The State of Oscar. 020420. Rebuilding The Oscar Season (Pt 2)

Final voting closes today and I want to suggest another way to tear the whole thing up.

As discussed in the last column, I am putting aside all the reasons why change is agonizing in The Academy. My thought is to look at all the problems with current system and to devise a better way to embrace the status of The Academy while finding a realistic way to open things up.

Split up the season into segments officially.

Endless complaining about not being able to see movies. Insane amounts of money and time requests in a very short window from the end of October through the middle of January. Frustration about access to the process for films that are not armed with big dollars or a media wave that only ever really works for one, maybe two, movie(s). Too much DVD viewing and not enough on theater screens.

Break it up.

Group 1 - Up to 10 movies released between January 1 and April 30.
Group 2 - Up to 10 movies released May 1 through August 15.
Group 3 - Up to 10 movies released between August 16 - …