You can be a lot smarter than average and still be an idiot.
Yes the Oscars have zero appeal. I don’t care at all who/what is nominated or wins.
However I am I interested in the Red Carpet commentary via Tom and Lorenzo.
Do the Oscars have zero appeal for you?
What a thread title… so, if I hate the Oscars, and they have almost no appeal to me, I’d have to disagree with the OP.
Ok, I figured out how to answer that question:
No, the Oscars have other than zero appeal for me.
Seems like willful ignorance. You keep saying that you don’t understand why people are interested in the Oscars but it’s clear that you don’t want to understand someone else’s viewpoint. You expect everyone to think the way you do.
Yup, you want everyone to think the way you do.
FWIW, look up movies and actors in Wikipedia and notice that the Academy Awards are mentioned near the beginning of the article if there were nominations and wins. Perhaps the contributors to Wikipedia are part of a huge conspiracy whose sole intent it to brainwash people into thinking that the Oscars matter …
False dichotomy. You’re implying that if the speeches are not scintillating or insightful, then they’re worthless. They can still be interesting. Also, there’s nothing about the nominations that takes away the enjoyment that someone experienced when watching a movie that was not nominated.
And, yes, quantifying pleasure is an actual thing.
No, you’re wrong.
Scintillating and insightful! 
My interest in the Oscars has been waning over the years. Partly, it’s because the show goes on for so long, but also because the films (etc.) that are nominated are a little too “artsy-fartsy” for my taste. In other words, I haven’t seen them as they don’t appeal to me.
I don’t blame the Academy, as they have so little to choose from. Another Marvel superhero picture, another DC superhero picture, another Star Wars picture, and so on. Those might do well at the box office, and they might deserve a special effects award, but nothing else. Where are the Casablancas, the Martys, the Stings? Those were great stories that were told without the need for cities to be destroyed, giant explosions, deus ex machinas who come flying in (superheroes, after all) to save the day–where is the acting, as it was in the films I mentioned?
It’s now in the artsy-fartsy films that few people attend, that only screen for a limited time in limited markets. And those are the ones that get nominated, along with their cast and crew. Since they hold no interest for me, their Oscar nominations likewise hold no interest for me.
I don’t understand. Those older movies were great because of what they lacked? If a superhero in a superhero movie is a deus ex machina, then shouldn’t a master grifter and con artist in a movie like The Sting count as a deus ex machina too?
Is the gap between “mindless crap designed to entertain” and “thoughtful serious film designed to enlighten” wider or narrower than it was 30, 50, 80 years ago?
I don’t understand. It’s not like every nominated film is a Terrance Malik film. Which movies that have been nominated recently do you think are “artsy-fartsy”? Hell, Dune may be the one of the more artsy-fartsy movies that have been nominated recently, but was very popular.
Reasons I watch the Oscars:
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An actor I like might win one.
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A British actor might win, and give a witty, self-deprecating, speech.
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The hosts might be funny. The presenters might be as well.
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I like seeing which celebrities are good sports, and which are Will Smith.
Oddly, I actually like most of Terrance Malik’s films. First film I saw when I came home from Iraq? Tree of Life. Blew my mind. A Hidden Life? Hidden gem is more like it. And don’t even get me started on The Thin Red Line or The New World.
I’ll admit Days of Heaven was pretty bland.
Oh, and not to pass over the irony here, he’s never won an Oscar.
Well yes, because he makes artsy-fartsy films and those normally don’t win, and are rarely nominated (though Malik has been nominated twice for Best Director), Oscars.
I don’t perceive them as a cultural touchstone anymore. I do remember growing up it’d be something we’d pay attention to. We’d make a specific effort to watch it and I have a memory of being somewhat invested in the results and feeling that winning something meant that the film deserved a closer look on my part. I knew that people around me where talking about the results. I think that the small subset of movies that were in contention had broader resonance too, and tended to dominate cultural awareness.
But that’s different now. As of this writing I don’t actually know who won best picture. I suspect I might if it hadn’t been knocked off the online equivalent of “above the fold” by the slap, but I haven’t really felt any motivation to look it up. I have other avenues for alerting me to movies I might be interested in (various podcasts, etc.) that I put more stock in. My desire to see a movie is pretty orthogonal to how it did in the Oscars (if I even remember this). It’s just not a thing anymore for me. It’s mostly a sensation of it being a thing of a bygone era, like the three camera sitcom or further back vaudeville or circuses.
In those days past when the film industry was relevant and the ceremony was amusing and tasteful the Oscars used to be entertaining to watch (the major categories at least) and the public was somewhat invested in the outcome. The next day it would be a fun topic of discussion with your friends or co-workers.
Nowadays it feels irrelevant, boring and pretentious.
Part of the problem is that the line between film (which was the more exalted medium) and television (the more plebeian one) has been firmly blurred now, not just because the big stars move seamlessly between them without it being seen as slumming but because streaming has filled in the gap in between the two media. Made-for-TV movies used to be television, but what’s a Netflix film? Is it a film? Is it television? Is it something else? The industry is lagging behind the rapid changes to the way we consume media.
As such, the Oscars have been “brought down” to the level of Emmys, which were never seen as interesting, exciting or glamorous as their cinematic counterpart. And as a result, nobody who doesn’t have a vested interest in them cares anymore.