Bad Ideas Never Die: Eight Awards Bumped from the Oscar Telecast

[Mister Tee]

Article worth reading (if you can get past the pay wall):

https://www.vulture.com/2022/02/please- ... scars.html

[Mister Tee]

Reaction -- surprise! -- is not good in the affected branches. Fascinating tidbit from this piece: the sound branch was specifically promised that, if they combined the two sound awards, there was no way their award would be bumped off-air...a promise that had roughly the shelf-life of an agreement between the U.S. government and Native Americans.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235098007/

There's an awful lot of what-about-ism in this thread -- Okay, this is a terrible idea, but what about Soderbergh's crappy show/Jimmy Kimmel's dumb stunts/vapid starlets giving out awards? They seem to me, like most what-about-ism, utterly beside the point The only questions regarding this change are, is it a good idea, and will it play any role in reversing the Oscar's slide in the almighty ratings? I think the answer to those is No and No, and anything after that is sophistry.

However...I'll try to address a few of the points raised.

If they're emulating the Tonys, that's just bad news. The Tony producers have never made much secret that all they want is a long commercial for Broadway, up to and including musical numbers from shows like Jersey Boys that are in their second decade. Last year, thanks to the Paramount+ deal, the broadcast Tonys only featured 4 awards -- and the producers were fine with that. (They could give one fuck who wins lead actor in a play -- unless it's a star like Denzel or Cranston). Anyone who's actually interested in the awards has no advocate in the process. Oh, and kicker: the Tony ratings continue to decline every year -- so none of these "improvements" are helping.

The Oscars are still going to run the same amount of time, because -- dirty little secret -- they rely on selling that amount of time to advertisers. What they're going to do is fill that time normally spent on those awards with...well, I don't know, but, given the ideas they've had for improving things in recent years (tribute to John Hughes, Best Popular Film award), I wouldn't expect anything stellar.

I took Sabin's "have these categories ever offered any excitement?" question as a bit of a challenge. I'd say I view each of them in two ways: Have they ever thrilled me simply as choices?, and Have they ever been interesting as part of a narrative for the evening? Focusing on simply shows from this millennium, I offer:

Sound: None of us liked it, but that Kevin O'Connell guy finally won on his -- what, 28th try? How anti-climactic for that to be off-air.

Production design: Lincoln was an interesting, atypical choice. And Black Panther had the first African-American winner in the category.

Make-up: It certainly wasn't a pleasant surprise, but Suicide Squad's win shocked us all.

Editing: Traffic came into the 2000 show looking like supporting actor/screenplay was its limit; the un-forecast editing prize presaged its directing win, at which point it was fully in the best picture chase. The Departed's win in a very contested category made the Scorsese at-last victory seem even closer. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was thrilling on its own -- unexpected, not a best picture nominee, but fully deserving. And the Hacksaw Ridge win over favored La La Land gave a hint of what was to come for Chazelle's film.

Score: But this is the one I'd really miss. We had Reznor & Ross' first win, a triumph for hardly-Academy-style music. Alexandre Desplat and Ennio Morricone winning long-overdue prizes (in competitive races). And Joker winning for its female composer. Could any of these have had the same emotional impact if, instead of seeing the electric moment when the envelope is opened, the audience was told "X Person won half an hour ago (which you already know from Twitter), and here's a snippet of his or her speech?"

By the way: Max Mad Fury Road -- the big awards-getter of 2015 -- would have seen only costume design presented live. It's possible this year's potential big numerical winner, Dune, will only get visual effects on-air.

And is it coincidence that costume design made the live cut, when a prime contender for the win is Disney's Cruella?

Finally, Magilla's take. I'm going to half-agree with you, and half say, You're romanticizing the past. First, the latter: if you look back at the presenters of my early years of watching the Oscars, you'll see there were plenty of non-entities and passing-through starlets -- Elke Sommer, Pamela Tiffin, Virna Lisi...they're not a whole lot different from the nobodies you sniff at today; you were just more familiar with them. Plus, MacDonald Carey -- he was what Jack Valenti became: someone I knew almost nothing about, except he gave out an Oscar every year. And, as far as Kimmel's stunts bringing the show to a new low...again, you're looking through the rose-colored glasses of the past. If I'd hung on to reviews of Oscar shows past, I guarantee you, most of them complained about how bad the show was, how stupid many of the routines were. (Gary Trudeau parodied presenter-patter in Doonesbury back in 1974.) Oh, and, for the record: the selfie was actually the most successful Oscar stunt of out time, as it set records for retweets around the world.

However, where you're not wrong (and this ties in to one of Sabin's big points): there's no question that there are fewer Hollywood legends available to appear on the show, because the older generation (Nicholson, Hackman, Duvall et al.) has aged to the point where they're not suited to public appearances, and the current movie environment has created few stars who have the level of respect and success the heroes of our youths had. Apart from DiCaprio and the off-in-her-own-world Streep, there are no truly respected actors who are consistently viable commercially outside of a Marvel movie. This isn't to say there aren't people who've had multiple successes (Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, etc.), but none at the titan-level Hoffman/Nicholson/Pacino/Fonda/Dunaway held in decades past. This, of course, is partly because Hollywood just doesn't much try to create the kinds of movies that would make such careers possible. Lots of actors would love to work in/create such a niche...but no one outside of DiCaprio has achieved it (and he was simply blessed, to have signed on to an otherworldly blockbuster at a young age, and to have bonded with female fans who follow him most anywhere). I don't know what you do about this...but I will say that moving film editing off he broadcast does nothing to address the issue.

[Greg]

I do wonder if these very public (and frankly embarrassing) ratings woes the Academy is dealing with will influence any voters to pick DUNE for the top prize just to save the telecast.

The reason I doubt this is that if any large number of voters voted in order to help the show's ratings, Spider-Man: No Way Home would have been nominated for Best Picture.

[Big Magilla]

Meanwhile Amazon's hideous new version of Cinderella is winning the Fan Favorite vote due to the leading actress' fanbase continuously voting for her film on Twitter. This is an outrage on the outrage.

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2022/2 ... bmpee8op6u

[anonymous1980]

For those of you who are wondering what this format would look like, here's how the Tony Awards do it. It was mentioned that the Tony Awards was a blueprint of this "pre-taped/edited into the broadcast" format.

[Big Magilla]

Last year's show was ghastly, the worst part being the forced comedy of Glenn Close rapping and wiggling her ass to a song she probably never heard of, let alone knew the lyrics to. But was that any worse than the bumpkins brought on stage in the middle of the show, the snacks brought in for the audience or the stars taking selfies of one another for laughs in other recent years?

When was the last time that more than one or two heavyweights you were happy to see showed up unless they were nominated or one of the previous year's winners returning to present an award in the current year? When there are more people that you look forward to seeing in the In Memoriam segment than in the rest of the show, it's not a good one.

a) Yes, Close rapping was worse than the snacks.

b) I'd be curious who you're defining as heavyweights, to be honest.

c) I don't think that more people look forward to "In Memoriam" then the rest of the show.

A heavyweight to me is someone with a name whether earned long ago or recently, be it an actor, director, writer, musician, or whomever within the industry. In most years, other than the nominees and holdover acting winners from the year before, there haven't been many. Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the year of the LaLaLand/Moonlight mix-up come to mind. On the 90th Anniversary show, all they could get were Eva Marie Saint and Rita Moreno from amongst hundreds of past winners. That was shameful.

Nobody looks forward to the In Memoriam segment per se, but film lovers nowadays do get more gratification in seeing faces from the past than they do in seeing a bunch of here today-gone tomorrow stars of upcoming films there to promote those films more than are to give recognition to the people whose names are in the envelopes they are opening. Some of the most memorable moments of past Oscar shows were the presentation of the music awards by the likes of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers down to John Travolta and Liza Minelli. Now they're not even presenting the award for Original Score live. Who would they get to present it, anyway? Probably some dingbats who never heard of Hans Zimmer or Johnny Greenwood.

[rolotomasi99]

A last thought:

The entirety of my post really could've been boiled down to "I'm open to seeing what this looks like" and "I understand why they want to change it." I don't think cutting some of these awards is the worst idea. It really all depends on what they replace that time with.

But I think there's a larger problem that these changes aren't going to fix and that is that at the end of the day it's been a very long time since popular movies dominated the Academy Awards. Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, even Gladiator. That's both an industry problem and to a much lesser degree an Academy problem. For the last decade plus, the Academy has been honoring films that are not remotely as popular as those films, although I have no doubt that if a Titanic, Lord of the Rings, or Gladiator came out today they would probably do just fine, but Hollywood isn't really investing in those kinds of films. So, the Academy can dress up the Oscars to seem hip and cool all they want but at the end of the day, it's a Hollywood problem, not an Oscar problem. The more they try to make a ceremony where Best Picture goes to either Belfast or The Power of the Dog look hip and cool, the more it runs the risk of looking forced and weird.

They have a popular and critically acclaimed option this year with DUNE. I think even cinema-snobs like me could live with DUNE taking Best Picture. It is certainly not as embarrassing as tripe like GREEN BOOK winning. The odd thing is DUNE will most likely dominate the awards they are excluding this year, which means more of the winners announced at the actual ceremony will be the films folks are less interested in.

Perhaps this change would have made sense last year, when none of the Best Picture nominees were mainstream hits (even in the new standard of Covid). THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 has the most votes on IMDB (167,802) and MANK has the fewest (70,165). The eventual Best Picture winner currently has 145,872 votes.

Compare that to this year where DUNE has 493,028 votes followed closely by DON'T LOOK UP at 439,838. Hell, THE POWER OF THE DOG has 115,552 votes even before (possibly) winning Best Picture. I do wonder if these very public (and frankly embarrassing) ratings woes the Academy is dealing with will influence any voters to pick DUNE for the top prize just to save the telecast. As longs as Jane Campion wins Director, I am fine with THE POWER OF THE DOG (my favorite film of the year) not taking Best Picture.

[Okri]

Last year's show was ghastly, the worst part being the forced comedy of Glenn Close rapping and wiggling her ass to a song she probably never heard of, let alone knew the lyrics to. But was that any worse than the bumpkins brought on stage in the middle of the show, the snacks brought in for the audience or the stars taking selfies of one another for laughs in other recent years?

When was the last time that more than one or two heavyweights you were happy to see showed up unless they were nominated or one of the previous year's winners returning to present an award in the current year? When there are more people that you look forward to seeing in the In Memoriam segment than in the rest of the show, it's not a good one.

All we have left are the awards themselves. Let's hope some of them go to winners we want to see.

a) Yes, Close rapping was worse than the snacks.

b) I'd be curious who you're defining as heavyweights, to be honest.

c) I don't think that more people look forward to "In Memoriam" then the rest of the show.

[Big Magilla]

And two things about this are just unacceptable:

1) The awards are a road-map -- each one, no matter how minor, is pointing (sometimes misleadingly) toward the bigger results near the end. You could see it in the way the nominations announcements went: everyone gleaning information from the smaller categories as evidence for what would happen in the larger ones.

2) AMPAS wants to sell it as "we'll edit the smaller awards into the show, so you'll still have that". This seems to imagine a world where Twitter doesn't exist. Everyone who seriously follows this will know those 8 winners before the hosts take the stage, and will have filled in a third of their home-ballot before the first on-screen envelope is opened.

How does this not ruin things?

They do ruin what is left of the Oscar show, but they're the last nails in the coffin of something that died a while ago.

Last year's show was ghastly, the worst part being the forced comedy of Glenn Close rapping and wiggling her ass to a song she probably never heard of, let alone knew the lyrics to. But was that any worse than the bumpkins brought on stage in the middle of the show, the snacks brought in for the audience or the stars taking selfies of one another for laughs in other recent years?

When was the last time that more than one or two heavyweights you were happy to see showed up unless they were nominated or one of the previous year's winners returning to present an award in the current year? When there are more people that you look forward to seeing in the In Memoriam segment than in the rest of the show, it's not a good one.

All we have left are the awards themselves. Let's hope some of them go to winners we want to see.

[anonymous1980]

In an America where people take pride in identifying themselves as being of another culture, race, or gender why shouldn’t the Oscars follow suit.

In effect, the Oscars want to be the Grammys.

They want fewer awards presented, no old-timers on stage (they can have the Governors Awards), and no craftspeople hogging up airtime.

Give as much of the show as possible over to the singers, dancers, entertainers, clowns.

Oh well, I haven’t watched live for the last five years so it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

You're right. But I don't know why would the Oscars want to be the Grammys....the Grammys get even lower ratings than the Oscars despite doing all that.

[Sabin]

A last thought:

The entirety of my post really could've been boiled down to "I'm open to seeing what this looks like" and "I understand why they want to change it." I don't think cutting some of these awards is the worst idea. It really all depends on what they replace that time with.

But I think there's a larger problem that these changes aren't going to fix and that is that at the end of the day it's been a very long time since popular movies dominated the Academy Awards. Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, even Gladiator. That's both an industry problem and to a much lesser degree an Academy problem. For the last decade plus, the Academy has been honoring films that are not remotely as popular as those films, although I have no doubt that if a Titanic, Lord of the Rings, or Gladiator came out today they would probably do just fine, but Hollywood isn't really investing in those kinds of films. So, the Academy can dress up the Oscars to seem hip and cool all they want but at the end of the day, it's a Hollywood problem, not an Oscar problem. The more they try to make a ceremony where Best Picture goes to either Belfast or The Power of the Dog look hip and cool, the more it runs the risk of looking forced and weird.

[Reza]

In an America where people take pride in identifying themselves as being of another culture, race, or gender why shouldn’t the Oscars follow suit.

In effect, the Oscars want to be the Grammys.

They want fewer awards presented, no old-timers on stage (they can have the Governors Awards), and no craftspeople hogging up airtime.

Give as much of the show as possible over to the singers, dancers, entertainers, clowns.

Oh well, I haven’t watched live for the last five years so it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

[Eenusch]

In an America where people take pride in identifying themselves as being of another culture, race, or gender why shouldn’t the Oscars follow suit.

In effect, the Oscars want to be the Grammys.

They want fewer awards presented, no old-timers on stage (they can have the Governors Awards), and no craftspeople hogging up airtime.

Give as much of the show as possible over to the singers, dancers, entertainers, clowns.

Oh well, I haven’t watched live for the last five years so it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

[Sabin]

NOTE: I don't really stand by this point. I thought about it deleting it but I'll just leave it up.

Mister Tee wrote
Okay, I understand, devil's advocacy and all, but...how do you even pretend to think this is reasonable?

Well, I'll tell you why I think it is. And for sake of arguing, let's assume that they're not going to emulate last year's ceremony and that this year they'll be including clips and not doing that tribunal garbage, although the fact that we've had to endure either of these travesties at all is unthinkable.

I would argue that three things make for a good Oscar ceremony: the host, the moments, and the winners. Yes, people like us watch with laser-close attention for completist sake and have emotional investment in how the race ends but generally speaking for most people -- even real movie lovers -- those three things are it, and it's fine that those three things are it.

How many Oscar ceremonies in the last twenty years have done a great job of providing all of those to audiences? Strong hosting, strong moments, and strong winners?

It's obviously subjective I would say three ceremonies gave me all three (2000, 2013, 2016) and a few others gave me two. As I look back, almost none of the moments I treasure over the last twenty years involve the categories that have been removed from the ceremony. Truly. I'm sure someone will supply me with some examples and for that, thank you. But it's usually the categories mentioned.

Can I muster some outrage for the principle of the thing? Sure. Absolutely. But for me, there are bigger problems that the show has right now like the fact that the show doesn't properly showcase the nominated films, or tell me why they matter and why I should see them, or something about Hollywood today -- and I understand that the next point to follow is "Why can't they fix the problem without losing these categories?" "What if they just replace this stuff with things that are stupid and meaningless like a Twitter poll for Favorite Film?"

Because they obviously think they can't. You make a later point about why now when for decades the Academy has had high ratings while giving out all of these awards. To that I would say this: I remember watching the Academy Awards for the first time in 1995 and thinking that everything about the Academy Awards seemed important because it was about movies. It felt like royal ball. If I didn't understand what a category meant, I gave it the benefit of the doubt that mattered because it was being aired during the Academy Awards. But fundamentally our relationship with movies and with movie stars has massively changed, and a royal ball looks different in 2022 than it does in 1995.

I am not saying that this year's show will be good because of these choices but I am open to it working. It could end up being the worst show ever produced, although after last year that's a tall order to fill. The ceremony of the films of 2018 looked like a dumpster fire in the making and I thought it turned out to be very entertaining.

To the point about taking away from the narrative of the ceremony, not giving out Original Score and Film Editing is completely insane. Really a disappointing thing. However it should be said that seven of the last ten movies to win Best Picture didn't walk away with any of the awards that have been dropped, and likely The Power of the Dog won't either.

[anonymous1980]

Call me naive but I think the solution to the Oscars' ratings is rather simple: WORK WITH WHAT THEY HAVE.

They should think: "Who MIGHT watch this year?" and not think, "How can we get people who have only seen Spider-Man to watch?" They already have award show geeks and cinephiles already so who else COULD watch this year? You do that by looking at your nominee list. This year they could have Dune nerds, the massive fan bases of Billie Eilish, Beyonce and Kristen Stewart, musical theater geeks (West Side Story and tick, tick...BOOM!), kids who LOVE Encanto and pretty much anyone who's passionate about any of the Best Picture nominees, that should give the show a few more million viewers at least....and THEN craft a show to appeal to them! It's that simple. They could win over at least some of them to watch the show every year. It's how they got me: They nominated Beauty and the Beast, the first ever animated film nominated for Best Picture and that enticed me to watch the show and I haven't stopped.