Will smith

It is hard to think of the last time that the Academy Awards had a great host. Jimmy Kimmel did a competent job in 2023 and earlier this year, and was fortunate to sit out the notorious ceremony in 2022 in which Will Smith marched on stage to slap Chris Rock. Yet it’s impossible to remember anything really entertaining that Kimmel did or said — unlike his first time hosting in 2017, when the event fell apart in Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque chaos when La La Land was wrongly announced to have won Best Picture when in fact Moonlight had — and it’s no wonder that he didn’t want to return for a fifth go for next year’s ceremony. Many estimable comedians and chat show hosts have tried, and failed, to make their mark at the Oscars.

If you were standing somewhere around Hollywood today, you would hear a long, deep exhalation. The new Bad Boys film, snappily subtitled Ride or Die, has indeed ridden, rather than expired, at the US box office. It grossed $56 million in its opening weekend — and not only is this the highest opening for an R-rated film since Oppenheimer nearly a year ago, but it indicates that in a summer where blockbusters have been routinely un-performing (Furiosa and The Fall Guy may have been critically acclaimed, but it looks unlikely either will cover their considerable production costs), there is still hope for a crowd-pleasing action film that appeals to a wide audience. Yet the film’s success was also a quasi-referendum on the pulling power of its leading man.

This Sunday, the annual orgy of back-slapping, expensive frocks, frenzied behind-the-scenes campaigning and self-promotion will finally climax with the 96th Academy Awards, taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony itself is perhaps the most predictable and consequently least exciting for years. Barring an upset of unimaginable proportions, Oppenheimer will win Best Film and Best Director, and its co-star Robert Downey Jr. will win Best Supporting Actor — a popular award for a popular figure — and Da’Vine Joy Randolph will win Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers.

Cancel culture has struck again, but this time its would-be victims aren’t apologizing. The Daily Mail — a publication notorious for being “free” with its own speech — is leading the anti-cancel culture charge this month with a series of stories that point to an encouraging trend. A handful of prominent creatives are standing up to woke bullies and noting the dangers (and impracticalities) of their demands, which essentially amount to writers and entertainers forsaking their imaginative talents by only addressing things they’ve personally experienced. Except they aren’t supposed to be candid about those things, either, as they might offend someone if they’re too honest.

In 2019, the aspiring filmmaker Morgan Cooper had a clever idea. He took the cheery early Nineties Will Smith comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and reimagined it as a gritty social realist drama, even making a low-budget trailer for his idea. It went viral, and the streaming service Peacock turned it into a series, now titled Bel-Air. The protagonist (still named Will Smith) is again removed to his aunt and uncle’s care after getting involved in gang tensions in West Philadelphia, but the show is largely devoid of jokes. Instead, it tries to offer a serious look at the young African-American experience in the contemporary United States, complete with Instagram influencers as supporting characters. It is not much fun. Television dramas reinvented as comedies are nothing new.