How can the Oscars get their Ratings back.

[Vakanai]

See, that's where we're going to disagree. I think good movies are still winning. People just aren't seeing them. Which comes down to the question of are the popular movies getting worse or are audiences' tastes changing?

I really want someone to give me their alternate Best Picture nominations. I've asked a couple of times and no one has really given an answer. The Dark Knight has been brought up a couple of times, but that was over a decade ago.

That kind of brings up a question - if "good" movies no longer align with what audiences want to see, are they still "good" movies? Is it fair to say that our tastes are worse now? Isn't good and bad predicated on the tastes of the population of the time? Maybe these new "good" movies may still abide by what tastes once were, but can no longer be considered as good since it's counter to the tastes of what most people now consider good cinema? Is a film's quality immutable throughout time, or does it change as society changes?

[Mister Mets]

I guess it comes down to the chicken or the egg question. Are studios taking the easy way out by shifting all money to franchise movies and manufacturing demand for them or did the audience tastes change and they only want franchise movies, so the studios are trying to match? In 2019, the top 10 highest grossing films were all sequels, remakes or based on a comic book. That's where the box office is and honestly, I think the only way to get audiences would have been putting Avengers Endgame against Captain Marvel and Joker, but I don't want that.

Last year I believe thread the needle for films. All the nominated movies made at least 200 million at the Box Office, well at least the ones that didn't go straight to streaming. The Oscars before that I think took it too far into sellout territory with movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Black Panther being nominated. The year before that was one of my favorite sets of Best Pictures in recent memory, but the audiences clearly didn't agree as only two films made at least 200 million dollars (Get Out and Dunkirk). But at the end of the day, the one that I believe was the Goldilocks ended up with the least amount of viewers until this year.

If I am the Academy, I would lean in to not caring about ratings. I don't think it's a good idea to pander to the changing tastes of audience. It may make me arrogant or pretentious, but I think the taste of the general audience has decreased over time and I'd hate to see the Oscars sink to that level of pandering.

Porn movies routinely made the top ten in the 1970s, so it's probably not a matter of audience choice declining over time.

There is an argument that the quality just isn't that good. In the 1970s, we had a five year stretch with American Graffiti, Cabaret, Chinatown, A Clockwork Orange, The Conversation, Deliverance, Dog Day Afternoon, The Exorcist, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Jaws, The Last Picture Show, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs Miller, Misery, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and A Woman Under the Influence.

The first half of the 1990s included A Few Good Men, Beauty and the Beast, Forrest Gump, The Fugitive, Goodfellas, In the Name of the Father, Jurassic Park, The Lion King, Malcolm X, Misery, Pulp Fiction, Pretty Woman, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Thelma & Louise and Unforgiven

There don't seem to be recent movies that have that level of impact. I'm not entirely sure what the cause is. Is it the nichiefication of society, with people having stuff they like, but very different examples? Is it prestige television being the best-regarded way to tell serious stories (compare the response to Fleabag Season 2 to any film comedy over the last decade.)

Here is a good article that basically says what I feel. Movies should be nominated for Oscars because everyone is seeing it and saying it is good, and not, no one has seen it and some critics are saying it is good.

But nominate more popular movies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...2e9_story.html

When you look through the article and focus on the 70's, which had great movies that won, that says a lot.

Also I feel, "Best Stunts" would be a great new category.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/its-...nts-oscar.html

I don't even understand reluctance here.

Best stunts would add time to an already bloated schedule, and requires context to show why one example of stuntwork is exceptionally impressive.

Weird, I'm not the only one.

What happened to the Oscar's when people haven't even heard of the movies they've nominated for best picture for over a decade or so.

I use to get excited about best picture when it was Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, and the Departed, now it seems like there just nominating any ole crap??? Am I wrong? I haven't heard of the films from 2010 onward.

How would you nominating any ole crap if you haven't seen it?

See, that's where we're going to disagree. I think good movies are still winning. People just aren't seeing them. Which comes down to the question of are the popular movies getting worse or are audiences' tastes changing?

I really want someone to give me their alternate Best Picture nominations. I've asked a couple of times and no one has really given an answer. The Dark Knight has been brought up a couple of times, but that was over a decade ago.

It's not that hard to come up with an alternate list that swaps out some of the less-regarded arthouse choice for material from well-regarded hits.

One complication is that this isn't how the voting works.

Individuals choose for their favorite, so they can't take balance into consideration. If an Oscar voter went for their top five, they could mix it up.

[Vakanai]

Porn movies routinely made the top ten in the 1970s, so it's probably not a matter of audience choice declining over time.

...come again? The hell? Which pornos made it to the Oscars? The hell? I just can't see that happening, like ever. I mean, I knew the "swinging" 70s was a different time, but still...

[Mister Mets]

...come again? The hell? Which pornos made it to the Oscars? The hell? I just can't see that happening, like ever. I mean, I knew the "swinging" 70s was a different time, but still...

Top ten in the box office, not major oscar nominations.

But Deep Throat was the #4 movie in 1972.
https://m.the-numbers.com/market/197...rossing-movies

The Devil and Miss Jones was in the top ten in 1973.

[Vakanai]

Top ten in the box office, not major oscar nominations.

But Deep Throat was the #4 movie in 1972.
https://m.the-numbers.com/market/197...rossing-movies

The Devil and Miss Jones was in the top ten in 1973.

Ah, not Oscars but most watched. Not surprising, porn is still a multi-billion dollar industry, but now they're not really films, but less anything close to a non-stupid film. Heard the 70s actually did more on the script front for adult films than we do now.

[C_Miller]

That kind of brings up a question - if "good" movies no longer align with what audiences want to see, are they still "good" movies? Is it fair to say that our tastes are worse now? Isn't good and bad predicated on the tastes of the population of the time? Maybe these new "good" movies may still abide by what tastes once were, but can no longer be considered as good since it's counter to the tastes of what most people now consider good cinema? Is a film's quality immutable throughout time, or does it change as society changes?

I don't think judging what is popular is a great judge of quality in really any medium.

[Vakanai]

I don't think judging what is popular is a great judge of quality in really any medium.

Then how should quality be measured? Who decides quality? What rules should we use? Who gets to decide those rules?

[C_Miller]

Then how should quality be measured? Who decides quality? What rules should we use? Who gets to decide those rules?

I don't think there's anything wrong with deferring to people who have spent their lives and careers studying the art form. Martin Scorsese has devoted his life to the film industry. He has made films, studdied and written about films and he has built a second career out of preserving films, so I think I'd rather he and people like him decide what makes a great cinema than the box office. The average adult sees 5 movies in theaters a year, so maybe deferring to the average person isn't the best idea either.

[ed2962]

Then how should quality be measured? Who decides quality? What rules should we use? Who gets to decide those rules?

Well, the Academy is movie industry insiders and for the Oscars actors vote for actors, directors vote for directors, tech guys vote in the tech categories etc.

Other awards shows or what have you will say, "We polled 100 critics" or "As voted by our viewers" or whatever...

[Vakanai]

So yeah - the Oscars are irrelevant to the most of us, and they won't get the ratings back.
Looking forward to the end of them being televised then!

[C_Miller]

So yeah - the Oscars are irrelevant to the most of us, and they won't get the ratings back.
Looking forward to the end of them being televised then!

Why does it matter to you for them to be televised? If they’re irrelevant to you, why does it matter?

[Tofali]

Why does it matter to you for them to be televised? If they’re irrelevant to you, why does it matter?

The Oscars is a private function so why should the public defer to an exclusionary function that doesn't award what is watched by many?

[DrNewGod]

Then how should quality be measured? Who decides quality? What rules should we use? Who gets to decide those rules?

From the get go, the Oscars were always subject to powerbroker influence (originally, the big studio bosses). But with any set of industry awards, there's also going to be some elitism in the decision making, and some of it is maybe even justifiable.

There are a few people on these boards (in my admittedly ignorant opinion) that seem to really know film and film-making. Most of us don't. We might know what we like, and what the box office is, but I suspect most of us don't know what excellence in film-making is any more than most of us would know what makes for excellence in kinesiology research, or physics. We might recognize when the news is screaming at us about A Big Discovery, but most of us couldn't tell you what makes for a great study in a field of science. Experts in the area are sometimes better equipped to make those kinds of evaluations, whether we agree with them or not.

[Vakanai]

Why does it matter to you for them to be televised? If they’re irrelevant to you, why does it matter?

Annoyed by reruns the night it comes on, and also tired of the commercials and talk shows talking about them mostly. I mean, I don't have to watch them to be inundated with them as a thing. It's kind of like, my feelings towards the Olympics - I don't like how television goes during the Olympics either.

[C_Miller]

Annoyed by reruns the night it comes on, and also tired of the commercials and talk shows talking about them mostly. I mean, I don't have to watch them to be inundated with them as a thing. It's kind of like, my feelings towards the Olympics - I don't like how television goes during the Olympics either.

I don't like basketball. I live in an area that is extremely basketball-centric and it can be hard to avoid, especially during March Madness. But I would never for a second wish that it stopped existing. It's so easy to put up with things you don't like.