7 Academy Awards That We Should Revive

The Oscars are upon us once more, which means that it’s time to debate who will win and who will be left in the proverbial dust. With so many categories in the offing, and so many worthy (and not-so-worthy) artists and films competing, is there anything that the Oscars have overlooked? Well, yes, there is – but they needn't have! Here are several categories that the Academy Awards used to recognize – and a few more that they really should. Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production What it means: The first Academy Awards in 1928 marks the only time the Academy gave out this award. F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans took it home, though the next year the Academy retroactively decided that Wings (the winner for Outstanding Picture) was 1928's pinnacle of filmmaking. The idea behind Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production is more than just the usual Best Picture: it allowed for the Academy to give two different “top” awards, based on different criteria, effectively recognizing films that did something new and unique with the medium. Confusing? Probably, but if you look at the difference in the artistic and cinematic merits of Sunrise and Wings, you’ll see why they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Why have it: We now have a whopping ten spaces for Best Picture, out of which only one will bring home the statue. Why not provide a space where films that are not quite Oscar-bait material have a chance? Art pictures, indie films, experimental films…all can have their time to shine. It might mean that the Academy will begin to think a bit outside the Hollywood mainstream, encouraging the production of different kinds of films spurred by public recognition of their achievements. Best Director, Comedy Picture What it means: Exactly what it says: a Best Director award for makers of comedies. The Best Director, Comedy Picture was only awarded in 1928, given to Lewis Milestone for his film Two Arabian Knights. The category has since been folded into Best Director, with the 1928 awards marking the one time that directing in Drama and Comedy were divided at the Oscars. Why have it: We all know that comedies don’t get their due at the Oscars. Today, dramatic productions receive more credit than comedic ones, and directors of comedies are often ignored altogether. Even this year, Wes Anderson stands up against Clint Eastwood and Richard Linklater in the Best Director category. Very different films, very different directors, with very different projects, yet they compete against each other for the same award. Rather than making them compete, why not bring back the Comedy Director award and acknowledge that making people laugh is just as important as making them cry? Best Assistant Director What it is: An award given to the Best Assistant Director. Awarded from 1933-1937, for the first few years this award was given in recognition of no specific film, but rather recognized the yearly contributions of assistant directors employed by different studios. Why have it: Name for me, right now, at least one of the Assistant Directors on Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Can’t do it? Of course you can’t. But the Assistant/First Unit director is responsible for all kinds of things over the course of the filmmaking process, from coordinating the cast and crew, shooting secondary footage, and tracking the production schedule. As many productions now employ several Assistant Directors, we can even make the award plural and hand it out to multiple people the way they do Production Design. Best Original Musical What it means: This one is actually an outlier because the Best Original Musical award still technically exists – it just hasn’t been given out since 1984, when Prince’s Purple Rain made the cut (when the category still had the name Best Original Song Score). Now, of course this is a very specific category: to be eligible, a film must have at least five original songs from the same team of writers; what's more, the songs have to further the plot. Films based on Broadway musicals, or films (like those of Baz Luhrmann) that incorporate pop songs would not be eligible. Hence: there has not been sufficient eligibility to justify a rewarding of this category since 1984. Why have it: Really, I just want to see more original film musicals. That being said, there’s no reason why animated films like Frozen or The LEGO Movie, or live-action foreign features like 8 Women or Dancer in the Dark couldn’t be placed in this category. What's more, making a push for an inclusion of these films might inspire the powers-that-be to start producing some quality film musicals again. Win/win. Best Stunt Coordination What it means: Best Stunt Coordination goes in the category of Academy Awards that have been proposed and rejected. What makes this one special is that it has been routinely rejected by the Academy since the 1990s. This would award all those stunt coordinators who work hard to make Captain America and Tom Cruise look so badass. Why have it: Stuntmen and stunt coordinators have dangerous, complicated, and important jobs in today’s Hollywood, yet they don't have a category of their own. Even though their contributions mean that the year’s biggest hits are actually possible, from The Matrix to Captain America and beyond, stunt coordination just does not float the Academy’s boat. Introducing this category would also a good opportunity to begin acknowledging films that are not quite Oscar bait. Superhero movies, action films, adventure flicks, sci-fi movies…all would get a wee bit closer to getting their due. Stunt work is as complex and demanding as dancing or acting. Give the guys who make it possible some public accolades. Best Title Design What it means: Another one of those categories that has been routinely rejected. The First Academy Awards did acknowledge title cards and the artists that drew them, but since inter-titles no longer exist we don’t seem to reward the artists who craft those often amazing title sequences. Why have it: Granted that many films no longer have opening titles per se, there are still quite a few that do. So how about giving the artists who make them some love, and the films that have them some deserved accolades? Y’know all those crazy James Bond titles? Or the remarkable Psycho opening? What about the Star Wars crawl? Yeah, let’s reward that. Academy Juvenile Award What it means: An award originally given to Shirley Temple, the Academy Juvenile Award is a special category awarded to a child actor intermittently from 1934-1960 (the last recipient was Hayley Mills). The statue was a half-sized statuette of a regular Oscar and recipients didn’t compete for it – like the Lifetime Achievement Awards and the like, the award was simply given. Why have it: Over the past few years, we’ve seen some great performances from actors like Quvenzhane Wallis and Abigail Breslin, but all have had to go up against the likes of Meryl Streep. Not fair, says I! Bringing back the Academy Juvenile Award would allow the Oscars to recognize these young performers without making them compete against much more experienced actors and actresses, and the almost inevitable disappointment that results.