Here we go, the Motion Picture Academy mailed out its nomination ballots, IMDB carry the facts:
The motion picture academy on Monday mailed out nomination ballots to its 5,808 voting members for the 77th Annual Acadmey Awards. Members have until 5:00 p.m. on Jan. 15 to make their choices and return them to the academy’s offices. Nominees will be announced on Jan. 25.
That’s not too long to wait. When we do hear word we’ll make a couple of special posts which we’ll make constantly available on the navigation bar for you to discuss and make your votes known, then we can have a MovieBlog Awards and see how different they are to the Academy’s.
Along with the notice to the members of the Academy went a notice to the studio reminding them of the criteria in which they will be eligible for nomination:
…in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration, films must be screened for a minimum of seven days in Los Angeles County beginning no later than Friday (the last day of the year).
Quick! Rush out those final scenes of Post Production – get the movie out the door!
Personally I’m not influenced by the awards themselves, it’s more the exposure of certain movies. For instance the blurb a movie is given during the nomination speech might prick my ears up and make me think that movie would be worth seeing, or noticing the talent involved in the movie. Other than that, winning an award or two doesn’t influence me at all.
What do you think of the Oscars nowadays, are they are really worthwhile indication of quality and superior talent, or do you just view them as an interesting programme you might watch and it doesn’t influence your viewing in any form?
Would you prefer to see them scrapped or the voting system revised? Maybe adding a public panel of voters?
The Oscars are by far the most legitimate of all the awards shows (not perfect though).
For the love of humanity DO NOT open it up to public voting!!!! Then all you’ll have is a new version of the MTV movie awards and The People’s Choice Awards which are both just pure jokes!
Sure, there are always winners that I don’t quite agree with, but the most beautiful thing about film is the pure subjectivity of it.
Popularity shouldn’t enter into the awards. Return of the King was popular, but it was also the best film ever made. Titanic was a huge mistake, but most of the winners don’t come from the big blockbuster films… which is good.
So yeah, keep the Oscars the way they are.
Great topic Rich.
To answer the questions;
What do you think of the Oscars nowadays, are they are really worthwhile indication of quality and superior talent, or do you just view them as an interesting programme you might watch and it doesn’t influence your viewing in any form?
I think the Academy has lost it’s credibility at least in the last 7 years I guess (or maybe even way earlier!) There were a few awards handed out that in my opinion should have gone to better actors, or better productions and not to be influenced by a film company luring members to vote for their nominated film.
A good example was “Shakespeare in Love” winning Best Picture and the award for Best Actress going to Gwyneth Paltrow. SIL was up against “Saving Private Ryan”, whose director, Steven Spielberg got the award for Best Director that night, so how come the film didnt win the Best Picture but SIL winning it instead? And Gwyneth winning Best Actress? She was up against Cate Blanchett who gave a truly brilliant performance in Elizabeth! What’s up with that?
Would you prefer to see them scrapped or the voting system revised? Maybe adding a public panel of voters?
I am not bothered about this, there are a variety of award-giving bodies that are more credible than the Oscar’s.