Ryan Gilbey has a smart little piece at The New Statesman on transforming the Oscars into an awards ceremony that actually reflects a range of the best of the previous year’s cinema rather than merely the working out of grudges, favours, and ‘well it’s been a long time so we might as well’ sentiment – with some great suggestions such as only allowing any film to be nominated in one category, and affirmative action for films not in the English language. I seem to recall Mr Ebert proposing a few years back that there should be two nominating periods in any given year – in July and January – in which only films released in the past six months can be shortlisted, with the final nominees being drawn proportionately from the two lists. That could effect of not only ensuring that films released early in the year still have a chance at being remembered, but it might work in the other direction and encourage studios not to save their ‘high class’ crop for the last three months of the year.
We’d love to hear suggestions for making the Oscars better from any of you splendid TFT listeners/readers – meantime, three from me to add to Gilbey and Ebert:
1: Instead of risking political embarrassment by having barn-storming ‘social justice’ speeches from good liberal activist loose cannon celebrities, devote a musical number to whatever global cause is most fashionable at the time.
2: Give an award every decade for ‘weakest film ever nominated for Best Picture’ – it’s a pretty wide field, with ‘Chicago’, ‘My Fair Lady’, ‘Scent of a Woman’, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and the delights of ‘Airport’ to start with.
3: Finally, have a section in the middle where everyone who feels they got their Oscar at the expense of someone more deserving in that particular year can go on stage and sell it to their colleague for the price of a Prada dress.
Others?
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Other Oscar stuff on ‘TFT’:
The Film Talk » ‘The Film Talk’ to Podcast from Belcourt Oscar Party!
The Film Talk » The 2009 Oscar Nominated Films: Pirated Copies …
The Film Talk » Top 5 Academy Award Oscar Predictions
The Film Talk » Oscar Nominations: Non/Predictions
The Film Talk » What the Oscars are Planning – Make it Like the …
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(Photo adapted from an original by Alan Light, ’21′)
