What wins Best Picture this year at the Oscars? The Best Picture, or the Best Popular Picture?
For the last several years, members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have openly fretted about the increasingly falling ratings for the Oscars telecast. For the last televised ceremony, wherein The Shape of Water won Best Picture, ratings were the lowest they have ever been, gathering a mere 26.5 million viewers, a full 20% lower than the year before. This sparked a familiar discussion among film pundits, citing the usual reasons for loss of a mass audience: For one, the ceremony, which can easily run over four hours, often seems like too much of a chore for casual film fans. What's more, the Academy – as pundits frequently mention – is out of step with a broader popular audience, often awarding Best Picture to smaller indie films like Moonlight and The Shape of Water, while failing to award broad-range pop commercial successes like, say, Wonder Woman or Star Wars. Were more popular films nominated for Best Picture, the logic goes, more people would tune into the Oscars, right?
Continue reading…
Continue reading...
For the last several years, members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have openly fretted about the increasingly falling ratings for the Oscars telecast. For the last televised ceremony, wherein The Shape of Water won Best Picture, ratings were the lowest they have ever been, gathering a mere 26.5 million viewers, a full 20% lower than the year before. This sparked a familiar discussion among film pundits, citing the usual reasons for loss of a mass audience: For one, the ceremony, which can easily run over four hours, often seems like too much of a chore for casual film fans. What's more, the Academy – as pundits frequently mention – is out of step with a broader popular audience, often awarding Best Picture to smaller indie films like Moonlight and The Shape of Water, while failing to award broad-range pop commercial successes like, say, Wonder Woman or Star Wars. Were more popular films nominated for Best Picture, the logic goes, more people would tune into the Oscars, right?
Continue reading…
Continue reading...