AMPAS followed up the controversial announcement expanding the best picture category from 5 nominees to 10 with further changes that tinker with the process for choosing the nominees for best original song and that relegate the Irving Thalberg Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the honorary Oscar for career excellence to a November gulag attended by 500 invitees.
There seems to be a misperception that the changes are intended to make better awards when in fact they have little to do with the integrity of the honor and everything to do with convincing people to tune into the advertising gold mine that is (or was) the TV show. Ghettoizing the honorary awards is an especially bad idea, but it will definitely make for a faster paced ceremony. Most people who only see a few movies a year and who only talk about them in the week or two leading up to the Oscars always complain about the boring speeches by the oldsters they’ve never heard of, but eliminating them cheapens the Oscars even further than adding 5 more best picture nominees.
That’s not to say the ceremony won’t be a more slickly entertaining affair this year and that there won’t be a bigger crop of better nominees. There might be, but there might also be a bigger crop of lame nominees. Giving a half-blind sniper 5 more bullets may increase the chances he’ll hit his target, but it also increases the chances an innocent bystander will get killed. Early predictions aside, no one knows what will happen – especially since no one has seen most of the movies likely to get nominated.
Regardless of whether Oscar gets it right this year or not, you should be very skeptical of the motives of any awards body that depends on television ratings. Popularity should only be the purview of the wretched People’s Choice Awards. The Oscars have always been able to stay a bit above the more dubious awards despite the televised ceremony because they were always the big kid in town and they had the weight of the industry behind them. The other awards shows had to be content to pick up the table scraps tossed off by Oscar, but the more desperate AMPAS gets to save its ceremony, the more it risks lying down with the dogs.
Hah, nice analogy with the sniper and the extra bullets.
This is very disappointing. The lifetime achievement awards can be overwhelmed by grating clips montages but the speeches and podium times are usually the only recognition these artists ever get from the Academy. I hated the clips montage of AMPAS-nominated movies from Ennio Morricone’s career, because it omitted most of his best work, and the musical number from Celine ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? Dion was just adding insult to injury, but Ennio Morricone getting recognition and being introduced by Clint Eastwood (in Italian) was the highlight of a great awards show.
Take that away, and it’s just another bunch of awards. Where’s the recognition of history, AMPAS? Or more importantly, the recognition of talent overlooked by the AMPAS?
AMPAS sucks.
Seriously, people are being given that honorary lifetime achievement for a reason. Don’t push it into the background. For some of those people it will be the ONLY time they get to walk out on that stage and be honored by all of those people in the room.
Also, OT and nothing to do with movies but Bill Mays the Infomercial King died. He was only like 50 and they just found him dead in his house. This week is just depressing the crap out of me.
Yeah, lame but ever predictable. That’s AMPAS’ claim to fame.
I’m all for making things better. (Believe me. There are LOTS of things that could be improved upon.)
But name me one big sweeping change that they’ve gotten behind in the last decade or so that greatly benefitted their membership OR us. I personally can’t think of any.
It’s too bad that effective protests from the public can’t be organized in these instances. If they thought enough people were outraged enough that they wouldn’t watch, then they would most certainly back down.
But I guess that won’t happen.
Plus the Academy does change the rules every five minutes to suit themselves. That was amply illustrated with the Jonny Greenwood debacle and the thing with ONCE’S music where Marketa and Glen were almost disqualified.
Craig, make no mistake. Opening up the BEST PICTURE nominees to 10 is going to create at least three nods that shouldn’t be there. That extra five will largely be a combination of filler and movies that should have never be given a shot in the first place.
I WOULD LOVE TO BE WRONG. If I am next year, I’ll be absolutely delighted to be.
But this is all going in a very disconcerting and madly annoying direction.
Now they want to remove the honorary awards from the telecast. This is beyond ridiculous.
It’s true. Those honours can be a drag. But sometimes (especially if the films and actors that you love have been going down in flames all night long) the honorary awards are the highlight of the evening. Often they are cherished memories that you think about for decades.
Sophia Loren never accepted her 1961 Oscar for Two Women in person. I was too young to see Robert Redford win for Best Director in 1981. So it was absolutely joyous to watch them on stage with their new awards and to hear them speak.
Stanley Kubrick’s tribute (hosted by Steven Spielberg) was magical and very moving. And don’t even get me started on my magnificent idol Peter O’Toole being given his due by the goddess Meryl Streep.
We could have missed all of that.
I don’t like what they’re doing. These decisions all seem very calculated and money driven.
Whatever happened to tradition…?
Tradition indeed. It’s the one thing that the Oscars have above all the other two-bit shows and they’re throwing it out the window to appease people who only watch 5 movies a year anyway.
I’m inclined to think Miranda is right about the 10 nominees, but there’s at least room to give the benefit of a doubt there. With the honorary awards, there’s no doubt. With the awards, the ceremony is one thing and without them it is less.
I have no opinion on how the song rule changes will shake out. It’s not historically my favorite category anyway,
relegate the Irving Thalberg Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the honorary Oscar for career excellence to a November gulag attended by 500 invitees
This really, really bothers me, much more than the 10 BP nominees.
Everything Miranda said is right on the money.
I’m really disappointed.
Maybe everyone can consider these and other issues before again praising a performance or picture as “Oscar-worthy” or before spending thousands of words narrowing which self-righteous guilt picture will be nominated over another.
My last Oscar ceremony was the one where Forrest Gump cleaned up, that was finally enough.
Agreed K. It’s insulting.
Chuck, I was exactly the same way 4 or 5 years ago, but I kind of came around. Now I don’t take them very seriously, but I enjoy the hubbub around them and the fact it gets people talking about the same movies. I wish those movies were better more often, but that’s just not in the cards for something designed to be mass popular.
They’re impossible to ignore completely so i just try to enjoy them for what they are.
Insulting is exactly the word for it.