How about Best Nude Scene? And they can run the five clips all through the show so the audience will stay tuned.

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To be honest, I think they should shorten the telecast, by removing some of the technical awards, then move the show to HBO or TNT, and then just have lower expectations on the ratings.
I'd like them to keep the integrity intact, and a fan vote just makes it too "American Idol". Yes, the Academy Awards are "out of touch with the average moviegoer". The average moviegoer is going to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Transformers".
I don't care what Joe 6pack wants to see. I want GOOD films to be recognized for being such. The Oscars are awards by filmmakers for filmmakers, and I like it that way.

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Advertise the big movies more. Like have the big movies that are nominated (Pirates/Bourne/Ratatouille/Transformers) predominately in the commercials. The most watched years are when big blockbusters are up for (and are sweeping) all the awards (Return of the King/Titanic). Also shorten it and "rush" through the techs. It should definately be done in order of the techs then shorts (or the other way around) then the screenplays then the actors then the animated feature and doc feature then director then picture.

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having a fan vote steals the integrity of the show. your average movie-goer would pick 'transformers' or 'pirates.' these might be mildly-entertaining films, but they're not quality films. the oscars need to protect the fans from themselves. without the academy, all we would ever get would be popcorn films. this way, studios are willing to spend money on oscar-caliber movies that won't necessarily make more money.

also, studios need to put more into these good films. they need to have country-wide release dates and promotional posters and tv adds like they do for the other films. no one saw 'there will be blood' because it never came to their local theater. by releasing it slowly - 10 cities this week, maybe 50 the next - they kill any possibility of word-of-mouth. studios say oscar movies cannot make money, but then they don't put the effort into promoting them. WELL NO WONDER!

if they want to make the oscars more watchable, they need to go back to the billy crystal style of ceremony. they need to have more fun with it - do comedic musical numbers related to the movies, get the celebrities involved more. cut out the performances from the best song nominees. they typically suck (with the exception of 'falling slowly'). and cut out the flash-backs to the 20s, 30s, and 40s. No one's seen these movies; only old hollywood cares.

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One of the biggest flaws of the Oscars is predictability. Sure, there were a few upsets last night. Some might even say major ones. But that's not even what I'm talking about. There's always going to be a front-runner, no matter what. What I'm referring to are the nominees.

The problem is that the Academy is very close-minded on what constitutes an award-worthy picture or performance. If it's not a period piece or a heavy drama or a quirky pseudo comedy, it doesn't have a shot in hell of landing anything more than a technical nomination.

I'm not suggesting they lower their standards, but recognizing well-made action or comedy flicks, for example, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. The Bourne Ultimatum swept every category in which it was nominated last night, even Film Editing (which has often correlated to the best picture winner in the past).

The Academy needs to begin acknowledging the merits of lighter fare, if they hope to attract a bigger and broader audience for their telecast. They need to acknowledge the films that moviegoers will want to watch over and over again, not simply well-made, depressing dramas that nobody will ever want to sit through again.

While adding new categories to recognize, say, comedy may seem like a good idea on the surface, to me it would still feel like a slight. And when the Academy inevitably goes out of their way to recognize only "important" comedies, or indie comedies that would barely, if at all, pass as such to moviegoers at large, you'd be right back where you started. That's why, if we're talking new categories, I nominate Best Stunt Coordination. A behind-the-scenes piece chronicling the preparation and execution of the nominated stunts would be a nice way to liven up the show a bit.

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Sounds like this post is calling for both dumbing down and selling the integrity of the award in return for more viewer interest.

Both will likely happen.

Again, I'll point out that Rain Man was the biggest grosser of its year, and it won best picture. This year we had Shrek 3, Spiderman 3 and Transformers well above the Oscar nominees. All three were among the worst movies possible.

So audiences have changed what they're interested in. It's no longer "quality" movies but "entertaining" movies. The awards still celebrate quality.

I'd hope that, rather than dumb them down, they'd just shorten the awards to get to the ones we care about. I'd imagine that'd happen in part, but we'll start getting MTVesque crap like Best Kiss and Best Villain.

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I think what they have now is what they should be doing, for the most part. Mainly they need to add a categories depending on the type of film, Johnny Depp was never going to beat out DDL but he would have had a damn good chance in a strictly comedy/musical category. The Globes does that part right, but my only problem is that there should still be an award for the overall best (esp for picture), but then that gets overkill and 99/100 times the drama picture would win I would assume.

Also they need to fix the rules for music/score... there is no way all those enchanted songs should have been nominated yet Eddie Vedder was snubbed for Into The Wild and Greenwood for There Will Be Blood. Whenever I think about the music categories, I still can't believe that that damn Three 6 Mafia song won 3 years ago, it was just utter poop.

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I do think it was very boring. No entertainment excitement. I do think the host on top of his game and made it more interesting. It seems to be more about men in the movies this year. Maybe because all the ladies are with baby. It would have be more enjoyable if they tried to diversify more. Danzel Washington looks like he hated being there. IT WAS A BUST

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If a new category is what you want, then the most obvious would be BEST STUNT COORDINATION. It's an important part of movie-making and it isn't recognized by the Academy for some reason.

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Here it basically is: the shows that Gilbert Cates produces are consistently stodgy and boringly safe. His head writer turns 90 this year and wrote for Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. His musical director thinks that playing the theme from "Mission: Impossible" under the closing credits is "hip" (hey, Bill -- it's not in 4/4 time, either). His montage editor slaps random clips together without flow or reason. He'd still have Debbie Allen choreographing musical numbers if she wasn't directing on Broadway.

And it just doesn't have to be this way. Remember the show Quincy Jones produced a few years ago? The one where he had Savion Glover performing a riveting tribute to Gene Kelly and the cast of "Stomp" onstage providing the rhythmic sound effects to a montage? The show can be better; the show HAS been better.

Now -- how do you get the viewers to tune in, in the first place, is always going to be a problem if you don't have, say, a couple of massive hit movies competing against each other and it could go either way. But I also think that it doesn't lower the standards of the process if they seriously consider nominating brilliant examples of popular motion picture entertainment along with the high-minded "Oscar Bait" we see every Christmas. Why COULDN'T "The Bourne Ultimatum" be considered the best movie -- and best-directed movie -- of the year?

That, and Outstanding Achievement in Nudity. Worth a shot.

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You could have some way for people at home to vote, and see on screen if their votes matched the actual winners. Then they can play along more, without having an actual say.

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Can they really be surprised that average Americans are not interested in watching the Oscars when so many of the nominated films don't come anywhere near them for more than 72 hours? I can't even have an office pool in my office because I'm the only one who reads about the films I can't see before they're released on DVD.

What's the one thing that was missing from last night's 3-hour-plus show? Extended clips from the Best Picture nominees!

And perhaps, instead of having overly-wrought production numbers -- which take a song like any of the three from Enchanted COMPLETELY out of context -- they should just show, , a clip or full scene of song from the film itself.

Although I would have hated to have missed the chance to see the song from Once, or Aimee Mann the year of Magnolia, or Elliott Smith the year of Good Will Hunting.

Too. Many. Montages! And yet they STILL managed to snub Whoopi Goldberg!

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I agree that Whoopi should have been referenced as host, but I should point out that the clip of David Letterman was from the year AFTER he hosted, mocking himself in an "English Patient" re-creation with Billy Crystal. So he wasn't shown as a host either. (I can't recall -- was Steve Martin?)

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All over the 'Net I've seen people saying that they should add awards or other such things to make the show more viewer-friendly.

But the Academy already has severely diminished integrity, and I don't want it to lose even more because the people at home force them to honor crap like Transformers or I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

And the dudes who do sound mixing, sound editing, etc. deserve to be honored just as much as Daniel Day-Lewis does.

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1. Best Stunt Choreography
2. Combine the Sound awards
3. Best Ensemble

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the reason the ratings are so low is because the oscars are on a sunday night and they run too late! since most of the people who watch the oscars are young--its hard to be able to watch them on a night where you have work or school early the next morning...

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Best Title Design (main and/or end title sequences)

Retroactively, here are my nominees for 2007:

Enchanted
Smokin' Aces
Spider-Man 3
Superbad
Vacancy (of course, this sequence would win in a walk)

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