The Oscars Moving to February???!!!

Well here we are in July, the midpoint of 2002, and we have Academy Awards news all over the place! So before I get into analyzing the first six months worth of films from the year, this week I'll be discussing the latest news coming out of the Academy, including a possible change in the whole Academy Awards schedule beginning with 2004 which has me very excited and has everyone talking right now.

First up, the Academy announced this week, as they typically do around mid-year, their approved rules for the next Academy Awards. One of the most interesting rule changes involves changes in the procedures involved in the Academy governors voting for honorary Oscars. The Academy has obviously taken stock of their past shows, particularly the 74th telecast, and they realize the length is perhaps getting out of hand. The Academy has lately been averaging around 3 Honorary Oscar winners per telecast, and these presentations do ultimately take up a great deal of time on the Oscar telecast. At the 74th Oscars, we had two Honorary Oscars going to Sidney Poitier and Robert Redford (both of which took quite a while), as well as a presentation of the Jean Hersholt award to Arthur Hiller. The new Academy rules now require a vote of two-thirds of the governors present to give an award, and three-fourths of the governors have to ultimately endorse a candidate for a second award.

Nominating and voting for all three special awards -- Honorary, Hersholt Award, and Irving Thalberg Award -- will be conducted as a single procedure. With this new method, the hope is that the Academy will limit the number of honorary award recipients in an individual year to one, or at the most two, honorary Oscar winners.

I think this may be a good thing ... I mean, three special award recipients in one Oscar telecast may indeed be a bit much, especially a fairly recent trend to give two Honorary Oscars away in one telecast. I think it would be better to have one Honorary recipient each year, with the Thalberg and Hersholt awards given out sporadically.

There were some other rule changes approved in the 75th Annual Academy Awards rules and guidelines ... the changes involve the following:

deletion of the requirement that devices and inventions must be employed in the motion picture industry during the awards year to be eligible for consideration for scientific and technical awards

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