Recession Hits the Oscars— Sort Of

But most remain upbeat about their future: Pew survey

(NEWSER) - The economy is doing a number on those aged 18 to 34, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center :

• Half say they have taken a job they didn't want.
• More than a third have gone back to school because of the job market.
• Nearly a quarter have taken unpaid work to gain experience.
• About a quarter have moved back in with the folks.
• More than 1 in 5 have postponed having a baby, and about the same number have put off getting married.

At least new industries arose in the 1930s: Leonhardt

(NEWSER) - There's never a Great Depression around when you need one, apparently. Despite its misery, "the United States economy was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s," argues David Leonhardt in the New York Times . Americans were getting a better education—high school, back then—while industrious entrepreneurs were inventing television, mass marketing refrigerators, and improving railroads. "It would clearly be nice if we could take some comfort from this bit of history," writes Leonhardt. "If anything, though, the lesson of the 1930s may be the opposite one." More»

Film critic: The problem is that they're usually right

(NEWSER) - As the film critic for the Los Angeles Times , Kenneth Turan loves the Oscars. But he hates the nonstop barrage of predictions that bombard us ahead of the show. His beef "is not that the pundits are often wrong but, frankly, that they are often right," he says. "The more academy votes and voters are studied, the more patterns emerge, the more identifiable signs and meanings become apparent, and the more the awards can be unceremoniously pinned to a board like a captured butterfly." More»

Article on black Oscar winners fails to mention her win

(NEWSER) - Whoopi Goldberg has lashed out at the New York Times for an article on how no black actors are being considered for Academy Awards this year. While Goldberg can sympathize with the article's main thrust, it's the fact that the authors—movie critics AO Scott and Manohla Dargis—seem to list every black Academy Award winner except her, Mediaite reports. Goldberg took her grievances—and her actual Oscar—to the View. More»

In field of possible nominees, barely any minorities

(NEWSER) - Next year’s Oscars are shaping up to be the whitest Academy Awards in a decade, according to the Hollywood Reporter . Among the early lists of possible nominees, there are no blacks in the acting categories and almost no minorities at all in the major categories. Why? Partly because right now in the filmmaking industry, it’s hard to make serious movies—“let alone an ethnic-themed one,” says John Singleton, nominated twice for 1991’s Boyz N the Hood. More»