Entertainment
Oscars preview: What to watch for at the show
These are among the questions dealing with the producers of the Oscars, ABC and the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, which has risked angering a few of its members and endured criticism over plans to shake up the format by handing out eight awards throughout what quantities to a preshow, then enhancing these acceptance speeches into the telecast.
The problems surrounding this 12 months’s awards will not all be answered when the envelopes get opened on Oscar evening. However listed here are six issues to contemplate earlier than, throughout and after:
The Academy’s determination to vary the format to mollify ABC, which broadcasts the present, has created some buzz about discovering a unique TV house, one that can rejoice artistry with out as a lot concern about rankings. However for the reason that community’s annual payment covers the group’s price range, such a shift would require a serious funding by a brand new platform and doubtlessly dilute the viewers even additional.
What everybody seems reluctant to acknowledge, seemingly, is that media has grow to be a fragmented world, and aside from the Tremendous Bowl, shared occasions — which the Oscars as soon as certified as — are more and more changing into a factor of the previous.
Will time-crunching classes work?
The protests over shifting awards in largely technical classes was predictable, however it displays a maybe belated nod to a truth different award reveals have lengthy since acknowledged: Folks watch to see stars, not movie editors or sound technicians.
That stated, there is not any clear proof a faster-paced, extra entertainment-oriented broadcast will jumpstart the rankings, wherein case the Academy can have alienated members with out a clear profit.
Does Netflix fulfill its push for Oscar recognition?
After conquering the Emmys, Netflix started a concerted push for Oscars — beginning with “Roma” in 2019, the primary of its seven best-picture nominees together with this 12 months’s — regardless of resistance throughout the Academy to totally recognizing streaming motion pictures alongside their theatrical brethren.
Will this be remembered as a weak film 12 months?
Will a 12 months that anointed “The Energy of the Canine,” a compelling however very slow-moving film, or the small-boned “Coda,” be considered charitably sooner or later? We’ll see, though given the shortage of consensus and the extent of sniping directed at each movies, there can be loads of Monday-morning quarterbacking irrespective of which method voters go.
Previous vs. current: Discovering the proper steadiness
The Oscars traditionally combine previous and new, and this 12 months can be no exception, with deliberate tributes to 60 years of the James Bond franchise and “The Godfather’s” fiftieth anniversary.
Older viewers that noticed the Corleones in theaters, nonetheless, aren’t the viewers that the Academy and ABC yearn to achieve if they will plant the seeds for the long run. And the youthful demographics they’re determined to draw (partially as a result of that is what advertisers covet) aren’t seeing the films that they are watching — assume “Spider-Man: No Method House” — closely represented a lot among the many nominees.
Can the present encourage folks to go to the films?
Traditionally, an enormous a part of the Oscars has been cheerleading for the films, which has grow to be extra than simply an educational train for studios and significantly theaters. Final 12 months’s present launched the hashtag #TheBigScreenIsBack and promoted seeing motion pictures “the best way you have at all times beloved them.”