Doctor Gonzo

Well this really seems to cheapen the Oscars ceremony even more than then it already has become. The Academy is adding a new "Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film" award. Also, some select awards will be handed out during commercial breaks and shown in an edited manner later in the broadcast.


here's the story:

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/a...ry-1202899382/

Bluelitespecial

I would rather movie studios make good movies that are popular with audiences and critics. I miss the days when movies like Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, and Braveheart won Oscars. Most of the arthouse stuff that gets nominated for Best Picture now i more than likely will never see them. Also this a move to try and get viewers back for the show.

redcon1

I thought the reason the Best Picture category was expanded up to 10 nominees was to include more popular pictures?

This is making the Oscars look more like the People's Choice Awards.

raven56706

its to get viewers to watch. Quite frankly the oscars were already cheap so dont know how this will make it any different.

Inhumans99

Yes, expanding to 10 was supposed to help but instead the Oscars was once again a show I had no interest in watching due to most/all the big award nominees being for films I did not watch.

Last year the expansion to 10 could have put Wonder Woman or Logan in the mix for the real big prizes but nope, that clearly did not happen.

Let the Oscars become a more high brow version of the People's Choice Awards, because if the inclusion of Black Panther, MI: Fallout, Avengers Infinity War, and other popular and critically praised films are in the mix for the more prestigious awards then after several years of not watching I might tune in.

The Academy will be happy to tune out the critics who say they have dumbed down the awards show if the show's ratings show a pulse in 2019 due to the changes (popular film category, serious effort to keep the show no longer than 3 hours vs the 4 hour slog it has become).

I do not watch but I am aware that the show runs well past the time when many folks in the CST/EST zones have gone to sleep which helps keep the ratings low.

Decker

Oh that really sucks. I really, really hate that change.

raven56706

meh. i am for it. gives a chance for movies that people actually watched to get a freaking award.

Yes we can blame studios for this shit but still doesnt matter. Oscars needed a change to begin with. Its basically a show of people sucking each other off.

islandclaws

So, they created a category just to make sure Black Panther gets an award?

raven56706

curious as to why Black panther keeps getting brought up? if anything, Avengers should get it

Mr. Flix

This.

Meanwhile, they of course completely ignored the real reason that ratings for the ceremony continue to drop year after year.

bluetoast

They also plan on giving out certain awards during commercial breaks and airing the edited portions during the broadcast. I’m sure that will be as popular as the “stand in the aisle and give your speech” system they had like 12 years back.

raven56706

whats the reason?

fumanstan

I like the addition since I don't end up seeing half of the movies that are nominated for best picture, if not more depending on the year. Nothing wrong with acknowledging and rewarding box office and pop cultural hits, which are significant in their own right to the movie industry in my opinion.

I don't really see how it cheapens anything or affects the typical slate of movies that are honored, so I don't think it really affects those that have a greater interest in those other then an extra 10 minutes of time.

Ash Ketchum

So what are they going to call the regular Best Picture Oscar, "Outstanding Achievement in Unpopular Film"?

Decker

I assume all feature pictures are eligible for the "big prize". So many questions left unanswered though, most specifically "What constitutes a 'Popular Film'?". Would Get Out be competing last year? Would A Quiet Place be in the running this year? Can The Incredibles 2 compete in both the Animated Feature and Popular Film categories? Would very popular Oscar bait movies like La La Land, Django Unchained and The Revenant have been considered eligible for this award? How about well received genre films that didn't do great at the Box Office like Hereditary?

Decker

And while I will not shed a tear if the Short Subject and Sound awards happen during commercial breaks, the only thing that will really cut the run-time is if they finally cut out the montages and useless tributes to "The Movies".

Paff

I miss the days when audiences watched good movies. Take a look at when the honored 70s films like The Godfather, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Sting, etc all filled theaters. If contemporary equivalents of those movies were made today, they'd all be at the Landmarks and Alamos of the country playing to half-empty theaters while everyone lines up at AMC to get into one of the 3-4 screens all showing the same superhero movie.

dex14

Dumb.

dex14

I can't believe it happened again. pic.twitter.com/jQDqsjMdjC

— Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) August 8, 2018

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Hazel Motes

booourns.

Oscar nominated movie, Rampage.

milo bloom

I think this is the Academy accepting that they're not always in touch with the audience. The latest 3 hour black and white flick of 2 people talking in a room about their feelings may be high art, but it's not popular art - and without popular art the movie industry would shrivel up.

I haven't paid much attention to the Oscars for years, mainly for that reason, I might be interested to see what kind of fan-friendly flicks get the nod.

DWilson

My guess would be they'd choose from the top box office titles (and, yeah, I know that doesn't mean they're the most profitable).

Trevor

Personally, I think Black Panther was a much better film. And didn’t BP make more money and get better reviews?

Groucho

This is a terrible idea. Just jettison the categories that most people don't care about to be award off the air and ratings will go up just from that.

stvn1974

It would be funny if they gave out the Best Picture and the Popular awards back to back.

"Here are the awards for the film that made $1.5 billion at the box office and the one that only the critics went to see."