AMPAS Continues To Change Rules, Add Members
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 8:49PM 
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka AMPAS aka The Oscars aka "That Organization That The Media And Public Are Constantly Calling 'Irrelevant' Whilst They Disprove Their Point By Talking About Said Organization Incessantly") has changed their rulebooks yet again and opened their figurative doors to new players. Their reasoning and criteria remain, as ever, a mystery to those of us with strong opinions on the matter.
Here's what happened...
Visual Effects
The bakeoff system is a bit different now. Ten films will be selected as semi-finalists. The branch will then vote and five will become nominees.
TFE DECREES: Smart, humane move after those years with only 6 or 7 semi-finalists... which was embarrassingly like being "the last one picked" when you didn't end as a nominee.
Makeup (and Hairstyling!)
New Rule: It's a name change from Best Makeup to Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
TFE Decrees: Good Move But Entirely Cosmetic. The award was already meant to include hairstyling if it greatly contributed to the film -- you'll remember that Meryl Streep's longtime hairdresser won for The Iron Lady last year. The name change will only matter if the branch that's voting takes the name change to heart and starts conveying, through their nominations, that they care about things other than werewolf makeup and old age latex. The last few years have shown a bit of willingness to shake up this category for the better so good on them.
Best Foreign Film
New Rule: Films still have to be submitted in 35mm to AMPAS for consideration but they no longer have to screen that way in their home countries.
TFE Decrees: Good, though only 0.000001% of Oscar watchers will ever notice. But anything to loosen restrictions up for the committees in other countries who have to decide which film best represents them.
Best Original Song
New Rule: In special circumstances four songwriters can now become nominees. The number was three.
TFE Decrees: Excuse me .... [raucous laughter] ... how does this even matter since the system as is keeps refusing a full slate of nominees? It's as if the music branch is completely ashamed of their craft and considers nothing worthy. The only thing that would fix this category is a complete overhaul of the rules and maybe even the branch members. The voting system, in which you can actually torpedo viable popular contenders by giving them terrible scores, is the problem... not the number of songwriters credited.
176 NEW ACADEMY MEMBERS!
This is the best part of AMPAS changes each year, since it's fun to look at who is finally "in" and scratch your head at what took so long. Trying to parse meaning behind the newbie invites is a fool's errand since their criteria are suspicously vague. Non-distinguished actors, for example, are invited each year and yet sometimes they don't invite one of the actual Oscar nominees. Michelle Williams was a strange example as she was not an Academy member until some years after Brokeback Mountain.
New AMPAS Members: Yeoh, Kulcher, Martindale, Kar Wai, and Djurkovic
Ten invitees I was extremely happy about... (excluding last year's nominees which are too obvious to chat about): ACTORS - Fine character actors Margo Martindale ("Carol"!!!! from Paris Je T'Aime) and Clifton Collins Jr (Traffic), gorgeous actresses who should be much bigger stars like Kerry Washington and Michelle Yeoh, and Andy Serkis who will undoubtedly be in the history books given his pioneering role in a newish form of acting; VISUAL TALENTS - Production Designer Maria Djurkovic who did such surpassingly excellent Oscar snubbed work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Cinematographer Alwin Kuchler who recently wowed with Hanna, MAKEUP ARTIST -Toni G (who did the Oscar statue worthy Oscar snubbed work on Charlize Theron's Monster); DIRECTORS -Wong Kar Wai and Terrence Malick (!!! Perhaps he's refused them in the past?)
How are you receiving all this Oscar news? With indifference or excitement?
Reader Comments (14)
Excitement!
The new change in the best original song category is a joke.
Love to see Margo invited. Also, I'm truly surprised after reading somewhere McTeer was invited too. They ignored her in 2000?
The policy should be all previous nominees receive invitation automatically in the categories they were nominated in. I'm personally thrilled for S Epatha Merkerson — she could run a clinic on Viola Davis and I'm rooting for Davis' F You nomination and possible win for Won't Back Down.
And I demand a retroactive nomination for "Masterpiece"!
I demand a retroactive nomination for YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME from Burlesque, and retroactive Oscar statues for THE WRESTLER and MOULIN ROUGE in that category.
While the lack of a previous invitation is weird, the Vardalos one is weirder. How did she not get in as a writer or actor in 2002?!? She was Oscar nominated, Globe and SAG nominated, and started in one of the biggest hits of the year.
Kind of shocked at the late invite for Wong.
I'm still scratching my head about last year's Rooney Mara's inivitation. It would have totally made sense if they had invited her now instead of a year ago where her credits included Nightmare on Elm Street, a five minute performance in The Social Network and something called Tanner Hall.
Best Song Award = Embarrassment
AMPAS, please shoot this dying animal if you're not going to give her the transplant she needs and is probably readily available.
Amen.
I think the actors I'm most happy about, besides last year's nominees, are Bryan Cranston, Sean Bean, Sam Rockwell and Richard E. Grant. Lili Taylor, too, possibly, but it's been a while since I've seen her in anything.
What strikes me about the cinematographers is that 4 of them (out of 9) are German: Alwin Küchler, Anna J. Foerster, Oliver Bokelberg and Florian Ballhaus (son of Michael). True, they all work in American and British cinema now, but still, that's quite a large percentage.
a) Vardalos was invited to the Actor's branch this year. Perhaps she was invited to the writer's branch after he nomination.
b) Wierd that Grant Heslov (writer of Good Night and Good Luck) and Janet McTeer weren't invted after their first nominations. Neither was Oren Moverman.
c) The Dardennes, Kar-Wai, Malick, Lemmon, and Farahdi all invited to the director's branch. Very cool. I do find it amusing that the Dardennes credits (as linked) cite different films.
The Original Song category continues to baffle and infuriate. There should never be a situation where there are only two nominees, and this change does nothing to address that.
The director's branch has always been the most daring of all the branches, but I'm hoping the addition of even more serious auteurs of world cinema will eventually lead to even MORE out-of-left-field nominees in that category. Perhaps we will one day see the return of the "lone director" slot.
Very pleased with the Kasi Lemmons invitation.