Oscar nominations are out

Ah, yes, the sport the coloreds play.

This is like the LetsRun message board, where no sprinters ever work hard. All getting by on talent.

 

I just hope the sprinters aren't getting paid as much as marathoners. I mean, 10.1 seconds? Pfffffft.

 

The Rock. This guy is a bonafide movie star. I hope he got his full quote on that thing, because he almost made that movie watchable.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/the...-for-his-baywatch-razzie-it-was-a-s-sandwich/

 

Watching the broadcast on ABC.com. Pretty tepid show. Nothing that really stood out, despite the "movement." I really found it odd that the Marshall song featured 10 activists on the stage and didn't identify any of them. The stage looked great. And I always prefer the older stars from 20-30 years ago to the flavor of the month.


Would have thought the conservatives would have been happy that Churchill won best actor. Damn, Oldman's had a career - Sid Vicious, Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dracula, Commissioner Jim Gordon, Sirius Black, and Churchill.

 

Big shakeup in the Oscars. Minor categories (figure sound and the shorts) to be awarded during commercial breaks, and a new category - Popular Film to give box office titans a chance.
I still don't think it will move the ratings needle much.
The big change is moving the telecast forward to Feb. 9th. I don't know what this does to the other awards shows (Globes/SAG etc.)

The Oscars Will Add a 'Popular Film' Category, Shorten Its Broadcast - IGN

 

I'm more worried the new category will lead to blockbusters that deserve to be looked at for Best Picture will get left out entirely. It's already been an issue in recent years, and this could just make the problem worse.

 

No possible Super Bowl conflict?

 

I thought the last two Best Pictures were vastly over-rated. Good films that peaked at the right time. That said, looking at some of the other nominees in the past 10 years, it isn't like there is a clear whiff. The biggest problem is that most of the nominees for Best Picture recently don't star A-Listers. Last year you had Streep, Hanks and McDormand in nominated movies. A lot of great character-actors, but nothing from The Rock, Tom Cruise, Kevin Hart, Reese Witherspoon.
Ryan Gosling is great, but only has one movie that grossed over 100m that he led.

 

Super Bowl is on Feb. 2 in 2020.

 

Strange thing to 'worry' about, and I really don't think this is a problem.
If there is a 'problem,' it is that this continues to validate the notion that popularity and box office are an indication of quality.
What was interesting, at least to me, was the idea that people in the industry voted to choose the best examples of artisanship and aesthetic quality within their creative fields.
Popular movies are not inherently bad movies. A movie can achieve excellence and popularity, but the latter is not evidence of the former.
There is not really a wealth of blockbusters that have been wronged by the Oscars unless one misunderstands the intent of the awards.
There are other awards that recognize popularity and fandom.
Popularity and box office should not be part of the equation. Whether you or I have seen the Best Picture winner or whether it ever played in my local theater is immaterial.

Until you start looking to drive broadcast viewership and looking at the Oscars as primarily as a mechanism to drive audiences.
When the marketing aspect becomes the primary focus rather than an added benefit of the awards, then it is too cynical for me to be interested.

A Diane Steele or Jackie Collins novel might sell more copies than 'Confederacy of Dunces' or 'Ironweed,' but that doesn't mean they should win a Pulitzer for fiction.

In the interest of short-term gains, they are essentially killing the Oscars.

 

It's kind of a weird conundrum - figure the best picture nominees would lose about half their box office if they weren't nominated - so nominated films that don't have a built-in audience helps the industry. On the other hand, nominating movies with less built-in appeal hurts the broadcast ratings - the awards show bankrolls a huge chunk of the Academy budget. The ratings are down, like a lot of live programming. Heck even the Super Bowl was down this year - lowest watched game since 2009.
The Academy would be better off "parting out" the awards. I don't think the show where they give out the honorary oscars is aired. People would watch that. And they could probably make the science and tech awards interesting if they had the Mythbusters explain what the awards were for. Throw in a stunt award, a main title sequence and best trailer and you could have two decent awards shows. Maybe even add an award for a film that has the highest return on its budget.