I am a big fan of the Oscars. I’ve watched the awards show every year since I was twelve. Every year I vow to watch all of the movies nominated for Best Picture, and every year I fail to do so. Now that there will be ten slots for Best Picture nominations, I am really in predicament. If I can’t make time to watch five movies, how will I find time for ten? These are the questions that keep me up at night. At first I was excited to hear they were adding more nominations, but now I wonder if that’s such a good idea. I’m not the only one questioning the new strategy.

L.A. Observed’s Mark Lacter writes, “More than a few Hollywood watchers questioned the wisdom of having 10 nominees for best picture instead of the usual five, and now that it’s time to cast ballots (deadline is Saturday), Academy voters are struggling to come up with enough movies they really, really like.”

I certainly couldn’t come up with ten movies from 2009 that are worthy of a Best Picture nod. If Academy voters can’t either, then this year’s Oscars could get real interesting. Lacter gives a link to a recent L.A. Times article describing the kind of trouble the voters are having. One voter even admitted to voting for Drag Me To Hell “because that’s the best time he had at the movies all year and it doesn’t matter that it can’t possibly be nominated because he has nine other slots in which to ‘influence’ the race, as the academy language suggests.”

Yikes!

“In countless conversations with academy voters over the past two weeks it’s apparent that not everyone is able to come up with 10 movies.  In fact it’s an epidemic. According to the overwhelming majority of members to whom I have spoken, they get to five or six and give up on the other slots. One voter went so far as to actually send me an e-mail asking me to suggest seven other movies to augment their own three choices. Of course I obliged.”

Check out the full article here.

My two cents? I think they’ll go back to five nominations next year.  If half of the nominations are less than stellar movies that were chosen to fill up the slots, the award won’t mean as much. If they’re looking to boost their ratings, this isn’t the way to go.

More Oscar news to come! Nominations announced February 2^nd.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia

No related posts.