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The Oscars are going to expand their best picture nominee list from five to ten nominees.

I don't think the category as been more than 5 since the 1940s?

I think this is a great idea. Maybe a film like The Wrestler would have a chance (which I thought was perhaps the best film from last year). In my opinion, it certainly deserved the nomination over the Reader.

Even though they couldn't fill this past year's 5 slots with anything worthwhile?

So does this mean the telecast is going to be twice as long now too? Geez, the Oscars are turning into "Everyone Gets A Trophy Day".

I didn't think any of the films in 2005 were worthy of nomination. And I felt that 2007 had more than 5 brilliant films.

Perhaps there shouldn't be a 'set' number?

LOL @ last year's Oscars being the tipping point for this.

A much better idea in my opinion would be to have two categories for best picture, sort of like they originally had, something like Best Entertainment and Best Artistic Achievement. It would certainly help for the ratings anyway, I would think. Making people choose only one film out of ten now instead of five is just going to water things down even further.

aox wrote:I don't think the category as been more than 5 since the 1940s?

That's right. From 1936-1943, there were 10 nominees in the Best Picture category (prior to 1936, there were anywhere from 3 to 12 nominees in the category). In those 10-nominee years, there were plenty of undeserving nominees, so this may not turn out to be much of an improvement. This could just turn into a restatement of the NBR list.

Seven would be pushing it, ten is just ridiculous. I wonder how much longer the broadcast will be now?

So, do we think this is being done to give mainstream fodder films some recognition and bring in viewers (even if they have no hopes of winning)? Or is this being done to recognize smaller films or indie films and give them a shot as we have seen the Academy try to do over the past few years (eg Lost in Translation, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno)?

Expanding the number of nominations doesn't necessarily mean it will give "smaller" films more consideration or "more of a chance," it will just expand speculation and elongate the ceremony.

I bet it's for all the Dark Knights out there, but I wish instead, as some one else mentioned, they just split it up into spectacle and artistic best picture like back in the day.

aox wrote:So, do we think this is being done to give mainstream fodder films some recognition and bring in viewers (even if they have no hopes of winning)? Or is this being done to recognize smaller films or indie films and give them a shot as we have seen the Academy try to do over the past few years (eg Lost in Translation, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno)?

I think that it is definitely designed to "give mainstream fodder films some recognition and bring in viewers." The ratings have been dramatically declining in recent years, with the general public claiming they've never heard of any of the nominated movies. With ten nominees, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Star Trek or the latest Harry Potter flick filling out the slate.

The Dark Knight, Wall-E, and maybe even Iron Man would have made the cut last year, which would have likely increased viewership exponentially.

knives wrote:I bet it's for all the Dark Knights out there, but I wish instead, as some one else mentioned, they just split it up into spectacle and artistic best picture like back in the day.

I agree, I think the split between Best Production and Best Artistic Achievement, or something along those lines, would be far more interesting. I don't think this is a huge deal one way or the other. With 5 nominees people invariably argue over which undeserving film was nominated instead of another, with any other number the same arguments will occur. I also don't think it'll make the ceremony much longer (they show a few clips and read each film's name, that's about it) but complaining about that is pointless to me - no one is forcing you to watch it. At worst we'll end up with the same 5 nominees you'd usually get plus the top 5 films in box office returns for the year, at best perhaps some animated, foreign, independent, or genre films will have chances of getting broader critical recognition. The most interesting consequence in my mind is that a broader field could split the vote in many more interesting ways - I think after one or two surprise winners the list might be winnowed down to fewer nominees again.

brendanjc wrote:no one is forcing you to watch it.

Why was I not aware of this up until now? ](*,)

Jeff wrote: I think that it is definitely designed to "give mainstream fodder films some recognition and bring in viewers." The ratings have been dramatically declining in recent years, with the general public claiming they've never heard of any of the nominated movies.

Somebody Else wrote:I agree, I think the split between Best Production and Best Artistic Achievement, or something along those lines, would be far more interesting.

Maybe they should divide the 10 nominees into 5 that came out in the first half of the year and 5 in the second half.
Sort of 5 films that no one has seen and five that have been available.
I'm kidding, but it really would have some positive ramifications.

To state the obvious: who gives a @&#$? The Oscars are a just marketing tool and decadent industry gala, so this doesn't dilute anything. It makes sense for them -- more nominees, more pull-quotes, more money. I'm actually almost happy to see this; this might cause more people to realize how moronic these awards are.

In fact, they already are...I'm thinking of that hilarious slip-up at the 2007 Oscars broadcast that I saw on YouTube. I guess in some affiliate stations, you could hear a crewmember saying, "I don't know about all this Oscar bullshit, but No Country was a great movie." I don't know about the second part of that statement, but when the tech guy who makes his living off events like these says it's all a sham, you're in trouble.

(Now, once again, resumes my self-imposed moratorium on talking about that total sh*tshow. Not even in a "yeah-we-know-Oscars-blow-but-omg-seriously-do-you-think-Slumdog-will-win?" context.)

As the resident Oscar apologist, let me just say, as anyone who is trying to complete the early years for the List Project can tell you, this is a really stupid idea and pretty much devalues whatever value was left in the nomination

swo17 wrote:A much better idea in my opinion would be to have two categories for best picture, sort of like they originally had, something like Best Entertainment and Best Artistic Achievement.

Then again, we already have the Golden Globes which for all practical purposes already separates the "prestige" pics and the musical/comedy stuff. I jsut can't until the Oscars are sponsored by Twitter and honor YR TOTES FAVE FLIC.

They'll try it for a year and then go back to five. When Sid and whoever announce the best pic nominees, right around seven or eight Sid Ganis' face will have a look of oh crap, this was a mistake.

The academy has announced changes to the Original Song category as well.

Well, in stark contrast to the Best Picture shake-up, I think this is a very good move

Potentially limiting the number of nominated songs can only be a good thing, as there is rarely even one good song to get nominated each year. Clearly this is meant to a) cut down on vote splitting (like when three songs from Dreamgirls competed against each other) and b) cut down on annoying musical numbers during Oscar night. OK, fine (especially on the second count). But if you ask me, a much better way to cut down on vote splitting, and just to generally get winners that have more universal appeal in all the categories, is to let people rank each of the nominees, instead of picking just one. This ensures that each nominee is fairly considered, and allows for almost as many tallies to go to a close second pick in a given category. I mean, the Academy hires PriceWaterhouseCoopers to tally the results--trust me, they know how to do that math. And if not, they could hire me to do it. (I'm actually kind of serious about that. It couldn't be that much harder than what zedz does for the lists projects.)

domino harvey wrote:devalues whatever value was left in the nomination

Three words: Shakespeare In Love

swo17 wrote: (I'm actually kind of serious about that. It couldn't be that much harder than what zedz does for the lists projects.)

Oh, I just make all that up.

swo17 wrote:...and b) cut down on annoying musical numbers during Oscar night. OK, fine (especially on the second count).

But think of all those interpretative dance troupes who will be thrown into destitution by this move.

And Hugh Jackman, especially after recently wrecking his Wolverine character. If he didn't have an Oscar telecast to song and dance through he would be as unemployable as Billy Crystal or Whoopi Goldberg.