Terminalcoffee discussion

Next year's Oscars to double the Best Picture field, from 5 nominees to 10

Lost in the shuffle between all the celebrity deaths and Gov. Sanford's, umm..."hiking" was the news that the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be adding 5 more pictures to the Best Picture Nominees.

There's some talk this may seem like a bad idea, but I think this idea will work very well. Last year, for example, the 5 nominees from last year couldn't really be described as the 5 best films of 2008. In fact, both Slumdog Millionaire and Milk were so-so, Benjamin Button was good not great, Frost/Nixon was entertaining but not particularly memorable, and The Reader was very good but a mega-downer. The argument could have been made that films like The Dark Knight (in my opinion, the best film of '08) and WALL-E were far deserving of nominations.

Anyway, your thoughts...

That's just goofy. They don't produce enough great movies to meet the 5 movie nods, so how on earth are they gonna fill those 10 nominations?!!

I think there's room for more. It hopefully means that some not-so-serious but good movies will get their due. It could benefit comedies and animated films and foreign films, and documentaries.

I don't think it's goofy. I think this will force the AMPAS to really consider the candidates for Best Picture, and not rely on the PR machine the studios have going for them. I would like to see at least one foreign film added to the list, along with what are generally considered the front runners and the dark horses. If we go by last year's nominations, and add 5 more, then the Best Pic list would look something like this:

Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
WALL-E
Revolutionary Road
The Wrestler
Let The Right One In

Of course, the last 5 films are my choices; frankly, the last 5 films I thought were better than the actual nominees.

*shameface*

Of that list I have seen one!

I wasn't surprised by Slumdog Millionaire's win, it was the kind of movie the academy loves. Multicultural, with a rags-to-riches story and a feel good ending.
So, while the field of nominees will be broader, I would be surprised to see a different kind of movie actually win.

I liked Slumdog b/c it made me want to watch Momento again.

Jackie - I think that's true. The same movie will still win, but maybe some smaller movies will get boosts from it. I'd love to see a movie like Lars & the Real Girl get acknowledged.

OK, this one bothers me more: they're changing up the best song category, so there may not even be a category some years.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/more-o...

That's laziness, in my opinion. There are absolutely five worthy songs in any given year...you just have to take the time to find them. They may be in indie movies. They may not have been written by Randy Newman.

Sarah Pi - I read that in the paper the other day but thought it wasn't settled yet. Goodness. Poor indie films.

No no no no no, Sarah Pi. There MUST be a Randy Newman song in the nominees! I think it's a law.

That's another category the AMPAS needs to correct. They often miss some very good songs specifically written for films, and go with showy numbers instead. Boring!

Jackie, you've got a friend in me ;)

Gus wrote: "I don't think it's goofy. I think this will force the AMPAS to really consider the candidates for Best Picture, and not rely on the PR machine the studios have going for them. I would like to see a..."

Okay, this has been bugging me. I mean, I've been thinking about this - it could either hurt the Academy Awards or it could save what I consider an organization to which I already don't give much credibility. I've been disappointed in some choices over the past 13 years more times than not. Regardless, the system needs an overhaul and maybe, JUST maybe this is just what it needs to give it the credibility it's been lacking in more recent years.

The members of the Academy are still the same, so no matter what gets nominated, I don't see them voting radically different than they have in the past.

Specifically, the voting members tend to be of a certain age and time frame. For example, you have actors like Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine who are voters, and they're more than likely to give their vote to a film that doesn't offend their sensibilities. I recall Curtis blasting Brokeback Mountain, and him claiming he would never give that film his vote. Ironic, considering his best performance was one in which he was in drag for 75% of the film (Some Like it Hot).

The thinking here is, I believe, that with the addition of 5 more films to the list, the Academy is at least recognizing the worth of these films, even if they won't win. Too often, the Academy nominates films that artificially generate a lot of buzz (like Crash and Slumdog Millionaire) and bypass films that are truly worthy of nominations.

That means Transformers 2 will be up for an Academy Award (generate a lot of buzz).

Um...no.

The film studio that released that crime against humanity wouldn't dare pimp that piece of shit as a Best Picture. Then again...

Megan Fox said in an interview the other day that she was actually in that movie, and didn't understand what it was supposed to be about.

You think she'd want to know, for her acting's sake. Ah, well, that's not what people watch her for, is it?

Uh ... guess not. I was surprised how funny she was in the interview, though. But she did flirt pretty heavily with Harry Smith.

I'm so tired of Megan Fox. I wish she'd shut her yapper.

I didn't know about this 10 Best Pictures until I read this thread. I think the main problem is the Oscars don't have a Best Comedy category. They should have one, and I bet more people would actually watch the Oscars.

I'm surprised the person who started this thread didn't like Milk. I thought it was an amazing film.

In Bruges deserved a lot more recognition!!!!

Oh, right-o Stefano. In Bruges was not only bad ass but funny too.

I loved Milk as well. Haven't seen In Bruges.

Stefano, I didn't dislike Milk; overall, it's driven by a virtuoso performance by Sean Penn, but the other actors in the film seemed to simply exist as props, and didn't add to either Penn's performance or the film itself. I HATED Diego Luna's performance, and I thought it was something of a cheap shot from Gus Van Sant to portray Dan White (Josh Brolin's character) as your typical cookie-cutter suburban uptight white guy.

The documentary The Times of Harvey Milk did a much better job of portraying Milk, in his own words warts and all, than Van Sant's borderline hagiography. Again, I didn't dislike the film, but I don't agree it was worthy of a Best Picture nomination.

I watched In Bruges last week after Man on Wire - In Bruges was pure hilarity.

I thought the pairing of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson was genius!

I was amused to recognize 3 of the actors in the movie as all having been in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire - Chloe/Fleur (Poesy), Ken/Mad Eye(Gleeson), and Harry/Voldemort (Fiennes).

I noticed that about In Bruges, too, Heidi. I guess the pool of English-speaking European actors is kinda small.

Apparently they're changing the method by which the Best Picture is chosen as well:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/more-c...

"As if the expansion of the Best Picture category from five nominees to ten weren't a big enough change, the Academy's executive director Bruce Davis told The Wrap yesterday that the voting and tabulation process for Best Picture will be changing this year too. Rather than each Academy member making a single choice for Best Picture, they'll be asked to rank their choices from 1 to 10. Any film receiving a majority of all first-place votes will be declared the winner. But if no film receives over 50% of the votes, then the lowest vote-getter will be eliminated, and the remaining ballots will be re-tabulated by second-place votes, and so on. The goal is to assure that the Best Picture will be a film that the bulk of the membership actually supports, and not one only favored by, say, a fifth. The downside to this method? It could remove any remaining Oscar-night surprise, assuring that the broadly admired juggernaut films win while the oddball films with just a few passionate supporters get shut out (even if they actually have the most first-place votes). Either way, this first year under the new rules should be... well, different."

Hmm, sounds extra complicated. More to argue about when discussing the winners, I guess.