It is the Adam and Eve of award shows. In years past, the Academy Awards, or Oscars, kept people glued to their seats waiting to find out which was best picture, best actor, best actress and so on.
Lately, however, the buzz seems to have dwindled.
Last year's program was the least watched in 10 years, according to Reuters (though it still got more than 37 million viewers). And that was after the academy started nominating up to 10 — not five — movies for Best Picture, seen by some as an effort to include more popular films, likely to attract a rooting interest and a larger audience.
This year's show comes after a 4 percent slump in movie ticket sales in 2011, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Actor Erik Rodenhiser of The Griffen Theatre in Salem might be a prime example of the trouble with Oscar.
Few have as much reason to watch the broadcast as a onetime member of the Screen Actors Guild, but Rodenhiser is committing only to watching the opening, to see host Billy Crystal.
"It goes on and on," he complains of the Oscars show. "It should be two hours or less. ... I don't think it's as glamorous as it used to be. It's like watching the 15th season of 'Survivor.'"
The winners, he laments, are too often the beneficiaries of political voting or friends voting, or trend voting. For example, he points to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s best supporting actor award for the 1996 film "Jerry Maguire," which he ascribes as much to the best supporting catchphrase, "Show me the money!"
Even a title can make a difference. "Midnight in Paris," the Woody Allen fantasy nominated for Best Picture, came with "an Oscar-nominated name," Rodenhiser said.
Paul Van Ness screens top-quality films at CinemaSalem, but he has seen a little more than half of the nominated best pictures. He's not hearing a lot of conversation about the Oscars, either.
"In the past, interest in the awards was prolonged," he said. The nominations provoked plenty of gossip among movie fans in the weeks following the announcement. Still, he expects that "in the three days before the show, everybody will be talking about it. There is still big interest."
Big names like best actress nominees Glenn Close and Meryl Streep ought to inspire plenty of chatter. Close, in contention as a cross-dressing woman in "Albert Nobbs," has been nominated six times over the years and never won. Streep, who has won twice and been nominated a record 17 times, astonished audiences with her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Also competing are Viola Davis in "The Help," Rooney Mara in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and Michelle Williams in "My Week With Marilyn."
Van Ness concedes the competition between Close and Streep would attract more attention if they were feuding like legendary actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.
Defying the bad news elsewhere, Van Ness' theater saw an 8 percent increase in attendance in 2011. Best Picture nominees like "The Descendants" and "The Help" proved to be "really popular with our crowd."
Three of the Best Picture nominees impressed Van Ness, including the fanciful "Hugo," directed by Martin Scorcese; the 9/11 drama "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"; and director Terence Malick's "Tree of Life," a visually stunning but slow-paced story that frustrated some viewers but had others comparing it to poetry.
"You just have to turn off your mind and let it wash over you," Van Ness said.
For some, the magic is as strong as ever. Tom McNulty, who ran Marblehead's Warwick Theatre for many years, sees retirement as an opportunity to watch more movies.
He has seen all but one of the nominated films, and he's rooting hard for the most unusual nominee of all — "The Artist," a silent movie set in Hollywood's golden era and made in black and white with subtitles. But he stresses that there isn't a genre of film he won't watch.
"I grew up going to films," McNulty said, while pointing out that any slump in moviegoing is likely to be followed by a comeback. Moreover, the aftermarket — DVDs, streaming video and broadcast television — is huge and growing, indicating that while the Academy Awards show may lose some of its luster, films are as popular as ever.
McNulty is supporting George Clooney for best actor in the domestic drama "The Descendants." He'll be competing with Demié°n Bichir from "A Better Life, Jean Dujardin in "The Artist," Gary Oldman of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and Brad Pitt, whose baseball comedy, "Moneyball," is also a Best Picture nominee.
It's pretty clear where Tom McNulty will be on Sunday night. As he says, "I haven't missed the Academy Awards since I was in the service in 1970."
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
"War Horse"
"The Artist"
"Midnight in Paris"
"Moneyball"
"The Descendants"
"The Tree of Life"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
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