Academy Awards to nominate 10 Best Pictures instead of 5

June 25, 3:09 PMSalt Lake City Movie Events ExaminerDavey Morrison

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Salt Lake City Movie Events Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

It sounds like a push to bump up the ratings after several years in decline, but it may be one of the best things Oscar ever does. The Academy Awards have just announced their decision to include ten, rather than five, Best Picture nominations in their annual prestige awards.

At worst, this could merely be a way of including more commercial, but less deserving films in the lineup (blockbusters like Star Trek that may be very good crowdpleasers, but fall short of greatness, even as entertainments)--and it could just lead to an even longer ceremony. The Academy already has a tendency (understandable, given the voting and nomination process) of nominating obvious, relatively well-known films.

At best, it could turn the show into more of a celebration than a competition--a way of highlighting the best movies made in the last year (as any film buff knows, there are at least ten genuinely great movies any year), with the Oscars acting as another higher-profile end-of-year 10-best list, the actual award merely the icing on the cake. The extra five slots will clear the way for lesser-known but highly-acclaimed films, foreign films, animated films, films that are great but not necessarily "important" (FYC: Where the Wild Things Are!) and great comedies and genre films (it's hard not to see this as a reaction to neither Wall-E nor The Dark Knight being nominated last year--two of the most critically-acclaimed and financially successful films of '08). After all, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country For Old Men may not have been blockbusters, but they certainly were more popular than, say, Rachel Getting Married (my favorite film from '08) or Once. Or it could just mean more of the same kinds of films--after all, between Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Doubt, Gran Torino, and Revolutionary Road, there were more than enough almost-rans last year to fill ten slots.

In any case, it looks like it's a new beginning for the Academy Awards--or perhaps the beginning of the end?

Also check out my own ten most anticipated films for the rest of the year, click here