As you might expect, I have a multitude of thoughts about the Academy’s plan for an “achievement in popular film” Oscar….
* it really is incredible just how much The Dark Knight broke the Academy’s brain, isn’t it? Who would’ve thought that this one specific snub would lead to such intense Oscar naval-gazing over the next decade. Just like the Joker himself, the film became an agent of chaos that took an institution to its knees.
Just imagine a universe where enough AMPAS voters got over the idea of recognizing “a Batman movie” and put it on the Best Picture ballot. If Dark Knight is nominated, the shift to 10 Best Picture nominees doesn’t happen, nor does the eventual shift to “between 6-10 nominees,” and likely nor does the “most popular film” idea. Just a simple nomination would’ve been enough for the Dark Knight fans! Nobody would’ve expected it to actually beat Slumdog Millionaire — that was a completely worthy winner, and while I’d say Dark Knight was the better film, it’s a small gap. The issue was the giant, yawning gap in quality between Dark Knight and the other nominees (Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Milk, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button) which are in the “fine but forgettable” department at best, and in the “worst nominee of the last three decades” at worst. I’m looking at you, Button. It’s incredible that so much Oscar history would be different if, what, a couple hundred extra AMPAS voters at the time realized (like the rest of us did) that these four movies could easily be set aside without a second thought.
And now, with one fell swoop, the Academy seems to be preparing for a future where a) superhero movies will likely win virtually every year, and b) they won’t win anything important any year, since they’ll have been relegated to their own separate category away from the, ahem, “real” Oscars.
* the issue here is that the Academy is focusing on fixing problems that either aren’t problems, or are unfixable. They seem to be taking issue with the fact that, in recent years, the Best Picture award has been going to films that aren’t big box office hits, or that don’t have a lot of mainstream popularity. These so-called “Oscar movies” are beating the more fan-favourite popcorn fare, which has been a criticism of the Oscars since the dawn of time.
However, the award is called “Best” Picture. We can argue all day about what “Best” means in this context, but if take the simplest route and assume it means quality, we’re actually in a pretty strong streak of Best Picture winners. One man’s opinion, of course, but Artist/Argo/12 Years A Slave/Birdman/Spotlight/Moonlight/Shape Of Water is about as strong a seven-year stretch as any in Oscar history. There are only two in that list (Argo, Shape Of Water) that I don’t consider to be particularly good choices, though they aren’t bad movies by any means, and Shape Of Water is so weirdly outside-the-box for what a Best Picture can or should be that I applaud its selection based on sheer novelty about how the Academy’s tastes may be changing. Whether by design, luck, changes made to diversify and broaden the AMPAS membership or a combination of the three, the tweaks to the Best Picture voting formula have led to some solid results. Mediocre films are still getting nominated, sure, but they’re not actually winning. And, while you can certainly argue that none of these seven were the actual BEST film of their year, they’re all at least respectable choices.
Beyond just stronger winners, we’re also seeing generally better nominees. Shape Of Water and Moonlight doesn’t get nominated pre-2008, let alone win. Movies like Get Out, Mad Max: Fury Road, District 9, Her, Toy Story 3, and Up have been in the Best Picture race. I’m willing to swallow the occasional “fine but forgettable” nominee if it means something else unique that might have an actual legit shot at winning is also in the field alongside it.
So ironically, the Academy is getting better at picking their Best Pictures, though they’re still unsatisfied because the Best Pictures aren’t in the cultural mainstream. So now they’re making a decision that will quite possibly detract from that quality, leaving both Best Picture and possibly Popular Picture worse off. Would something like Get Out, which has a case in both categories, end up splitting votes and get snubbed in both? Would voters interpret the categories as Pure Oscar Movies and Pure Popcorn Movies, and we’re left with a world of only Imitation Games and Fast & Furiouseses in either slate? Is Best Picture with its 90-year history still the be-all and end-all, or is this a case of when you have two winners, you really have no winners?
* the unfixable problem I referred to earlier is that the Oscar telecast’s ratings have been dropping significantly in recent years, so the Popular Picture concept is seen as a way of gaining viewer interest by getting their favourite movies onto the telecast. I say this is unfixable since TV ratings are dropping across the board for everything, so the Academy and ABC may simply be fighting a losing battle.
There’s also a mistake, I feel, in the belief that a nominee list that better reflects the average TV viewer’s movie tastes will lead to them watching the Oscars. Now, I’m a movie geek who watches the Oscars every year regardless, so I’m just going by interpretation here, but in my view, casual viewers watch the Oscars for three main reasons — they’re a big event, it’s a chance to see a bunch of big stars in one place, and for the fashions. Well, today people can catch up on the fashions in a five-minute slideshow on a thousand different websites the next day, you can see celebrities interacting literally anytime you want online, and today’s “big event” is tomorrow’s quaint tradition of the past. The Miss America pageant also used to be a big deal, once upon a time.
The actual movies themselves have never seemed to really be much of a draw, as there is rarely correlation between popular nominees and heavy TV viewership. The only instance I can think of when a hugely popular movie’s involvement in the Best Picture race raised interest in the Oscars was the year Titanic won — that was the highest-rated ceremony ever. However, I feel safe in calling that an outlier since Titanic was literally the most popular movie ever made. Consider that the second highest-rated Oscars ceremony ever was the year Gandhi won, and I’m pretty sure 50 million people weren’t tuning in because they yearned to see Ben Kingsley and Richard Attenborough get their day in the sun. I mean, it’s not like the Peoples’ Choice Awards are a huge ratings bonanza.
* the latest edition of The Ringer’s “Big Picture” podcast covered a lot of the already-breaking criticism about this “popular movie award” idea, though the trio of Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and Bill Simmons made a few very interesting points I’d like to repeat here. Firstly, that this idea was floated by ABC, who is owned by Disney, who will now suddenly see its big franchises become the heavy favourites in this category going forward. Basically, I wonder if Marvel’s Kevin Feige really got it wound up about wanting an Oscar. Secondly, the Academy’s announcement might well only be a trial balloon, and one that could quickly be popped given the instant negative reaction. Maybe this is really a third-dimensional chess move to sort of shame AMPAS voters into being more open to nominating “popular” mainstream fare for Best Picture, to which I say Darkest Hour was nommed just last year, so good luck.
* back in 1927, the very first Academy Awards handed out two separate top prizes — “Outstanding Picture” and “Best Unique And Artistic Picture.” The former went to Wings, a crowd-pleasing action/romance popcorn movie (did they serve popcorn at theatres in 1927?) about World War I pilots. The latter went to Sunrise, widely acclaimed as one of the best films ever made.
It’s a fascinating thought experiment to consider how these categories would’ve looked over the years had the Academy stuck to this format, though they couldn’t have abandoned it more quickly. By 1928, it was just a singular “Outstanding Picture,” which went to The Broadway Melody, widely anti-acclaimed as perhaps the worst Best Picture ever. Furthermore, the Academy retroactively decided that Wings was the official “Best Picture” of record and more or less forgot it ever rewarded Sunrise, which is pretty hilarious given the film’s stature in cinematic history. If you took pride in pretending you rewarded the best movie of any given year, wouldn’t you rather have Sunrise than Wings on your resume?
* it really is incredible just how much The Dark Knight broke the Academy’s brain, isn’t it? Who would’ve thought that this one specific snub would lead to such intense Oscar naval-gazing over the next decade. Just like the Joker himself, the film became an agent of chaos that took an institution to its knees.
Just imagine a universe where enough AMPAS voters got over the idea of recognizing “a Batman movie” and put it on the Best Picture ballot. If Dark Knight is nominated, the shift to 10 Best Picture nominees doesn’t happen, nor does the eventual shift to “between 6-10 nominees,” and likely nor does the “most popular film” idea. Just a simple nomination would’ve been enough for the Dark Knight fans! Nobody would’ve expected it to actually beat Slumdog Millionaire — that was a completely worthy winner, and while I’d say Dark Knight was the better film, it’s a small gap. The issue was the giant, yawning gap in quality between Dark Knight and the other nominees (Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Milk, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button) which are in the “fine but forgettable” department at best, and in the “worst nominee of the last three decades” at worst. I’m looking at you, Button. It’s incredible that so much Oscar history would be different if, what, a couple hundred extra AMPAS voters at the time realized (like the rest of us did) that these four movies could easily be set aside without a second thought.
And now, with one fell swoop, the Academy seems to be preparing for a future where a) superhero movies will likely win virtually every year, and b) they won’t win anything important any year, since they’ll have been relegated to their own separate category away from the, ahem, “real” Oscars.
* the issue here is that the Academy is focusing on fixing problems that either aren’t problems, or are unfixable. They seem to be taking issue with the fact that, in recent years, the Best Picture award has been going to films that aren’t big box office hits, or that don’t have a lot of mainstream popularity. These so-called “Oscar movies” are beating the more fan-favourite popcorn fare, which has been a criticism of the Oscars since the dawn of time.
However, the award is called “Best” Picture. We can argue all day about what “Best” means in this context, but if take the simplest route and assume it means quality, we’re actually in a pretty strong streak of Best Picture winners. One man’s opinion, of course, but Artist/Argo/12 Years A Slave/Birdman/Spotlight/Moonlight/Shape Of Water is about as strong a seven-year stretch as any in Oscar history. There are only two in that list (Argo, Shape Of Water) that I don’t consider to be particularly good choices, though they aren’t bad movies by any means, and Shape Of Water is so weirdly outside-the-box for what a Best Picture can or should be that I applaud its selection based on sheer novelty about how the Academy’s tastes may be changing. Whether by design, luck, changes made to diversify and broaden the AMPAS membership or a combination of the three, the tweaks to the Best Picture voting formula have led to some solid results. Mediocre films are still getting nominated, sure, but they’re not actually winning. And, while you can certainly argue that none of these seven were the actual BEST film of their year, they’re all at least respectable choices.
Beyond just stronger winners, we’re also seeing generally better nominees. Shape Of Water and Moonlight doesn’t get nominated pre-2008, let alone win. Movies like Get Out, Mad Max: Fury Road, District 9, Her, Toy Story 3, and Up have been in the Best Picture race. I’m willing to swallow the occasional “fine but forgettable” nominee if it means something else unique that might have an actual legit shot at winning is also in the field alongside it.
So ironically, the Academy is getting better at picking their Best Pictures, though they’re still unsatisfied because the Best Pictures aren’t in the cultural mainstream. So now they’re making a decision that will quite possibly detract from that quality, leaving both Best Picture and possibly Popular Picture worse off. Would something like Get Out, which has a case in both categories, end up splitting votes and get snubbed in both? Would voters interpret the categories as Pure Oscar Movies and Pure Popcorn Movies, and we’re left with a world of only Imitation Games and Fast & Furiouseses in either slate? Is Best Picture with its 90-year history still the be-all and end-all, or is this a case of when you have two winners, you really have no winners?
* the unfixable problem I referred to earlier is that the Oscar telecast’s ratings have been dropping significantly in recent years, so the Popular Picture concept is seen as a way of gaining viewer interest by getting their favourite movies onto the telecast. I say this is unfixable since TV ratings are dropping across the board for everything, so the Academy and ABC may simply be fighting a losing battle.
There’s also a mistake, I feel, in the belief that a nominee list that better reflects the average TV viewer’s movie tastes will lead to them watching the Oscars. Now, I’m a movie geek who watches the Oscars every year regardless, so I’m just going by interpretation here, but in my view, casual viewers watch the Oscars for three main reasons — they’re a big event, it’s a chance to see a bunch of big stars in one place, and for the fashions. Well, today people can catch up on the fashions in a five-minute slideshow on a thousand different websites the next day, you can see celebrities interacting literally anytime you want online, and today’s “big event” is tomorrow’s quaint tradition of the past. The Miss America pageant also used to be a big deal, once upon a time.
The actual movies themselves have never seemed to really be much of a draw, as there is rarely correlation between popular nominees and heavy TV viewership. The only instance I can think of when a hugely popular movie’s involvement in the Best Picture race raised interest in the Oscars was the year Titanic won — that was the highest-rated ceremony ever. However, I feel safe in calling that an outlier since Titanic was literally the most popular movie ever made. Consider that the second highest-rated Oscars ceremony ever was the year Gandhi won, and I’m pretty sure 50 million people weren’t tuning in because they yearned to see Ben Kingsley and Richard Attenborough get their day in the sun. I mean, it’s not like the Peoples’ Choice Awards are a huge ratings bonanza.
* the latest edition of The Ringer’s “Big Picture” podcast covered a lot of the already-breaking criticism about this “popular movie award” idea, though the trio of Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and Bill Simmons made a few very interesting points I’d like to repeat here. Firstly, that this idea was floated by ABC, who is owned by Disney, who will now suddenly see its big franchises become the heavy favourites in this category going forward. Basically, I wonder if Marvel’s Kevin Feige really got it wound up about wanting an Oscar. Secondly, the Academy’s announcement might well only be a trial balloon, and one that could quickly be popped given the instant negative reaction. Maybe this is really a third-dimensional chess move to sort of shame AMPAS voters into being more open to nominating “popular” mainstream fare for Best Picture, to which I say Darkest Hour was nommed just last year, so good luck.
* back in 1927, the very first Academy Awards handed out two separate top prizes — “Outstanding Picture” and “Best Unique And Artistic Picture.” The former went to Wings, a crowd-pleasing action/romance popcorn movie (did they serve popcorn at theatres in 1927?) about World War I pilots. The latter went to Sunrise, widely acclaimed as one of the best films ever made.
It’s a fascinating thought experiment to consider how these categories would’ve looked over the years had the Academy stuck to this format, though they couldn’t have abandoned it more quickly. By 1928, it was just a singular “Outstanding Picture,” which went to The Broadway Melody, widely anti-acclaimed as perhaps the worst Best Picture ever. Furthermore, the Academy retroactively decided that Wings was the official “Best Picture” of record and more or less forgot it ever rewarded Sunrise, which is pretty hilarious given the film’s stature in cinematic history. If you took pride in pretending you rewarded the best movie of any given year, wouldn’t you rather have Sunrise than Wings on your resume?
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