How Box-Office Doom Is Impacting the Oscar Race: “The Audience Is Not There”

They don't give awards to popular movies, nor should they, since popular movies don't need any help. They usually try to single out something of "merit" (as defined by the artists, with a different POV from both audience and critics). Sometimes that helps bring a little attention to something that audiences wouldn't ordinarily notice, which is kinda cool.

Most of the awards are for stuff that the audience doesn't notice or care about. And that's just the same as your office giving out a bunch of awards every year that nobody cares about except the other people in your office. It's like watching somebody else's office party, except that the office is way richer and prettier than yours.

The Oscars should continue to lumber along. And they should probably continue to be broadcast somewhere, even though audience numbers will fall as there are so many other ways to gawp at celebrities now.

The top Oscar nominees are practically all pretty good films, despite the occasional clunker. That doesn't automatically make them appealing to every audience, but they are nearly all well-acted, well-written, and well-directed.

The problem, as with so much else in the 21st century, isn't that the good stuff doesn't exist, but that it's hard to find the thing that appeals to you in particular. The popular stuff appeals very widely, but shallowly. Finding something that you in particular connect with is a major challenge. If the Oscar list doesn't do it, try finding a critic who likes the movies you like, and look at their top 10 list.