Regarding @OhTheWater asking about cultural impact, it has been over for a while now. The ratings keep shrinking while the population keeps growing. The gap between popular entertainment and the critically acclaimed films keeps growing to the point where they are almost two different artforms. Oppenheimer is the very rare example of something that crossed the lines.
I don't know if the ratings are an entirely accurate harbinger since a lot of people will watch clips or see results on social media, but I guess that's all we have to go with.
It really starts post-Titanic. You look at those Nineties films and they are all pretty well-known, but starting with Shakespeare in Love it gets smaller and smaller. A lot of those nominees and winners are known only specifically because they were nominated, not out of actual goodwill and continuing acclaim. No one is putting on Chicago or Slumdog Millionaire anymore.
I forgot to mention.. Sorry, Baby getting snubbed!! I thought that would be a shoe in for at least original screenplay for Eva Victor
I think I remember reading about how Shakespeare In Love was really the start of when awards became less about the quality and merit of the films, and more about the producers playing the system behind the scenes. You have Harvey Weinstein to thank for that.
Arguably the only good part of awards is when something is set up and then fails to even get nominated. That Ann Lee movie has its big rollout tomorrow in anticipation of a nomination that never came.
I think this kind of thing speaks more to the changes in the film industry than the awards themselves. Can you imagine a movie like American Beauty grossing over $300 million today? The types of movies that used to get all the Oscar buzz simply aren't financially successful anymore
Like all Netflix films, it got shafted and relegated to their library in very little time. Which is a shame because it's one of the most beautiful films of the year. Right when it started, my first thought was "this should be seen in a theater, not my tv"
That is definitely part of it. When we did the yearly threads the biggest box office movies of each year regularly included dramas and comedies and all sorts of things you can't make toys out of.
At least a lot of good stuff still gets nominated, even if it’s not all that diverse and the winners are often contentious. I would kill to get half as amped up about the Grammys as I do the Oscars
The Grammys are better than the Oscars because they don't have a negative effect on the music industry.
I don't know if it's still a thing but I remember several years of the Oscars where a lot of the online commentariat was shitting on it for not being with the times and nominating movies that people have actually seen, but the examples would be like whatever Marvel big blockbuster action films came out that year. And it's like, the Oscars have hardly ever nominated those kinds of movies. The People just don't go to see mid-budget movies with A-list stars the way that they used to
I don't think their ratings would go up if they started nominating stuff like The Minecraft Movie and Zootopia and Jurassic World. The kind of people who will watch an awards show tend to gravitate toward middlebrow and slightly highbrow. If anything, their ratings would be worse if they went for the blockbusters.
I would say, if anything, the Oscar nominated movies have only become generally better over time. There used to be so much schlocky garbage nominated over the years, it's how "Oscar bait" became a term in the first place. Whereas now there are typically about 2-3 that I don't like, with the rest being good to great
Ha, I actually just watched Chicago for the first time this month because we are going to see the Broadway show.