Read the full story, “Regulators Move to Rein In CDS,” posted on March 9 on Markets Media Online (subscription or temporary free registration required).

Oh sure, in many ways it was the normal run of lame jokes, gaudy fashion, public ego wanking and pointless statements (barely redeemed by Quentin Tarantino’s plastered impersonation of Bill the Cat. Ironically, it was rounded out with a long interpretive dance performance that raised the question: when does an interpretive dance require an interpreter to interpret whatever the heck the interpretive dance was about?

But there was something else going on with the Academy Awards show. Something poorly defined and barely whispered but definitely floating in the air. Just a hint, maybe, that the Hollywood industry is turning sideways, topsy-turvy and inside out, and that they are still unclear as to what exactly is that strange rumbling sound somewhere around the next corner. Maybe it was the ever-increasing sense of an enormous gap between an aging old guard (almost all of whom were new guards just a brief decade ago) and a young pack of newbies who may, or may not, have any reason for (or interest in) being there. Perhaps it was the brief flashes of racial and sexual conflict (weirdly summed up by the “Kanye West” moment at the Documentary Award presentation). Or could it be the degree to which the 82nd Academy Awards were starting to look like a mainstream version of the Spirit Awards for Independent Filmmaking?

This oddity really hit me when Tyler Perry stepped out on stage as a presenter. Here’s a guy who works totally out of Atlanta making low-budget movies that make an enormous profit from an audience that is largely ignored by Hollywood, while driving the studio suits nuts trying to figure out how he does it (I guess, maybe, by making movies his audience likes). And they want him out there because more of the TV audience is going to know who he is than know that Dame, Helen Mirren. By the way, Perry really drives studio honchos nuts because his movies, proportionally speaking, make more money than any Hollywood studio movie. Like I said, he drives the suits right up the wall.

Which also reminds me of how the whole awards show is bought and paid for by the same studio executives who just last year told independent cinema to drop dead — the same whiz kids who want people to pay big bucks at the box office to wear funky glasses and watch ridiculously expensive movies in 3D. The whole concept of the Academy Awards is to celebrate the shrewd brains of Hollywood who once thought Ben Affleck was going to be a major leading man, and who now think Gilligan’s Island will make for a hot motion picture.

No wonder I’m still looking for my copy of The Little Red Book. OK, the Maoist influence on cinema is actually pretty meager. A few extremely boring abstract films by Jean-Luc Godard and the old Chinese production of The Red Detachment of Women, a Cultural Revolution period opera that strangely resembles an old MGM musical (though performed with AK-47s). But whatever Mao didn’t know about movies, he certainly knew about contradictions, and the current state of Hollywood is a prime example.

So The Hurt Locker (budget: $11 million) becomes this year’s most honored film, closely followed by Precious (budget: $10 million). Meanwhile, funding for such small-budget movies is rapidly vanishing. The night’s biggest loser, Avatar (budget: are you kidding? After the first $400 million nobody was counting), is exactly the model of what every Hollywood studio is currently anxious to produce. In their pursuit of this model, most studios are facing financial problems and are cutting back on production, which in turn means they’re losing product and becoming less competitive in the market.

The contradictions continue. One of the few reasons for having the dang Oscars is the boost the nomination process gives to the films selected. But that didn’t happen this time. Of the ten movies nominated, at least five were either in second run or available only on DVD. In turn, the theatrical distribution process for small-budget movies is being gutted as many movie theaters creep toward “special event” presentations. Which also creates another odd contradiction, since the movie has to have had some theatrical play during the year in order to qualify for an Oscar, while at the same time, the increasingly harsh conditions of the distribution business are forcing many small-budget films toward alternative, non-theatrical distribution strategies.

The list is long and we have barely begun. Life is full of contradictions, and Hollywood is most certainly full of something. Every crucial issue that the film industry is currently facing was carefully avoided during the show. Yet the issues were right there, staring us in the face for more than three hours. No wonder the show began looking a bit like a bizarre funeral, minus the body.

And by the way, what was the deal with all the table lamps in the set design? The stage looked like a fancy display at Wal-Mart.

Oops, more contradictions. And I still can’t find my copy of that book.

Aside from the possibility that she will become the first woman ever to receive an Oscar for directing, Bigelow is only the fourth woman filmmaker to ever be nominated for this award. Officially, this is due to the previous lack of women directors in the industry. In reality, this is due to the lack of acceptance of women directors in Hollywood.

Women filmmakers have been around since almost the beginning of cinema, roughly starting with Alice Guy Blache at the end of the nineteenth century. But most of the early history of women filmmakers is hidden away within the largely unwritten history of independent cinema. For example, few people know the name Lois Weber, but her silent films were often better made than those of many of her Hollywood rivals (if you can ever find a copy, you might want to check out her 1921 production of The Blot).

Oh sure, in the 1930s Dorothy Arzner briefly crashed her way into the all-boys club (she is still best known for her 1933 movie Christopher Strong, though I personally prefer her 1940 production of Dance, Girl, Dance). But Arzner’s time in the director’s chair was relatively brief, and few other exceptions (e.g. The B movies of Ida Lupino) would appear until the 1970s. Within the Hollywood industry, women were qualified for screenwriting, editing, designing and assorted other “behind the scenes” occupations, but for crying out loud don’t let them try to run the place!

That was then, this is now (sort of). There have been some major changes (on occasion). But a recently released study from the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism finds that the Hollywood system is still a largely male-dominated club. Well, they actually kind of get to this the long way around by discovering that the more women who are involved behind the camera in a production, the more female characters are presented in front of the camera. Along the way, they notice that in a majority of movies, you have mostly male directors, writers, producers and (quelle surprise!) characters. In the study, they examined several variations in the number of female characters in a film, finding a basic difference of 28 percent to 39 percent based on various combinations of male/female screenwriters and producers. The big variation was in the category of directors, with women filmmakers averaging 44.6 percent female characters while male directors averaged only 29.3 percent. In other words, male directors like making movies about male characters while the female characters are hanging around to look pretty. OK, what this study discovers isn’t exactly a major piece of news, but it does confirm what we already suspected.

Oddly enough, the male director average found in this study is roughly the same in most of Kathryn Bigelow’s movies. Bigelow may be a girl, but her films are mostly about the boys. OK, she has maintained some ironic points in this game. Jamie Lee Curtis’ cop in Blue Steel goes from shaky female recruit to coldly determined avenger within 90 minutes as she and Ron Silver fight it out for control of the movie’s high-powered phallic symbol. In Strange Days, Ralph Fiennes plays an extremely fragile and emotionally scarred pusher who desperately needs the butt-kicking manly support of a leather-clad Angela Bassett. But mostly, Bigelow’s movies are about manly men (and some manly women) doing manly things in extremely brutal, manly ways. To be honest, one thing I never much liked about her films is the odd way they make me feel like a weak and whiny little girl.

Which may explain why Bigelow is about to become the first woman director to win the Oscar for her work. Back in 1994, when Jane Campion was nominated for Best Director for The Piano, it was pretty obvious that she didn’t stand a chance. Too many men viewed the film with overt hostility (I actually didn’t like it much either, but my objection had to do with paying good money to see Harvey Keitel naked). But Bigelow is meaner and tougher than any of the boys. Technically, she is a very gifted director (actually more talented than her better known ex-husband). But I have yet to see a Bigelow film without feeling the need afterwards for a really hot bath to remove the sordid feel of her excessive macho sensibility.

So Bigelow’s impending Oscar will be an important benchmark in Hollywood history even though it’s going to be a tad hollow. For every step forward, there are often two or three steps back. And no matter what happens this Sunday, women will still have a long hard fight for greater control in Hollywood.

Read the full story by Kevin G. Hall and Greg Gordon, “Goldman under scrutiny for its role in Greece’s fiscal woes,” McClatchy Newspapers, February 25, 2010.

Read the full article by Christian Toto, “Sleeper Material?”, posted on February 25, 2010 on Boxoffice.com.