And The Oscar Goes To......

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2019 19:33:54 GMT -4 Oxynia said:

Glad to hear that! It was such a shortsighted decision.

It really was. One would think they would have learned something from the time they had the winners of the “lesser” categories accept their awards in the audience, that was a disaster too. It’s the only time many of these people will ever receive any kind of public recognition for their work and to try to take it away from them was a dick move. I’m glad so many “important” people came out against it.

They should just stop trying to get big ratings and accept that only those of us that are super into the Oscars and people in the movie industry are actually going to watch the whole thing every year no matter what. “Normal” people will never care. The days where only so many movies come out every year and everyone saw most of the nominees are long gone. It’s time they accept that.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2019 22:15:36 GMT -4 @roisin54 said:

They should just stop trying to get big ratings and accept that only those of us that are super into the Oscars and people in the movie industry are actually going to watch the whole thing every year no matter what. “Normal” people will never care. The days where only so many movies come out every year and everyone saw most of the nominees are long gone. It’s time they accept that.

Exactly. They also need to accept that the ratings will be down because ratings for tv are down across the board. Even the Super Bowl has lower ratings. The Academy makes it seem like its some dire situation but the Oscars are still the second highest rating show of the year. They want another year like when Titanic won but that's never going to happen. Even if there was another movie like Titanic-massively popular and nominated for every award it still wouldn't have the same ratings. There have just too many changes in the tv landscape in the past 20 years. People don't watch tv or movies the same way they used to. Another thing that has changed is there are so many more awards shows now. It makes the Oscars a lot more predictable and also takes away a bit of its specialness. That's what they need to try and fix although I don't think that is actually fixable.

[Ladybug]

We watched Bohemian Rhapsody this weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and the highlights were the scenes featuring musical performances. I loved seeing the origins of classic Queen songs. But a Best Picture nomination? SMH over this one. It was a standard musical biopic and told a pretty superficial story about the band and Mercury.

However, I am fully on board with Rami Malek winning for Best Actor. His performance was amazing and held the movie together.

[Ginger]

Feb 16, 2019 0:18:57 GMT -4 @bronze said:

Another thing that has changed is there are so many more awards shows now. It makes the Oscars a lot more predictable and also takes away a bit of its specialness. That's what they need to try and fix although I don't think that is actually fixable.

I think that's been their biggest problem for a while. They have attempted to get a monopoly on A-list presenters by forbidding them from presenting at any of the other awards shows. They have also ended the tradition of having the previous year's winners come back to present, bumping Allison Janney (among others) who they don't deem famous enough, which sucks.

The only thing that still separates the Oscars from the other awards shows are the song and dance routines and the montages, and I think that's why they are always adding more of that crap while trying to eliminate actual awards and cut down on speeches.

[Deleted]

Feb 18, 2019 12:41:55 GMT -4 Ginger said:

Feb 16, 2019 0:18:57 GMT -4 @bronze said:

Another thing that has changed is there are so many more awards shows now. It makes the Oscars a lot more predictable and also takes away a bit of its specialness. That's what they need to try and fix although I don't think that is actually fixable.

I think that's been their biggest problem for a while. They have attempted to get a monopoly on A-list presenters by forbidding them from presenting at any of the other awards shows.

They have also ended the tradition of having the previous year's winners come back to present, bumping Allison Janney (among others) who they don't deem famous enough, which sucks.

This bugs me so much, and it reminds me of Jennifer Anniston's perennial presence at the Oscars, despite not ever having been nominated, or (I think) even in a nominated film (perhaps not so much recently). There are so many pics of her online, posing backstage with the winners in the press room, and all I can think is, what are you doing there? Even George Clooney never went to the Oscars until the first year he was nominated; he said they kept asking him, and he thought it would be weird to go without being a nominee.

[Coffeecakes]

So I finally got around to seeing Roma and I hope it doesn't win anything. It was beyond overhyped. I am glad that Yalitza got nominated but because she has pissed off the white Mexican actors out there and for being the first Indigenous woman to be nominated. Her performance was montonous though. The only emotion she showed was the hospital scene. The second time she was supposed to show emotion was the beach scene and even then, nothing.

The movie was so slow and boring. The movie should have been cut down by half at least. At least it wasn't nominated for best editing.

It reminds me of American Hustle, another complete bore.

[Deleted]

A post on ONTD reminded me of the fact that Halle Berry is still the only black woman to have won a Best Actress award. In 2002. That is unbelievable. And I don't care if people think she's an average or bad actress or whatever. How many below-average white actresses have had powerful campaigns behind them to go and win Oscars??
And a thing I learned from the same post: after Hattie McDaniel won in 1939, it took the Academy 61 years (!!) to award another black actress (Whoopi Goldberg). How was George Clooney not totally ashamed when he referenced McDaniel's win as something cool the Academy had done?? The same Academy thought it was cool to wait six decades to do the same thing again.

[Martini Girl]

I think Mahershala and Spike are locks (and deservedly so), but it's shameful more progress hasn't been made. I really think Viola could have gone for Best Actress and won for Fences instead of supporting (IMO)

I too was meh on Roma. I don't get the hype at all.

[Ginger]

Oh yes, George Clooney and his wonderfully smug speech. Speeches like that don't come along every day:

And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while, I think. It's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects, we are the ones—this Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch.

Yeah, nobody cared about the civil rights movement or the AIDS epidemic until Hollywood brought it up.

[petitesuite]

I believe ol' Georgie boy also forgot to mention that Hattie McDaniel was forced to sit in the back (away from the rest of the Gone with the Wind crowd) of the Oscars ceremony when she won. Such progression.

I wish the Academy would force studios to release movies in places other than NYC and LA in order to be considered for nominations (and also that there were some requirement for 'minimum outside of LA showings' or whatever). I can believe that most people have no interest in seeing the nominated movies, but some years it's also really hard to see them if you don't live in one of the two chosen cities.