How to Improve the Academy Awards
Released on 02/27/2014
(piano notes)
(train whistle)
Here are the nominees for
the most excruciatingly dull events in the galaxy:
inaugurations, your dentist's son's bar mitzvah,
the Commonwealth Games Lawn Bowling Championship,
and the Academy Awards.
And the winner is...
Oh my goodness, it's the Oscars!
Oh, I'm overcome, this comes as such a surprise...
to no one.
I really despise the Oscars.
Thanks Academy for dragging things out
for 14 hours with dumb awards nobody cares
about like Best Actor or whatever.
Where's the most relevant award?
You know, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award.
The Academy's awards for scientific
and technical achievement.
It's not even part of the telecast.
The Academy doles that out weeks beforehand
at a separate ceremony for scientific
and technical achievement.
In order to take some of the sting out
of this horrendous slight, the Academy always ropes
in some poor, contractually-obligated ingenue
to look pretty for the nerds.
It is offensive.
Pixar's Ed Catmull should get his prize in primetime.
This Academy of asshats is so out of touch
that they don't even have categories that recognize some
of the most important figures in filmdom.
There's no award honoring the designer of the best part
of a movie: the title sequence.
Saul Bass never won an Oscar for his brilliant titles.
Think about that.
Also, every year for the last 22 years,
the Academy has rejected requests
to add a category for stunt coordination.
(swords clanging)
(intense music)
Hong Kong legend Yuen Woo-ping would have
had an armload by now.
If I produced the Oscars,
I'd eliminate all the scripted banter
and the musical numbers and use the time saved
to drill down on new projection technologies.
Who needs Best Song when you have a panel
of experts debating the feasibility of glasses-free 3D?
Maybe I'll add a game show element.
We'll give terrific editors like Walter Murch
or Thelma Schoonmaker footage from some horrible film
like Pluto Nash and give them an hour to chop it up
into something decent.
[Voiceover] Ooh yeah.
Now that would be Must See TV.
Brave, a better animated feature than Wreck-It Ralph?
Uh, no.
What do you think is the biggest Oscar outrage?
Let me know in the comments,
and subscribe to the WIRED channel.
Starring: Chris Baker
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