MovieChat Forums > The 83rd Annual Academy Awards (2011) Discussion > Predictability is killing the oscars.

Predictability is killing the oscars.

posted 13 years ago by Pencho15
6 replies | jump to latest

This is what I think, there has been a lot of comments about many parts of this year oscar ceremony, but while a good hosting and some memorable parts of the event are important and we will always remember such great moments as the hosting of people like Billy Crystal and Hugh Jackman; but all those things are secondary, the important part of the oscar are the winners, wether you agree on the winners or not there should be suspense all the time since the nominees are announced till the moment the envelope is opened and we know who was chosen, now there have been two years in a row in wich that suspense is completely missing, and that just kills off all the excietement you could feel about the awards.

Since 1995 My dad and I have organized an oscar pool where we compete with friendas and family to guess who the winner in each category will be, we go see the nominees, we support someone either by reason or by heart and we used to get excited countig the votes of every contestant and finding out who won, until a few years ago the votes were divided between many nominees, showing how you could believe any of the nominees could have a chance of winning, now there is nothing like that, to put you an example on the first year we did this, 1995 the votes for best actress were divided, 13 were cast for an Emma Thompson victory, 11 for Susan Sarandon, 5 for Sharon Stone, and even the underdogs Elizabeth Sue and Meryl Streep got 2 and 1 votes. This year Natalie Portman got 20 votes, the other five nominees 0. The same thing happended on the Actor and Supporting actor races, and while in the other categories some nominees scored some votes almost in all of them you could see who was the clear favorite.

I'd read many oscar analysis from experts, they said that Annette Bening was close enough on votes to Natalie and that she could have been an upset, and they say the same on many of the categories, but what everyone saw during the season was that Portman, Firth, Bale, Leo and King's Speech won practically every award leading to the oscars, we saw that every expert predicted their victory and we saw them winning on the big night, not for a single day was any chance of another nominee winning, if that's the way things go then what's the point on watching the award?
I was rooting for Natalie Portman and for Colin Firth, I am glad they won, but I knew that was going to happen since the beginning so I never cared at all to see Jeff Bridges giving her the award, no suspense, no fun. I think the King's Speech does not deserve the best picture oscar, I would have prefered six other nominees over it, but alas I knew no one stood a chance so I didn't care to see the big moment of the night, there's not happiness when my picks win, there's no anger when they don't, everything is written and so it doesn't matter.

Many of you must remember the awards from some years ago wasn't it great having to wait till the last minute to knew if Sean Penn or Bill Murray have won in 2004, or once again when Sean Penn faced Mickey Rourke in 2008, wasn't it great to see The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby have equal chances to get the best picture or to have some big surprises from time to time like the victories of Marcia Gay Harden or Juliette Binoche, surprises that just doens't seem possible anymore?
This award was dull just because of that, even all the technical categories were defined, maybe the only upset was Inception on cinematography. I think that after the animated short (wich was hard to predict) was awarded I didn't got excited about any other winner regardless of being happy for them or not, even the so called surprises were half expected as it was with The Social Network original score or Toy Story 3 song.
This years winners could have been the same, but if we have gotten to the ceremony thinking that Annette Bening, Jesse Eisenberg, Black Swan, John Hawkes or any other nominee had actually some chance of being awarded the golden guy then it would have been so much more fun.

[–] stevenackerman69 13 years ago

Well, that is the thing. Usually by the time the person wins the Oscar, the person has won so many previous awards leading up to it that it isn't much of a surprise anymore.

[–] Pencho15 13 years ago

How to solve it? could it be that the oscars get awarded in march instead of february so there is sometime for trends to change, or otherwise that the oscars are the first prize of the season instead of the last, that way all the guilds and critic circles would not ruin the thrill of knowing the winner.

[–] btzarevski 13 years ago

Or if there are two or three people close to each other and with a shot (like for instance Annette Benning and Natalie Portman) why don't the other awards rotate them? They are both deserving winners and when the oscars come about they would have each won awards and so it's much more unpredictable who will walk away with Oscar. The King's Speech had gotten best screenplay, actor and director by the time best picture came about so even if somebody had some doubts before the show, by winning those 3 it was obvious King's Speech was gonna win best picture too. Personally I was sure Inception would get best original screenplay and in my heart I wanted it to get best picture too. Just saying, rotate the awards around the deserving winners so that no clear favourite is seen come the Oscars.

[–] Pencho15 13 years ago

That would be nice, unfortunately I don't think the AMPAS has much to say about who gets awarded in the other ceremonies, altought it's nominees and winners may be of some influence. But if everybody wants to award Natalie Portman or the King's Speech then there is nothing that can be do about it, that's what I think a change in dates or a change in the voting system may be a better solution.
This year was great for films and it deserved to be one of the most competed oscars in recent times, but it turned out to be the lest thrilling, and after a similar 2010 ceremony I don't have much hopes to see a more competitive award in 2012, wich translates in boring ceremony despite the best efforts to do a amuzing show and to attract young people.

[–] Pencho15 13 years ago

Some other ideas, change the voting system in order for every academy member to be able to vote, but in a way in wich the experts on each category have a most valuable vote. For example the costume designers vote on Costume design would have more value than the vote of a sound mixer in that same category. But the vote of the sound mixer would have more value in the categories of sound editing and sound mixing.

Also make a rule that does not allow you to vote in any given category if you haven't see al the nominees. Is it fair for you to decide wich one of the pictures is the best or who gives the best performance if you haven't seen every nominee? I don't think so. How many people voted for The King's Speech but didn't bother to watch Winter's Bone or 127 Hours? How many people voted for Colin Firth but didn't watch Javier Bardem's work? How many people saw Animal Kingdom before voting in supporting actress?
The members of the academy are supossed to love films, everyone of us would love to have the chance to see every nominated film but many of the voters don't bother to and that's unfair. Just as it happend to foreign films, short films and documentaries make it a rule in every category to see every film before voting, and if you don't then you leave that category blank.
Probably that would not change the results, but at leats you would know that everyone involved has got an equal chance and that not everything depends on campaigns, Some categories would get quite fewer votes than others (I presume not many people would see the three make-up nominees considering they were not in any other category or maybe many people would not like to see Salt or Alice in Wonderland prefering not to vote in Sound or Costume Design) but that would also mean that the people voting are those that actually care to give their vote to the most deserving movie.
Both systems I suggest would change the way votes are cast and in both cases it would complicate the prediction of a winner giving us as a consequence a little bit more of suspense and not a boring announcement of the movies that everyone knows weeks ago that would triumph.

[–] theans09 13 years ago

There are 2 things that Ruin the Oscars for Me.

Too Few Films Getting 8+ Nominations (Kings Speech had 12, 10 for True Grit; Really?)
Not Considering Comedies (Easy A, Kickass, Scott Pilgrim, The A-Team Was not as Worthy as The Kids Are All Right; Really?)