Gossiptainment01

The Oscar telecast always juggles three major objectives: Honoring the year’s best films and those who made them; broadly celebrating and promoting the movie-going habit; and putting on a good show, both for the bigwigs in the theater and the folks at home. The second one of those priorities has taken on greater significance amid a slump in theatrical ticket sales, victimized by a one-two punch from Covid and streaming. Yet the 96th Academy Awards shined the brightest in that third basket, delivering an award telecast defined by its playfulness and punctuated by moments of fun, with Ryan Gosling’s contributions worth the price of admission alone. Those qualities were both necessary and welcome, since the awards themselves followed the anticipated script, closing with the unsurprising act of handing the coveted best-picture prize to “Oppenheimer,” one of seven statuettes amassed by director Christopher Nolan’s historical epic. It’s time to remember Ryan Gosling’s best dance moves Indee...