As deadlines approach for strikes by Hollywood actors and writers, Los Angeles is facing the possibility of becoming, for a time, a characterless, movieless sprawl. Well, they're only writers, after all.
Talks keep breaking down an inch away from agreement.
There's plenty of bad feeling in the air, and a growing sense of inevitability. And in the midst of this uncertainty, the movie community awaits the Oscars, its annual festival of big-business interests disguised as individual achievements. The lobbying season is over. Rock stars are no longer playing impromptu gigs in old folks' homes in the hope of garnering a few votes for best song from elderly members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The votes are in.