When the curtain goes up on Sunday’s 84th Academy Awards at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, all eyes will be on host Billy Crystal as he takes his ninth spin as Oscar emcee.
And, as it does every year, a worldwide audience of movie fans will wait with anticipation to answer the burning question: "Is this year’s Oscar ceremony going to stink as much as last year’s?"
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Even if you’re not a fan of Crystal’s comfortable comedy (and I’m not, though not militantly so), you have to figure this year’s show — co-produced by Brian Grazer and Don Mischer — will be an improvement over last year’s debacle, which paired overeager Anne Hathaway (who really wasn’t that bad) with half-asleep James Franco (who really was that bad).
But fixing the Oscar ceremony by replacing the emcee is like steering the Titanic by putting someone else at the bow in Leonard DiCaprio’s "King of the World" spot.
Making the Oscars a better show — and a more relevant indicator of the best movies Hollywood and the rest of the world can produce — will take more radical changes.
The biggest change must come in the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy doesn’t reveal who is among its 5,765 voting members. But the Los Angeles Times last Sunday took a good stab at it, confirming the identities of more than 89 percent of them. Of those, the Times found that 94 percent are white, 77 percent are male and the median age is 62. And because membership is a lifetime honor, hundreds haven’t been in a movie theater in decades. The Academy has tried to diversify its voting roster in recent years, with people of color and younger members, but it still has a long way to go.
The fogeyhood of the Academy membership is the root source of many of the Oscar ceremony’s problems. Here are some suggestions for clearing them up:
Forget Band-Aid solutions » Last year, the Academy tried to appeal to young viewers by casting Hathaway and Franco as emcees — which bombed because the pair had no chemistry with each other or the Kodak Theatre audience. This year, producers started by hiring director Brett Ratner ("Tower Heist") to co-produce the ceremony, but then Ratner quit after making offensive comments on Howard Stern’s show. Enlivening the Oscars can’t be a process enforced from above, but must percolate from below.
Get over yourselves » The Academy takes itself so seriously that it sets itself up for picking movies that are uplifting and important — but also, frequently, dull as dirt. Look at its track record: "Gandhi" over "E.T.," "How Green Was My Valley" over "Citizen Kane," "The King’s Speech" over "The Social Network," just to name three glaring examples.
New thinking in documentaries » The world of documentary filmmaking has changed radically in the past few decades, with more advocacy journalism and powerful personal narratives. The Oscar voters — especially those in the documentary branch that decides nominees in those categories — is stuck behind the times. As a result, some worthy nominees, like Steve James’ gritty "The Interrupters" and James Marsh’s powerful "Project Nim," missed the cut.
Widen the foreign-language field » I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: The current system of picking foreign-language contenders, in which each country gets to enter one film, is unfair and frequently omits worthy films. (In past years, for example, when Zhang Yimou was on the outs with the Chinese government, his movies weren’t put forward as Academy entries.) I wouldn’t want to make it a free-for-all, as that would unfairly favor nations like France, which have large and healthy film industries, but the Academy could add a few "wild card" picks to the list of qualifying films.
Get over yourselves, part II » The Academy’s bloated self-importance, in terms of the ceremony itself, was most evident this season with the shabby treatment of the Muppets. Academy bosses ignored a popular online fan petition to have the Muppets emcee this year’s ceremony (after the Ratner fracas prompted Eddie Murphy to quit, and before Grazer & Co. tabbed Crystal). Then came word that the ceremony would omit performances of the Original Song nominees, one of which is the charmingly hilarious "Man or Muppet?" Finally, last week,the Academy threw the Muppets a bone by naming Kermit and Miss Piggy as presenters.
Expand the shorts presentation » Some people clamor to have the less-marquee categories handed out before the televised ceremony. I disagree — sometimes the most fun is the mystery of the offbeat categories, like the short films and the technical stuff. One way to make the Oscar telecast more inclusive would be to broadcast the short-film nominees a few days before the ceremony. There may be some copyright-clearance issues, but more exposure of short films would bring the next generation of filmmakers to a wider audience.
Go commercial » There’s an Academy rule that prohibits advertisements for upcoming films during the Oscar ceremony. This is a big mistake, because what filmmaker wouldn’t want to tout an upcoming project in front of a built-in audience of movie lovers? Right now, the Super Bowl is the go-to telecast for hyping summer movie blockbusters — but that role could go to the Oscars in a heartbeat, if only the Academy would allow it.
Shorten the window » Here’s one the Academy is actually working on: electronic voting, which would allow the Oscars to take place earlier. This would make the winners more relevant (as many of them would still be in theaters) and restore Oscar’s dominance over all the other award ceremonies (like the Golden Globes) that shoehorn their way in between New Year’s and the end of February. (A side benefit of a late-January Oscar ceremony: More celebrities would flee Park City midway through the Sundance Film Festival, to get back to L.A. for the Oscar parties.)
Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Contact him via email at movies@sltrib.com. Follow him on Twitter at @moviecricket or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/themoviecricket.
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