Word: oscars
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Like freelance economists poking the American fiscal corpse with the long sticks of their opinions, critics of the Oscar show have floated all manner of remedies. Nattering nabobs like yours truly have urged Academy members to consider nominating good films that are also popular films, on the theory that people will tune in to see prizes handed out to movies they've watched and have a rooting interest in. (See TIME's Oscar predictions...
...documentary shorts), thus allowing the evening to be a showcase of star actors, possibly with longer clips from their films. That's what the Grammy show has become: an all-star concert, with only 10 of the record industry's 110 awards presented on the prime-time show. Or Oscar could go the full American Idol route, with the nominated thespians in an "act-off" of big movie scenes, and the viewing audience, not the Academy's senior citizens, choosing the winner...
...that's what you get on Oscar night: five names, one winner, four losers; then it's move on, dot, yawn. What if we learned, as the tally was shown on a big board behind the person reading out the nominations for Best Actor, what the names of the top two contenders were - and that they were just one vote apart? That actually happened in 1932, and the Oscar was given to both Fredric March and Wallace Beery. But we know that only because the Academy later changed the rule: to declare a tie, the tallies had to be exactly...
...What else do we know about the Oscar tallies? Nothing. Did Greta Garbo or Cary Grant or Alfred Hitchcock, to pick three distinguished artists who never got competitive Oscars, ever come close to winning? If Kate Winslet takes Best Actress this year, did Meryl Streep lose by just a handful of votes, or was it a wipeout? The five previous times Winslet was a runner-up, or the past 10 times when Streep was nominated but not called to the stage, was either star even within shouting distance? Which races were runaways over Oscar's 80 years, and which were...
...Making the vote tabulation public would also invigorate the weeks before the Oscar show. So-called experts give odds on the nominees in top categories, but the knowledge that only the winner will be revealed renders that exercise useless; now it'd mean something. And all those office Oscar pools could promote, in addition to the winners, any number of beguiling side bets. Who can pick the top five in the most categories - in order? How many votes will separate Sean Penn from Mickey Rourke? Does The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, seemingly left in the dust by Slumdog Millionaire...