Cure for the glitter glut? Dwindling ratings cast pall over awardcasts (Michael Moore)

Variety.com ^ | Sun., Jan. 23, 2005 | MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

[fight_truth_decay]

Hollywood is ready for a kudocast overhaul.

"I don't think it's enough to just hand out awards. In order to survive, award shows need to be the variety specials of the new millennium," says Bob Bain, a producer of the Billboard and Teen Choice awards shows.

The Jan. 16 Golden Globes slumped to their worst performance since moving to NBC in 1996. The People's Choice Awards posted its lowest ratings on record.

All this bad news comes at the height of awards season, with Oscar noms to be unveiled Jan. 25 and the ceremony slated for Feb. 27.

And the fear extends beyond this season: The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, still stunned over the lowest Emmy ratings in 14 years, has decided to give a makeover to its kudocast next September.

Everyone has a stake in keeping the genre healthy.

Awards shows make big bucks for the non-profit org handing out prizes, as well as the network. Studio execs like the opportunity to give plugs to current and upcoming films and TV shows. And stars, constantly battered by gossip about their private lives, like to remind the public that they are artists whose work should be taken seriously.

[GVnana]

if it showed all of these wackos jumping off a cliff ratings would improve...

I haven't watched the Academy Awards for oh, a good six years, but I'd tune-in for that.

[DustyMoment]

"I don't think it's enough to just hand out awards. In order to survive, award shows need to be the variety specials of the new millennium," says Bob Bain, a producer of the Billboard and Teen Choice awards shows.

Actually, Bob, you can give this herd of pigs all the makeovers you want and it won't change the fact that they're still a herd of pigs.

Hollyweird came down hard on the wrong side of the '04 election and they are paying the price. Plus, America is tired of seeing these overpaid, undertalented sloths give themselves awards for being able to do and say what someone else told them to.

If they want awards, let them get real jobs and see what real awards are about.

[SuziQ]

Joan Rivers and her daughter are doing ads for the musical Grammies! Now there's a dead horse of another brand of major nip and tuck!

I watched the Oscars the last three years because of the Lord of the Rings movies. I have zero interest in any of the movies this year, so I won't bother.

The FR Guild's live, pre-show, red carpet threads are much more entertaining than the shows themselves. The outfits that some of those women leave home in astound me. They must not even own mirrors or else why would they come out in public looking like they do. It must be the case of their staffs telling them how gorgeous they look, and they believe it.

It is the glut of awards shows that have diminished people's interest in the big three. It seems there's an award show on every other week! Folks lose track after awhile cause there are just too many!

[sevry]

Problem is, when it comes Oscar time, too many right here on FR will be drooling over it, posting 'live' threads, and otherwise trying to gin up credibility for a set of leftist political awards for generally bad films.

Why is interest down? Why is box office down? Apart from constantly attacking America and what Americans stand for, bad movies. No star power. Instead of Jimmy Stewart - Ethan Hawke. Instead of the evil pro-American John Wayne, the diminutive 'Frenchman', Johnny Depp. Audrey Hepburn to ? Julie Andrews? Sophia Loren? In other words, stars, for what it was ever worth. And the quality isn't what it was. And it would have to be better than it was to compete particularly with cable sports, which is really the strength of cable, save for niches like sci-fi or political coverage (FOX, C-SPAN).

[dangus]

No thought that maybe large portions of their audience weere turned off by the preference for F911 over Passion?

[Jack Deth]

I haven't watched an Awards Show since "Hill Street Blues" rightfully swept the Emmys, Eric.

You would think that Hollywood would wise up and begin to understand that no one between the coasts are interested.

Jack.

[CyberAnt]

Well .. a "makeover" is truly needed. But the makeover the Hollyweirds plan is not the makeover that is required.

I remember the great movies Hollywood made during WWII. They not only supported the war, they supported our right to conduct the war. This attitude is not present in Hollyweird anymore - thus no great movies generating pride in America and in our military.

Those movie makers are mostly dead now .. and the new ones are from the drug culture. It shouldn't surprise anyone how depraved the current crop of movies are.

[vetvetdoug]

Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles was indeed a great performance. Billy Bob Thorton as the coach in Friday Night Lights put in one of the best performances he ever has done and should get something other than a boot (I hate his politics but the stint as the coach was a good act).

Hollywood and the entertainment industry is one of the most self flatulating industries ever. Does any other industry have such awards for such little effort?

[Blue Jays]

Hi All-

"...Maybe because there's an award show every third day? And by golly, we'll keep having award shows until EVERYBODY wins one for SOMETHING! "And now, the winner in the Best Hair Style Worn by a Supporting Actress Whose Name Begins with an 'L' Category..."

You're right about no normal people caring about which actor/actress wins whatever award. These frequent awards shows (Emmy, Tony, MTV, BET, Peoples' Choice, Hollywood Awards, Cannes Film Festival, ad nauseum) are scheduled weekly and are absolutely painful. Whenever one comes on in place of normal programming, I switch off the television and logon to the computer.

~ Blue Jays ~

[Hildy]

The best performance doesn't necessarily win. Last night I saw THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG and how Ben Kingsley didn't win for that I don't know. I saw all the nominated performances now and his was incredible. Penn did a good job, but Ben Kinglsey was nothing short of genius. This was an incredibly depressing movie (as was Mystic River), but the movie was just brilliant, the characters so well-developed, I've truly not seen such a good movie in a very long time.

[fight_truth_decay]

Of the many kinds of films that Hollywood produced during World War II to rally the public behind the war effort, perhaps the most distinctive was the combat film. Films like Air Force, Destination Tokyo, Flying Tigers, Guadalcanal Diary, Objective, Burma!, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and Wake Island gave viewers on the home front a vicarious sense of participating in the war. Employing an almost documentary style, these films helped bring the war home. But these war films did much more: they helped educate viewers in the reasons why we fought by depicting "democracy in action."

Excerpt: Hollywood's World War II Combat Movies

[CyberAnt]

Thanks for that link. I remember going to the theatre to see a few of these movies. Even as a young person they were instrumental in making me proud to be an American.

[democrats_nightmare]

if it showed all of these wackos jumping off a cliff ratings would improve...

I haven't watched the Academy Awards for oh, a good six years, but I'd tune-in for that.

And the grand finally Michael Moore for the last jump now that would be a big SPLAT!!

[Drew68]

then the award system is exposed for the fraud it is.

The Academy lost all credibility in 1991 when it gave Kevin Costner's PC-drenched Dances With Wolves top honors over Martin Scorsese's magisterial Goodfellas.

This was the greatest crime in Oscar history.

[kcvl]

Why do they think we are interested in watching them pat each other on the back for making lousy movies?! After all, they could give all that money they spend on clothes, furs, food & drinks, etc. to charity. Isn't that what the "elite" media said about the Inauguration?!

[kcvl]

I hadn't heard of at least 3/4 of the people that won awards.

Then you beat me because I couldn't tell you the last movie I saw in a theater.

[SAMS]

all the awards shows lost me when they started saying, "and the (fill in the blank) goes to...." instead of the traditional "and the winner is..." More of that, aren't we all winners PC crap.

[JCEccles]

"The Aviator" has grossed about $60 million domestically since opening a month ago.

Napoleon Dynamite has almost done this well.

[Optimus Prime]

Moore dedicated his win to the U.S. troops fighting overseas

No kidding. Dedicating the win to the US troops, after he said that the terrorists in Iraq are the new revolutionaries, and that they would win? Yeah, I'm sure they appreciate his dedicating his win to them, after he pretty much said they were guaranteed to lose.

[wolficatZ]

The made for TV movie docudrama "Heroes of Desert Storm" (1991) is a gem; if you can find it. Most reviews pan it as incredibly bad.

It isn't.