Dandy Cat

Oscars: American Cinema Editors Urges Academy to Not “Reduce” Telecast to “Variety Spectacle” ↗

Add the editors to the towering mountain of people and collectives objecting to the Academy’s boneheaded decision to prerecord the awards presentation for eight categories.¹

From the letter signed and presented by the ACE board of directors:

We believe that true fans of the Oscars don’t want to see an evening celebrating the highest honor in our industry reduced to a buzzy variety spectacle.

That’s certainly how I feel. The artists have always been the highlights of the show for me. I’m immeasurably less enthusiastic about the too-long musical numbers and “comedy” sketches. Let me see the stars in their fancy clothes!

What’s particularly galling to me about this course of action the Academy is taking is how careless it appears to be. The shine of the Oscars show has been wearing off for a long time, but their recent decisions have been tarnishing their reputation.

Case in point, during the upcoming show, there will be a live performance of the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the Disney film, Encanto. This song has been something of a phenomenon and live song performances are nothing new during the show. However, the only Encanto song that was nominated for Best Original Song is “Dos Oruguitas.”

Apparently, there’s not enough time to give recognition to the eight snubbed categories equal to all the others, but there’s more than enough time for a song that wasn’t even nominated.

This all paints the picture of an organization that understands it’s floundering, but has absolutely no idea how to save itself.