And not just a token re-vote, but a re-vote with consequences, in which golden statues are repossessed and redistributed, the previous owners relegated to mere placeholders in history. Right after risking hip and limb in his opening number, Billy Crystal would become the ceremony’s grim reaper, forced to present new results for the most prominent awards from 2002. What pleasures those few minutes might bring! Watching the anticipation trying to mold itself on the face of Moulin’s Nicole Kidman, a decade older but less wrinkled, now with a chance at redemption (and more, since her The Hours victory would soon be up for review). Ron Howard (yes, it really did happen), at his gracious best but still caught on camera somewhere between scorn and trepidation. It wouldn’t take away from Halle Berry’s accomplishment; indeed, she might double her historic import, as the first African-American woman to win best actress and the first to lose it all over again. Perhaps even my best actor choice for ’02, Tom Wilkinson, would have a chance over Denzel Washington—an even better chance had the academy been able to correct Denzel’s unjustifiable Malcolm X loss (to Al Pacino, ugh) from 1993. See how the domino effect works? ||||| Academy Awards ceremonies are laughable, even to those of us who love them. We at Slate want to fix the Oscars, but we need your help. Read the introduction and submit your brilliant, offbeat, or outrageous idea for how to make the voting process and the Oscar telecast better. You can tag your submission in one of the following categories: 
 
 Awards and Categories: Ideas about the nomination, voting, and awards process itself. 
 
 Hosts and Talent: Ideas about the people we see onstage (or who work behind the scenes) on Oscar night. 
 
 Montages, Videos, and Musical Numbers: Ideas for new dance, music, video, or other production numbers to liven up the ceremony. You can even submit your own YouTube video as an example! 
 
 Acceptance Speeches: Ideas for how to make every acceptance speech memorable—or do away with them entirely. 
 
 Everything Else: Ideas so mind-blowing they don’t fit in our pedestrian categories. 
 
 Important note: Please submit one single idea per entry. Entries with 3 or 4 or 5 ideas all jammed together will probably not make the cut! If you have three great ideas, submit three great entries! 
 
 Then comment and vote on the other ideas proposed by Slate readers. Voting ends on Feb. 22; we’ll present Slate’s plan for making the Oscars matter again the week before the ceremony (in time for Oscar producer Brian Grazer to crib as many ideas as he wants). ||||| There’s no reason to force viewers to sit around and watch stars doing their darndest to be courteous and unobjectionable; if they’re going to act, then why not give them an interesting plot to act in? But there’s also no reason to deprive all the hardworking movie folk of the opportunity to be recognized, or to fault them for making nice with each other. So keep the Oscars, but keep them private. At Elton’s after-party, or Vanity Fair’s, stars talk without the help of teleprompters, eat or don’t eat various things, and even do some dancing. I’d much rather enjoy Gary Oldman’s funky chicken than listen to him say glowing things about his agent. In this age of Snooki and Charlie Sheen, let’s grant Hollywood its hoopla of warm wishes and formality—and then move in with the cameras when everyone wants to decompress afterward.
– Slate wants to fix the Oscars—"Academy Awards ceremonies are laughable, even to those of us who love them," the site declares—so it's asking writers and editors to offer up their proposals in advance of the Feb. 26 ceremony. Lowen Liu's idea: Allow for a re-vote on the major categories 10 years later. That would mean that this year, Academy voters could finally make up for the travesty that occurred when A Beautiful Mind won over such "diverse and dazzling" films as English manners mystery Gosford Park and the theatrical Moulin Rouge! The golden statues would be "repossessed and redistributed," and we'd end up with "an officially sanctioned shadow awards, always 10 years the wiser, with perhaps less relevance but more respect," writes Liu. Rather than masking their disappointment, those who are robbed of their rightful awards each year can "flash signs that say, 'See you in a decade.'" After all, when it comes to the arts, there's no such thing as a final judgment. If the Academy doesn't take Liu up on the idea this year, "then soon," he writes. "It’s not too late for those who gasped in horror along with so many others when Crash stole the honors from Brokeback Mountain in 2006." Click for another proposal involving canceling the ceremony entirely.