This is regarding the decision by A.M.P.A.S. to increase the number of best picture nominees to from five to ten. In my view this is going to really
water down the value of the Best Picture Oscar. I'm having trouble
thinking of ten Oscar worthy movies each year, especially over the last
decade. I could give you ten worthy movies in 1939 or 1974. But since
2000, most movies winning the Best Picture prize would only get
technical awards back in the 1970s. There are a lot of reasons for
this but the primary one is that from a creative standpoint Hollywood
is bankrupt. (So is Broadway, but that's the Tony's problem and I
don't really care about them.)
It has been suggested that this
change in Academy policy is to get higher television ratings.Â
Increasing the number of competing movies will make the Oscar telecast
longer. Unless, of course acceptance speeches are whittled down to 15
seconds. Maybe they can dump the monologue. I know it's a staple of
television, but the Oscars aren't Conan O'Brien. Being a life long fan
of the movies, I've always held them in higher esteem.
With last
year's Oscar-cast being one of the lowest rated in history, many people
said that if the Academy would nominate more movies the general public
is interested in seeing, the ratings might go up. That may be true,
but I don't want the Academy nominating "The Hangover" for Best Picture
just to try and inflate the ratings. What needs to be done with the
Oscar telecast is is a trimming down of non-essential things to improve
the show's pacing. How's this for starters, eliminate the monologue
and all dance numbers. Then take the 5 best song nominees and condense
them into one four or five minute montage. Use the music from the
soundtrack and play it under clips from the movie. That alone will
save 12 to 15 minutes.
Ten movies up for Best Picture will do
nothing, I fear, except dumb down the honor of the Oscar itself. The
Academy Awards are still considered to be the most prestigious awards in
the world. The Oscar telecast should reflect that and not try to be
just another worthless awards program conceived for television.
Bob Collins
Retro Responds: Bob,
on a commerical level, I understand the Academy's strategy to pump up
ratings. From a personal perspective, however, I agree with you. I
don't believe nominating five additional films will make much
difference - especially since they have continued to limit the number
of nominated directors to five. Audiences are savvy enough to realize
that the additional five films nominated will have "orphan status"
since there is no realistic expectation any of them will actually win
Best Picture- and in this age, the prospect of tuning in just to see a
couple of minutes of film clips from any movie seems to have limited
appeal. I also agree with you regarding the condensing of the songs. It
worked well last year, much to my surprise. This would have been
unthinkable back when there were notable songs in films, but the age of
great movie music seems to be gone at least temporarily. The only good
movie song I've heard in ages was Jamie Cullum's theme from Gran Torino, a
film the Academy completely ignored last year. Oscar has generally been
tone-deaf when it comes to the musical categories. What they do need
is larger-than-life presenters, but it isn't the Academy's fault that
Seth Rogen now passes for Hollywood royalty nowadays. - Lee Pfeiffer