OSCAR MADNESS

If it seems too soon for the winners of this year's Academy Awards to be announced - well - it actually is. In effort to combat a feeling that the Oscars have become "anti-climatic" due to so many awards given out prior to the telecast, the Academy decided last year to move up the show by two weeks. However, all the date change did was force all of the other awards to move up the date of their ceremonies with the Oscars still being the last awards given out. Hopefully the Academy will come to their senses and push the show back to it's usual time next year to allow people more time to try and watch all of the nominated films. In the meantime, here is a bit of interesting Oscar news to keep you entertained until the big show this Sunday:

Since viewership has been declining over the last few years, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have been actively trying to reverse this trend by making "improvements" to the Oscars telecast. Some of these plans have not seen the light of day (remember the widely derided "Best Popular Film" category?) or have been difficult to actually make happen (like completing the show in three hours). But one notable idea that did happen was to expand the Best Picture nominees from five selections to up to ten. As an Oscars purist, I was initially appalled by this plan but have come to embrace this decision. While there still will only be one winner, this prestigious nomination will bring attention (and in some cases, much needed) to these movies and help keep the selections far more diverse. Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times has examined this move ten years after it went in to effect and how it has improved the Best Picture category.

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10 Years Later: An Oscar Experiment That Worked

Vulture has decided to give the Academy a hand by helping them select the scene of each of the Best Picture nominees that should be shown during the telecast which best represent the spirit of the film and give viewers (who may not have seen the movie) a true idea of what this selected movie is really all about.

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The Best Scenes from the 2020 Best Picture Nominees

And finally, we all know that today's Best Picture winner might become in twenty years a "What were they thinking??" Best Picture casualty. 24/7 Tempo has identified some popular and beloved movies that should have received an Oscar. As you go through this list, you will see that most of these popular films did actually receive plenty of nominations ("The Color Purple", "Taxi Driver", "American Hustle", "Do The Right Thing", "The Shawshank Redemption") yet failed to take home any awards. Some of these classics (Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" and Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil") shockingly did not even get a single Oscar nomination. We are also reminded of the films that actually won the award instead of some of these clearly more deserving movies.

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The Greatest Movies That Should have Won an Oscar