...Billy Crystal, who hosted the Oscars, suffered withering reviews for a routine that was long on pep but struck critics as antiquated. “Oscars Become Badly Paced Bore-Fest” read the headline in The Hollywood Reporter. Writing in The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley likened the show to “an AARP pep rally.” In The Washington Post, Hank Stuever wrote of the ceremony: “Early on, it hit the rocks and started to list. Almost everyone drowned.”

The smaller Oscars is epitomized by its biggest player, the tiny but effective Weinstein Company, which powered “The Artist” to five trophies on Sunday, including best picture, and “The Iron Lady” to two, including best actress for Meryl Streep. Harvey Weinstein, whose company also won best picture last year with “The King’s Speech,” aggressively campaigned for the films, trotting Uggie, the dog from “The Artist,” to events and insisting in radio ads that Ms. Streep deserved an Oscar partly because she hadn’t won one since 1983.

Neither “The Artist” nor “The Iron Lady” has struck a nerve at the North American box office, with each so far luring about four million moviegoers to theaters. That’s as if all the people living in Los Angeles had gone to see the films, but the rest of the country did something else.

With films that most of America hasn’t seen continuing to dominate the Oscars — “Hugo,” a winner of five trophies on Sunday, has been a box office dud — the Academy seems to have effectively eliminated one of the crucial measuring sticks of the past: the ability of a picture to move the masses to buy tickets. Put another way, the Academy, whose membership is smaller and artier than in decades past, does not seem as responsive to audience pressure as it does to campaign wizardry.