An Open Letter from The Oscar Buzz

Scene from Amadeus

As most of you are aware, I mentioned that following this year's Academy Awards that I would be going on a one month hiatus. Well, that was actually two months ago and I greatly apologize for not being more open during this time. Sure I have written stuff, but there hasn't been a clear picture of what's going on. I guess the easiest way of putting it is that, like you, I was turned flipped upside down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had no idea how to continue things other than to run my regular columns. Well... what have I been up to in that time? How will I move forward? I figure that everyone deserves to have some answer from me, even if it's an underwhelming one. The Oscar Buzz will continue, but nowhere near what I hoped it would be for the immediate future. 

For those who are familiar with how The Oscar Buzz operates, I usually take the month following the Academy Awards ceremony off in order to work on other projects. After that, I return and begin to cover upcoming events that may be deemed worthy of the following Oscar season. It's a slow rollout, but my content usually picks up once summer has started. Now that we're in May and pretty much on the cusp of the time when movie trailers for awards winners would be debuting, I figure that we get to the obvious. That's not going to be happening. We're doomed to an uneventful summer. There's no In the Heights to get us singing. At best we have endless quarantine specials, which... doesn't qualify as The Oscar Buzz content.

So what are we to do since COVID-19 has caused the entertainment industry to shut down? To be honest, I don't have an entirely clear answer at the moment. There's nothing that I can do without totally rebranding this website, and I don't wish to do that. Maybe I will come up with "quarantine columns" that will run exclusively during this downtime in order to keep writing coming out, but for now, I will have to admit the obvious. I am not going to be writing as much on here as I normally do around May. I will be writing any updates that The Academy provides, though I don't expect that to be plentiful. At most, it will be an interesting season since it's likely to be centered around V.O.D. content. 

With that said, there are some things that will be in regular rotation. As of now, I don't have anything planned for Composing Greatness, though it may be making an appearance by next month. I will, however, keep A24 A-to-Z and Legitimate Theater running their regular entries, which will fall towards the end of the month. Beyond that, I don't entirely know what I'm going to do without just saying that I will find topical things to touch on. 

If you have any idea what Oscar-oriented content I could be writing about, please let me know. I want to get this site back up and running, but I've been largely out of ideas. With that said, this summer will have one fun column planned. Stay tuned for an announcement about my column that will rank every Best Picture nominee from between 2010 and 2019. It's going to be my summer series and I just need to plan it out accordingly.

With that said, you are not out of options to read my work. While I regret to inform you that my other website Optigrab has shut down, I have started a new one called The Memory Tourist, which is updating daily and covers everything that has to do with media. I think it's a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy reading about everything from Bad Education to Pepsi Blue. There is currently around 90 pieces to read, so I hope that you'll approve.

I apologize that I cannot come bearing better news, but I'm working on a ton of things at this moment to keep myself busy. For instance, I recently came out with a short story collection called "Esoteric Shapes" that's on Amazon for $15. I have more in the works, and I hope that I come up with an idea that will make updating this page more regularly a plausible promise. Until that day, I will just say that I hope you're all doing well and I hope that we can get through this together. Take care of yourself and if you have any way of getting through this pandemic that could benefit the blog, please let me know.