Oscar's need to lighten up to attract viewers
By Nathan Mattise
Posted: 2/26/08, 1:04 AM EST Section: Feature
I didn't plan on this; the TV gods just hate me because I never got into "Lost." But Sunday night was a wasteland of entirely unwatchable television. I couldn't even get TNT to give me "What Women Want," as an option. So reluctantly…I watched the Academy Awards again.
It was three hours of my life I'd like back. I could've picked up the paper Monday morning, read the winners and experienced the same level of frustration.
In light of that, I'm writing to help. I have a few suggestions for next year to make the Academy Awards a better watch. And by "watch" I mean it won't be the lowest-rated Oscars ever - kind of like this year's was.
1.) Quit being so pretentious.
I'm not saying the Oscars are about attracting viewers, but that highlights the problem. Movies lots of people watch simply don't win Oscars. The top box office films of 2007 were "Transformers" and then "Spider-Man," "Pirates," "Shrek" and "Harry Potter" sequels. None of those films were nominated in any categories except "Transformers," and that didn't even win Best Visual Effects. "The Golden Compass" did. Are you kidding me?
I'm not saying you need to drop the whole aura of superiority, but throw us a bone here. The only best actress performance 90 percent of us heard of, let alone saw, was Ellen Page in "Juno." All the experts gave her a snowball's chance in…make that a sunny day's chance at Syracuse University. It's OK she didn't win, but maybe in the future give us more nominees to recognize and root for. I would've settled for Amy Adams in "Enchanted" getting a nod at this point.
2.) Add more categories people care about.
"The Bourne Ultimatum" won for Best Sound Editing. This made sense to me because the first thought I had when I saw it was "Boy, that movie really sounded great. You know what? The sound was really mixed well too. I hope it wins an Oscar for Best Sound Mixing. Couldn't categories like those be announced before the show similar to how the Grammy's announce things like Best Spoken Word Performance before the cameras get rolling?
It was three hours of my life I'd like back. I could've picked up the paper Monday morning, read the winners and experienced the same level of frustration.
In light of that, I'm writing to help. I have a few suggestions for next year to make the Academy Awards a better watch. And by "watch" I mean it won't be the lowest-rated Oscars ever - kind of like this year's was.
1.) Quit being so pretentious.
I'm not saying the Oscars are about attracting viewers, but that highlights the problem. Movies lots of people watch simply don't win Oscars. The top box office films of 2007 were "Transformers" and then "Spider-Man," "Pirates," "Shrek" and "Harry Potter" sequels. None of those films were nominated in any categories except "Transformers," and that didn't even win Best Visual Effects. "The Golden Compass" did. Are you kidding me?
I'm not saying you need to drop the whole aura of superiority, but throw us a bone here. The only best actress performance 90 percent of us heard of, let alone saw, was Ellen Page in "Juno." All the experts gave her a snowball's chance in…make that a sunny day's chance at Syracuse University. It's OK she didn't win, but maybe in the future give us more nominees to recognize and root for. I would've settled for Amy Adams in "Enchanted" getting a nod at this point.
2.) Add more categories people care about.
"The Bourne Ultimatum" won for Best Sound Editing. This made sense to me because the first thought I had when I saw it was "Boy, that movie really sounded great. You know what? The sound was really mixed well too. I hope it wins an Oscar for Best Sound Mixing. Couldn't categories like those be announced before the show similar to how the Grammy's announce things like Best Spoken Word Performance before the cameras get rolling?
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