So Anyway, Here's What You Can Do With Your Oscars

By Josh Richmond

(NOTE: Josh Richmond, 22, works in the radio industry and lives in Hollywood. All signs point to the fact that he is Ray Richmond's son, but both parties have yet to provide the necessary confirming DNA sample.)

Hey folks, it's Josh Richmond again with another fusillade of perspective from the 18- to 25-year-old demo aimed right at the senescent Hollywood elite. (Next one's aimed at you, Corey Padnos! You'd best get yourself correct, son.) Here's something me and my young friends really love: not watching the Oscars. Now, I apologize in advance for discussing the Oscar ceremony a full three days after it aired; I know we're not supposed to drop the subject from our collective consciousness until the next batch of nominees are announced next year. But by then, it will be too late to fix a show in dire need of repair. After the lowest-rated Academy Awards telecast in history, it's time to ask ourselves, and specifically Gil Cates and the Film Academy: Why do the Oscars suck so bad? And how can we make them better. For serious this time.

To answer the first question, I can point to one Ray Richmond's analysis. The ceremony is long, and boring, and filled with awful songs and endless clip montages. Unlike most folks under 30, I've been a regular Oscar watcher my whole life, but by now I'm only watching to see who wins each category -- so I can mark them off on my ballot and hopefully get closer to winning my friends' Oscar pool. Cut out everything but the giving and receiving of awards and you're looking at an hourlong show. Add a short opening monologue (by the reliable Jon Stewart, preferably), and add back some time for the winners to FINISH THEIR ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES, and we've got a brisk and perfectly watchable 90-minute show. No fuss, no muss. (Not that ABC would ever sacrifice 50%-plus of its ad revenue.)

There's a bigger issue here, though. A shorter ceremony isn't going to be enough to bring viewers in, not when they've never heard of the nominated movies or actors. The biggest irony of the low-rated 2007 Oscars is that 2007 was an exceptional year for movies. "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" are stone cold classics. "Atonement" is gorgeous." "Michael Clayton" is impeccably acted, and everyone but me seemed to really like "Juno." Plus "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Into the Wild," "Assassination of Jesse James," the list goes on.

The problem, and what really sank this year's Oscar ratings, is that almost nobody has seen any of them except "Juno."

Here's a really radical suggestion: Let's make the theme of the 2008 Academy Awards, "Great Films of 2008." In other words, let's try to make the focus of these cinematic achievement honors some recent cinematic achievements.  If you watched this year's ceremony knowing nothing about "No Country for Old Men," by the time the show was over you still wouldn't understand why this weird-ass movie with the deep-voiced guy won Best Picture. Instead, see Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg rehash their decades-old wins.

For years, the Oscars have been a celebration of Hollywood, particularly Golden Age Hollywood -- and that old standby "Movie Magic." They seem to take pride in being backwards-looking and stodgy. But the Golden Age is over, and today's great movies have small budgets and boutique distribution. How about we make next year's Oscars a celebration of these wonderful indie films. Bringing back the inexplicably missing montages for each Best Picture nominee would be a good start. (As long as those are the only montages.) Interview DPs and art directors and sound mixers, and get their take on what working on these films was like. (I'll bet Kevin O'Connell has some great stories about the shit he had to take from Michael Bay on "Transformers.") Hell, let Diablo Cody go off about the thousand wacky careers she had before she wrote "Juno." The indie studios who get such a boost from Oscar publicity will love it, and the audience might even start caring about who wins.

The Oscars have always been  a self-conscious "big event," and that's fine. They don't need to be the Independent Spirit Awards, which are plenty entertaining but completely unessential. I just think we should put the focus back onto the movies. I consider a successful Oscar ceremony one that makes average moviegoers want to run to the theater and see Daniel Day-Lewis scream about milkshakes. Really, isn't that what the season is all about?

(Photo courtesy Hope Enterprises.)

Comments

[Emmanuel Malek]

A very mature insight and i do agree.
A celebration of any given year's achievments in filmaking should concentrate mostly on the films released that year.

More foreign film coverage( to show how diverse films can be), and maybe the inclusion of an Oscar for Stunt Cordination (they did include makeup in 1981 and a few years back best animated feature!!), would be refreshing and drive young audience's attention for sure. So here is my advice in putting some life into a show that should be actually a SHOW!!!