Academy Awards may be hooked on 'Oscar bait'

NEW YORK (AP) — In the Coen brothers' recent 1950s Hollywood satire, "Hail, Caesar!" Ralph Fiennes' ascot-wearing British director Laurence Laurentz is helming a stuffy drawing room drama full of tuxedoed men and ballroom-gowned women.

Lately, the narrow parameters of movies celebrated by the Academy Awards in the best picture category haven't been quite so funny.

Self-serious prestige films have long found a ready seat at the Oscars, while films starring or directed by minorities have struggled to.

There are many factors behind what's led to two straight years of all-white acting nominees, but one is the stifling limitation of what gets considered an "Oscar movie."

What frequently guides a movie toward a best picture nomination or a star toward an acting nod is a confluence of factors that frequently have only so much to do with quality.

Influential is how a movie is released (a prominent festival rollout can pay big dividends), how much support a movie has from its distributor (the parties and advertisements that go into Oscar campaigns are expensive) and how willing the talent is to promote themselves.

Films from outside English-speaking countries and documentaries have virtually no chance of gaining the same consideration for best picture as a historical epic or a lavish costume drama.

Any award show is built on the consensus, and thus can drain away daring candidates, like Spike Lee's bristling "Chi-Raq," the iPhone-shot "Tangerine" or the fresh coming-of-age tale "Diary of a Teenage Girl."