Katie Rich

But if they're watching it on the, you know, the portal that, you know, the Academy members have access to this app where they can see everything, it's incredible.

I'm so jealous of it.

So they can sort of see if it's there, but what if they saw it at a festival?

What if they wouldn't watch it at their friend's house?

What if they bought a ticket and saw it at AMC?

It just kind of falls apart after a while.

So I unfortunately don't think we'll ever know actually how many people watch the movies.

I mean, in some ways, yeah.

I mean, the Weinstein's had been a force at the Oscars already.

You know, Pulp Fiction comes in and makes it into Best Picture.

Il Postino gets in the mix, really throwing it back.

But Shakespeare in Love kind of took people by surprise.

I don't think anyone was prepared for how Harvey Weinstein was going to come in and just pound the pavement, being kind of shameless about it.

You know, there had been this old school idea that it's like not that dignified to campaign for an Oscar, which I mean, it's not like that.

There's a point to that.

But being able to access voters, buttonhole them, talk to them, there was kind of a whisper campaign.

People accused Harvey Weinstein of going around town being like, well, saving Private Ryan Peeks after the first 20 minutes, which is just basic gossip, but it had that effect on it.

And the people who worked on the Saving Private Ryan campaign, you see interviews they've done since then and they're all just kind of like astonished and like it was just rude that he managed to pull that off.

And then he did and it totally worked and they got Gwyneth Paltrow that Oscar and just one of the bigger surprising Best Picture wins that I can remember as an Oscar viewer.

Ha!