With the Oscars scheduled for Sunday Laremy and Dre have been arguing over the Oscars like brother and sister. In this two part series a few “cures” will be presented for the most hyped award on Earth.
DRE:
Okay Oracle Boy, we’ve been asking this question for years but I’m going to do it again. What the hell is wrong with the Academy? The Oscars are around the corner and I’m already bored. Everybody knows who’s going to win basically every major category and there seems to be zero imagination in the choices.
Initially, I was a big fan of moving the Oscars earlier by a month but it seems to have screwed things up even more. They’re too close to the SAGs and Globes now. I have no doubt that a good number of voters vote for people or movies they haven’t even seen. Sometimes they just don’t get around to it. But the publicity, the wind, the recent awards and recent wins give them a good (in their mind) indication on where they should be placing their vote. So guess what? They’re seeing Whitaker, Mirren, Murphy and Hudson win EVERY…SINGLE…AWARD…and they’re going to just follow suit, especially if they didn’t get around to seeing all the nominees. Don’t you think they should consider moving these babies up to Mid-December? The nominations I mean…
LAREMY:
My Latino friend, how I’ve missed our talks. I’ve always felt like you learn a lot during them.
As for The Oscars, egh, I get bitterer every year. Since I’m essentially giving my life to movies on a daily basis I want the award show of prominence to have at least a little bit of cred to it. And the problems you mentioned, people not seeing stuff and the over abundance of hype are killing our girl (Oscar).
Moving the nominations up is an idea with merit, unfortunately Oscar is an attention hog and can’t stand competing with any other award show. The Oscars come last because they are the best. That’s the way they did it in 1942 and that’s how we’ll do it now! Why? Well, because they guys who were there in 1942 are still extremely powerful. This is yet another reason Oscar loses credibility every year; the fact is guys who are a billion won’t even screen Brokeback Mountain, so how can it win?
The issue really is the whole thing though, methodology, process, voters, The Academy. No one is blameless in this relentless march towards making the Oscars silly (yet HYPED!).
So let’s start fixing it, and don’t just move dates around. What would truly awarding the best film look like to you? Because right now we aren’t there.
DRE:
For me it comes down to what the film industry thinks. When it comes to the Oscars, I don’t care what the NY Critics think. Or the Hollywood Foreign Press. Or just the SAGs. I don’t care what Joe Public thinks either. Joe Public can vote with his dollar and the People’s Choice Awards. I care what the men and women who are active in the business think.
You know what the Academy is these days? The Bushwood Country Club. You know, the country club from Caddyshack. It’s all a big load. So here is what you do:
All members of every filmmaking guild have the chance to vote. Every single one of them: The Screen Actors Guild, The Writer’s Guild, The Producer’s Guild, The Editor’s Guild, the Cinematographer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild etc. They are all invited by the Academy for a vote.
But…a few requirements:
- They have to be active members of their guild. They have to be practicing members. They have to be getting work. Throw a number out there … within the last 3 years, 5 years etc….but they have to be contributing to the film community. And that’s not all.
- If you have attended Academy-approved film screenings for the films you are voting for, you may mail in your ballot. It will be like taking attendance. Otherwise, voting will take place at designated establishments in NYC, Toronto and LA. If you live in any of these cities and you care enough, then you have to get your ass down to the polls like Election Day. This also creates more of an incentive to get to those Academy-approved screenings (throughout the country). If you’re handicap, out-of-state, on-location etc. then you apply for an absentee ballot and submit that way. I can already see the nightly news taking snap shots of Tom Hanks putting is ballot in the ballot box and giving a thumbs up to the camera.
More of a pain in the ass? You bet and it helps ensure people are serious about their vote. It’s the one time of the year the film industry is going to ask these people to make that sacrifice and hopefully none of the soft voters who only leisurely vote to vote for their friends don’t show up. Either way, the number of guilded members should outweigh these lightweights. And yes, I believe this will also take care of the ultra-conservative members of the Academy that have a total lack of imagination and tolerance for anything new, fresh and original. You get the REAL film community to put their input as to the year’s best films and THEN I’ll buy into the Oscar concept.
LAREMY:
Your problem continues to be that you don’t go far enough. You don’t care what the critics think, only the industry? Jesus man, are you writing this from the Deathstar? At least good critics have some semblance of credibility, what does the industry have? Oh yeah, a desire to sell DVDs for their crap little movies. Your active member suggestion is fine and good but seems like it should have been implemented about a hundred years ago. It’s like telling the Boy Scouts they can’t get their wolf badge until they finish their soap box derby car.
So you’re conservative where the Oscars go, I get it. But here are some real changes that you can ridicule because they’ll actually make the Oscars based on something besides thin air and payola. Ready? Pay attention.
The Best Picture slots should be assigned. My first change would be that one of the slots should be named “The People’s Champion” and go to the highest grossing film. For the past ten years one slot would have gone to the following:
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
- Revenge of the Sith
- Shrek 2
- Return of the King
- Spider-Man
- Harry Potter
- The Grinch
- The Phantom Menace
- Saving Private Ryan
- Titanic
On that list you can say Shrek 2, The Star Wars ones, and maybe Spider-Man shouldn’t be on there. Well guess what, they wouldn’t win. Just like Capote last year and Letters from Iwo Jima this year we’d have a dead slot. So what?
The definition of “Best” in M-W goes something like this: offering or producing the greatest satisfaction”. Well look, if a movie makes a billion dollars clearly someone was satisfied. I’m not saying they have to win the award (though two of them have) I’m just saying they need to be in the conversation. Less than one percent of the human population of America had a desire to see Babel. How is that worthy of acclaim? Do you hate democracy?
Next up there should be a critic’s slot. I know you hate reviewers, because you hate yourself, but people who actually see the movies should have some say. Why is Winona Ryder an expert? Especially given she votes for films she doesn’t see (if you don’t believe this you’re as naive as something very naive). This is the old argument that football players make the best announcers. Phil Simms. That’s all I have to say to that. So however you want to define it, RottenTomatoes score, top ten reviewers, whatever, there should be a critic’s slot. And if your precious Babel makes it there I’ll be fine with it.
I’d also say you can’t vote for a movie unless you’ve officially screened it and there should be a verifiable way that occurs. The Oscars currently have far less cred than the Eukanuba dog show because at least there we see the process, we see the judge look at the dogs.
Why not Oscars that mean something? Fire away, and man up.
CLICK HERE for Part Two.
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