Some Ways To Improve The Academy Awards

The reviews of the 2011 Academy Awards have been out for a day or two and they are not favorable.

According to those who really care about these things, the 2011 Academy Awards were among the worst ever of the modern televised age. Words like dull, boring, tiresome, tedious, overwrought, inane, unfunny, contrived and trivial are being tossed around and those are just being used to describe the first five minutes.

James Franco and Anne Hathaway (wasn’t she the secretary on the Beverly Hillbillies…oops, wrong Hathaway) were apparently brought in to try and attract a younger demographic. Tragically, Franco and Hathaway seemed young enough to be the grandchildren of most of the people in the audience. Ratings were reportedly the lowest in many years.

Something must be done. The Academy Awards presentation is an institution and is typically the most important of all the myriad of awards presentations that are rolled out each new year. And the changes must be as revolutionary as the protests in the streets that brought a changing of the guard to Egypt.

So I’ve come up with a few ideas, with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, of how to revitalize and resuscitate the Oscars. Some of you may scoff at my ideas and think they are too radical. I say major changes are needed or the Academy Awards may be replaced in the television line-up next year with “Skating With The Stars” or some other insulting form of “entertainment.”

1. Most importantly the Oscars must be shortened to no longer than an hour and a half. My better half, the lovely Janet, believes two hours would be more appropriate. I believe that in this age of A.D.D, two hours seems to most television viewers a lifetime. So I will compromise on my suggestion, in the name of love and harmony and say, one hour and forty-five minutes. Tops. Not a single second longer. And I have the perfect popular personality to keep track of time next year.

The one and only Flav-O-Flav.

2. The program must be switched from the networks to cable and be shown on HBO or Showtime, so as to allow for a fair amount of vulgarity and nudity. Every year people act shocked when an Oscar recipient curses and the network attempts to bleep out the “dirty word.” What a joke! Everyone knows what the person has said and if you can’t make it out or read lips it your own damned fault. And wouldn’t it be much more interesting to see our most beloved stars parade out to center stage wearing nothing more than their birthday suit. Complete nudity would most certainly make for a more entertaining Red Carpet.

If an actor or actress feels too embarrassed to bare all, they can only enter the auditorium in an egg. If it was good enough for Lady Gaga at the Grammys, it’s good enough for anybody else.

3. The Red Carpet must move. Similar to those people movers we see at airports. People are spending far too long hanging out on the Red Carpet. This year I saw funny guy Russell Brand dragging his poor Mum all over the Red Carpet so that he could be interviewed by at least 5 different people. Let’s get things moving. How many photographs do we need of Harrison Ford and his date anyway?

Personally, I’d be much more interested to see him come dressed in full Indiana Jones costume regalia. And who knows, that whip could really come in handy.

4. The Televised Winning Categories Must Be Limited To the following: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film.

Can you honestly tell me that you were on the edge of your seat when they awarded the Oscar for Best Lighting In A Film? Not me. And I especially don’t care about the best animation for anything.

Let the children who enjoy those films have their own awards ceremony.

5. And finally for now…Bring Back Billy Crystal. He was the best host ever. Hands down. Hands up too. Pay him whatever he wants. Fly him in on the Concorde. Let him do his old bit with the throat lozenge. Whatever. Billy Crystal was the best thing about the Academy Awards for a long, long time. Bring him back.

And whatever you do, no more songs. Music has its own awards show. Stick to the good old flicks.

Good luck.