't care enough. But the general concept of “snubbing” is one that does interest me.  And I did write about that elsewhere last year when people were upset at Greta Gerwig not getting a directing nomination for Barbie, despite the movie grossing a phenomenal $1.5 billion worldwide, and they claimed she was “snubbed” (the argument went) presumably because she is a woman.  And Margot Robbie who played the title character in the massive hit apparently also got “snubbed” for not getting a Best Actress nomination – though the reason for that “snub” was never made clear, since (given that the category was for “actress”) it couldn’t have been because she is a woman.  But no one was able to come up with another reason, so it was largely just left as an undefined “snub.”
 
What I wrote at the time was –

“Barbie got a bundle of nominations (eight, in fact) including Best Picture, two Best Supporting nominations for actor and actress, and Greta Gerwig herself got a nomination for the screenplay. As ‘snubs’ go, it did really well.”  Furthermore, she had already been nominated as Best Director for the movie Lady Bird, which also got a Best Picture nomination…and another nomination for her with Best Original Screenplay.  So, with those three nominations, and this new one for screenplay, and Best Picture (giving her two Best Picture nominations), it strikes me as incredibly hard to say the Academy doesn’t like her and snubs her simply because she’s a woman.
 
Should Ms. Gerwig have been nominated as Best Director for Barbie?  Personal choice, the Motion Picture Academy who voted said no, other people's mileage may vary.  But I’m absolutely sure, as disappointed as Greta Gerwig likely was at not getting an Oscar nomination for directing, she not only was extremely happy at getting nominated for the screenplay, and (most of all) ecstatic beyond all measure at the movie grossing $1.5 billion.  It made her career.  I'm certain that "Getting nominated for an Oscar" was near the bottom of the list, if on the list at all, when she sat down starring at a blank page to co-write and then direct the movie -- but rather, "Can I pull this off script and make a wonderful movie that people will love and actually go to??" That’s what she made the movie for.  If she’d been nominated for director, and the movie flopped or even just broke even, that likely would have raised a hurdle to her future directing work.  Now, she can do pretty much whatever she wants.  Having both box-office success and Oscar nominations is better.  But Hollywood studios cares most – overwhelmingly by far – for the box office.

And of course, when it comes to nominations, all things are not equal. A lead actress might be brilliant -- but there might be a half-dozen brilliant lead actresses that year, and one is going to be left out (sorry, "snubbed").

On the other hand, there might only be three really standout Best Supporting Actor performances that year, so they'll all get nominated -- with two "also-rans."

The same holds true for Best Director, even if the movie got a Best Picture nomination. If there were 10 great directors that year, five are going to be left out (sorry, "snubbed"), even if one of them directed the movie that won Best Picture.
 
Fun Fact:  this year, the movie Wicked got nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture.  However, its director John M. Chu was not nominated.  Another thing he was “not” is a woman, so that couldn’t have been the reason for him being “snubbed”.
 
And another Fun Fact:  the movie that made Steven Spielberg’s career was Jaws.  And it not only made his career, but it was a phenomenon that changed how Hollywood operated, creating the concept of a tent-pole Summer blockbuster that studios would plan their schedule around.  The movie was nominated for Best Picture – though none of the actors were, since clearly it wasn’t an “actors” kind of movie.  It was a masterwork of action, special effects and suspense, overseen by the wunderkind Steven Spielberg.  And do you know another category that Jaws also didn’t get an Oscar nomination for?  That’s right, Steven Spielberg was not nominated as Best Director for Jaws.  Honest.  (Side Note:  Not getting nominated didn’t hurt his career.)
 
I’ll toss in one more.  When you think of the movie musical  The Music Man, nominated for Best Picture, what first comes to mind?  For most people, it’s probably two words – “Robert Preston.”  After all, he had won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical when he played the role on Broadway, and it’s a tour-de-force performance that carries the stage show and movie, one of the legendary performances.  And – you guessed it – Robert Preston was not nominated for an Oscar in The Music Man.  Really.  (The actors who were nominated were Burt Lancaster for The Birdman of Alcatraz, Jack Lemmon for Days of Wine and Roses, Peter O’Toole for Lawrence of Arabia, Marcello Mastroianni for Divorce Italian Style and Gregory Peck – who won for To Kill a Mockingbird.  That was a really good year!  And so Robert Preston didn’t get even nominated for The Music Man.)
 
People often look at something as "snubbed" because they don't know several of the other nominees. So, the presumption is that, gee, those others must not be any good. But that's on them for not seeing these other movies. Academy members are sent links on the Academy website – or sent DVDs or sent invitations to screenings -- ) to almost all the eligible films with a chance. So, they do see them. And may decide, "Overall, I loved this movie...but man, the direction of this other movie was spectacular, even if I didn't care for the story as much, or the production design or costumes or whatever."

By the way, I want to be clear:  the film industry has a terrible history for employment of women.  And this carries over to Oscar nominations.  And Best Director is high on that list of poor representation of women.  And there have been, I’m sure, actual snubs – of women and others, for a range of reasons.  But when someone doesn’t get a nomination, women or otherwise, it is not inherently a “snub.”  As a said, there may be others who voters thought were better.  And as filmmakers themselves, Academy voters look at a movie differently than as an audience.  It at times overlaps, but they understand that what makes a Best Picture encompasses many disciplines – the performances, writing, production design, music score, editing  and so much more, all of which may involve the director, but ultimately they each succeed on their own professional level of craftsmanship.  And box-office has no place in determining how, to professionals, a movie was crafted – as was the writing, acting, design, music – and what made it overall, or in its parts, great.  Or unsuccessful, artistically.
 
But most important of all perhaps --
 
That leaves the final point: when one says, "So-and-so was snubbed!!!", then they must answer the question:  "Okay, so then which of the nominees would you drop?" Usually, all five are deserving -- and saying you'd drop a nominee because you didn't see the film is inappropriate. And if you do end up saying, "Well...okay, I'd drop so-and-so," then rest assured that fans of that artis will cry out at the person being…say it all together…"snubbed."

Some movies or people maybe perhaps do get "snubbed." Maybe. Perhaps. But it's rare. Usually, voters just like other nominees more.

There’s a point to this all, so bear with me.  It’s not about a favorite food, though it may seem so on the surface.
 
The tale does begin though with what has become a favorite food.  It’s known as “Nashville hot chicken” and has become very popular in Los Angeles, and apparently has been spreading through other parts of the country.  It began back in 1936 when Thornton Prince opened the BBQ Hot Chicken Shack (in Nashville, of course…), which later changed its name Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in the 1980s.
 
I became a big fan of the food five years ago when Kim Prince (great-great niece of the original) opened her wonderful Hotville Chicken in South Central Los Angeles.  The inveterate Chris Dunn -- who introduced me to the place -- and I began frequent lunches there, and I wrote about Hotville four years ago here, if you want to know more about the place and its history.  Though that’s not the point here.
 
As great as their food is -- and it is great, in fact a “Best of L.A.” award--recipient from Los Angeles Magazine and making the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list -- the owner/chef Kim Prince is even better.  She’d visit with the customers, and Chris and I have always loved our conversations with her, not a perfunctory "How's it going, how was your meal?," but stopping to talk, sitting down sometimes ​for 10-15 minutes. Full of kindness, not just for her customers, but her community, but even (actually) for her competitors.  She wants everyone to succeed, and puts actions to her words, a dynamo going out through the city relentlessly.  But that’s not the point here either – though it gets closer to it.
 
Because of COVID and the restaurant’s difficult location (though one Kim insisted on because of the community), Hotville Chicken unfortunately had to close down.  However, she teamed up with another pillar of the community, Greg Dulan of the legendary L.A. spot, Dulan’s Soul Food on Crenshaw – and the two created a successful food truck, Dulanville, which has relentlessly (of course) traveled throughout the city for the past several years.  And no, that too is not the point, but we’re getting close.
 
The point (and finally, we’re there…) is that last week, Kim Prince and Greg Dulan were on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  The reason is that he’s been featuring local chefs who have shown up in wildfire zones to feed people in need – and Kim and Greg, being who they are, are among those.
 
But it’s even more impressive than that.  To put it in perspective, when I sent an email to the Hotville account about how nice it was to see her on Kimmel’s show, she wrote back the following note, the details of which blew me away.  Though (being who she is), I wasn't surprised at that.  She wrote –

​​Here’s the video of their appearance on the show –
​

This is a bit of a change of pace.  In this video, Jiminy Glick is not Out and About, but rather he's sitting in for Larry King one night on CNN in 2005.  And his guest here is another CNN mainstay, Anderson Cooper, who struggles his best to handle with a straight face what must be a totally uncommon interview for him.  And repeatedly fails.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Idiocracy that Trump and his team is causing for themselves by doing incredibly stupid things that they think they can get away with having convinced themselves that they supposedly won a “landslide mandate,” when in reality Trump won by just 1.4% and the party lost a seat in the House.  And so many of his and their incredibly stupid actions are not only things the public on both sides doesn’t want and didn’t vote for (seriously, making Canada a state? Buying Greenland?), but some of which they are aghast by, like releasing terrorists from prison convicted of seditious conspiracy.  And there's so much more, including Trump’s partner-at-the-hip, illegal immigrant Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute.
 
As serious and dangerous to democracy as many of these incredibly stupid actions are by Trump and his fellow MAGOPs in Congress, I noted that the sheer stupidity of them risks undermining all their worst plans over the next four years.
 
“And in the end, they don’t have four years.  Candidates for the mid-term races will begin positioning themselves and campaigning in not much more than a year.  And Election Day only eight months after that.  When all seats in the House are up for re-election, and more MAGOP seats in the Senate than Democratic are at risk.”

Lest anyone think this was just rose-colored glasses wishful thinking, let's put this is brief perspective.  Trump won the election with 49.8% of the vote. In a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos, taken the first two days into his administration, when all new presidents are in their honeymoon period, Trump's approval already has dropped from that, down to just 47%!  Moreover, 58% of the country is against his mass pardons of 1,500 convicted criminals.  So much for that whole, y'know, "landslide mandate." 

And again, lest anyone think what I wrote yesterday was just rose-colored glasses wishful thinking, and prefer to ignore the Reuters/Ipsos poll, we jump you ahead far into the future, all the way to -- later in the same day.
 
Hours after writing all this yesterday, there was CNN's John King on Wednesday, being spot-on correct when he said that Trump had just created "a Democratic campaign ad" for 2026.

Trump not only pardoned 1,500 convicts, but as King noted, "He pardoned somebody who used the dark internet to sell cocaine, to sell heroin, to sell murder for hire. He pardoned him because Elon Musk and some others said, 'This is a good idea, sir.' That's a democratic campaign ad already made against House Republicans in vulnerable districts."

Indeed, all through the day, there was video of MAGOPs in Congress being followed by reporters and asked their reactions to Trump’s mass pardon of criminals, many of them violent criminals – and almost all of those MAGOP politicians were doing their best to run away and avoid answering.  Which tells you how disastrous they knew the pardons were.
 
Of course, the problem for all these MAGOPs in Congress trying to run away is that
they're not answering because they're scared how it will come across not just to Trump but also to the voting public.  And what they miss is that most of the public is as aghast as they themselves clearly are, and many of these voters won't be scared to voice their reaction at the mid-term elections. And so, rather than get out in front of the story, the MAGOP members of Congress are tied to the 1,500 pardons.
 
And if they think it won’t be an issue in the mid-terms, that it won’t be a “Democratic campaign ad” as John King noted, that they’ll be able to hide away 1,500 pardoned criminals while trying to be the supposed “law and order” (sic) party, and just be seen as pretending to make America great --
  
-- then all they had to do was watch what Democrats did later that very afternoon to drive home the point how disastrous this MAGOP stupidity was.
 
On the House floor, ranking member of the Rules Committee Jim McGovern stood and bluntly stated, "I think it takes a lot of nerve to come down here and talk to us about law and order when the gentleman who just spoke was at a D.C. Jail celebrating the release of people who attacked and beat cops."

And during the House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren went straight to the point, and snapped at Subcommittee Chair Tom McClintock (R-CA):  "Don't tell me that the motivation for the immigration crackdown is public safety when we release these violent criminals back into our communities."
 
But that was only the warm-up.  Because after her came Rep. Jamie Raskin.  And he let loose so impactfully that any MAGOP dreams that this all could be buried and slip by unnoticed went up in smoke.
​
"The chairman began by saying the point here is to restore the rule of law," Raskin stated. "Can you even pretend to do that if you stand by and support Donald Trump, who on day one, as the chairman of the committee just said, day one of his presidency pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, including hundreds of people who violently assaulted and attacked American police officers?"

He went on -- "The family of Officer Sicknick is absolutely devastated and demolished by what's just happened," speaking of the Capitol Police officer who had been killed during the Insurrection. "And now you have the temerity to come forward and say this is about public safety?

"How much safer are we now with these 1,500 criminals at large in Washington, D.C., and going out into the country?" Raskin continued. "Are you vouching that they are no longer a threat to public safety? What an outrage. What a scandal."

Democrats in Congress clearly get it, and clearly get the response.
 
Here's the Judiciary video in full --

​You can’t hide from the public the release of 1,500 convicted criminals from prison.  You certainly can’t hide it from your political opponents, and they aren’t going to let the public forget.  Nor forget that MAGOPs in Congress ran away to avoid criticizing what the public was already on record being strongly against.
 
And you can’t hide photos of Trump’s “shadow president” giving the Nazi salute, a ghastly fascist image that will be in so many of those campaign ads.  Or all the other incredibly stupid things that Trump and his MAGOP party have done in only two full days in office – let alone all their serious, dangerous, idiotic things sure to come.  As Trump’s dementia kicks into higher gear.

Sure to come.  Consider that after I wrote the first draft of this article, I had to jump back in because later last night, there was Trump on "Fox" with Sean Hannity, talking about TikTok --

Trump: Is it that important for China to be spying on young people watching crazy videos?

Hannity: I don't want China spying on anybody.

Yes, really.  Trump actually thinks the TikTok law passed by a bipartisan Congress is about watching kids watch videos.  Rather than all being about the vast information being gathered on Americans by the Chinese government.  And he thinks that only kids use TikTok.  I mean, even Sean Hannity gets it.  Sean Hannity.  Moreover, he gets it enough to actually push back on Trump.  

And it's all on video.  Trump indeed does keep making campaign ads for Democrats in 2026.

What Democrats did in Congress yesterday is not only what they should be doing at every single stupid, egregious, dangerous thing Trump does that MAGOPs attempt to avoid criticizing -- or even defend -- but it seems pretty clear from their actions that it is what Democrats will be doing.  Not just because it's politically smart...but because it's what you do when you know it's your responsibility to defend democracy against fascism. 

This blunt pushback from Democrats about the 1,500 pardons of criminals?  This is just one issue.  A mere two days into the new administration.  Put aside for the moment that a majority of the public is against Trump's unworkable "mass deportation" plans (which he promised he'd put into operation on Day One, but didn't) -- imagine the reaction when an absence of migrant workers -- including those here legally, but scared of being caught up in a sweep -- causes food prices to skyrocket, compounding inflation.  (No, this is not hyperbole. NBC reports today that already "The California Farm Bureau says fears in the Central Valley have led to migrant farmworkers not showing up for work, which has virtually halted the area's citrus harvest.") Imagine, too, public reaction to Trump not ending Russia's war against Ukraine (which he promised he'd do on Day One, but didn't), as video shows it continuing to rage into next year amid our election campaigns.  And what was his "secret plan" to end the fighting?  It was a social media post he wrote to Putin yesterday, "Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE".  Terrifying to Putin, for sure, if he was a third-grader.

And just imagine opposition campaign video of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute and Sean Hannity having to explain to Trump the problem with China spying on Americans, spying on children, and all the dangerous stupidity from Trump and MAGOPs that will fill up Democratic ads, for races that will start in only one year from now.  One year.  That's how close it is before candidates begin running -- donation requests, primaries, TV ads.  And Trump's approval is already dropping, and is below 50%, a mere two days into his honeymoon!

What's important is to put all this in its larger context: 

For all their many flaws and stupidity, one thing MAGOP politicians get (like all politicians) is poll numbers.  It's the lifeblood their campaigns run on.  If Trump -- a lame duck president on Day One -- already has an approval of just 47% and dropping, two days into his administration when his numbers should be at their highest, and has been pushing issues that the public at best doesn't care about at all or at worst hates, and is getting slammed by the conservative, Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal (in a scathing editorial yesterday about Trump's unethical "meme coin" scam that they wrote risks lawsuits) and is criticized by courts for the release of convicted criminals without reason, then MAGOP politicians at some point start paying attention for the safety of their own skin, and those in the party who want to be the new leader in 2028 start looking for ways to find cracks in the wall that are safe to attack (for "the sake of the party," of course).

For now, MAGOPs in Congress seem to be hiding in those cracks.  As those cracks become wider, though, it gets much harder to hide in them.

What will happen in two years?  You'd need a crystal ball for that, and they rarely work. Two things, though, are clear.  One is that this is a very poor way to start, and even worse when your 78-year-old leader has dementia.  And the second is --
 
As MAGOPs gear up to run for re-election, with election night only 22 months away, never was the phrase more literally true:
 
You can run -- but you can’t hide.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the stage production in London’s West End that was adaptation of Leslie Bricusse’s movie musical Scrooge – and which starred his longtime writing partner Anthony Newley in the title role.  And surprisingly came across a BBC Radio recording of the entire production done live on tour with an audience, which I posted here.

What I also came across was an impressively-detailed TV documentary on the making of the stage show as it prepared for the West End after having toured England for four years.  What’s so worthwhile about the 24-minute documentary is that it includes a bit of video footage of Newley performing in the role.  It also gives an excellent view of the massive work required to put on any stage show, especially a musical.

We’ll get to Trump’s inauguration some other day soon, I suppose, when I feel like dealing with it.  It's not going anywhere.  For now, instead, I’m okay dealing with the venality and stupidity of the Daily Trump.  To be clear, much of it is reprehensible, deeply serious and dangerous – though we knew that was coming, and many in authority are seemingly prepared for it, as much as possible.  The problem for the Trump administration is that mixed in to the danger is their utter stupidity and incompetence – which we knew was coming, too.  Even as fast and furious as it is.
 
For instance, in just the first full day, consider –
 
Trump put out two Executive Orders dealing with transgender issues, but in doing so, he referred to “all Americans legally female.” Now, putting aside that whatever people think about anyone transgender, there is nothing illegal about it.  But beyond that, I have a hard time imagining how utterly insulting it must be for women to see themselves described anywhere, but most especially by the White House as “legally female.”  Hey, really going after that women’s vote, are they?  And it’s idiotic things like this that only will make any later efforts they try when attacking women’s right to explain that, no, really, we’re on the side of the ladies.  Especially the legal ones.
 
Then there was the administration literally taking down the Spanish-language version of the White House website.  And yes, you read that correct.  But it’s worse, because they also closed the Spanish-language TwiXter account.  But it’s even worse than that!  (Hey, this is the Trump team, of course they can make it worse.)  That’s because on the webpage that shows the Spanish-language site is shut down, it direct users back to the home page – except that’s not what they say.  They say, “Go home.”  Yes, really!!!  After the outrage kicked in, someone at the White House realized they’d better change this quickly, and it now reads “Go to home page.”  But honestly, I’m not convinced it was a mistake – it might have been, but it just as easily might have been their way to not-so-subtly ridicule Mexicans.  And it was only when the “inside joke” was going too badly that they realized they had to change it.  What makes this so utterly stupid, beyond the venality, is that as much as they likely wanted to make the non-existent “point” that they believe all Americans should speak English, the reality is that many don’t.  And so, if you want to reach them, if you want to actually get your message out to them, then dropping your Spanish-language website and TwiXter account is incredibly idiotic and counter-productive.  And this doesn’t even touch on how insulting it must be to so much of the Spanish-speaking culture and is spitting in their faces.  But this is the Trump team, and what they believe.  It’s not surprising at all.  In fact, the only thing surprising has been Hispanic voters who thought Trump was really their guy, on their side, despite all repeated, relentless, blatant evidence to the contrary that he hates them.
 
And then there’s Trump pardoning 1,500 people convicted on the day of the Insurrection, including Enrique Tarrio, head of the white supremacist/neo-Nazi Proud Boys, convicted of “seditious conspiracy” (a rare and difficult charge to convict on) and sentenced to 22  years in prison, as well as commuting the sentences of all other Proud Boys who had been convicted of the same charge.  Putting aside how dangerous this is, which is a ton to put aside, it’s also monumentally stupid.  First of all, it sends the message on Day One that whenever Trump tries to bring up “law and order” about anything, he doesn’t mean it.  Second, polls show that the American public is very strongly against the release of violent Insurrectionists, and is also largely against the release of any of these prisoners, period.  But third, and most stupid of all, is that Trump is dividing his own party on the issue –
 
For instance, Trump loyalist Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he disagreed with the mass pardons of these 1,500 convicted Insurrectionists, saying he thinks it raises "a legitimate safety question here on Capitol Hill," allowing people to believe they can now attack the police.  And while Tillis is spot-on correct, he’s wrong in limiting it to just “here on Capitol Hill.”  Because it raises a legitimate safety question for all police everywhere, suggesting that it’s okay to attack the police wherever you are.
 
How problematic was this action by Trump?  When the largest police union, who had endorsed Trump during the election, was asked for their reaction to the mass pardon of those who had attacked the police, their replied, “We don’t have a statement to make about this.”  Since they did have a statement to make about endorsing Trump, this kind of a response speaks loudly.
 
And of course, perhaps the most stupid action of all on was Elon Musk’s Nazi salute.  As I wrote earlier, of course, it was a Nazi salute -- which Musk then repeated. Given his support of a neo-Nazi party in Germany and his many anti-Semitic statements, I don’t think there’s any realistic way for Musk to deny that it was just an accident or wasn’t a Nazi salute, though he tried weakly and belligerently, as is his way.  No, mind you, I have no idea if he meant his Nazi salute as support, or if it was his way of trying to annoy “the libs” (though I have my guess which one it was…), but of course it was a Nazi salute.  And truly – putting aside all the varied “explanations” -- how totally stupid do you have to be…to be a major adviser to the president, at his elbow, seen by some to be the “shadow president” and put what you, the richest man in the world, absolutely know will be this image throughout the United States and the world??!!  To think this image will go away and to think that this is what the American public, including many, if not most people who voted for Trump want…it’s just inane.