I’m in the very small minority of people who love to watch the Oscars. Sure, billions watch the show, but most watch it so they can bitch and moan afterwards.
“It was too long.”
“I didn’t like the host.”
“Why did they have so many musical numbers?”
If the host and show are entertaining (like last Sunday’s) then I have no problem with the program pushing four hours. Having said that, there are some minor changes that I think would help the Oscars.
- Go back to nominating only 5 Best Pictures. This current format of anywhere from 5 to 10 films being nominated is out of control. 9 movies were up for Best Picture last Sunday night and I could count at least 2 that had no business being nominated (*cough* Beasts *cough* Amour).
- If a movie is nominated in the Best Foreign Film category, it cannot be up for Best Picture.
- It’s time to combine Adapted Screenplay with Original Screenplay and have 7 nominees.
- Can we finally combine Best Sound Editing with Best Sound Mixing and just call it Best Sound?
- This past Sunday, Visual Effects and Hair/Makeup only had 3 nominees for each category. You gotta have 5.
- All 5 Best Songs must be sung during the show. To make it interesting, get some of the best current singers to sing the nominated songs.
- One honorary Oscar awarded to a “legendary type” of actor/actress/director who’ve never won an acting/directing Oscar during their long career. They kind of have this already, but it’s not well defined and not done every year.
- Two new categories. Best Stunt and Best Performance By An Animal. Stunts have been long overlooked. As for the animal award, Uggie from The Artist or that “War Horse” could have won last year. Imagine “Richard Parker” (AKA the tiger from Life Of Pi) winning an Oscar last Sunday night? Sure he was 85% digitally enhanced, but his 15% performance should be recognized.
I don’t know how this would affect the show’s running time or if it would interfere with the host’s performance (please, can we stop complaining about the Oscar host right after every show?), but these are minor tweaks that might improve the next Academy Awards broadcast.
