The Ultimate Game Changer – 10 Best Picture Nominees!
Posted On: Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | Posted By: Alex Carlson
I am away for my computer for most of the morning, and I decided to sit down and write my Transformers 2 review when what do I see from CNN.com?
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Sid Ganis dropped a bombshell today: the number of best picture nominees is doubling to 10, from its current five.
Now this just throws a wrench in this year’s Oscar season. Apparently the Academy wants to go back to its roots, the period before 1943, when every year had 10 best picture nominees.
I’m assuming the main reason for the change was to counteract the ratings slump that the Oscars have had the past several years. With 10 nominees, the fans of movies like The Dark Knight and Wall-E could have been satiated instead of outraged. There is no mention of the other categories changing the number of nominees.
I just don’t know how to feel about this news. I find myself pleased and angered at the same time. Every year I can name about 5 or 6 films that are more deserving of Best Picture nominations than some of the ones that got it. Will this change fix that? Will animated films like this year’s Up now have a greater chance of getting in?
I’m torn as to whether or not I should continue my Transformers 2 review or re-work the Best Picture nominees. Let’s see if I can do both.
Here are my quick list of Best Picture predictions:
1) Nine
2) Shutter Island
3) The Road
4) Precious
5) Up
6) Amelia
7) Public Enemies
8) The Hurt Locker
9) Invictus
10) Biutiful
What do you think about this change? Is it for better or worse? How will this year’s race change? What are you new Best Picture predictions? DISCUSS!
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Comments (3)
I think that this will make the category even more competitive because more films that would never before have stood a chance at a nomination will be throwing their names into the fold and fighting for a nod. Theres never been any complaining when critics groups put out a top ten and then announce a winner, just think of it the same way.
These ten films are the ten best of the year according to this group the Oscars, and then the members of this group will vote for what they believe to be the best. I guarantee you that with this rule in place, votes will be split and there will be suprising winners as a result. With more possobilities to chose from, the likelyhood that Academy members will vote on their own personal favorite will skyrocket which is a good thing, rather than have members vote on the more popular movie when their favorite is not a choice on the ballot. I guarrantee that had this been in place last year with say The Dark Knight, Wall-e, The Wrestler, Doubt and Gran Torino as the other five, Slumdog Millionaire would not have been as much of a sure thing to win, especially since the older members could have gotten behind Gran Torino, while the Actors may have put their weight behind The Wrestler and all other groups could have came behind Wall-e or The Dark Knight.
With 10 nominees in place, voters would probably be more inclined to vote based on their own oppinion rather than succumb to a Slumdog like sheep mentality. And by doing this, the odds of a better movie or a more unique film winning would be exponentially greater.
Over at my blog The Oscar Hut, the first part of my State of The Race: Best Picture 2009 article is up detailing in alphabetical order the ten movies I think will be nominated, from Avatar to Up. Along with this article there are polls, reviews, predictions, site links and much more. So come check it out and let me know what you think wheter it be a sentence or a three page e-mail positive or negative, whatever it may be, only at The Oscar Hut
http://www.theoscarhut.blogspot.com
tjpratt@bellsouth.net
There will always be frontrunners, no matter how many nominees are in a category. ‘Slumdog’ would have won last year even if there were 40 Best Picture nominations.
It’s gotta be a money grab of sorts. There is a good discussion of it on pandalous. It’s here:
http://www.pandalous.com/nodes/10_oscar_nominations