:smack: thanks
Maybe I’m weird, but it’s not the length that bothers me, but the content. “And now, a rendition of ‘These are a few of my favorite things’ by Lady Gaga!” WTF, people? Who cares? I would seriously rather they doubled the length of the “here’s all the people in ‘the industry’ who died this year!” section than subject me to this stuff.
On one hand, yes, the Oscars awards telecasts go on too long. But they ALWAYS have, and they used to draw huge ratings anyway. Even in the Seventies, when Johnny Carson was hosting, everyone made jokes about how long and slow the whole show was.
The ratings aren’t dwindling because the show is too long (though it is) or because Jon Stewart and Neil Patrick Harris are awful hosts (though they are). The ratings are dwindling because, in the past 20 years, the big awards have gone largely to arthouse movies that most people haven’t seen. People will only tune in if popular movies and stars they like are up for big awards.
I’m not saying Birdman wasn’t a good movie, or that Eddie Redmayne isn’t a fine actor. I’m just saying hardly anybody saw Birdman and hardly anyone knows who Eddie Redmayne is, and very few people were inclined to tune in and see them win the awards.
The Academy tried to make the telecast more appealing to the masses by increasing the number of Best Picture nominees, but that hasn’t helped. The result has been seven to ten unknown arthouse movies being nominated for Best Picture instead of five.
Actually, I care. I don’t know much about Lady Gaga, but have always associated her with “weirdness”. I was really impressed by her performance. That woman can SING!
J.
I don’t know what you people are complaining about. Doesn’t everyone record the pre-show and show, have a leisurely dinner with friends, then start playing the recordings, fast-forwarding over anything you’re not interested in?
J.
I don’t do that with sporting events or live awards shows. Those I like to watch as they happen. I may start a little late and forward through commercials until I catch up, but once I know the Bears won or whatever, I’m no longer interested.
Everything else? It’s on my TiVo.
I think part of the problem is not the length (although it is quite long) but the fact that it goes over it’s allotted time so much.
I realize it’s a live event, but if you’re going over by more than 10 minutes you’re going to annoy people. The NFL is much better about this and football games are far less planned than an awards show.
Uh… what? It is as if you hadn’t heard of the box office power of “American Sniper”.
And which arthouse movies have won the big awards?! “12 Years a Slave”? “Argo”? In the last 20 years, the only thing close to arthouse that won the Best Picture was “The Artist”.
Here are the last 20 Best Pic winners:
2014 - “Birdman”
2013 - “12 Years a Slave”
2012 - “Argo”
2011 - “The Artist”
2010 - “The King’s Speech”
2009 - “The Hurt Locker”
2008 - “Slumdog Millionaire”
2007 - “No Country for Old Men”
2006 - “The Departed”
2005 - “Crash”
2004 - “Million Dollar Baby”
2003 - “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”
2002 - “Chicago”
2001 - “A Beautiful Mind”
2000 - “Gladiator”
1999 - “American Beauty”
1998 - “Shakespeare in Love”
1997 - “Titanic”
1996 - “The English Patient”
1995 - “Braveheart”
1994 - “Forrest Gump”
Which ones are ‘arthouse’?
“Nominated.” Not “won.”
Although personally, any movie that doesn’t feature car chases, beheadings, orcs or superheroes is “arthouse.” 
The last Oscar-winning movie that was showing at my local multiplex BEFORE winning the Oscar was No Country For Old Men.
The last Oscar winning movie you could call a big hit was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Can you honestly tell me you don’t see a trend?
What exactly are you defining as “big hit”? How does “The Departed” or “The King’s Speech” not fit in that definition?
How many “big hits” won the Best Picture prior to 1994?
Here are the Best Picture winners from 1980 to 1993:
1993 - “Schindler’s List”
1992 - “Unforgiven”
1991 - “The Silence of the Lambs”
1990 - “Dances With Wolves”
1989 - “Driving Miss Daisy”
1988 - “Rain Man”
1987 - “The Last Emperor”
1986 - “Platoon”
1985 - “Out of Africa”
1984 - “Amadeus”
1983 - “Terms of Endearment”
1982 - “Gandhi”
1981 - “Chariots of Fire”
1980 - “Ordinary People”
How many big hits? Rain Man & Schindler’s List and… ?
astorian, what were the giant blockbuster popular hits of this past year that you think should have been nominated?
Really, I don’t understand the idea some people have that the criteria of whether or not a film is good should be based only on box office. By that reasoning, Fifty Shades of Grey should win next year.
I think the difference here is that the Super Bowl is scheduled to provide the largest possible audience, while the Academy Awards is scheduled to be an event for the rich and powerful in the the film industry, who essentially all live on the West Coast.
And there’s always going to be tension with start times and time zones, but I don’t see why we West-coasties should always give up our afternoons just so y’all don’t have to stay up a bit later 
It depends on what you define as “arthouse”. It is true that the Best Picture winners for the years 1994 to 2006 were all mainstream films. However, No Country for Old Men from 2007 is borderline because the Coen brothers’ films were considered too quirky to be successful outside of their core group of fans (**Fargo **was an exception). Slumdog Millionaire was also not a movie you’d consider normal multiplex fare.
Of those, only The Lord of the Rings, Chicago, Gladiator, Titanic, Braveheart, and Forrest Gump are mainstream movies.
Popularity has absolutely nothing to do with quality; they are independent variables. Is 50 Shades of Grey a quality film? Yet it has led the box office the past two weeks.
The academy, for all its flaws, is looking for the best film, not the most popular. Sometimes, the two are the same (e.g., The Godfather, Titanic, Lord of the Rings), but the fact that a movie is massively popular does not make it the best film. Gladiator is the only one I’ve seen that seems a poor choice, and that was in a very weak field.
Yes, superhero films are fun and often deliver a lot of thrills, but they have never produced a great movie and I can only think of two that came close to greatness The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 (the Tim Burton Batman is another candidate). Superhero films are, by definition, not dealing with normal human issues, and too many of them fall into a formula. Something like The Avengers (I film I liked) has no real depth of character and is ultimately just a bunch of fight scenes. They make tons of money, but there’s nothing to take away from them other than “the good guys won. Yay!”
I don’t see any film on the lists above that doesn’t deserve serious consideration as best film of the year.
When I think of something like The Avengers as a potential best picture candidate, I’m reminded of The Greatest Show on Earth, considered one of the worst Oscar winners of all time. GSoE is an entertaining story; so is The Avengers. But neither is a great film. Giving The Avengers the best picture Oscar would look just as silly 60 years later as giving it to GSoE looks now.
Argo made $100M+ before nominations were released, was released widely enough that you could see it pretty much anywhere, and starred one of the biggest Movie Star Names, so I’d think you’d want to include that. Similar story for The Departed. So I do think you’re being a little too narrow in your choices.
The nomination slate this year did seem a little more esoteric than most years, as outside of the American Sniper behemoth, Grand Budapest Hotel was probably the widest release seen by the most people before things started getting all Oscar Buzzy.
I was confusing Argo with Hugo.
The Departed, it looks like you’re right. I had thought it was a more esoteric movie, like No Country for Old Men.
Almost all B. Picture winners were “big hits”. It is the extremely rare B. Picture winner that was not a mainstream audience pleaser as well as a critical success.
The following B. Picture winners were the top box-office grossing films the year they were released:
1927: Wings
1930: All Quiet on the Western Front
1935: Mutiny on the Bounty
1939: Gone with the Wind
1942: Mrs. Miniver
1944: Going My Way
1946: The Best Years of Our Lives*
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth
1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai
1959: Ben-Hur
1961: West Side Story
1962: Lawrence of Arabia
1965: The Sound of Music
1972: The Godfather
1973: The Sting
1976: Rocky
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
1988: Rain Man
1994: Forrest Gump
1997: Titanic
2003: LOTR: ROTK
That’s 21 of 86 awards, about 25% of them. Additionally, most B. Picture winners ranked in the top-10 box office grosses of the year they were released - it is only recently, since 2007 when the nominations were expanded to more than five, that there has been a break in the correlation between a films popularity and the odds of it winning B. Picture.
However, even since 2007, the idea that the Academy awards B. Picture to films that are outside the “mainstream” is not really accurate. “Slumdog Millionaire” grossed $141 million, “The King’s Speech” grossed $135m, “Argo” pulled in $136m. “The Hurt Locker” and “The Artist” are the anomalies, not the norms.