Bill Maher is in Oscar fever, he admitted Friday at the head of his HBO Real Time. The illness keeps him thinking about his mortgage. That’s because “it seems to last 30 years and I have a very low interest rate.”
There are many remakes in this year’s Best Picture field, Maher noted. That includes Nightmare Alley, which is also the Republican abortion plan, he claimed.
Maher also touched on perhaps the biggest surprise of the Oscars – that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could appear. “He thinks Putin is a bloodthirsty lunatic,” Maher noted. “Wait ’til he sees Twitter on Oscar night..” If Zelensky doesn’t make it, the Oscars has a similar backup plan: Nic Cage, “who survived a lot of bombing.”
There’s also a rumor going around that Q-Anon audiences are suspicious that the Oscars are a false flag event. Finally, “there’s a bunch of paid actors out there.”
Later in the show, Maher circled back to Hollywood and its tendency to imitate success. Pointing out how Brokeback Mountain spawned this year’s The Power of the Dog, Maher suggested that a new wave of gay cowboy remakes is on the horizon, namely: Once Upon a Time in the West Village, Butch Cassidy & the Some Trans Kid, Django Uncuthers, The Outlaw Jussie Smollett, 3:10 to Fire Island, Cat Fight at the OK Corral, How the West Was Fun, and Seven Brouthers for Seven Brothers.
Before and after the funny Oscar story, Maher had a chat with Julie Ioffe, the founding partner and Washington correspondent for the Puck news site. Ioffe was born in Russia and is considered a connoisseur of the country.
People in Russia may know what’s going on in Ukraine, but “they’re starting to be very careful who they talk to and how they talk about it,” Ioffe said.
Putin is in an information bubble, Ioffe said, and is acting rationally based on the information he has in that closed environment. “He’s turning 70 and he’s been thinking about his legacy,” Ioffe said. But “The circle of people around him is getting smaller and smaller. In his bubble he gets very bad information.”
Ioffe said she wasn’t very optimistic about the result for Ukraine. “I think (Putin) wants to see it through to the end,” Ioffe said. “He can’t be seen as a loser against people he called ‘little Russians.’
The panel portion of the show featured John Heilemann, Editor-in-Chief of The Recount and host and executive producer of Showtime’s The Circus, and Democratic Montana Senator Senator Jon Tester.
The panel discussed the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “We have the Oscars to honor the best actors and the Supreme Court hearing to witness the worst,” Maher said, adding that the hearing was “Karen Heaven” for the way Jackson did was treated.
Tester said opposition Sen. Joe Manchin will vote for Jackson, reducing the likelihood of her being denied the nomination. The tester added that Judge Jackson “is normal. You can say that for Washington, DC.”
Maher pointed out that bitter partisanship began with the Robert Bork hearings in the 1980s. Heilemann pointed out that while these hearings were rough, they “dissected his constitutional views,” he said. “It was factual. Not what we see now.”
The panel also addressed inflation and the results of a survey of what Americans would do if attacked by Russia.
Maher’s concluding “New Rules” segment of the show spoke about the attraction of Volodymyr Zelensky, who crushes many women.
“The world still needs grown men,” Maher said. “Could it be that women, as much as they want to create the perfect man, no amount of training will make us your favorite Twilight character.”
Zelensky, Maher said, “don’t just listen — he fixes the problem.”