Call off the bloodhounds...

...I'm back. I'm sorry about the absence; this is probably the longest unscheduled hiatus from WSW I've been forced to take. Long story short, I was sick. I was really sick. Like had-to-go-to-the-hospital sick. I'm okay now, I was never on the brink of death or anything like that, but it obviously wrecked my schedule completely for the month. Nothing to be done about it now; I'm just sorry it had to happen.

Moving forward, I've canceled some things and rescheduled others. I've got a review of William Shatner's new book Leonard, about the late Leonard Nimoy, on deck. My temporary old-movie moratorium is over, so expect some classic films to make their way back into the conversation here again.

At this point there's a possibility I may not attend the Queens World Film Festival this year. I might spend that weekend with my pals Bibi and Eric instead, but that hasn't been finalized yet. It looks like this is where I'm leaning toward, and if that's the case I might be able to tell you all about it. Stay tuned.

The Oscars: I don't think anyone expected Spotlight to upset The Revenant for Best Pic, but that was a pleasant surprise. It's an excellent movie and it deserved the top prize. It's too bad it couldn't have won more than Picture and Original Screenplay, though. Yay for Leo finally winning a little gold man, as well as for his super-classy speech. Now how about throwing us a bone and doing a comedy for once instead of all these dramas?

As for the "white Oscars" controversy, all I'll say for now is this: the obvious solution to seeing more people of color amongst the Oscar ranks would seem to be to make more movies with people of color. Any reluctance on the part of The Powers That Be to do so, for whatever reason, is gonna have to be overcome, sooner rather than later. That said, and this is something I've said before and I'll say it again: historical dramas about black people overcoming prejudice and rising up from slavery and blah blah blah are all well and good, but what we desperately need much, much more of are movies that speak to who black people are today, in the 21st century. TV is starting to get the idea, with shows like How to Get Away With Murder and Scandal. Now movies seriously need to catch up.

One last thing: my friend Batton Lash does a comic book called Supernatural Law, a witty and fun book about lawyers whose clients are monsters, witches, ghosts and other creatures of the night. He's got a Kickstarter campaign going for his latest volume, which is called A Vampire in Hollywood. Check out the incentives he's offering for this campaign and if you can, throw a buck or two his way. SL is one of the longest-running indie comic books still active, and for good reason. Give it a look.