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How Box-Office Doom Is Impacting the Oscar Race: “The Audience Is Not There”

PaulHoule 4y ago
A lot of the Oscars about self-promotion, most of all movies about other movies. It's understandable that people in Hollywood would find this very meaningful, what's not so understandable is that the Oscars have lumbered along for so long. Maybe if they added "best superhero movie" they would get some interest from people.
- jfengel 4y ago
  The Oscars is all self-promotion, and what I find incomprehensible is why anybody ever paid attention. It has more to do with celebrity than cinema: a bunch of famous people dressing up nice. They don't give awards to popular movies, nor should they, since popular movies don't need any help. They usually try to single out something of "merit" (as defined by the artists, with a different POV from both audience and critics). Sometimes that helps bring a little attention to something that audiences wouldn't ordinarily notice, which is kinda cool. Most of the awards are for stuff that the audience doesn't notice or care about. And that's just the same as your office giving out a bunch of awards every year that nobody cares about except the other people in your office. It's like watching somebody else's office party, except that the office is way richer and prettier than yours. The Oscars should continue to lumber along. And they should probably continue to be broadcast somewhere, even though audience numbers will fall as there are so many other ways to gawp at celebrities now.
sprkwd 4y ago
Start making better films and I’ll be there watching them.
- jfengel 4y ago
  They make amazing films. They're often not at the local cinema, unless they win a major Oscar, and then only briefly. But they're usually available on DVD or streaming. The top Oscar nominees are practically all pretty good films, despite the occasional clunker. That doesn't automatically make them appealing to every audience, but they are nearly all well-acted, well-written, and well-directed. The problem, as with so much else in the 21st century, isn't that the good stuff doesn't exist, but that it's hard to find the thing that appeals to you in particular. The popular stuff appeals very widely, but shallowly. Finding something that you in particular connect with is a major challenge. If the Oscar list doesn't do it, try finding a critic who likes the movies you like, and look at their top 10 list.
simonblack 4y ago
Modern movies are crap. All too often the producers get lazy and draw in the suckers with second-rate prequels, sequels and remakes. I get really pissed off when remakes completely change the story-lines and use the same titles. Disney is notorious for doing this. Look at all the movies they've made using well-known classic stories and just count the number of times the movies deviate completely from the books. How about a bit of new imaginative writing instead of the same boring old formulas of films that worked in the past? Put all the Marvel movies together and you'd be hard-pressed to see any worthwhile differences between them.

A lot of the Oscars about self-promotion, most of all movies about other movies. It's understandable that people in Hollywood would find this very meaningful, what's not so understandable is that the Oscars have lumbered along for so long. Maybe if they added "best superhero movie" they would get some interest from people.

jfengel 4y ago
The Oscars is all self-promotion, and what I find incomprehensible is why anybody ever paid attention. It has more to do with celebrity than cinema: a bunch of famous people dressing up nice. They don't give awards to popular movies, nor should they, since popular movies don't need any help. They usually try to single out something of "merit" (as defined by the artists, with a different POV from both audience and critics). Sometimes that helps bring a little attention to something that audiences wouldn't ordinarily notice, which is kinda cool. Most of the awards are for stuff that the audience doesn't notice or care about. And that's just the same as your office giving out a bunch of awards every year that nobody cares about except the other people in your office. It's like watching somebody else's office party, except that the office is way richer and prettier than yours. The Oscars should continue to lumber along. And they should probably continue to be broadcast somewhere, even though audience numbers will fall as there are so many other ways to gawp at celebrities now.

sprkwd 4y ago

Start making better films and I’ll be there watching them.

jfengel 4y ago
They make amazing films. They're often not at the local cinema, unless they win a major Oscar, and then only briefly. But they're usually available on DVD or streaming. The top Oscar nominees are practically all pretty good films, despite the occasional clunker. That doesn't automatically make them appealing to every audience, but they are nearly all well-acted, well-written, and well-directed. The problem, as with so much else in the 21st century, isn't that the good stuff doesn't exist, but that it's hard to find the thing that appeals to you in particular. The popular stuff appeals very widely, but shallowly. Finding something that you in particular connect with is a major challenge. If the Oscar list doesn't do it, try finding a critic who likes the movies you like, and look at their top 10 list.

simonblack 4y ago

Modern movies are crap. All too often the producers get lazy and draw in the suckers with second-rate prequels, sequels and remakes. I get really pissed off when remakes completely change the story-lines and use the same titles. Disney is notorious for doing this. Look at all the movies they've made using well-known classic stories and just count the number of times the movies deviate completely from the books. How about a bit of new imaginative writing instead of the same boring old formulas of films that worked in the past? Put all the Marvel movies together and you'd be hard-pressed to see any worthwhile differences between them.