Column: Exclusive Academy memo: a few other things we’re changing with the Oscars...
From: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
To: Membership
Re: Addendum
The academy has heard the feedback from its membership regarding the plan to present four Oscar awards — Cinematography, Film Editing, Live Action Short and Makeup and Hairstyling — during commercial breaks in the telecast. We take these concerns seriously. All Academy Awards will now be presented without edits, in our traditional format. We look forward to Oscar Sunday, Feb. 24.
And while we’re at it, we would like to formally apologize for “The Greatest Show on Earth” winning best picture over “High Noon,” “Going My Way” over “Double Indemnity,” “Shakespeare in Love” over “Saving Private Ryan,” “Crash” over “Brokeback Mountain” and for “Dances With Wolves” ever being made.
We would also like to retroactively nominate Barbra Streisand in the best director category for “Yentl,” which we were too mean to admit is a very good movie. We would also like to give Bill Murray the best actor Oscar for “Lost in Translation,” because, honestly, he deserved it.
Marisa Tomei gets to keep her Oscar, though, because that was not a mistake — she was terrific in “My Cousin Vinny.”
We cannot change but deeply regret the following: encouraging James Franco to convince Anne Hathaway that hosting together was a great idea, giving James Cameron a platform on which he could announce he was king of the world, telling Seth MacFarlane that “We Saw Your Boobs” was a go, and not insisting that David Letterman just stop with the Uma/Oprah thing already.
We are currently rewriting the show’s script to include separate categories for best picture, drama, and best picture, comedy, because we believe every movie craft should be honored equally.
In that same spirit, we are re-instituting the juvenile Oscar and the awards for best assistant director, best title writing and best dance direction.
Also there will be new categories, for best script supervisor, because without those folks, movies would never get made, and for best depiction of a British royal and/or Winston Churchill because, well, it just keeps coming up.
We are currently rebuilding the stage so there are no steps to imperil the lives of women, or men, in high heels and we have asked the Los Angeles Philharmonic to perform the entire score for each and every nominated film, twice for “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
And finally, no winners will ever again be played off — we heard you and we want to hear you, even if you are just rattling off a random list of names and saying “Oh God, I can’t believe this” 820 times.
If the television audience doesn’t like it, well, we’re meeting with their reps Tuesday.
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