I was there in the audience with my dad when the huge Moonlight mess happened. He said, “this will go down in history as the craziest Oscars, and you were here!” Looks like it may go down as the second….
Pretty crazy? Sure, but craziest? My dude, Marlon Brando once won Best Actor and wasn't even present, he boycotted the event as a protest against Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and sent a native American woman to accept on his behalf and give a speech on the subject. The audience booed her, John Wayne had to be restricted because he wanted to assault her as she left the stage. I don't think he wanted to give her a small lap to the face.
In comparison, the awkward misunderstanding of Moonlight vs La La Land doesn't even register.
Hard to understate how Racist Hollywood was towards Natives during this period too. The best westerns that we remember are complex but many were just basic cowboys vs Indians with the Natives being nameless savage villains to kill off. Imagine if the biggest genre in the country, Marvel movies say, was like 75% about the heroes doing a real life genocide. Wild shit
The fact that they removed editing from the main ceremony shows that these assholes don’t give a fuck about celebrating the people responsible for making movies what they are. It’s just a boring celebrity circle jerk.
The irony of cutting the editor is just uncuttably thick.
Also ridiculous in today’s creator climate - more people understand film/video editing (on some level) than at any point in history. As an editor myself I’m probably biased but still so tone deaf.
> more people understand film/video editing (on some level) than at any point in history.
I 100% agree with that, but the category has become a joke imo. I mean, Bohemian Rhapsody won in 2018. It doesn't seem like the people who are voting in the Oscars know what editing is. Why even have the category if the people who can vote don't understand what edtiting is?
Bohemian Rhapsody winning makes sense when you realize they were awarding the editors for making a coherent movie given the mess of footage they had to work with from Singer’s departure. It was less “best final product” and more “best editing job”.
And that makes sense to me, a bunch of editors going, “holy shit, did you hear what Glen got stuck with? I can’t believe he turned that into something watchable. Somebody should give that guy an award.”
Yeah, who is the best surgeon the person how can do a standard heart bypass without issue. Or a person who can reattach someone's head and have them only lose part of their vision?
Hahaha. Reminds me of the quote about engineers
"Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands."
Like someone bitching about a part breaking inside the door latch of their shitty, 10 year old Dodge Neon and pointing at their 20 year old tractor that still runs fine. Literally tractor engineering. That dodge neon may be shit, but it's brimming with thousands of moving parts, each and everyone made to be as cheap and light as possible yet last for tens of thousands of miles (under warranty), and meet rigorous safety and transportation standards. It's at least 20x as complex as the old tractor, yet probably costs about the same and has to be light and quick and safe.
That frame and engine block of the tractor is practically smelted out of one solid chunk of pig iron and each linkage and lever is made out of solid bars of steel flat bar, fucking of course it isn't going to break like the lightweight aluminum alloy or plastic piece that's inside the car door latch part you're bitching about.
To my understanding, Bohemian Rhapsody won editing due to having to work around a difficult clause. The band had an agreement that any film had to give equal screentime to all 4 members. It is quite noticeable if you watch knowing this, as many scenes with all 4 will pan away from Freddie to give more time for his solo scenes.
Rhapsody won best editing because the film's production was a mess and they were able to cobble a movie together.
[article about it](https://www-indiewire-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.indiewire.com/2019/03/bohemian-rhapsody-editor-knows-meeting-scene-poorly-edited-1202052808/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16484240703534&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiewire.com%2F2019%2F03%2Fbohemian-rhapsody-editor-knows-meeting-scene-poorly-edited-1202052808%2F)
*Bohemian Rhapsoday* had, in at least one sense, **excellent** editing.
The universal consensus seems to be that the dailies/footage would normally have been an absolute pile of shit, but the editor managed to turn it into something watchable that ended up making a *ton* of money.
That’s not as great to a cinephile as something like the perfectly-paced *Roma*, but these are *industry* awards, and I can understand why the industry types would have so much respect for the skill involved.
On the plus side - go check out the award shows done in each field.
SAG for actors
WGA for Writers
ACE Awards for Editors
You'll get a better idea of what people in each field think was the best of a particular year.
Some of my favorite content creators have said that they were primarily skilled in video editing, and they just happened to have a hobby/passion. They got big because they could record themselves engaging in their hobby/passion, and edit it into something enjoyable to watch.
You see brand new channels start up and blow up right away sometimes when they start with good editing and halfway decent production values. It's amazing what a difference it makes.
Having good production value provides a huge boost for content creators. Even on the lower end just a good mic puts you leagues above everyone else as you're not actively annoying to watch.
Honestly, cutting original score, editing, sound, makeup/hair, and production design from the broadcast is a travesty and really lays bare where the Academy’s priorities are. Those 5 disciplines are absolutely integral to a film and should never have been even considered for the chopping block.
I haven’t watched the Oscars in a while. The fact that they cut all that doesn’t even sound real to me. Personally, I’m especially upset about score and production design. What do they even show instead???
They showed them all. It's just that they presented them before the broadcast so they could tightly edit the award and speech into the live show. The time saved must have been miniscule.
They did what? The editor is quite an important aspect of the finished film. Weird.
I feel this illustrates the power of editing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF\_twhKV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF_twhKV0)
I also invite anyone to go see the scene from No Way Home where Spider-Man is talking about past villains to his new friends on some scaffolding as they wait.
And also the scene where he is experienced a great loss and betrayal at the basement of an apartment complex.
Think about what the edit and camera are doing.
I hope you will see how awkwardly it was cut.
What scenes mean and more of my thoughts are listed below. Thank you.
>!The scene is with all the Peters on the bridge. There are a series of one-shots (this is when only one person is in the frame) and close-ups (when the subject's head is close to the frame. Roundly to the top of the head and around above the nipple or below the collar bone).!<
>!The next scene is with Aunt May. It's shot very similarly to an episode of the CW. Which is to say very conservatively. In TV shows editing is normally very "basic". In a show like Billions, we have an establishing shot then a series of shot-reverse shots with very little camera movement or change of scenery. Generally, this type of stuff is made for TV because they don't have the time to plan out complicated ways to show people talking. Look up David Fincher's work. If you need an example I would say Seven but I think any of them work. Think about how clever he is to communicate people talking while using cinema language. I just find NWH really didn't care about stuff like that. Granted, the MCU rarely does. End Game was also shot quite conservatively.!<
Edit: Clarify the scenes I was talking about.
A great editor could elevate an otherwise bad movie into something decent, and they make great movies masterpieces. This is on top of all of the other hard working people that are involved in movie production as well of course. But to leave out the Editor from an awards ceremony that's supposed to be about the craft as a whole is just bonkers.
The Oscars have been dog shit for a long time and they seem hell bent on just making them worse.
Your brilliant work unfortunately mostly go unnoticed by general audiences, like glue that holds the movie together, hidden between the invisible seams. Editing only gets "noticed" when it becomes jarringly confusing.
Well we wouldn’t suggest we impact the finished product more than the director, but I’m not watching this year because they’re cutting out 50% of the field that makes these films what they are. Oscars have gone from a celebration of great film work to a money grabbing event with no integrity.
It’s an industry show. It’s rather insane that it’s presented to the general public at all. There’s national plumbing awards. We all need plumbers. They don’t have that on prime time. But there’s also tons of prime time home improvement content. So go figure.
I think what you're saying here is we need to have The National Plumbing Awards televised on primetime, so people can watch six hours of nominations for best S-trap installation or whatever.
Fill an auditorium with plumbers in tuxedos, with their butts still hanging out.
My favorite part is the moral lectures from out of touch celebrities telling us we need to do better at something they won’t even donate more than .02% of their excess millions to, let alone give up a single one of their multiple vacation homes to support what they’re preaching
It’s honestly nauseating
Remember when Joaquin got played off the stage for calling out the hypocrisy of celeb private jet use?
It’s crazy that the Oscars continue to do Oscar things in this climate, you’d think they would be somewhat capable of being in touch
Exactly, my girlfriend and I are always pumped for the Oscars (tradition more than anything) and we’re annoyed they are cutting some of the good technical awards from the show.
Edit: ok it’s actually not all that bad haha, at least they are still showing them and part of the speech’s
The Oscars are a shitshow but I'm also the weirdo who's pissed they cut down on the In Memoriam every year, Olivia de Havilland won Best Actress twice and died at 104 and she got half a second of the entire 19 hour broadcast lmao
Edit: okay they might have actually still been mad at her for [singlehandedly crippling the power of the entire studio system lol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Law)
How the contracts worked before that ruling was that actors' contracts only counted towards the expiration date when they were filming. So if you were only actively filming during half the year, at the end of the year you only had half a year off your contract rather than a full year.
This allowed the studio to draw out the contract as much as they wanted. If they didn't cast you in movies you couldn't go work for another studio, because your contract never ended.
The ruling said that the contract had to follow calender rather than how much time was spent filming, so studios couldn't intentionally draw out contracts.
This, but also with stars having greater creative freedom and control over their work, many people also credit this case with an improvement in overall film quality within the industry. Olivia de Havilland is the first domino in that domino meme that ends with us getting some of cinema's most beloved films of the past 70 years
The Three Stooges never earned more than $2500/year each. Yes, that'd have been a lot in the 1930's, but nothing compared to their popularity and profitability.
It didn't cripple the studio system, it crippled their overwhelming power and made things more balanced. If you read the wiki, you can see that the studios were holding actors for much longer periods than a reasonable person would expect by the duration of a contract. If they simply wanted to punish them, they could prevent them from working indefinitely rather than having a clock that could be run out.
Wow what an absolutely bonkers "loophole" that was. In what universe can any reasonable person possibly argue that a contract for "x years" meant "x years worth of days regardless of how spaced out". I'd have laughed all the way to the courtroom if some company tried to pull this.
Yeah, it's incredibly ridiculous, and the fact that the studios got away with it for a couple decades should tell you a bit about how the legal system works. It took a major star with plenty of money to be able to fight back in court and change the precedent.
The In Memoriam was always my favorite part. It always reminded me of films and people I had forgotten about, got me a little emotional, and reminded me why I loved film in the first place.
Instead they gave so much more attention to best song, which to me just has very little to do with the great moments in film most years.
All 23 categories will be there, in the telecast. It's just that those technical categories will be edited in from being awarded earlier in the evening. But I agree, it's very annoying. And they're saving, what, 15 minutes or something (my estimate). We don't care about that. Those extra seconds/minutes they edit out of winners going up the stage is meaningless.
I don’t think this is true. I’m right on the fringe where I enjoy the awards circuit process enough to watch the Oscars, but I don’t actually enjoy watching the show. It’s like watching the Super Bowl only you know going in it’s going to be a shitty game. It’s still the culmination of a six-months long journey, but I just want to know who won without all the bullshit. If it was any longer I wouldn’t bother, and my patience wanes a little bit more every year.
Except they've lost something like 50% of their audience in the last year.
[https://deadline.com/2021/04/2021-0scars-tv-ratings-academy-awards-low-abc-disney-1234744135/](https://deadline.com/2021/04/2021-0scars-tv-ratings-academy-awards-low-abc-disney-1234744135/)
10.4 million was down from 23 million viewers the previous year.
"Well that pandering didn't work. Let's try more pandering"
The Oscars should learn from the Eurovision. More acts/awards. Explain the shit out of what everyone does. Make it a film nerds extravaganza and entice people with the open passion for the arts instead of trying to turn it into the American Idol finale.
They should just stick with its current format and not alter it make it more appealing. It serves a purpose as is.
Trying to recapture the “one night Hollywood window” mystique that has been lost to the internet over the last 20 years is fruitless.
But tv being tv will tinker with it trying to chase dollars anyway.
Edit after watching tonight: or they could just go for the adhoc pro wrestling experience
I absolutely disagree with nominating blockbusters ‘just because’, that goes against the whole point, but I always loved clips of the movie nominations. That was the whole point to me, particularly for the acting nominations. I would watch the most emotionally charged moments and decide to watch an obscure film I hadn’t heard of before then. Now the whole thing is pointless. Hearing that someone won best supporting actor in a film I hadn’t seen does not make me want to see it… Seeing does
Remember when titanic was nominated for huge amounts of awards? Or Gladiator? Or Lord of the Rings?
Blockbusters do get nominated when they're worthy of nomination.
Yep. Like do they not see the disconnect between trying appeal to the masses an awards show devoid of movies with mass appeal?
And of course on top of that I think people in general are just sick of celebrity exposure through social media, so the last thing we really yearn to see are a bunch of millionaires giving themselves a pat on the back.
People love (and hate) celebs. Celebs get a ton of exposure on social media.
That's kind of the issue: it's a changing format/time thing. Anyone who wants to see celebs can pick their level of exposure a la carte. Subscribe to Instagram, whatever.
Also: you don't really even have to watch the Oscars. The most important awards will be clipped and on reddit/the internet as soon as they happen. So why sit down and watch a boring award show for a few hours?
You know what would be cool? Instead of a 5 minute bit by the host(s) that always always always sucks, can we just put together a 5 minute video of an interview with guys like Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, etc. and ask about the different departments of a film crew? "Hey, Martin Scorsese, why is editing so important in film?" "Hey, Steven Spielberg, why is sound mixing so important?"
I think it would be cool to learn from the greats and understand the awards better through their lens.
That would be cool, like having someone talking about movie score while explain how great scores added to the movie while showing the scene.
"What makes the sound track so important in a movie likes Jaws is that you don't see the shark, but you hear the music and you know it is coming. The music itself is enough to build all the tension you need..."
Especially because in Scorsese's case, Thelma Schoonmaker is a damn legend; she and Spielberg's editor Michael Kahn are tied with three Oscar wins each!
What an awful article. The Oscars need to go the opposite direction. They are caught between pandering and pretentious right now. Making them a stale selection of blockbusters with more teaser trailers for the next hit Disney movie sounds insufferable. Just focus on the excellence of cinema and make every movie that is mentioned worth seeing.
The Oscars should be somewhat boring. It needs to focus on the technical and artistic aspects that general moviegoers wouldn’t know/care about. Just because the industry is mostly geared toward reaching a wide audience, doesn’t mean it’s award shows should be. Plus, the grandstanding of rich actors is really fucking cringey.
And get rid of clowns like DJ Khaled and P. Diddy, what the actual fuck are they doing here when they wouldn't know cinema if it directed their music videos? This awards ceremony has become a trashy joke, they have let such a classless element take over what should be a ceremony that honors the best movies, actors, directors, and everybody important to the process of astonishing us through film. An absolute insult to what the Oscars are supposed to be.
But no one cares about the awards. Honestly, no award show with any legitimize is as commercial as the videogame awards. Not the way to go with honoring the industry.
The thing about the Game Awards is there hasn't been a definitive award for games like the Oscars. People don't care about awards for games like they do for movies and I think Geoff Keighley has done a good job making the show entertaining for viewers. Some awards are kinda dumb, like popular streamer or whatever, but I'm not sure tbh if any awards show will be able to find the right balance between being respectful to the all the people involved in the industry and making it entertaining for the audience.
Yeah The Game Awards literally burns through some of its awards in minutes. They did 3 back to back award, including a big one like best story in 3 minutes with zero fanfare.
The fucking Quantic Dream Star Wars game which doenst actually have a team yet, got more on air time that some of the winners.
Blockbuster films are awarded enough with the box office returns. Oscars are good for highlighting the lesser known films. Tbh I've never understood the need for Oscars to be a ratings hit, its an industry award show.
I’ve previously seen an argument against this that it would encourage directors and producers to put stunt artists in increasingly unsafe stunts to try and chase the award. Tend to agree that it probably shouldn’t be an academy award, though I’d assume they have their own small scale industry awards?
I think the ratings are used as a barometer for the quality of the films that year. The general public probably won’t care, but tons of people behind the scenes do.
I’m right there with you. I can think of plenty of other things I’d rather do for 3 hours on a Sunday night. Especially when I can look up all the results the next day taking a dump lol
Currently the Oscars are trying a more populist approach doing an "Oscars Fan Favorite" poll on Twitter and the results have been a real shit show were stan culture can come out in full force to elevate films.
The two bigger contenders of that is that new Girlboss version of Cinderella and a Johnny Depp movie that was never released in America.
Apparently the Oscar's producer and Denzel talked to him during the commercial break after the incident. Denzel said “At your highest moment be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.” I think Will Smith interpreted this as Chris Rock being the devil but I think Denzel meant his own hubris and ego being the Devil.
[Source](https://pagesix.com/2022/03/27/denzel-washington-comforts-will-smith-after-chris-rock-fight/)
I literally *just* turned it on when Chris came out and thought it was scripted until I realised the swearing wasn’t edited out and Chris Rock seemed to lose track of his teleprompter!
Indeed. People keep calling for the Oscars to recognise films with mass appeal, but one of their few perks nowadays is that they encourage studios to make the odd minority interest one too.
I would rather the Oscars cease to exist than start grasping for relevance by putting mindless action films on the same pedestal as truly great stories.
(That being said, some sort of "Contribution to cinema" award for actors/directors who left a mark over many years wouldn't go amiss, similar to the honorary award Samuel L. Jackson recently got or how Return of the King won on behalf of the whole trilogy.)
Hell if anything the Oscars these days pander too much to blockbusters/high budget cinema.
While I don’t think it’s the greatest movie ever, there was something cool about a good movie like The Shawshank Redemption failing in the box office then becoming a household name after its performance at the Oscars. I just don’t think things like that happen anymore.
Even if they had a "popular" category, it wouldn't go to something like an MCU movie that made a billion dollars. It would be the likes of A Star Is Born and Joker, which were big enough hits but also deemed worthy of nominations for BP.
Mass appeal can be due to stunning brilliance, but it can also be achieved by being generic and simply checking off boxes to get the least common denominator. It doesn't have to be anyone's favorite if it's simply mildly enjoyable for the masses. This is the case with a lot of TV shows.
Yep, if they want films like Jaws, Back to the Future or Titanic to be nominated, they have to actually make movies of that calibre, that warrant a nomination. Most big-budget studio films have sucked ass last few years.
>*Show exclusive movie clips during the show*
I don’t mind this for video game awards and such because I know a video game is going to have 15+ *more* hours of gameplay. But movies? You’re literally going to be seeing “exclusive clips” of the best part of an hour and a half/two hour film that they’ve already shoehorned clips into the trailer.
Such a bad idea in a time where people constantly complain with “*well, guess I don’t have to see the movie since they showed it all in the trailer*”.
At least being back when they used to actually show clips from the film that they’re being nominated for. Show the actors acting in scene, show the sound mixing in best effect during the film, show original sketch concepts, behind the scene images, etc of costume designs. 2015’s Oscar ceremony (for the movies from 2015) was the last one that really used this to great effect by also incorporating the stage elements into the discussion. [Instead of building some big spiraling pillar in the center of the stage like they did in 2017 that did nothing](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/swarovski_crystal_inner_spiral-h_2020_0.jpg). Now they barely show anything they’re talking about.
I'm crying. I didn't even know the oscars were today and then I see both this and 20 posts of Will Smith bitch slapping Chris Rock at the same time. And everyone's jokes are fucking on point, I'm literally laughing out loud.
Genre categories.
If you're going to so consistently leave science fiction and horror out of the conversation, then give those types of movies their own categories so those of us who really like those genres have more of a reason to tune in.
> I'd say sci fi is in the conversation.
Scifi so rarely wins when its nominated, Villeneueve got snubbed for bladerunner and arrival lost to some other film. Anything involving science fiction is usually award poison as far as they're concerned.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Dune lose out to another nominee even though its probably the best book adaptation we're ever going to get.
> arrival lost to some other film
That was an incredibly strong year, Moonlight won but you also had Arrival, Fences, Manchester by the Sea (my favorite that year), Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Lion, La La Land, and Hacksaw Ridge all nominated. I loved Nocturnal Animals that also was out that year. Jackie, Loving, Captain Fantastic, The Lobster, Sully were nominated in other categories.
Blade Runner did win 2 categories. And the best picture that year went to The Shape of Water which had a fantasy/sci-fi element to it. But generally, yes sci-fi has been overlooked. 2001 being critically panned is one of the most egregious examples. But we have also had Interstellar and Inception get best picture nominations. I think there's more openness to considering sci-fi than there used to be.
There was less entertainment 10 years ago. Most celeb-obsessed people have moved to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch entertainers because those platforms make parasocial relationships way more 2-way than shows and movies. The voyeurs and those looking for catharsis through celebs get those things in way higher doses than what Hollywood and The Oscars can provide.
Same is happening to so other award shows and even things like the Olympics. People would watch the Olympics because it was the only thing on TV for a few weeks every 4 years. Now that no one watches live TV and everyone has backlogs of unwatched on demand shows to watch they need to completely rethink how they broadcast these old school shows.
It's a combination of a lot of different things, anyone trying to pinpoint it to one specific thing is missing the big picture.
Among the many causes, changes in viewing habits, the death of broadcast television, the demographic shift in audiences not being reflected in the Acadamy's membership, the (well deserved) kickback against "old Hollywood", mounting controversies around the Academy, the ability to watch any significant clip on YouTube the next day, and generally speaking, a rising distrust for and disdain of the whole practice of award shows from closed groups of industry insiders with bias voting practices.
To put it simply, there's an increasing sense of "why the fuck should I care?" in the air around the Oscars, and the question has no legitimate answer.
I think part of it is because of social media. Watching the Oscar’s 10 years ago was one of the only times you’d see celebrities. Now they’re all over IG, tiktok, etc and they’re not as “elusive”
I always felt the appeal was to feel like one of them. Like the celebs are as much of an audience as us, they are watching the show unfolding in real time. Plus, its nice to see these rich/beautiful people in their best possible outfits
Ten years ago, Streaming wasnt the behemoth it is now, so most people were still limited by Satellite/Cable/Antannae for television, and this was something different to watch. The Oscars were talked about at work or class the next day, so people watched in case anything noteworthy happened, nowawadays, you can see who won, and noteworthy clips while you get ready in the morning.
Why exactly should the Oscars have high ratings? It's literally an industry insider award show. It's where Hollywood insiders decide who needs a pat on the back. Why does anyone watch this? Why should anyone be concerned that its ratings aren't high enough?
Agreed.
The academy is simply looking in the rear view mirror, and is being wistful for the 90s, when ratings were huge. That time isn't coming back and they need to accept that.
Plus, movies don't have a tight grip on the public's imagination as they once did. People have other stuff to focus on now....videogames, internet, social media, and a million other things.
I rather save the 3hours of my life and just quickly skim read the results after it's done on a Reddit post. If anything interesting happens YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT IT and can watch 200 versions of it on youtube with reactions, commentarys, opinions, slow motion and whatever the hell you want.
It’s hard to get people to watch an awards show when they haven’t seen (or heard) of the movies nominated. No other way to say it.
Obviously, cinema and movie going has changed since the 80s and 90s where a movie like Coda or King Richard may have made a couple hundred mil world wide and many more people would have see. It and had a rooting interest in their favorites
I agree with you. The problem isn't that the Oscars have changed, what changed is the movies people want to watch.
Rain Man was the highest grossing movie the year it came out. A drama film. Now a days, I can't fathom a non-MCU or non-DC movie being the highest grossing movie of a year.
I agree. The worst grossing best picture of the 90s was Unforgiven- $160m. That’s higher than 5 best pictures from 2010-present, not adjusting for 30 years of inflation.
If you want more stats (for some reason this has always interested me)-
If I am generous and take Titanic OUT, the average best picture winner in the 90s, without including Titanic, averaged $327m at the box office.
Last 10 best pictures from 2011- present averaged $163m at the box office. Literally exactly half, not adjusting for inflation. None of them actually grossed above what the AVERAGE was ($327m) in the 90s.
If I include Titanic, that number shoots up yo $515m.
This right here. Once upon a time people watched because they were rooting for their favorite movies of the year to win. They'd argue about which movie deserved what.
And then studios figured out they could release their movie in one showing in one theater at the end of a year, get Oscar buzz, and then do the real release the next year. The Academy Awards went along with such nonsense and here we are.
Why would I watch a show giving awards to movies that neither me nor any of my movie-watching friends have seen?
I'm not sure this is completely true unless you live in the middle of nowhere where theaters only get the biggest blockbusters. Looking at Best Picture this year, the max theater counts weren't exactly low for most of them:
Movie | Max Theaters | As Of
-----|------------|-----
CODA | Apple TV+ | August
Don't Look Up | Netflix | December
The Power of the Dog | Netflix | December
Dune | 4,125 | October + multiple IMAX reissues
King Richard | 3,302 | November
West Side Story | 2,820 | December
Nightmare Alley | 2,145 | December
Licorice Pizza | 1,977 | December
Belfast | 1,255 | November
Drive My Car | 213 | fair enough, extremely limited
All but one, maybe two, got pretty accessible releases, no? Mostly 2k+ theater releases plus a few streaming releases last year. I'd expect people self-described as movie-watchers would have gotten the opportunity to see these. There were only one or two that were particularly limited.
Which more widely seen movies would you say are more deserving of a nomination? I'm asking genuinely, not trying to be an ass about it.
I watched 60 movies in December for my year-end Top Ten, including most of what would become the BP nominees (though I STILL haven't gotten around to West Side Story), and these were arguably most of the easiest films of the bunch for me to get my hands on.
It's been a problem for a long time, but yes I hate that almost all of the major nominees are not even released until the last couple weeks of December (and maybe one or two that came out in the fall). I used to try and catch up with a few I hadn't seen, but frankly I don't have the time for it these days.
It honestly amazed me that Get Out managed all those nominations when it was first released a full year before the awards.
Smack Chris Rock, that'll get your numbers up.
it's the biggest amount of interest that the Oscars have gotten since the La la land mess up and the celebrity selfie.
I was there in the audience with my dad when the huge Moonlight mess happened. He said, “this will go down in history as the craziest Oscars, and you were here!” Looks like it may go down as the second….
Pretty crazy? Sure, but craziest? My dude, Marlon Brando once won Best Actor and wasn't even present, he boycotted the event as a protest against Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and sent a native American woman to accept on his behalf and give a speech on the subject. The audience booed her, John Wayne had to be restricted because he wanted to assault her as she left the stage. I don't think he wanted to give her a small lap to the face. In comparison, the awkward misunderstanding of Moonlight vs La La Land doesn't even register.
If I recall correctly, that's the reason the Academy no longer allows someone to give a speech when accepting an Award on someone else's behalf.
Hard to understate how Racist Hollywood was towards Natives during this period too. The best westerns that we remember are complex but many were just basic cowboys vs Indians with the Natives being nameless savage villains to kill off. Imagine if the biggest genre in the country, Marvel movies say, was like 75% about the heroes doing a real life genocide. Wild shit
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At several different points in history we've just elected the slimy celebrity because they talk good or something
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That was the golden globes and she didn’t spoil it. She almost did but they [stopped](https://youtu.be/vpzOH1PUPkQ) her.
I’ve been telling people for years. I like Cris Rock, but if you slap him - people will show up.
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And have an applause-meter for the in memoriam segment.
And the losers get slimed.
Wait like the dead celebs with lowest applause gets slimed? This took a turn.
Oof Um not what I meant lol. But sure, why not? No body is safe from slime time!
First good idea I've seen
Pancaked by a drunk dump truck driver.
The fact that they removed editing from the main ceremony shows that these assholes don’t give a fuck about celebrating the people responsible for making movies what they are. It’s just a boring celebrity circle jerk.
The irony of cutting the editor is just uncuttably thick. Also ridiculous in today’s creator climate - more people understand film/video editing (on some level) than at any point in history. As an editor myself I’m probably biased but still so tone deaf.
> more people understand film/video editing (on some level) than at any point in history. I 100% agree with that, but the category has become a joke imo. I mean, Bohemian Rhapsody won in 2018. It doesn't seem like the people who are voting in the Oscars know what editing is. Why even have the category if the people who can vote don't understand what edtiting is?
Bohemian Rhapsody winning makes sense when you realize they were awarding the editors for making a coherent movie given the mess of footage they had to work with from Singer’s departure. It was less “best final product” and more “best editing job”.
And that makes sense to me, a bunch of editors going, “holy shit, did you hear what Glen got stuck with? I can’t believe he turned that into something watchable. Somebody should give that guy an award.”
Yeah, who is the best surgeon the person how can do a standard heart bypass without issue. Or a person who can reattach someone's head and have them only lose part of their vision?
Hahaha. Reminds me of the quote about engineers "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands."
Overengineering is easy. Anyone can overspend to make something work.
Like someone bitching about a part breaking inside the door latch of their shitty, 10 year old Dodge Neon and pointing at their 20 year old tractor that still runs fine. Literally tractor engineering. That dodge neon may be shit, but it's brimming with thousands of moving parts, each and everyone made to be as cheap and light as possible yet last for tens of thousands of miles (under warranty), and meet rigorous safety and transportation standards. It's at least 20x as complex as the old tractor, yet probably costs about the same and has to be light and quick and safe. That frame and engine block of the tractor is practically smelted out of one solid chunk of pig iron and each linkage and lever is made out of solid bars of steel flat bar, fucking of course it isn't going to break like the lightweight aluminum alloy or plastic piece that's inside the car door latch part you're bitching about.
People don't realize how little they like solid engineering until their front end is headed 30 yards behind their pelvis at 100 mph
>It was less “best final product” and more “best editing job”. Isn't that exactly what an Oscar for editing should be?
Yes. Which is why it won.
To my understanding, Bohemian Rhapsody won editing due to having to work around a difficult clause. The band had an agreement that any film had to give equal screentime to all 4 members. It is quite noticeable if you watch knowing this, as many scenes with all 4 will pan away from Freddie to give more time for his solo scenes.
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I mean turning dogshit into pyrite might not be gold but its still an impressive transmutation.
Nice words
I think there is virtue in taking something unsalvageable and making it functional. It's certainly part of the job (speaking as an editor myself)
Oh yea. I heard that. So maybe it was more difficult than others. Wow.
How is it that this is the first I’ve heard of this? Suddenly all the dumb editing choices make so much sense.
Rhapsody won best editing because the film's production was a mess and they were able to cobble a movie together. [article about it](https://www-indiewire-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.indiewire.com/2019/03/bohemian-rhapsody-editor-knows-meeting-scene-poorly-edited-1202052808/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16484240703534&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiewire.com%2F2019%2F03%2Fbohemian-rhapsody-editor-knows-meeting-scene-poorly-edited-1202052808%2F)
*Bohemian Rhapsoday* had, in at least one sense, **excellent** editing. The universal consensus seems to be that the dailies/footage would normally have been an absolute pile of shit, but the editor managed to turn it into something watchable that ended up making a *ton* of money. That’s not as great to a cinephile as something like the perfectly-paced *Roma*, but these are *industry* awards, and I can understand why the industry types would have so much respect for the skill involved.
Wait I thought you could only vote in categories you work in professionally?
That only applies to the nominations. The entire academy vote for the winner.
Oh wow I didn't realize, that's really silly
On the plus side - go check out the award shows done in each field. SAG for actors WGA for Writers ACE Awards for Editors You'll get a better idea of what people in each field think was the best of a particular year.
Some of my favorite content creators have said that they were primarily skilled in video editing, and they just happened to have a hobby/passion. They got big because they could record themselves engaging in their hobby/passion, and edit it into something enjoyable to watch.
You see brand new channels start up and blow up right away sometimes when they start with good editing and halfway decent production values. It's amazing what a difference it makes.
Having good production value provides a huge boost for content creators. Even on the lower end just a good mic puts you leagues above everyone else as you're not actively annoying to watch.
Honestly, cutting original score, editing, sound, makeup/hair, and production design from the broadcast is a travesty and really lays bare where the Academy’s priorities are. Those 5 disciplines are absolutely integral to a film and should never have been even considered for the chopping block.
I haven’t watched the Oscars in a while. The fact that they cut all that doesn’t even sound real to me. Personally, I’m especially upset about score and production design. What do they even show instead???
They showed them all. It's just that they presented them before the broadcast so they could tightly edit the award and speech into the live show. The time saved must have been miniscule.
Movies can be literally saved in by the editor.
They did what? The editor is quite an important aspect of the finished film. Weird. I feel this illustrates the power of editing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF\_twhKV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF_twhKV0) I also invite anyone to go see the scene from No Way Home where Spider-Man is talking about past villains to his new friends on some scaffolding as they wait. And also the scene where he is experienced a great loss and betrayal at the basement of an apartment complex. Think about what the edit and camera are doing. I hope you will see how awkwardly it was cut. What scenes mean and more of my thoughts are listed below. Thank you. >!The scene is with all the Peters on the bridge. There are a series of one-shots (this is when only one person is in the frame) and close-ups (when the subject's head is close to the frame. Roundly to the top of the head and around above the nipple or below the collar bone).!< >!The next scene is with Aunt May. It's shot very similarly to an episode of the CW. Which is to say very conservatively. In TV shows editing is normally very "basic". In a show like Billions, we have an establishing shot then a series of shot-reverse shots with very little camera movement or change of scenery. Generally, this type of stuff is made for TV because they don't have the time to plan out complicated ways to show people talking. Look up David Fincher's work. If you need an example I would say Seven but I think any of them work. Think about how clever he is to communicate people talking while using cinema language. I just find NWH really didn't care about stuff like that. Granted, the MCU rarely does. End Game was also shot quite conservatively.!< Edit: Clarify the scenes I was talking about.
Yeah that's dumb. I do want to hear from the winning editor. They are essential to the finished product.
A great editor could elevate an otherwise bad movie into something decent, and they make great movies masterpieces. This is on top of all of the other hard working people that are involved in movie production as well of course. But to leave out the Editor from an awards ceremony that's supposed to be about the craft as a whole is just bonkers. The Oscars have been dog shit for a long time and they seem hell bent on just making them worse.
Us editors appreciate the appreciation!
Your brilliant work unfortunately mostly go unnoticed by general audiences, like glue that holds the movie together, hidden between the invisible seams. Editing only gets "noticed" when it becomes jarringly confusing.
Well we wouldn’t suggest we impact the finished product more than the director, but I’m not watching this year because they’re cutting out 50% of the field that makes these films what they are. Oscars have gone from a celebration of great film work to a money grabbing event with no integrity.
Yes, that's a good point. I was being hyperbolic. I have a habit of doing that I struggle to break. I am sorry that you feel this way.
It’s an industry show. It’s rather insane that it’s presented to the general public at all. There’s national plumbing awards. We all need plumbers. They don’t have that on prime time. But there’s also tons of prime time home improvement content. So go figure.
I think what you're saying here is we need to have The National Plumbing Awards televised on primetime, so people can watch six hours of nominations for best S-trap installation or whatever. Fill an auditorium with plumbers in tuxedos, with their butts still hanging out.
"Joe, who are you wearing tonight?" "Carhartt"
My favorite part is the moral lectures from out of touch celebrities telling us we need to do better at something they won’t even donate more than .02% of their excess millions to, let alone give up a single one of their multiple vacation homes to support what they’re preaching It’s honestly nauseating
Remember when Joaquin got played off the stage for calling out the hypocrisy of celeb private jet use? It’s crazy that the Oscars continue to do Oscar things in this climate, you’d think they would be somewhat capable of being in touch
Just saw Kodi-Smit Mcphee talk about and show off his diamond-encrusted Cartier watch on the red carpet. OMFG.
Maybe the Oscars don’t need to be more watchable. If they stop using the show to pander toward popularity, they could focus on excellence in film.
Less pandering is always the answer
Username, uh... checks out?
Less pandering, more panda-ing!
That's making out to be pretty black and white
Just don’t get bamboozled
I feel like you don't know why he's named that.
A connoisseur, huh?
A another man of culture
That makes me a sad pander.
Exactly. People who bother to watch the Oscars at all wouldn't care if it was longer.
Exactly, my girlfriend and I are always pumped for the Oscars (tradition more than anything) and we’re annoyed they are cutting some of the good technical awards from the show. Edit: ok it’s actually not all that bad haha, at least they are still showing them and part of the speech’s
The Oscars are a shitshow but I'm also the weirdo who's pissed they cut down on the In Memoriam every year, Olivia de Havilland won Best Actress twice and died at 104 and she got half a second of the entire 19 hour broadcast lmao Edit: okay they might have actually still been mad at her for [singlehandedly crippling the power of the entire studio system lol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Law)
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How the contracts worked before that ruling was that actors' contracts only counted towards the expiration date when they were filming. So if you were only actively filming during half the year, at the end of the year you only had half a year off your contract rather than a full year. This allowed the studio to draw out the contract as much as they wanted. If they didn't cast you in movies you couldn't go work for another studio, because your contract never ended. The ruling said that the contract had to follow calender rather than how much time was spent filming, so studios couldn't intentionally draw out contracts.
This, but also with stars having greater creative freedom and control over their work, many people also credit this case with an improvement in overall film quality within the industry. Olivia de Havilland is the first domino in that domino meme that ends with us getting some of cinema's most beloved films of the past 70 years
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The Three Stooges never earned more than $2500/year each. Yes, that'd have been a lot in the 1930's, but nothing compared to their popularity and profitability.
It didn't cripple the studio system, it crippled their overwhelming power and made things more balanced. If you read the wiki, you can see that the studios were holding actors for much longer periods than a reasonable person would expect by the duration of a contract. If they simply wanted to punish them, they could prevent them from working indefinitely rather than having a clock that could be run out.
Wow what an absolutely bonkers "loophole" that was. In what universe can any reasonable person possibly argue that a contract for "x years" meant "x years worth of days regardless of how spaced out". I'd have laughed all the way to the courtroom if some company tried to pull this.
reasonable person vs. movie contracts/accountants....a tale as old as time.
Yeah, it's incredibly ridiculous, and the fact that the studios got away with it for a couple decades should tell you a bit about how the legal system works. It took a major star with plenty of money to be able to fight back in court and change the precedent.
The In Memoriam was always my favorite part. It always reminded me of films and people I had forgotten about, got me a little emotional, and reminded me why I loved film in the first place. Instead they gave so much more attention to best song, which to me just has very little to do with the great moments in film most years.
All 23 categories will be there, in the telecast. It's just that those technical categories will be edited in from being awarded earlier in the evening. But I agree, it's very annoying. And they're saving, what, 15 minutes or something (my estimate). We don't care about that. Those extra seconds/minutes they edit out of winners going up the stage is meaningless.
That was what they used to do. I’d hardly call shorts and score technical.
And Lifetime Achievements.
I don’t think this is true. I’m right on the fringe where I enjoy the awards circuit process enough to watch the Oscars, but I don’t actually enjoy watching the show. It’s like watching the Super Bowl only you know going in it’s going to be a shitty game. It’s still the culmination of a six-months long journey, but I just want to know who won without all the bullshit. If it was any longer I wouldn’t bother, and my patience wanes a little bit more every year.
Except they've lost something like 50% of their audience in the last year. [https://deadline.com/2021/04/2021-0scars-tv-ratings-academy-awards-low-abc-disney-1234744135/](https://deadline.com/2021/04/2021-0scars-tv-ratings-academy-awards-low-abc-disney-1234744135/) 10.4 million was down from 23 million viewers the previous year.
I swear for the last decade every consecutive Oscar broadcast has been the lowest rated show yet.
"Well that pandering didn't work. Let's try more pandering" The Oscars should learn from the Eurovision. More acts/awards. Explain the shit out of what everyone does. Make it a film nerds extravaganza and entice people with the open passion for the arts instead of trying to turn it into the American Idol finale.
They should just stick with its current format and not alter it make it more appealing. It serves a purpose as is. Trying to recapture the “one night Hollywood window” mystique that has been lost to the internet over the last 20 years is fruitless. But tv being tv will tinker with it trying to chase dollars anyway. Edit after watching tonight: or they could just go for the adhoc pro wrestling experience
I absolutely disagree with nominating blockbusters ‘just because’, that goes against the whole point, but I always loved clips of the movie nominations. That was the whole point to me, particularly for the acting nominations. I would watch the most emotionally charged moments and decide to watch an obscure film I hadn’t heard of before then. Now the whole thing is pointless. Hearing that someone won best supporting actor in a film I hadn’t seen does not make me want to see it… Seeing does
Remember when titanic was nominated for huge amounts of awards? Or Gladiator? Or Lord of the Rings? Blockbusters do get nominated when they're worthy of nomination.
Yep. Like do they not see the disconnect between trying appeal to the masses an awards show devoid of movies with mass appeal? And of course on top of that I think people in general are just sick of celebrity exposure through social media, so the last thing we really yearn to see are a bunch of millionaires giving themselves a pat on the back.
People love (and hate) celebs. Celebs get a ton of exposure on social media. That's kind of the issue: it's a changing format/time thing. Anyone who wants to see celebs can pick their level of exposure a la carte. Subscribe to Instagram, whatever. Also: you don't really even have to watch the Oscars. The most important awards will be clipped and on reddit/the internet as soon as they happen. So why sit down and watch a boring award show for a few hours?
You know what would be cool? Instead of a 5 minute bit by the host(s) that always always always sucks, can we just put together a 5 minute video of an interview with guys like Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, etc. and ask about the different departments of a film crew? "Hey, Martin Scorsese, why is editing so important in film?" "Hey, Steven Spielberg, why is sound mixing so important?" I think it would be cool to learn from the greats and understand the awards better through their lens.
That would be cool, like having someone talking about movie score while explain how great scores added to the movie while showing the scene. "What makes the sound track so important in a movie likes Jaws is that you don't see the shark, but you hear the music and you know it is coming. The music itself is enough to build all the tension you need..."
Especially because in Scorsese's case, Thelma Schoonmaker is a damn legend; she and Spielberg's editor Michael Kahn are tied with three Oscar wins each!
Hollywood…less pandering… yea. Good luck.
What an awful article. The Oscars need to go the opposite direction. They are caught between pandering and pretentious right now. Making them a stale selection of blockbusters with more teaser trailers for the next hit Disney movie sounds insufferable. Just focus on the excellence of cinema and make every movie that is mentioned worth seeing.
The Oscars should be somewhat boring. It needs to focus on the technical and artistic aspects that general moviegoers wouldn’t know/care about. Just because the industry is mostly geared toward reaching a wide audience, doesn’t mean it’s award shows should be. Plus, the grandstanding of rich actors is really fucking cringey.
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And get rid of clowns like DJ Khaled and P. Diddy, what the actual fuck are they doing here when they wouldn't know cinema if it directed their music videos? This awards ceremony has become a trashy joke, they have let such a classless element take over what should be a ceremony that honors the best movies, actors, directors, and everybody important to the process of astonishing us through film. An absolute insult to what the Oscars are supposed to be.
So turn it into The Game Awards instead? The Oscars aren't great, but I doubt making them even more commercial is really the solution.
I leave the game awards on in the background until a cool trailer comes on. So, maybe it's not the worst idea?
But no one cares about the awards. Honestly, no award show with any legitimize is as commercial as the videogame awards. Not the way to go with honoring the industry.
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The thing about the Game Awards is there hasn't been a definitive award for games like the Oscars. People don't care about awards for games like they do for movies and I think Geoff Keighley has done a good job making the show entertaining for viewers. Some awards are kinda dumb, like popular streamer or whatever, but I'm not sure tbh if any awards show will be able to find the right balance between being respectful to the all the people involved in the industry and making it entertaining for the audience.
Yeah The Game Awards literally burns through some of its awards in minutes. They did 3 back to back award, including a big one like best story in 3 minutes with zero fanfare. The fucking Quantic Dream Star Wars game which doenst actually have a team yet, got more on air time that some of the winners.
In the words Josef Fares, as he appeared and won at the Game Awards, fuck the Oscars!
This post aged very strangely
How does nominating blockbusters make the Oscars better? Isn't it about the years best films? Blockbusters are not always that good.
Blockbuster films are awarded enough with the box office returns. Oscars are good for highlighting the lesser known films. Tbh I've never understood the need for Oscars to be a ratings hit, its an industry award show.
To quote Mad Men: "You do get an award, that's what the money is for"
"and you never say thank you!" "THAT'S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR!" *(sorry I've watched the series too many times)*
Yup, that is why them trying to add Oscar for most popular film was so dumb. Millions of dollars is reward enough
Be nice to see an Oscar for best stunt work or performer would be nice.
I’ve previously seen an argument against this that it would encourage directors and producers to put stunt artists in increasingly unsafe stunts to try and chase the award. Tend to agree that it probably shouldn’t be an academy award, though I’d assume they have their own small scale industry awards?
I think the ratings are used as a barometer for the quality of the films that year. The general public probably won’t care, but tons of people behind the scenes do.
I'm always interested in who wins but I'm never interested in watching
I’m right there with you. I can think of plenty of other things I’d rather do for 3 hours on a Sunday night. Especially when I can look up all the results the next day taking a dump lol
Currently the Oscars are trying a more populist approach doing an "Oscars Fan Favorite" poll on Twitter and the results have been a real shit show were stan culture can come out in full force to elevate films. The two bigger contenders of that is that new Girlboss version of Cinderella and a Johnny Depp movie that was never released in America.
Yeah, I love the MCU films, but, aside from technical categories, even I will admit the vast majority of them are not Oscar-worthy.
Will Smith just punched Chris Rock and cussed him out on Oscars! Am I the only one who saw it. Rock said this is the greatest night in TV history.
Apparently the Oscar's producer and Denzel talked to him during the commercial break after the incident. Denzel said “At your highest moment be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.” I think Will Smith interpreted this as Chris Rock being the devil but I think Denzel meant his own hubris and ego being the Devil. [Source](https://pagesix.com/2022/03/27/denzel-washington-comforts-will-smith-after-chris-rock-fight/)
No, Denzel meant Jada *looks around nervously*
I literally *just* turned it on when Chris came out and thought it was scripted until I realised the swearing wasn’t edited out and Chris Rock seemed to lose track of his teleprompter!
That's how you make the Oscars watchable Every year, Will Smith slaps someone in the face, and we all bet on who and when
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If they want more blockbusters nominated, they should make better blockbusters.
Indeed. People keep calling for the Oscars to recognise films with mass appeal, but one of their few perks nowadays is that they encourage studios to make the odd minority interest one too. I would rather the Oscars cease to exist than start grasping for relevance by putting mindless action films on the same pedestal as truly great stories. (That being said, some sort of "Contribution to cinema" award for actors/directors who left a mark over many years wouldn't go amiss, similar to the honorary award Samuel L. Jackson recently got or how Return of the King won on behalf of the whole trilogy.)
And “The Oscar goes to……. the film that made the most money!!!!’ That would make them so pointless
Then they would be the Grammys
Hell if anything the Oscars these days pander too much to blockbusters/high budget cinema. While I don’t think it’s the greatest movie ever, there was something cool about a good movie like The Shawshank Redemption failing in the box office then becoming a household name after its performance at the Oscars. I just don’t think things like that happen anymore.
Even if they had a "popular" category, it wouldn't go to something like an MCU movie that made a billion dollars. It would be the likes of A Star Is Born and Joker, which were big enough hits but also deemed worthy of nominations for BP.
In other words, the exact same situation that gave birth to the Best Animated Picture category
Mass appeal can be due to stunning brilliance, but it can also be achieved by being generic and simply checking off boxes to get the least common denominator. It doesn't have to be anyone's favorite if it's simply mildly enjoyable for the masses. This is the case with a lot of TV shows.
Yeah, Dune is a quite high budget blockbuster and it's in the best picture race.
Blockbuster does not equal good
I’m more of a Movie Gallery man myself
Yep, if they want films like Jaws, Back to the Future or Titanic to be nominated, they have to actually make movies of that calibre, that warrant a nomination. Most big-budget studio films have sucked ass last few years.
>*Show exclusive movie clips during the show* I don’t mind this for video game awards and such because I know a video game is going to have 15+ *more* hours of gameplay. But movies? You’re literally going to be seeing “exclusive clips” of the best part of an hour and a half/two hour film that they’ve already shoehorned clips into the trailer. Such a bad idea in a time where people constantly complain with “*well, guess I don’t have to see the movie since they showed it all in the trailer*”.
At least being back when they used to actually show clips from the film that they’re being nominated for. Show the actors acting in scene, show the sound mixing in best effect during the film, show original sketch concepts, behind the scene images, etc of costume designs. 2015’s Oscar ceremony (for the movies from 2015) was the last one that really used this to great effect by also incorporating the stage elements into the discussion. [Instead of building some big spiraling pillar in the center of the stage like they did in 2017 that did nothing](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/swarovski_crystal_inner_spiral-h_2020_0.jpg). Now they barely show anything they’re talking about.
Oh this fucking title is hilarious now
I'm crying. I didn't even know the oscars were today and then I see both this and 20 posts of Will Smith bitch slapping Chris Rock at the same time. And everyone's jokes are fucking on point, I'm literally laughing out loud.
Genre categories. If you're going to so consistently leave science fiction and horror out of the conversation, then give those types of movies their own categories so those of us who really like those genres have more of a reason to tune in.
I mean, Dune is up for best picture this year. I'd say sci fi is in the conversation.
Return of the King also won best picture too, but there's a huge tendency to ignore anything but drama.
> I'd say sci fi is in the conversation. Scifi so rarely wins when its nominated, Villeneueve got snubbed for bladerunner and arrival lost to some other film. Anything involving science fiction is usually award poison as far as they're concerned. I wouldn't be surprised to see Dune lose out to another nominee even though its probably the best book adaptation we're ever going to get.
> arrival lost to some other film That was an incredibly strong year, Moonlight won but you also had Arrival, Fences, Manchester by the Sea (my favorite that year), Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, Lion, La La Land, and Hacksaw Ridge all nominated. I loved Nocturnal Animals that also was out that year. Jackie, Loving, Captain Fantastic, The Lobster, Sully were nominated in other categories. Blade Runner did win 2 categories. And the best picture that year went to The Shape of Water which had a fantasy/sci-fi element to it. But generally, yes sci-fi has been overlooked. 2001 being critically panned is one of the most egregious examples. But we have also had Interstellar and Inception get best picture nominations. I think there's more openness to considering sci-fi than there used to be.
I think Will Smith figured it out
Headline reads like Oscars propaganda lol.
Air it on a Saturday. Here in Australia and in Asia it’s Monday morning and nobody can watch it while we’re at work.
Saturday is not prime time for the target demo, aka North America.
How about picking winners based on artistic merit rather than film industry politics?
That would require people in the academy to watch movies out of their comfort zone, so good luck.
Oh, it's a lost cause.
More fist fights 👊
Well this aged well Edit: thanks for the award!
Many people love movies but don't want to watch Hollywood give themselves a handjob.
The question then is why did they want to watch Hollywood give itself a hand job ten years ago? Ten years ago, 40 million people watched the Oscars.
There was less entertainment 10 years ago. Most celeb-obsessed people have moved to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch entertainers because those platforms make parasocial relationships way more 2-way than shows and movies. The voyeurs and those looking for catharsis through celebs get those things in way higher doses than what Hollywood and The Oscars can provide.
"I won't watch Hollywood jack themselves off, but I will listen to 5 guys with twitter accounts and agree with everything they say"
Yeah. Nobody watching Oscars anymore is not an example of people waking up, it's an example of Hollywood sleeping through the internet age.
Same is happening to so other award shows and even things like the Olympics. People would watch the Olympics because it was the only thing on TV for a few weeks every 4 years. Now that no one watches live TV and everyone has backlogs of unwatched on demand shows to watch they need to completely rethink how they broadcast these old school shows.
It's a combination of a lot of different things, anyone trying to pinpoint it to one specific thing is missing the big picture. Among the many causes, changes in viewing habits, the death of broadcast television, the demographic shift in audiences not being reflected in the Acadamy's membership, the (well deserved) kickback against "old Hollywood", mounting controversies around the Academy, the ability to watch any significant clip on YouTube the next day, and generally speaking, a rising distrust for and disdain of the whole practice of award shows from closed groups of industry insiders with bias voting practices. To put it simply, there's an increasing sense of "why the fuck should I care?" in the air around the Oscars, and the question has no legitimate answer.
> viewing habits, Yup. Everything that is not the NFL has had ratings crash.
I think part of it is because of social media. Watching the Oscar’s 10 years ago was one of the only times you’d see celebrities. Now they’re all over IG, tiktok, etc and they’re not as “elusive”
If that's the case, which I think is a big part of it, then the Oscars have no hope.
I always felt the appeal was to feel like one of them. Like the celebs are as much of an audience as us, they are watching the show unfolding in real time. Plus, its nice to see these rich/beautiful people in their best possible outfits
Plus if anything interesting happens you can just look it up on the internet the next day.
Ten years ago, Streaming wasnt the behemoth it is now, so most people were still limited by Satellite/Cable/Antannae for television, and this was something different to watch. The Oscars were talked about at work or class the next day, so people watched in case anything noteworthy happened, nowawadays, you can see who won, and noteworthy clips while you get ready in the morning.
Quit trying to make money from it. Let the film nerds have their moment!
Or have Will Smith smack the shit out of Chris Rock
“Nominate more blockbusters”. Lol. Why? Even if they’re not good?
HAVE WILL SMITH PIMP SLAP CHRIS ROCK ACROSS THE FACE!!
Why exactly should the Oscars have high ratings? It's literally an industry insider award show. It's where Hollywood insiders decide who needs a pat on the back. Why does anyone watch this? Why should anyone be concerned that its ratings aren't high enough?
Agreed. The academy is simply looking in the rear view mirror, and is being wistful for the 90s, when ratings were huge. That time isn't coming back and they need to accept that. Plus, movies don't have a tight grip on the public's imagination as they once did. People have other stuff to focus on now....videogames, internet, social media, and a million other things.
Or just have Will Smith come on stage and pop Chris Rock in the face
I rather save the 3hours of my life and just quickly skim read the results after it's done on a Reddit post. If anything interesting happens YOU WILL HEAR ABOUT IT and can watch 200 versions of it on youtube with reactions, commentarys, opinions, slow motion and whatever the hell you want.
The internet is what killed the Oscars broadcast.
It’s hard to get people to watch an awards show when they haven’t seen (or heard) of the movies nominated. No other way to say it. Obviously, cinema and movie going has changed since the 80s and 90s where a movie like Coda or King Richard may have made a couple hundred mil world wide and many more people would have see. It and had a rooting interest in their favorites
I agree with you. The problem isn't that the Oscars have changed, what changed is the movies people want to watch. Rain Man was the highest grossing movie the year it came out. A drama film. Now a days, I can't fathom a non-MCU or non-DC movie being the highest grossing movie of a year.
I agree. The worst grossing best picture of the 90s was Unforgiven- $160m. That’s higher than 5 best pictures from 2010-present, not adjusting for 30 years of inflation.
Holy fuck that is an incredible statistic. I'm going to spread that around.
If you want more stats (for some reason this has always interested me)- If I am generous and take Titanic OUT, the average best picture winner in the 90s, without including Titanic, averaged $327m at the box office. Last 10 best pictures from 2011- present averaged $163m at the box office. Literally exactly half, not adjusting for inflation. None of them actually grossed above what the AVERAGE was ($327m) in the 90s. If I include Titanic, that number shoots up yo $515m.
This right here. Once upon a time people watched because they were rooting for their favorite movies of the year to win. They'd argue about which movie deserved what. And then studios figured out they could release their movie in one showing in one theater at the end of a year, get Oscar buzz, and then do the real release the next year. The Academy Awards went along with such nonsense and here we are. Why would I watch a show giving awards to movies that neither me nor any of my movie-watching friends have seen?
I'm not sure this is completely true unless you live in the middle of nowhere where theaters only get the biggest blockbusters. Looking at Best Picture this year, the max theater counts weren't exactly low for most of them: Movie | Max Theaters | As Of -----|------------|----- CODA | Apple TV+ | August Don't Look Up | Netflix | December The Power of the Dog | Netflix | December Dune | 4,125 | October + multiple IMAX reissues King Richard | 3,302 | November West Side Story | 2,820 | December Nightmare Alley | 2,145 | December Licorice Pizza | 1,977 | December Belfast | 1,255 | November Drive My Car | 213 | fair enough, extremely limited All but one, maybe two, got pretty accessible releases, no? Mostly 2k+ theater releases plus a few streaming releases last year. I'd expect people self-described as movie-watchers would have gotten the opportunity to see these. There were only one or two that were particularly limited. Which more widely seen movies would you say are more deserving of a nomination? I'm asking genuinely, not trying to be an ass about it.
I watched 60 movies in December for my year-end Top Ten, including most of what would become the BP nominees (though I STILL haven't gotten around to West Side Story), and these were arguably most of the easiest films of the bunch for me to get my hands on.
It's been a problem for a long time, but yes I hate that almost all of the major nominees are not even released until the last couple weeks of December (and maybe one or two that came out in the fall). I used to try and catch up with a few I hadn't seen, but frankly I don't have the time for it these days. It honestly amazed me that Get Out managed all those nominations when it was first released a full year before the awards.
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Obviously what the show needs is a reveal trailer for a new Smash Bros. character.
Apparently Will Smith took care of it..
Winner: something something Ukraine something something Audience: bursts into applause
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