Hollywood has gone insane:
WTF #1: Variety reports that the Academy will henceforth nominate 10 films for Best Picture every year, instead of 5.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005322.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
What justification do they have? There are just so many high-quality films coming out these days that some deserving films (like Transformers or Pineapple Express) are being left out? I'm sure the studios are for it--five more films that can be called Best Picture nominees (and also five more films that will LOSE.) Jeez, you might as well add another half an hour to the ceremonies, so they can give synopses of these the way they did last year.
indeed; I'm baffled. There used to be 10 nominees back in the early days; it stopped around 1944 or so when the Academy decided 10 was too many and made "Best Picture Nominee" not-special-enough.
ETA: the general consensus in the movie-blog-osphere is that the omission of Dark Knight from the 5 finalists this year was a major factor in this. They want to ensure a couple of box-office blockbusters in the mix to get more people to watch the ceremonies.
I think one thing that will result is that 'consensus' Best Pics heading into the awards will be less likely to get knocked off by the up-and-comer (such as
Crash over
Brokeback Mountain). With an additional 5 films on the ballot, AMPAS voters who haven't made up their minds yet will distribute their votes more widely & be less likely to coalesce on a single choice. If there had been 10 nominees at the 2006 Oscars, they'd certainly have included
Syriana plus some combination of
Walk The Line,
A History of Violence,
Match Point,
The Constant Gardener or
The Squid & The Whale. Maybe
Hustle & Flow or
Transamerica would slip in behind the buzz of 'daring indy with career making acting performance'.
I always wondered if
Brokeback Mountain would have won if
Capote had been replaced by
Syriana on the ballot. And in hindsight I'm pretty much convinced that
Crash would have lost a lot more votes to any combination of five additional films from this list than
Brokeback would have. So now I wonder if this thinking is shared & also factored into the decison to go to 10 nominees.
