Comments on: Academy tweaks Best Song rules, cuts honorary awards from telecast

By: Sir

Sir — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:32:55 +0000

I’m with “Mark.” Further limiting music nominees — in what is far and away one of the most interesting categories, and already one of the least-nominated (only 3 songs nominated last year as opposed to 10 pic noms next year) is guaranteed to backfire. Why is it music is the only category where the academy wants to withhold as much appreciation of the year’s work as possible? Why is it the music wing is so much cockier about its own taste being the sole judge of what artworks are praiseworthy? Last year in the rush to reward as LITTLE excellence as humanly possible, they ignored very good music (the theme from Clint Eastwood’s film; a terrific piece of knowingly campy songwriting from Jason Segal that would have seriously livened up the ceremony and shown a level of insight into what makes good writing that goes well beyond the Academy’s conventional, pedestrian notions of “quality.” I realize this example, “Dracula’s Lament,” is precisely the sort of thing many will be relieved to keep out, because it doesn’t “feel” award-worthy — it’s funny and intentionally odd. But that’s why it’s also the best example of why more is merrier: can anyone truly say the ceremony would have been more boring had it been included? And that’s a sort of WORST-case scenario!) Look, there’s nothing bad or tasteless about allowing the five BEST songs or scores of the year to be acknowleged as such, whether or not the five songs are quite as brilliant as last year’s, or the year’s before. This logic is fine with the directors’ wing, fine with the costumers, even fine with the sound effects people! Why snobberize music out of the movies? Why believe musicians, swing less opportunity for honor, will be more motivated to work hard for honors they are less and less and less and less likely to see go to even the best of each season’s field? Enough already. Limiting to three songs is more than enough.

By: abs

abs — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:54:31 +0000

there’s plenty of films made with excellent music and soundtracks, but the academy always nominates the most lame music choices. maybe if they didn’t nominate the most mediocre music from film, the category would be more interesting during the broadcast!!

By: Maureen

Maureen — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:56:02 +0000

So the people getting honorary awards who made the film industry what it is the first place won’t get any TV time? Great job Academy!

By: elly

elly — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:03:13 +0000

That’s a real bummer. I’m a young career artist who actually cares about the contributions of those who came before, and I love hearing the speeches of old masters. You can usually bet it’s going to be an interesting speech on its own merits, too: past honorary winners include Peter O’Toole, Kirk Douglas, Sidney Lumet, Akira Kurosawa, Alec Guinness, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, Carey Grant, Chuck Jones, and Ennio Morricone – I just freaked out being able to hear a speech from him, with Clint Eastwood translating no less! That was great! I’d love to find archived footage of Kurosawa’s speech, if it exists. Then there are the honorary awards for things like technical contributions, like for Bausch & Lomb and Kodak for lens development, etc. So help me, I think that’s really interesting stuff.

It’s also just a nice way to in a sense say, “hey, we made a mistake by never giving you a win”.

By: Alan of Montreal

Alan of Montreal — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:26:10 +0000

I think removing the honorary oscar from the telecast is a stupid move. It’s the only real and meaningful glimpse into Oscar history that we get. They should instead eliminate the thematic homages that they always cram into the telecast, like celebrating comedy in film or stuff like that. Leave that to the AFI to do. But bring back the honorary Oscar–I want to see when Lauren Bacall finally gets her statue!

By: M

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:07:37 +0000

I think that instead of re-hashing the Best Song category, they should introduce a Best Soundtrack category (separate from Best Score), which could be won by a musical like Enchanted (thus getting rid of the split-vote phenomenon) but also by a movie like Adventureland (the best movie of the year so far), which deserves to be acknowledged somehow for using hits of the 80s to perfectly and beautifully capture the mood of the film.

By: M

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:04:48 +0000

I think that instead of re-hashing Best Song, they should introduce a Best Soundtrack category (separate from Best Score), which a musical like Enchanted could win (thus killing the split-vote phenomenon), but which could also be won by a movie like Adventureland (the best movie of the year so far), which deserves to be acknowledged somehow for using hits of the 80’s to perfectly and beautifully capture the mood of the movie.

By: Emil

Emil — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:51:44 +0000

Ten movies in one year is a bad idea, as they will discover in the long run. Take an average year and you’re hard-pressed to find FIVE movies deserving of the nomination.

By: KR

KR — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:33:41 +0000

10 is too many, maybe 6 or 7. Why can’t they use the song rule, and just nominate movies that deserve it regardless of the number? There are never 10 movies in a year that deserve to be nominated.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:29:35 +0000

The Oscars are essentially dead as a celebration of the movies, which is what they used to be when I was a kid. Why bother to even give a best picture award if there are ten nominees? And why are songs so mediocre that they can’t even find five nominees anymore? Do any hour show, give out only the big awards and let everybody go home.