10 Best Picture Nominees

[klunderbunker]

Oscars Double Up Best Films For 2010
24 June 2009 3:01 PM, PDT

The organisers of the Oscars have doubled up the Best Film category for next year's Academy Awards.

Ten movies will be shortlisted for the big prize at the 82nd Oscars in March.

Explaining the shift, Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis says, "After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year.

"The final outcome, of course, will be the same - one Best Picture winner - but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009."

An average of 10 films competed annually for the top prize for the first 16 years of the Oscars and the last classic to win gold after beating out nine other movies was Casablanca in 1943.

Ganis adds, "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognise and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize."

From IMDB.com

Wow. This is such a bad idea I don't even know where to start. This seems to come for one reason and one reason only: The Dark Knight. the argument will be that if tehre were five extra slots open this past year, TDK would have won. There's a reason it wasn't nominated: the Academy didn't think it was good enough. get over yourselves Warner Brothers.

Do we need this by any stretch of the imagination? I'd certainly think not. By having the traditional 5, it allows there to be a tight race for the title. With ten, it makes the award seem so watered down. Think of it like in wrestling. If you have ten guys fighting for the world title, things just get messed up. Five might be a stretch, but ten is just absurd. Too much gets lost in the shuffle and there's way too much to debate over. I get the spirit of competition, but this is ridiculous. What do you think? Gone With The Wind greatness, or Leprechaun 5 level of suck?

 

[X]

I agree completley with you KB that having ten nominations really kind of waters down the Best Picture pool. But I don't think it necessarily has to do with The Dark Knight missing out on a Best Picture nomination, I think it has more to do with A) Money and B) Recognition.

It has to do with money because of all the extra income this is going to generate for both the Academy and for the different studios who now have five more chances to slap "Nominated for Best Picture" stickers onto their DVDs. Those always boost sales.

I think mainly though it has to do with recognition. You know the Academy KB, they get a hard-on everytime someone makes a Holocaust film. With ten nomination spots open now they have even more films they can pimp out to the American Public (did anyone actually see The Reader? Pretty damn bad).

Honestly though the Oscars are always hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes they make great picks, but more often then not I find myself sitting there on Oscar night in total disbelief at who they select sometimes. They're also incredibly biased against any film featuring a graphic amount of violence, and I especially am disgusted with their refusal to even acknowledge that the horror genre exists. Do you remember when Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture and no one was allowed to call it a "horror" film but rather a mystery or suspense film? Bullshit, Silence of the Lambs is a horror movie through and through.

Kind of went off-topic on a horror rant there, but I'll stop here by saying the Oscars aren't the be-all end-all of film recognition. Over the last few years I've found myself agreeing more with the Golden Globes then the Oscars.

 

[jmt225]

Over the last few years I've found myself agreeing more with the Golden Globes then the Oscars.

Same here, man.

I pretty much agree with your entire post X (though I didn't think The Reader was bad at all). This just had to do with money and shit like that. Another reason I think they're doing this is so they can give an "Underdog" type feel to their show, which they probably think will make more people tune in. The Academy, once again, is just ****ing themselves out.

So overall, I hate this. Now getting a Best Picture nomination won't mean jackshit. It just diminishes the value of the award so much. But like a jackass, I will still watch next year and sit there in anger over the ******ation the shows gives us, like I do every single year. Why do I put myself through it? I really don’t know…

 

[NSL]

While I agree that it will water down the pool, and make the trophies the equivalent of a WWE Title, I'm not totally against the idea.

This is all about politics and money. Money mostly. By adding more names in, they'll be able to "pimp out" more movies, and get the names out there, and get the little stickers on DVD cases, so more people will want to see them, and then buy them. Even if you know nothing about movies, you know what the Oscars are. If you're in a DVD store, and see that little sticker that says "Nominated for 9 Oscars", you automatically "know" it's a great movie, and buy it.

So, while it may make the actual awards mean shit, I'm sure the goal is to get more people into watching and buying movies, because it's no secret the film industry is struggling as a whole.