First they expanded the field -- now they're going to dole a "special award" to a "Popular" movie?
What a horrendous idea, cheapens the whole thing even more than expanding the field. And how exactly are they subjectively going to determine what gets placed there -- versus what gets placed in the "traditional" group?
Either way, guess we can look forward to BLACK PANTHER being honored for its mediocrity this February!
They're also going to speed the show up and hand out some of the awards during commercial breaks -- a wise move if it's Live Action Short Subject or whatever those categories are that few care about.
It’s particularly troubling in the year of “Black Panther,” which just three days ago crossed $700 million at the domestic box office. Disney has taken the task of bringing Ryan Coogler’s critically acclaimed Marvel film into the Oscar fold quite seriously this year. A consultancy team was assembled early and that group has been laying the track ever since. Now here comes the Academy, establishing a corner to which voters can banish this and other films like it with a pat on the head and a “thanks for playing.”
Gee, I hadn't realized what a piece of cinematic excellence BLACK PANTHER was. Lol. Not sure whats funnier, the Popular category or the fact these Disney guys think this film is really deserving of a genuine Oscar to begin with.
They're just going back to their roots when there were two Best Picture winners in 1927. Wings won Outstanding Picture while Sunrise won Best Unique and Artistic Picture.
I wouldn't be surprised if they backtracked on this by the end of the week.
Reminds me -- in Greece they have an "Artist of the Year" award that goes to the musician who sells the most records each year. Only two people ever win it -- Yanni, who accepts it every time, and Vangelis, who always turns it down.
This is an obvious attempt to answer critics who have long lambasted the Oscars for not including movies like "The Dark Knight" in the end-of-the year Awards race. (Granted, that film got the expected posthumous nod for Heath Ledger, but people have been wanting to see the Oscars give more cred to the bigger fish.)
The problem I see here is that most of the big budget movies these days simply are not very good - as movies or even as basic stories. And the middle-range budget movies have mostly disappeared as that content has shifted to premium cable or to streaming services like Netflix. So we either have the giant high-fructose corn syrup dinosaurs like Jurassic World Redux or we have a tiny five dollar movie like Still Alice, with almost nothing in between. There are notable exceptions here, but they're getting harder to find.
I would agree that the Oscar committees are notoriously snooty about who or what they consider to be Awards-worthy, and that this has played a huge part here. But at the same time, Hollywood hasn't exactly been churning out the kinds of movies we used to see 2-4 decades ago. Most of that content now lives online or at HBO, or sometimes at a low-budget outlet like AMC. (We frankly see very little quality content in network television anymore, which is why today's Emmys usually ignore the major networks when it comes to dramas and most comedies)
The establishment of a "popular movie" category reeks to me of condescension by the Academy, and I strongly doubt it will change the perception of AMPAS as a stodgy organization.
As for whether people should watch the broadcast, that's their choice. I do, because I usually know a lot of the movies being discussed and I'm interested in them. But I could easily see why someone would not want to spend their time on an Awards show pretty much focused on a series of small indie movies that have played for only a couple of days in town.
