Name Dropping

By Alan Appel
Television ratings were once HUGE, but audience interest for Oscar broadcasts in recent years does seem to be plummeting faster than Harrison Ford’s career. Maybe if more sophisticated, crowd-pleasing films were nominated, and maybe if the Academy could settle on a quick-witted, continuing-year-to-year host (come home, Billy Crystal) , and maybe if telecasts didn’t have painfully long running times to accommodate lame performance segments and lamer acceptance speeches for even the minor awards, there would be hope. I’m not holding my breath that this year’s 83rd ceremony, slated for Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theater, will be an appreciably livelier or better-paced affair.
On another gloomy front, there’s yet another film adaptation of The Great Gatsby in the works, this one to star Leonardo DiCaprio  and Carey Mulligan  and directed by Baz Luhrmann. Listen up, old sports: some Great American Novels simply defy adaptation; five previous versions didn’t work, and if Francis Ford Coppola’s script couldn’t save the Robert Redford-Mia Farrow Gatsby from 1974, then just give it up. Another remake in production, however, does have intriguing possibilities—Colin Firth in a big-screen version of John LeCarre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which got a spectacular six-part adaptation back in 1979 on PBS’s Great Performances franchise.