A Sour Note for Best Song at the Academy Awards

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is changing up the Oscars next year. We already threw a hissy fit over the the decision to expand the Best Picture field from five movies to ten. Although AMPAS won't say it directly, it's to avoid Dark Knight-like snubs, although the actual impact will be watering down the field and nominating even more movies that don't deserve the Best Picture award than are already in consideration. It's a bad move. But Sid Gannis and company aren't done. The Irving Thalberg and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian awards are being removed from the telecast completely and will now be awarded in November. Yeah, it'll speed up the show, but those are pretty memorable moments, on the whole. I'd rather hear from someone earning an award for a body of professional or charitable work than watch some damn overcooked comedy segment. The biggest change, though, is coming in the Best Original Song category. I go back and forth over whether it should even be a category, because very often, it's just some songs over the opening or closing credits that really doesn't figure into the rest of the film."The Wrestler" is a great song, but I would have liked to have seen it and heard it woven into the narrative of the film rather than popping up after the movie is over. I'm convinced that's the reason that song wasn't nominated, because note for note, it was as good as two of the three nominees. But moving forward, we may not even have that award. Some years we will, some years we won't. See if this makes sense: The Music Branch of AMPAS will tally up the potential nominees and if no songs score an 8.25 or more in that round of voting, we won't have an award. If only one song hits the mark, that and the next highest-ranking song will be the nominees. If two movies make the grade, both of them and the next one after them will be in the running. You can have up to five nominees. I suppose that means even more aggressive marketing, though it probably won't mean better songs. What I'd hope it would signal but it doesn't is the institution of similar changes throughout the categories. Honestly, why have ten Best Picture nominees if six of them would score under a 7.5? What if we didn't have to nominate Norbit for Best Makeup?

Comments

[MRPigg]

I am willing to bet another oddity we may see with the expansion of ten "guaranteed" best picture noms. Not only will Pixar be given a token nomination every year, but we also may see two or three movies every year where "Best Picture" is the only nomination the movie will get, there are only so many categories to spread out nominations. It's not going to make any sense that something can be "Best Picture" and not be good at anything else, unless they (gasp) include the special effects blockbusters like (double gasp) Transformers which dominate the technical categories.
And what does that say for the directors? There are 10 "great" films, but only 5 great directors?

[Luke Johnson]

Of course advertising $ is down, welcome to the real world and everyone elses' lives. Lowering the quality of the product is no way to increase revenues. The decision is aiming to gain revenue but it's just going to devalue the Academy's award currency. This video explains the situation better http://www.newsy.com/videos/658 . If this is how the entertainment industry is going to cope with low ad revenue, it's the beginning of the end.