In the last Audio Edition Doug and I talked about how we thought the Oscars could be improved. Here are the highlights.
1) Change the Rules so that movies have to be in FULL WIDE THEATRICAL RELEASE by the end of the year!
Right now, to be considered for the Oscars, a movie only has to be in limited release by the end of the calendar year. This, in my opinon, is a STUPID rule. Oscar buzz starts, and most people haven’t even seen (or had the chance to see) the movie they’re buzzing about. Stupid stupid stupid. If you want people to be more interested in the Oscars, then make the movies available to the public before you start talking nominations for them.
2) Cut out the pointless Montages!!!
The montages for “In Memoriam” and for the recipient of the honorary Oscar are fine. Keep those ones. They have a point to them. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY cut out the 3 or 4 other pointless montages that served NO PURPOSE whatsoever. They were a waste of time and bored us to death.
3) Cut the performances of Best Song nominess
Why the hell are you devoting 15 minutes of air time to songs that weren’t good enough to make it on the charts, and were only played during the end credits of the movies anyway?!?!?! It’s STUPID! What’s more important… the Best Screenplay Oscar or the best original Song? Obviously the screenplay is MUCH MUCH MUCH more important. And yet, you ony play an 8 second clip for each nominee for screen play… but the best song nominees get to sing their whole frickin tune?!?! That’s DUMB. Cut out the performances, no one wants to see them.
4) Cut the President of the Academy Speech
I’m sorry dude… but no one cares about you or who you are. Introduce the show and the host for the evening, and then disapear. We don’t want to see you on stage taking up minutes of air time talking about how DVDs are bad. Go away.
5) Present Best short documentary, Best Short Animated and Best Short Live Action Oscars at a seperate event.
No disrespect intended to those very gifted people who make films in those categories… but 99% of the Oscar viewing audience have never even heard of any of those films let alone seen them. We don’t care, and together they took up about 12-15 minutes of screen time. Give those awards out at a separate evening like they do with the technical Oscars.
The Oscar are still way too long. Take out the things I suggested and you could cut the show by 45 minutes to and hour. I think everyone would be happy with that. Your thoughts?
