By Albert Einstein's definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is easily applied to the experience of watching the Academy Awards.
On a night billed as the most electric of the year where supposedly there's everything to play for, it's remarkable how stale everything feels, from the speeches to the winners themselves.
According to Nielsen data released today, only a paltry 26.5m US viewers tuned in to watch the four hour ceremony, a 16% decrease from the 32.9m in 2017. The severe drop is a warning sign that the once compelling ceremony has become a circle-jerk of insincere activism and the elite circles of Hollywood time and time again choosing winners that don't reflect what moviegoers enjoy.
Hey, haven't the Oscars always been like that? Yes, but with a generation now relying on Netflix for their film diet and cinema attendance in rapid decline, the Academy will need to do some work to remain relevant to ordinary viewers.
Here's a few suggestions on how they might save themselves from said irrelevance.
Continue to diversify the Academy members
The #OscarsSoWhite movement of 2016 resulted in the Academy amending the demographic of their membership to a marginally improved 27% female and 11% people of colour. Still not exactly up to speed with reality there.
Mahershala Ali, Viola Davis and Moonlight's richly deserved wins last year felt like concrete signs of progress but it's hard not to feel this has stalled looking at the winners this year.
Three films this year which received widespread excellent reviews and celebrated diverse voices came in the form of Jordan Peele's gripping horror Get Out, Greta Gerwig's touching bildungsroman Ladybird and the tender love story Call Me By Your Name. While collectively they received many nominations the only wins came for Get Out for original screenplay and CMBYN for adapted screenplay. The former in particular felt like an appeasement in place of a Best Picture trophy.
Peele's racial satire is an uncomfortable and masterful story that has taken $255m at the Box Office, speaks to our hidden prejudices at a time where it's crucial to address them and will be remembered for decades to come. It was a worthy Best Picture winner and would have shown a openness to reinventing what that category means.
Pressing too is the need explore other marginalised voices beyond race, gender and sexuality. A prime example being Sean Baker's poignant exploration of America's hidden homeless and white poverty in The Florida Project, which was overlooked for any nominations save Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Actor.
Give winners their time back
Any attempts to cut the mind-numbingly long ceremony down should be welcomed with open arms. That said, the introduction this year of Jimmy Kimmel's stopwatch and the jet-ski prize for shortest winner's speech reduced what should be an extraordinary moment for someone into an episode of Supermarket Sweep.
The chillingly awkward classical music played to politely tell winners to hurry up and f**k off feels particularly unfair given the time dedicated to 56 inane film montages with no discernible message other than 'Gee, isn't cinema magic'. The most awkward moment came after The Shape Of Water's big win for Best Picture when the film's producer J. Miles Dale was cut off only two words after taking the microphone.
Reward younger talent
"There's a lot of young ones coming up, and they need doorstops too," said Frances McDormand in her Screen Actors Guild acceptance speech in January. She might have been joking but the need for the Academy to reward younger talent was obvious on Sunday with the four winning actors average age sitting at 54 .
Timothée Chalamet's agonising yet positive exploration of sexuality in Call Me By Your Name was arguably the most powerful performance to be nominated for Best Actor and yet the parroted line about him being the youngest nominee for 80 years seemed to disqualify him from serious contention. By contrast Gary Oldman's win felt like a reward for a body of work as opposed to a particularly electric performance.
This goes for people behind the screen too as director Guillermo del Toro noted in dedicating his Best Picture win to young filmmakers saying that, "the youth [are] showing us how things are done". Rewarding Jordan Peele or Greta Gerwig's masterful, and crucially, popular creations might buy the Academy some time against becoming increasingly irrelevant to the younger generations who feel these films are ignored for not being the "proper type" of Oscar winner.
Stop the transparent attempts at a viral moment
Yes, we all enjoyed the Oscars selfie, a seemingly innocent stunt by Ellen during the 2014 ceremony which for a few years was the most re-tweeted image of all time. Now each year brings a new barely concealed attempt at a viral moment and it's wearing very thin.
In 2017 a bus of tourists bought into the event resulted in multiple 'Shocked Fan and Ryan Gosling' memes and this year Jimmy Kimmel abducted a load of celebrities to invade a local cinema with hotdog cannons. This recurring theme of 'let's laugh at the regular small people's reactions to meeting celebrities' doesn't do much to shake off the Oscars reputation of being snooty and elitist.
If you're going to go political, do your homework
Jimmy Kimmel warned in his opening speech that we would hear from "brave and outspoken supporters of movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp and #NeverAgain." Surprisingly enough he failed to mention we'd also be treated to winners speeches from men accused of domestic violence and sexual assault.
This ceremony was a watershed moment for Hollywood after the Weinstein maelstrom and it looked promising after Casey Affleck and James Franco were both snubbed following sexual harassment accusations against both of them.
Watching this ceremony felt like somebody failed to do their research as Kobe Bryant collected an award for Best Animated Short and Gary Oldman for Best Actor despite past allegations of rape and domestic abuse against them respectively.
Celebrating them amidst montages about creating safe working environments for everyone and cameos from the women brave enough to speak out about Harvey Weinstein felt emblematic of the Academy's willingness to talk about change over actually enacting it.
