How to Help the Oscars

Here is an interesting article from Virginia Postrel on how to improve the Oscar telecast.

The audience wants to revel in the fantasy of being recognized as special, but social convention dictates that winners act humble and thank everyone else involved. It's fine to thank your mother, your husband, your high-school drama teacher—to recognize the kinds of relationships everybody has—but thanking your agent, publicist and half the cast and crew breaks the spell. Outside Los Angeles, audiences don't sit through movie credits.

So the cure for boring Oscar speeches isn't to shorten them—Julia Roberts's overtime gushing makes great TV—but to alter their content. Tell winners to celebrate their moment and save the industry thank-yous for ads in Variety.

This makes sense to me. All of the inside showbiz stuff leaves the movie fan cold (or at least it does for me). When we think of great Oscar acceptance speeches it's all about actors and actresses that are overwhelmed with emotion, not long lists of everyone that has ever helped them. What else would I suggest?

• Move all of the technical awards to a different night. That means sound editing and sound effects. You could talk me into ditching the costuming and make up awards too.
• Make the short films available online. This would give people some idea of what they're rooting for and create some interest in them.
• Combine Art Direction, Visual Effects and Cinematography. Aren't they all pretty much the same thing? Last year all three were won by 'Avatar'. There have only been two years in the last ten when they went to three different movies.
• Stay away from flavor of the month host choices. Hosting is a difficult skill and one that is entirely separate from traditional acting or stand up.
  

There is always a call to make the program shorter. I'm not really bothered by the length if it keeps moving. Which it certainly can. Overall, it could use some tweaks though.