YouTube wants to host the Oscars

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The newest company vying to host the Academy Awards might be your friendly, neighbourhood video platform, a.k.a. YouTube. Bloomberg, citing two people familiar with the matter, claims the Alphabet-owned site has inquired about purchasing the rights to air the Academy Awards. Walt Disney's ABC currently holds the air rights for the awards show through at least 2028, but Bloomberg reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is in talks.

YouTube might be a behemoth in the video streaming space, but it still faces tough competition. There isn't just Disney or ABC, there's Comcast's NBCUniversal, Netflix, Amazon, and even Paramount's CBS. But YouTube hasn't shied away from live events. They have acquired the rights for NFL Sunday Ticket and are bidding on other live sports events. So, it might not win the rights for the Oscars outright, but it may get a chance to acquire them.

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Tweet about your favourite film of the year to get a chance to attend the Oscars in 2023

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While it's not considered a formal Academy Awards category, you can vote for your favourite film of the year even if it wasn't nominated for an Oscar. You can share your favourite through Twitter using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite. The film that receives the most fan votes by March 3 will be acknowledged during the awards broadcast on March 27. Three Twitter users who cast their votes between the February 14 and March 3 period will be picked to present an Oscar award at next year's ceremony. The trip will be all-expenses-paid, allowing you to bring a guest.

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Oscar winner Taika Waititi takes a jab at Apple MacBook keyboards

Photo: Nick Agro/A.M.P.A.S.

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether writer/director Taika Waititi is being serious or not, but there are some important points he raised during his backstage Q&A at the 2020 Oscars. The director of Thor: Ragnarok took home his first Academy Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Jojo Rabbit. When a reporter asked him about what writers should ask for when in talks with producers, Waititi went into a rant about Apple keyboards.

He said, "Apple needs to fix those keyboards. They are impossible to write on—they've gotten worse. It makes me want to go back to PCs. Because PC keyboards, the bounce-back for your fingers is way better. Hands up who still uses a PC? You know what I'm talking about. It's a way better keyboard. And those Apple keyboards are horrendous."

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Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s VR installation wins Oscar

Neil Kellerhouse

It’s been 22 years since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have handed out a special Oscar to someone (the last one was Toy Story in 1995) and there have only been less than two dozen given out. And for the first time, a virtual reality experience gets the award. The Academy is giving two-time Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) VR installation that’s currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It looks into the experience of Mexican refugees and combines physical spaces—which features sand-covered floor, a spare and cold waiting room, and multi-screen video installation—and an Oculus Rift.

According to John Bailey, the Academy’s president, Carne y Arena “opened for us new doors of cinematic perception… More than even a creative breakthrough in the still emerging art form of virtual reality, it viscerally connects us to the hot-button political and social realities of the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Source: Polygon