Comments on: Oscar Ratings At 20 Year Low

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:22:11 +0000

The Academy Award voting members are a bunch of brain dead morons who wouldn’t know a good movie of it came and hit them. I bet most of them have never known any life outside L.A. I bet they all think we should still be excited by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies, or safe, in your face, rubbish like Crash. The world has move on. If the Academy is unwilling to do the same they should be disbanded. The Oscar is clearly the worst movie award that exists on the planet and its high status is baffling to any one with a good taste in films.

By: probitionate

probitionate — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:59:51 +0000

“True, the Best Picture award is voted by everyone but the proportion of actors voting is much higher than in other categories.”

Um… No. The same number of actors voting on Best Picture have a chance to vote on all the other categories. It’s the nominees that are decided by each category’s specialists.

(Or are you saying that because there are more actor voting than any other type of member…and because actors stay as voting actors longer than some of the other categories’ voters, there’s a higher probable rate of dementia…that their cred is suspect from the word ‘Go’? If so, doesn’t that mean that EVERYTHING is skewed, because actors vote on everything…?)

By: probitionate

probitionate — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:17:50 +0000

“This says a lot about Oscars credibility. If AMPAS is wondering why the ratings are falling this is the answer.”

With all due respect, this viewpoint is myopic. (Just for starters.) As I’ve droned on about here, perceived ‘credibility’ ain’t the reason for falling numbers.

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:59:39 +0000

True, the Best Picture award is voted by everyone but the proportion of actors voting is much higher than in other categories. How can we expect ageing ignorant homophobes like Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine to understand modern films dealing with modern issues? Both actors went public in admitting they never watched Brokeback Mountain even though most respected film critics around the world thought it was a great film. This says a lot about Oscars credibility. If AMPAS is wondering why the ratings are falling this is the answer. Since Brokeback Mountain lost the top award I and quite a number of my friends vowed never to watch the Oscars, and we stuck to our word.

By: probitionate

probitionate — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:20:41 +0000

“Instead we have bird brained actors (who wouldn’t know a good film if it came and hit them)voting.”

Actually, AMPAS in its entirety votes on the Best Picture award. So this means you’re dismissing the credentials of over 6,500 qualified personnel.

Interesting.

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:00:16 +0000

The Oscars suck and have been for quite some time. The Best Picture winners in recent years have been really awful: Crash, Chicago, Million Dollar Baby, Braveheart, No Country for Old Men etc. etc…. All very mediocre films that will be forgotten in a decade. The Best Picture Oscar takes little consideration of what film critics pick us the best film of each year. Instead we have bird brained actors (who wouldn’t know a good film if it came and hit them)voting. The result: Turkeys such as the above mentioned.

By: Mattiac

Mattiac — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:31:09 +0000

@probitionate: I totally agree with your last post! Well written! :)

By: probitionate

probitionate — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:51:49 +0000

“While the stars today have great talent, they lack the “ooomph” that the stars of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s had. That will never come back.”

And we’re not the people who lived in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s. We’re exposed to a HELL of a lot more than they were. Back then, there was more mystery about EVERYTHING. Can you imagine WWII being covered as on-the-spot as the Iraq war is being delivered, live-and-in-person?

Sorry, I don’t by the nostalgic ‘Those were the days’ viewpoint. If you took all the ‘big stars’ from ‘way back then’ and brought them forward to today’s ‘everywhere and all the time’ coverage, you sure wouldn’t see giants. You’d see the same degree of ‘humanness’ and normalcy that we’ve all come to regard celebrities having…given that there’s no opportunity for ‘mystery’ anymore…and really, the buying-public doesn’t want it, anyway. They want to have 24/7 access to everything that piques their interest. An insatiable appetite, indeed. (And then we blame the celebrities for being annoyingly ubiquitous!)

By: John Royal

John Royal — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:07:05 +0000

I think the main problem the Oscars are so lackluster is that the stars aren’t as big and mythical as they used to be. When you think of giants like John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, David Niven, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood, you’re thinking about huge personalities that seemed bigger than life. There was mystery.
Nowadays, we know what kind of toilet paper Brad Pitt uses and which underwear Tom Cruise purchases and how many facelifts some actress has had. We see them way too much on television and magazines. There’s nothing special left.
While the stars today have great talent, they lack the “ooomph” that the stars of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s had. That will never come back.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:22:50 +0000

The MTV Movie Awards are so much better.