“Should we just FedEx the Oscars over to Spielberg’s house now and save everybody the trouble of voting?” one academy member was quoted as saying in Variety. Harvey Weinstein had other ideas. Now, though sheer force of will, it seemed, he wanted to pull off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history. “He’s a man of extraordinary passion and determination, whether anybody likes it or not,” Madden said of Weinstein, who now faces five charges including rape and two counts of predatory sexual assault. “He was obviously a force of nature within the industry, and in other ways we hadn’t understood and are appalled to look back on.”

Source: New York Times February 15, 2019 17:15 UTC