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Academy Adds Popular Film Oscar Category in Desperate Ratings Move
At the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors meeting on Tuesday night, the 54 governors voted to add a new category to the Oscars. Per tradition, some 7,000 Academy voters, experts in their field, voted in by their colleagues, will weigh in on the best films of the year in 24 categories covering the crafts of moviemaking, from cinematography to sound, as well as the four acting categories, directing, writing, animation, foreign language, documentary, and fiction shorts and features.
But this year there will be one more: Best Popular Film. The Academy is bowing to pressure from ABC, which is anxious about historic low ratings for its telecast. The next Oscars will air on February 24, 2019 and, in 2020, will move up from February 23 to February 9, the earliest date ever, in a bid to jump ahead of multiple rival awards shows–which will, in turn, move ahead of the Oscars. (In the early days of its history, the Oscars were held in May, moved to April and March, then February.)
The Board also finally succumbed to building pressure to keep the show to three hours and not present live some of the less sexy craft categories, following the lead of other awards shows like the Tonys. (Sexy categories like Sound Mixing and Editing will be presented live during commercial breaks, then edited into the show.) This also serves to undermine the integrity of these annual global awards, which may be losing relevance as a mainstream shared event, but are still revered by cinephiles around the world.
Also at Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Variety, and Collider.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday August 09 2018, @06:41PM (2 children)
Just a personal opinion of mine: while I enjoyed watching Inception thoroughly, I find that King's Speech was a better movie. I don't normally go for historical dramas like that (I am more into scifi), but I found TKS interesting and entertaining the entire film.
YMMV of course.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday August 09 2018, @07:42PM
As I mentioned, most of these weren't bad films by any means, but they definitely weren't what the box office said was important that year. For instance, I definitely thought 12 Years a Slave was worth my time and money when I saw it, but it didn't have the kind of cultural impact that the others I mentioned that year had.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday August 10 2018, @12:24PM
I also saw that. It was unique, I usually complain about stereotypical formulaic movies but this was unusual, like how did this get past the gatekeepers who've been keeping things mediocre? Its not amazing or fantastic but it was better than average for sure.