NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

T
he Academy of Motion Picture Sciences is well aware of the problems it faces in getting people to watch the Oscars telecast Sunday night. Last year’s slit-your-throat Oscars honored movies about dying of Alzheimer’s (The Father), a Black Panther slaying (Judas and the Black Messiah), toxic masculinity (Promising Young Woman), and a life of rootless poverty (Nomadland). The relative crowd-pleaser was a no-star movie about Korean immigrants trying and mostly failing to grow vegetables. Click, said America. Ninety-seven percent of us didn’t watch, and for the third time in four years, the ratings hit a new record low: the previously …