Kris Kristensen, the President and Co-Founder of the 20/20 Awards says that he has always been baffled by people who respond to “What’s your favorite film?” with a film that came out last year. “I always thought it was unrealistic that in 100 years of film, the best one just came out last year. And what puzzled me about this is that it seemed like there wasn’t enough time to have the perspective to really support that idea. Now it could very well be that 10 years later, it turns out that that film actually is that person’s favorite film, but more likely than not… that film has been forgotten. We often get caught up in trends or politics of the day, or maybe a film does something that’s technically ground breaking, but doesn’t really mean that it has the staying power… maybe it’s just a flash in the pan.”

After a friend pointed out a blurb from Matt Damon about how the Oscars should be held 10 years after the fact to provide some genuine perspective, Kristensen mentioned this to his friend Korby Sears and the two of them came up with the brilliant idea to take a look back at previous Oscar winners and see if they truly were deserving. Ten years, they decided, was not enough, so they chose 20 and thus the 20/20 Awards were born.

They did an amazing amount of work in a short amount of time by gathering together their voting Syndicate, a group of 45 members (which they hope to expand) made up of working film professionals from all over the globe, including several members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – yes, that’s the Academy that Oscar winners thank. To qualify, a member must have credit in the main titles of a feature film that received some form of distribution (not including self distribution).

The members looked back at the films of 1989 that were nominated and won and reviewed them to see if they really deserved their prizes or, if maybe another film was more deserving.

The 20/20 Awards even have their own version of the Oscar – the Felix. (If it takes you a minute to get this joke, don’t worry – I didn’t get it until I typed that sentence just now.)

Is there a ceremony? Of course there’s a ceremony, with all the pomp and party you would expect, but with way less camera cuts to commercials…live at Central Cinema on Monday, March 15 at 7pm. Tickets for the extravaganza are a mere $7 and of course Central Cinema has an excellent menu if you require libations during the ceremony.

During the presentation, the old Oscars will be represented wearing bandanas and smoking cigarettes. They are under fire – if they lose, they are thrown into a plexiglass trash can on stage.

Some notes from the 20/20 organizers:

The inevitable cease-and-desist letter from the lawyers of AMPAS – which was surprisingly friendly, breezy, and showed a sense of humor about the 20/20s
-Some film industry people accepted the invitation into the 20/20 Voting Syndicate body, thought about their advancing careers, and then requested to leave, worried about this being on their “record”
- 7 Nominees for 20/20 Awards are deceased. Their agents / estates / nearest relatives have been notified, and are aware of the nominations
-Of the 6 new 20/20 nominations for Best Picture, none of them were nominated by the original Academy back in 1990.
-Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING, which received little love in 1990, is nominated for seven 20/20 Awards.
-Michael Moore’s ROGER AND ME, which wasn’t even nominated by the Academy in 1990, has been nominated for Best Documentary by the 20/20 Voting Syndicate. Given that fact that what happened to Flint in the mid-80s – outsourcing used to pump corporate profits while devastating the local workforce – has now happened on a nationwide basis, this is possibly the epitome of what the 20/20s are all about. ROGER AND ME is more relevant now than it was in 1989.

The 20/20 Awards should be great fun and I know I’ll be looking forward to the results.