“As you drill backward into Oscar history you keep finding things — Hollywood classics, in some cases — that could only be made now as independent films. I’m pretty confident that nobody in Hollywood would see much sex or sizzle potential in Hope and Glory(a 1987 Best Picture nominee) or Gandhi (1982) or Deliverance(1972). And they’d be right — none of those movies made much money.

“For that matter, try to imagine pitching such vintage Oscar fodder as Annie Hall or The Graduate or To Kill a Mockingbird to a contemporary Hollywood executive. Well, okay, maybe The Graduate — if you made it wackier and made Mrs. Robinson, like, 29 and insanely hot.” — from Andrew O’Hehir‘s 2.18 Salon piece about how the Academy “has turned its back on the multiplex moneymakers and wrapped smaller indie films in its warm, glittery embrace,” etc.