The Academy expanded the Best Picture Nominations from 5 to 10. My reaction is kind of a mixed one.
10 Best Picture Nominees is not a new concept the Academy thought of over night. It was the standard to have more then 5 nominations up until the mid 1940’s. Sid Ganis says they examined that and decided to change the rule to make it 10. But the controversial part of this decision making process was the fact that there were people on the Oscar board who would have directly benefited from this rule change would have been in place a few years ago. I am talking of course of Bill Condon. His Dreamgirls was nominated for 9 Oscars but without a Best Picture nomination. It certainly would have been in there as a nomination if there had been 10 Best Picture Nominations that year. 10 nominations certainly would have meant that Dark Knight would have gotten to the Oscar nominated Best Picture Nominees last year.
This also puts the Academy more in line with many of the Critics awards around the country. Most of them work from a Top 10 list and pick their favorite out of those 10. Critic favorites leading up to the nominations will have a better shot at getting nominations with 10. Take last year where as I just stated Dark Knight would have surely been nominated but also Doubt, WALL-E, and Changling could have had a nomination. I think that one of the biggest Awards shows to watch will be the Broadcast Film Critics Awards. Since 2000 they have always had the 5 Oscar nominations in their mix of 10 as well as 5 other critic favorites. I bet their list will match or come close to the Oscar nominations.
So how is this going to affect the winner of Best Picture? I don’t think it will throw at off at all. Even with a list of 10 there is always 1 front runner. The 1 film that wins most all of the predecessor awards is always heavily favored to win the Best Picture Oscar and usually does win it. There are some exceptions like Crash beating
It is going to make it tougher to predict the actual nominees. I do not think they will put the big summer blockbuster type films in the mix. But there will be more films that are critically acclaimed and seen by a wide audience such as the Dark Knight. It is going to make it hard to remember 10 nominees for sure.
I hope this will be a good year for film and that the nominations will reflect it. We can only hope for 1939 which had film classics like Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith goes to Washinton in the 10 nominations.
Sean Marshall
