Werner Herzog has been “Werner Herzog” for 35 years or so, and the Academy waited until yesterday to invite him to become a member? Is it because someone finally noticed that he’s based in Los Angeles and using the same post-production houses and going to the same parties?
Wait, I just figured it: this is a makeup gesture to one of the world’s most visionary filmmakers to apologize for the Academy’s documentary committee failing to list Herzog’s Grizzly Man, the most critically hailed doc of ’05, among the initial qualifiers.
