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Anybody who knows the way that the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences rolls, knows that its board of governors does nothing without an ulterior motive. So the decision to make an entirely new event for those honorary Oscars is a way for AMPAS to get itself off the hook. After all, there’s a blacklog of Hollywood legends who campaign annually for the coveted Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. And those legends are all pals with the AMPAS bigwigs. So it gets more personally embarrassing with every passing year. In fact, the last time the Thalberg was awarded, it was back in 2000 when the recipient was Dino De Laurentiis. But now awarding the Thalberg, like Best Picture, will be devalued by the Academy’s new moves. It won’t be any more special than all the other black tie dinners held by Hollywood. Shameful.
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Beverly Hills, CA (June 26, 2009) — The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted to establish a new annual event at which it will present its testimonial awards – the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award. Honorees will be selected and announced in September and presented their awards at a celebratory dinner event in November. They will also be acknowledged at the year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
“For some years now, the Board has struggled to balance the desire to truly honor worthy individuals with the time limitations that the Oscar® telecast imposes on these honors,” said Academy President Sid Ganis. “By creating a separate event for recognizing these outstanding people in the movie industry, we’re insuring that each honoree will be given his or her full due, without compromise.”
The Academy’s Board will hold a special meeting in September for the sole purpose of selecting the year’s honorees. There will not be more than one Hersholt nor more than one Thalberg Award voted in any given year. No more than four testimonial awards will be given in a single year.
“We wanted to achieve more flexibility with these awards,” explained Ganis. “But we also need to maintain the integrity of them. By setting the limits that we have, the members of the Board feel they have achieved the appropriate balance.”
A black-tie dinner event for about 500 invitees will include film clips as well as remarks from the honorees’ colleagues and admirers.
Previously, these awards were voted at the Board’s December meeting.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award are Oscar statuettes; the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is a bust of its namesake. The most recent recipients of each were Jerry Lewis (Hersholt Award) at the 81st Academy Awards® ceremony in February of this year, Robert Boyle (Honorary Award) at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2008, and Dino De Laurentiis (Thalberg Award) at the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony in March 2001.
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AMPAS also decided that, since most of the studios don’t benefit that much financially from the Original Song category, it would limit the number of nominees to speed up the Oscar broadcast. Disgusting.
Beverly Hills, CA (June 26, 2009) — The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved the rules for the 82nd Academy Awards at their meeting earlier this week (6/23). In addition to the previously announced change in the Best Picture category, a significant change was made in the Music – Original Song category.
The governors approved the Music Branch Executive Committee recommendation that if no song achieves a minimum average score of 8.25 in the nominations voting, there be no original song nominees and thus no Oscar presented for the category. If only one song achieves the required minimum, it and the song with the next highest score will be deemed the nominees. If two or more songs achieve the minimum score, they will be the nominees though no more than five nominees can be selected. Previously, the rules dictated that there be no more than five but no fewer than three nominees in the category.
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The Los Angeles Times quotes AMPAS VP Howard “Hawk” Koch Jr as saying that the org doesn’t want a film with just over 10% support winning Best Picture and that the board of governors will revisit the voting rules at its next meeting.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Ummmmmm….. so we get to see Michael Bay vs. real film makers (not smash cut bang bang boom boom ONLY) ?
Guess “indies” should go after the MTV film award.
CRAZY.
I’m totally serious when I say that those that oppose these moves should back & promote a major campaign to get “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” a nomination for best picture!
Nothing would get the fools that are running AMPAS into the toilet to change things back, than a ridiculous nomination like that!
I don’t hate Kevin James either. He knows his pic wasn’t Oscar material.
That said, it’s time to remove all those technical awards from the show & put them into the technical banquet that happens before the Oscar cast.
But, AMPAS should also require ABC [or whatever net broadcasts the Oscars] to show the technical banquet.
Live & uncut!
I actually applaud the change to the best song category. That way you don’t that disgusting thug song about pimps winning the award.
It must truly be THE best to win. Not just, the best one we could come up with to give the award to.
Now they just need to do this with every category.
If they truly wanted to speed up and fix the show,they should cut out the painfully boring montages. Noone want to see three minutes of clocks from movies.
I love the idea of only having an original song category when enough songs are trully worthy. They should do that with all the categories and maybe then Hollywood would start putting effort into movies again instead of just campaigning their way to the Oscars.
Jeeeezus Nikki, you know I love you, but GET REAL. The Thalberg award is a joke and a drag on the evening’s ceremonies. It doesn’t even celebrate the art of filmmaking. And the Best Song category has long been a joke — Melissa Etheridge anyone? It has for too long been the ‘Give your favorite rock star an Oscar’ category. For every ‘Let the River Run’ there is a song that only plays over the closing credits (I’m looking at YOU Annie Lennox).
These are two great changes. Keep last year’s stage configuration, lengthen the acceptance speeches, and cut back on the montages, and you have a great ceremony.
The Thalberg Award is a significant one, but I can’t help chuckling at the irony that it is named after a man who never allowed his name to appear on screen.
The Academy Awards used to be about movies. Now it’s about television. Go figure.
The songs may not be profitable for the studios but they’re a big reason the casual moviegoer watches the broadcast.
Remember the outrage last year when there were only three nominees, none of which was Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler”? Did the Academy miss his critically praised Super Bowl halftime show? That (more than any of the other ridiculous changes) would have boosted ratings.
this is terrible news and a terrible idea.
I have no problem with not having a minimum number of nominees in Original Song (or any other category, for that matter), if there aren’t five worthy songs. However, Original Song shouldn’t go to the best song. That’s what the Grammys are for. It should go to the song that best represents the film. I completely agree with the comment about songs that only play over the credits. What the hell is that about? There have been some cheesy songs over the years, but they absolutely were correct in winning, as everyone immediately thinks of the movie when they are played – Time of My Life, from Dirty Dancing, My Heart Will Go On, from Titanic. But, if there are not songs that are representative of the film, and truly add to the impact of the film on the audience, why should they get an Oscar? I’m talking to you, Into the West. (I couldn’t hum bars of this song if my life depended on it, but even though I only saw Triplets of Belleville once that same year, I remember that song!)
the oscars and hollywood…on the march to irrelevancy
dvr’d a couple of preston sturges and billy wilder movies and just finished watching them
comparing the product hollywood made back then and the shit they’re churning out now
IT MAKES YOU WEEP
like driving through a once great neighborhood and see it gone to seed…that, my friends, is hollywood
It was disgusting how the Academy ran Federico Fellini off the stage like a tech winner the night he got his honorary award from Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, both of whom got more air time.
It will be interesting to see if they continue this TV air rush in this new format. The Academy needs to stop being afraid of its audience, and do the right thing and let these filmmakers speak.
Memo to the Academy: The reality is when the Oscars used to be an entertaining show, that is a TV event with musical numbers, decent acceptance speeches at about one minute, and carefully selected and only a few clips that were relevant to that evening’s telecast, the show was actually shorter than what it is now and the ratings were much higher.
Take the 1967 telecast (’66, 39th), the last year there were ten nominees for each craft (5 for color, 5 for black & white), 6 musical numbers, a Bob Hope monologue, 4 Honorary Awards, and acceptance speeches with no time limit, you had a telecast that ran just a bit over two hours.
So what’s happened since they cut and cut and cut and now the show is longer and duller than ever?
OUt of all the specialty awwards, the Thalberg is the only one I remember the name of or care about. I wish it would stay in. The montages are one reason I watch the Oscars, the song category jumped the shark years ago when Disney took the category over. Then the anti-Disney year came along when singing about being a pimp won the award. My head spun from the reversal and now I take a breat when the songs are introduced. Put down the microphone and walk away from the song category…. please.
I’ve got a crazy idea, why doesn’t AMPAS just ADD an oscar for best comedy or musical, like the globes? And ADD best actor, actress, supporting and screenplay in this category?
You get 5 more COMMERCIAL films included that MOST VIEWERS have seen and have an opinion on that aren’t depress fests. You also include “A” list comedians who are nominated to spice up the show.
I know, it’s more like the Globes, but WHO CARES? They can have their cake and eat it too without this bizarre 10 nominee nonsense that feels DESPERATE.
Comedy is often WAY HARDER than drama, so why not finally acknowledge it?
Just cut some lame montages to make up for more categories and bang them out quickly.
First, songwriters need to write better songs. But since the music biz is in the toilet, that’s not gonna happen. 2nd, If by some miracle someone DOES write a great or good song, let them perform it for Christ’s sake. Music is entertaining. When you do a live show, you’ve got to entertain your viewers. Period.
Too many nominated songs do indeed appear only over the end credits, but how would you exclude them? The trouble is that some very effective nominees and winning songs have been used only over the opening credits (i.e., Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia”); it would be hard to justify allowing one type of song placement and not the other.
Of course the Academy lost all credibility in the category (for me, anyway) years ago when Kander & Ebb’s “New York, New York” wasn’t even nominated for the 1977 Best Song award.
This is a sad and terrible idea. What a bunch of thoughtless morons.
I quit watching the Oscars after Billy Crystal left. Not that Billy was THE reason to watch the Oscars, but that he kept things interesting and was able to move the pace without being offensive to the audience or the celebrities.
Now when the telecast is happening, I check the results online and save myself a lot of time.
I think there should be 12 Best Picture awards. Starting at the beginning of the year, one “best” picture should be nominated per month through Oct. Then by the end of the year, two “wild card” movies–allows for Holiday or whatever movies to get into the Academy Award playoffs. Then come January should be “seeded” number 1 plays number 12, number 2 plays number 11, etc. etc. etc. Then the winners repeat this process, the 1 seed against number 6, etc. until there are three left for the Live Awards show where there are three Judges who dissect the films and the audience votes live, in real time with the “winner” betting announced to the world and gets to come up on stage and say how “fortunate” it is he survived the process.
Hmmmm…in fact, this should be done for all the various awards, best actor/actres, etc. etc. etc.
I mean, if you’re going to make the Awards a mockery you might as well go all the way, right?
Why don’t they just call this the MTV movie awards like they apparently want to and call it a done deal? How long before we get to see a guy air humping and saying “Suck My Dick” for minutes on end in a desperate grasp for viewers that aren’t interested anyway?
Hollywood has rarely shown any respect for its own history or legacies but this feels like an all new low. I get that they need to make the broadcast fresh and relevant but shitting on the movies and the artists and the history of the medium in some kind of pander to a generation that clearly doesn’t give a shit is self immolation at it’s finest. Instead of demonstrating why the biz’s history is important to itself, its artists and fans of cinema they are content to let future generations view cinema exclusively through the lens of the previous weekend – which I guess shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone anymore.
Every year the show is ripped by the same predictable chorus no matter what they do with it so why are they chasing the notion of satisfying these people? The show SHOULD be about the art and the business of filmmaking and its past, present and future – - why do they need to apologize for that? Screw the people that don’t care about what the Thalberg award has meant over the years or the people that whine about every category being given any air time except picture and actor(s). I can’t believe how they are devaluing this “brand” trying to be relevant to people that don’t care in the first place. I don’t think there has ever been an American business that simultaneously loves itself and apparently hates its legacy as much as Hollywood. The cynics can carp about how the Awards already don’t mean as much as they used to and that’s probably true but this feels like more helpings of what’s wrong – - not what’s needed.
It’s not like things can’t or shouldn’t change but celebrating the industry and achievements within it by snubbing them and creating more lowest common denominators seems like a horse running into a burning barn to me.
I don’t understand what it is that they have against best song and why the music academy would agree to be devalued in such a way. Do we impose a restriction that all actors must have an 8.25 rating to get nominated or not at all? It’s too high of a standard and I think there were several nominees this past year that were not nominated because they imposed such system last year and ended with three nominees — Bruce Springstreen for the Wrester, Beyonce for Cadillac Records and Can we have this dance from high school musical.
The real issue is that they need to have a longer period between nominations and awards so that more people and voters will have time to see the nominees. They have completely rushed the whole process — forcing academy members to nominate movies, many they have not seen at the end of the holiday season and then expect all of us to see the small movies that they choose in a little less than a month. They should return the show back to march, like they will next year. Because the oscars are no longer special anymore with awards shows week after week and if no one gets to see the movies they nominate, then they won’t care who wins.
WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL WITH A LONG SHOW?
Think about the thousands of man hours that go into most of these films. Is it the end of the world that an awards show is 4 hours instead of 3? I like the montages, the speeches, etc. etc. Just DVR it if it’s too painful. Sheesh. Like most of the people complaining have anything better to do. It’s sad that the pandering for ad dollars is causing them to alienate the people that they are supposedly celebrating.