Mark Lisanti, writing for Vanity Fair, figures out a few ways to de-bummerize the Oscars. This one is my favorite, recalling the very bad decision, like seriously bad decision, to keep the winners in their seats during the “tech” awards. Lisanti cooks up a better idea:
The Oscar Cannon
Acknowledging the impolitic truth that the television audience couldn’t care less about the not-so-sexy (but still vitally important to the moviemaking craft! etc etc) categories that leadenly occupy the show’s middle hours, Condon and Mark will instruct victorious editors/sound designers/short-form documentarians to remain at their seats following their wins, then deliver their statuettes to their places in the Kodak Theater balcony with a high-powered, pneumatic cannon wielded by specially trained spokesmodel-marksmen. Not only will this change save precious airtime, it will inject a sports-arena-like atmosphere into the proceedings, transforming normally reserved attendees into rabidly engaged fans eager to snatch a lofted Oscar from the outstretched hands of a costumer with poor reaction time. (Winners in these categories will still receive their customary standby tickets to the Governor’s Ball, where they’ll be free to nosh on any Wolfgang Puck–catered leftovers cooling on the largely picked-clean buffet tables.)