New OSCARS Category: "Popular Film" (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Adkins]

Yorgos Lanthimos for The Favourite is a bigger surprise, absence-wise, than Bryan Singer from the DGA.

That's a huge absence in my opinion.

I'd like to note here that Blindspotting is one of my favorite movies of the year that almost no one actually saw, so I'm especially pleased to see it recognized here.

I loved the film too and I often forget about it because it came out in the summer.

 

[JimmyO]

I don't see a separate thread on the 2019 Golden Globes (which happened last night), so I'll post this comment here.

I had a huge computer project to work on yesterday so I had the broadcast on all night (even the red carpet stuff beforehand on E!).

This had to be the worst and most-boring Hollywood self-love fest I've ever seen. It wasn't either funny or interesting.


If this is a precursor to the Oscars, it's going to be a very bad telecast.

The highlight of the night for me was the Fiji Water Girl - aka Kelleth Cuthbert, who is a model from my city that I have photographed several times in studio. She's a beautiful person and it was fun seeing her doing this, which has become quite the internet meme.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Just a thought....

Since this thread has broadened out to basically become the 2019 Oscars thread, and is no longer about the popular film category which they've abandoned anyway, should its title be updated to reflect that?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just a thought....

Since this thread has broadened out to basically become the 2019 Oscars thread, and is no longer about the popular film category which they've abandoned anyway, should its title be updated to reflect that?

The Oscar nominations announcements are less than two weeks away so this thread will die off right after that as new threads for discussion and Oscar predictions will be started the day before the announcements.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The winner of the Oscar hosting derby is apparently no one:

Barring an eleventh-hour pivot by the Academy — in the event that a superstar host materializes — the show producers are moving forward with a broadcast that will focus on starry skits and play up a high-profile year for music in film, thanks to likely nominees Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton, and Kendrick Lamar, one individual involved with the show said.

More at the link.

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/oscars-no-host-2019-kevin-hart-1203103010/

 

[Wayne_j]

Definitely bad news for those who want the Oscars to eliminate the performances of the nominees for Best Original Song in order to cut down on the running time.

 

[Mike Frezon]

The winner of the Oscar hosting derby is apparently no one:

Dammit. I'm available!

 

[Jake Lipson]

Definitely bad news for those who want the Oscars to eliminate the performances of the nominees for Best Original Song in order to cut down on the running time.

No way would that happen this year. Not with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in line to perform Shallow, which seems the inevitable winner and will go viral as soon as it happens.

Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can do the show in three hours with the song performances and all the awards being televised. They need to cut the presenter banter (which usually falls flat anyway) and stunt skits like celebrities sneaking into a movie theater across the street to promote Disney's big release for the following week. But they'll probably have a lot of that stuff this year to compensate for the lack of a host.

 

[bujaki]

Cut the thank-you speeches to two words: "Thank You."

 

[Tino]

Cut the thank-you speeches to two words: "Thank You."

Nah. That’s the winners moment. Give them their time.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Nah. That’s the winners moment. Give them their time.

Amen.

It's very possible to do the show in a reasonable length of time with speeches and song performances. What they need to cut out is all the other things that are not related to the movies being honored this year.

But of course they're cutting some of the on-air awards presentations instead.

 

[bujaki]

Nah. That’s the winners moment. Give them their time.

And thank their agents and accountants and lawyers and third cousins and choir members and nannies and all tne archangels (by name) in heaven and...you get my drift. It IS their moment, but they should also abide by the time rule that the Academy has set. I should like to see more awards (such as the lifetime achievement award) and less thank-you bullshit.

 

[Tino]

they should also abide by the time rule that the Academy has set

I agree with that in most circumstances.

 

[Vic Pardo]

The problem with the speeches is that they spend way too much time thanking people who had nothing to do with the film they're getting awards for. If I was involved in an award-winning film in some significant capacity but not in a way that would get me nominated--the production manager, for instance, or the author of the book the film is based on and I'd been closely involved in the production--I'd be very pissed if the people I worked with who won thanked people who had nothing to do with the film and didn't thank me!!! Or if I were the director or editor or cinematographer or costume designer and wasn't nominated but the actor or writer or producer or one of those jobs I cited who wasn't me won, I'd expect to be thanked. If I hear them go on about their lawyer, their manager, their publicist, their personal trainer, their hairdresser, their children, or their children's nanny and I didn't get mentioned, I'd feel slighted.

Fortunately, I've never been in this position, nor do I ever plan to be. It's probably better that way.
My daughter has published novels and one of them has gotten a fair degree of acclaim within the very specific genre she writes in and if one of her works gets adapted for film or TV and she's signed on to write or produce the adaptation and gets an award for it, I'd expect to be thanked only if I helped her out on it in a significant way. She did get an award for one of her novels and thanked her parents, mentioning that we're both writers also, but not by name. I was okay with that.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The winner of the Oscar hosting derby is apparently no one

I think this is great news because...

What they need to cut out is all the other things that are not related to the movies being honored this year.

...but I don't love this mention of "starry skits". All of the Bruce Vilanch-scripted bits of "humor" bog down the telecast each and every year.

 

[TJPC]

Again! I can’t imagine ever watching this broadcast live. Each year we set our PVR to record the show, come down to the TV room an hour after it has started, and begin watching and zipping through all the crap we don’t want to see. This way we miss all the speeches, boring musical numbers etc. while still being able to see the results the same night as broadcast.

 

[Tino]

Imo, A winner should have the right to thank anyone they wish. And they do have that right thankfully.

 

[Malcolm R]

Again! I can’t imagine ever watching this broadcast live. Each year we set our PVR to record the show, come down to the TV room an hour after it has started, and begin watching and zipping through all the crap we don’t want to see. This way we miss all the speeches, boring musical numbers etc. while still being able to see the results the same night as broadcast.

If all you're watching is the opening of the envelopes, it seems like you'd be better off just going to bed and checking online for the list of winners in the morning.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I know the speeches can sometimes seem long, but I would venture to guess that if you actually strung together the amount of time from the first word of the winner's speech to their final word before they turned to leave, and added it all up, it would represent an insignificant portion of the telecast's running time.

I think it is a horrendously awful sight when you see more than one person winning an award (and technical, producing and writing awards are often for multiple people), the first person makes a short speech, and then the second person begins to open their mouth, and they're immediately cut off. I think that's absolutely tactless and inappropriate and rude and should never be done.

If they want to make the show run shorter, the two simplest and most effective things to do would be to a) stop including the Bruce Vilanch-style skits that take the focus off the nominated films and b) have the nominees for each category in place and ready to accept the award. I think people would be surprised how much time would be saved just by implementing option "B" alone. The walk that the winner takes from their seats to the stage usually far exceeds the amount of time the winner is actually speaking. During the commercial breaks, a stage manager should arrange to have all of the nominees for the next category moved backstage or side stage. Then, when the winner is called, the winner will be onstage is less than ten seconds, rather than 2-3 minutes later. They give out something like 20-25 awards at the ceremony, which translates to 30-60 minutes of just watching people walk down the aisle, up the stairs and to the microphone. That's the kind of thing that I think subconsciously makes the show feel long and poorly paced.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

At Oscar time I will pull out my laserdisc copy of Oscar's Greatest Moments 1971-1991 and watch that and my disc copy of the TCM broadcast And the Oscar Goes To...