Movies: Oscars revamping, adding "Achievement in Popular Film" category

[Epsilon]

What an absolutely terrible idea, especially in a year where there are some "popular films" (Black Panther, Mission Impossible: Fallout) that could potentially otherwise get nominated in the usual Best Picture category. Now they will almost assuredly be shunted into this new one and ignored for the real award. This is the Academy Awards, not the MTV Movie Awards.

Rather than partitioning off these films into their own narrow box, why not encourage the voters to think more broadly about what "Best Picture" means? It's not like Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc. films haven't been nominated in the past, if they are good enough in an overall sense.

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[Jevo]

What constitutes a "popular film"? How will they define that? Box office? Number of explosions per minute? What about something like The King's Speech, was that a popular film, or is there too much talking and not enough punching? Will the category just be the Disney number one film of the year just like the animation category is, with the occasional upset?

This just seems like a bad idea.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

so instead of listening to the audience and taking a step down from their holier than thou "film snob" stance on nominations, they're going the other way with it.

They're giving us simple popcorn swilling folk our own "best picture" category to separate those simple movies from their deep and intellectual pictures like "I f*cked a fish, give me an Oscar"

 

[BonMorrison]

I've been RT-ing how stupid the "popular film" category thing is all day that I'm just gonna re-post.

 

[Shareefruck]

Ugh. This is stupid.

 

[BonMorrison]

Popular Film Category Violates Everything the Oscars Are Supposed to Be About

This sums it up nicely.

Yet for all the ways that it’s unworkable, impractical, and not at all likely to succeed, the single worst aspect of the proposed best popular film category is that it feels not just tacky but corrupt: a piece of cultural demagoguery. It commits a sin that I would call philosophical.

The whole notion of dividing movies into “art” and “entertainment,” with the suggestion that the “art” films appeal to a “small, elite” audience and that the “entertainment” films appeal to, you know, the people, has always been simplistic and, ultimately, untrue. And these days it comes with an unmistakable Trumpian tinge. The mainstream vs. the elites!

Yet the real history of movies is about all these categories — these ways of thinking — being broken down. Most of the great films from the studio-system era were popular hits. In the ’70s, extraordinary works of art, like “Easy Rider” and “The Godfather” and “Chinatown” and “Taxi Driver,” became timeless popular films. And though there’s no denying that this happens less in our era, it’s not as if it doesn’t happen at all. Just look at films like “Dunkirk,” or “Lincoln,” or “Mad Max: Fury Road,” all of them enormous hits, and all fantastic works of art. Which category should they be in?

 

[Pilky01]

Meh....as a self identified member of the popcorn munching masses with no honest reverence for the art of film this seems fine to me. One award for snobby film critics and one award that will basically just goes to the highest grossing film.



Awards shows are inherently stupid. Who cares what dumb awards they make up in the hopes of attracting eyeballs or avoiding social media firestorms?

This is mainly just them attempting to pre-empt another "Oscars so white" controversy when they don't nominate Black Panther for best picture.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

HATE this.

It's such stupid, misguided pandering to try to get an audience that probably doesn't really give a shit. And it's coming at the expense of the audience the Oscars does have which is a group that does give a shit.

It's pointed out in a few of those tweets, but it's a falsehood that the Oscars don't recognize popular film. They always have.

Did you know 9 of the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time (inflation adjusted) all were nominated for Best Picture and the only one that wasn't (Snow White) received an honorary Oscar that year because its animation was such a radical innovation?

35 of the top 100 movies (again inflation adjusted) were nominated for Best Picture and 14 of those won that award. (I could be off by one or two -- just scanning the list and going off memory).

The non-inflation adjusted list has 12 best picture nominees, but it’s also so heavily weighted to recent films it’s irrelevant -- 93 of the top 100 movies were released since 2000 and 66 were released since 2010. And there are a ton of total dogshit movies on that list.

 

[Adam Warlock]

I feel like Black Panther has a lot to do with this. They don't want to compromise and actually give a superhero film a best picture nom but they know they'll face a ton of backlash (both critical and racial) if they dont give BP some love.

There is no reason popular movies cant also get best picture nominations. When all is said and done, Black Panther and Infinity War will probably be 2 of the best movies of the year (I havent seen Mission Impossible yet but I heard thats great too)...so just give them the nomination. If you have 10 nominees you have 10 nominees, who cares? Action/comicbook/sci/whatever movies have really evolved in the last 10 years...they should embrace it instead of ignoring it.

 

[Osprey]

This is really stupid, but it's hard to be outraged when I'm hardly surprised. It's also hard to be when I stopped watching the Oscars in 2000 (after being really into them throughout the 90s). I just mostly don't care anymore.

I agree that this might be a preemptive move because they're afraid of a repeat of the "Oscars So White" outcry if Black Panther doesn't get the recognition that some think that it should. They get to look like they're giving it a chance while still getting to award Best Picture to something with a name like Water Is Wet. On the surface, it looks like they're trying to be accommodating, but they're really giving themselves an excuse to continue judging Best Picture the same way that they have been.

 

[NewtJorden]

They already should rename the most popular movie award "best superheroes movies"

 

[SensBrawler]

Do they honestly think adding a "Best Popular Film" category will help prevent declining ratings? Of course not. It's a joke category that no one will care about.

Also pretty pissed at the idea that they'll give out awards during commercial breaks. I've always liked seeing some of the lesser known members of the industry get recognition in front of millions of people. Now they'll just get ignored.

 

[kook10]

So dumb - it just opens up an avenue for the Golden Globes to further steal their credibility.

 

[NyQuil]

Stupid.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

A hail mary to stay relevant.

 

[Cloned]

This will actually further marginalize the Oscars, as it unintentionally devalues the idea of the "popular film" and is basically going to make it impossible for a "popular film" to win in a traditional main category, unless they plan on allowing a film to win both best achievement in popular film AND best picture overall.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Valid point:

 

[Do Make Say Think]

The less the Oscars matter in general, the better it is for the industry as a whole.

Do we really need to see all these rich people patting each other on the back and handing out life time achievement awards?

The Shape of Water was an extraordinarily gorgeous movie but best movie of 2017?! No ****ing way.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Valid point:

Sorry I don't buy the "Poor Oscar voters" being strong armed into this

The academy has tendency to look down its nose on many films and genre's thru years. This is them trying to make it so the precious "Best Picture" can be dedicated towards more nonsense like films about sex with fish and other pretentious crap

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Sorry I don't buy the "Poor Oscar voters" being strong armed into this

The academy has tendency to look down its nose on many films and genre's thru years. This is them trying to make it so the precious "Best Picture" can be dedicated towards more nonsense like films about sex with fish and other pretentious crap

For the vast majority of its history there were only 5 spots and for the last chunk of years there are up to 10 -- there have always and will always be worthy movies that are left out. Sometimes that's a popular genre movie (say, The Dark Knight or Wall-E) and sometimes that's a critically beloved indie (say, The Florida Project or The Master).

But the assertion that the Academy is resistant to popular movies just isn't true with several examples and stats cited above, but for the record Best Picture winners in past 25 years or so include Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator, Chicago, Lord of The Rings: Return of the King, The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, Argo — that's a pretty broadly appealing, populist crop of movies there and multiple billions in ticket sales.

It isn't a perfect system (nothing ever is), but it isn't nearly as flawed as some are trying to paint it.

You don't need to reward "popularity." The popularity itself is the damn reward. That's not a hard concept to grasp.

Edit: And regarding The Shape of Water, I wouldn't lump it into the pretentious box at all. It's bursting with genre — it's a fairy tale, monster movie, spy flick with a few song-and-dance numbers thrown in. While some like to paint it with the typical "Oscar bait" shrug off, it really isn't. There's a weird, gross, bizarre movie just below that glossy love story surface.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

And one more FYI: Of the 9 best picture nominees last year, five were among the top 50 grossing movies for the movie of the year with that cut off around $56 million which isn't chump change, especially if it is a lower budget movie. (Three Billboards was just outside this cutoff at #52, which would mean 2/3rds of last year's nominees made more than $50 million at the box office).

Meanwhile big money makers like Logan, Baby Driver, Beauty & The Beast, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Blade Runner:2049 all received multiple nominations including some for big awards like screenplay, editing and cinematography.

 

[Shareefruck]

If anything, they were already excessively pandering to the masses before all of this (especially with the 10 nomination thing) and not being snobby or critical enough-- which should be the point of an award. What holds up to the absolute toughest of scrutiny regardless of accessibility or popularity (which already completely dominates everything else).

The Oscars have been anything but a hot-bed of challenging artistically revered movies that cater to film snobs (I WISH it was that). It's mostly just been middle of the road films that end up neither appealing to nor offending the snob crowd or the popcorn crowd, with most accolades given to movies like "The King's Speech", that nobody on either side really gives a **** about. That's always been its biggest problem, IMO.

This again was another attempt to appease both sides that somehow simultaneously insults and patronizes both sides.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

If anything, they were already excessively pandering to the masses before all of this (especially with the 10 nomination thing) and not being snobby or critical enough-- which should be the point of an award. What holds up to the absolute toughest of scrutiny regardless of accessibility or popularity.

The Oscars have been anything but a hot-bed of challenging artistically revered movies that cater to film snobs (I WISH it was that). It's mostly just been middle of the road films that end up neither appealing to nor offending the snob crowd or the popcorn crowd, with movies like "The King's Speech". That's always been its biggest problem, IMO.

This again was another attempt to appease both sides that somehow simultaneously insults and patronizes both sides.

Hahaha. I agree. That is part of why I get so agitated when this turns into a predictable slobs v. snobs debate. Oscar history has plenty of professionally made milquetoast winners that others like to frame as the preference of films snobs, but the reality is there are plenty of us "snobs" that look down on those choices too. The people that think the Academy voters are snoots have no idea how "pretentious" and obtuse these awards could get if it truly were in the hands of hardcore critical film thinkers ....

 

[BonMorrison]

People that complain about snobbery amongst moviegoers are infinitely more irritating than actual movie snobs. I more frequently hear people talking about how they're NOT snobs and just go to movies to be entertained and take it at face value etc. etc. than I hear people critically dissect with their noses in the area. I mean - there is snobbery but I see it more on the other side tbh.