Ten Best Picture Nominees? — Page 2

I think it should be 12, one for every month! It would leave more room for the sequels that are so often egregiously overlooked. And also horror. There are still some of you who care about movies for some godforsaken reason and for you I hope the Academy institutes a phone and text voting option for a fan's choice Oscar, like American Idol which so many of you also care about for whatever godforsaken reason.

And there can be some sort of tomato rating award since that also seems to be something a lot of you pay attention to for whatever reason. Also, "Nine" should get the special Academy Anagram "Nein" Award.

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Updated On: 12/31/09 at 02:27 PM

"b12b--I think the chances of my Old Dogs scenario is thankfully unlikely. But many think that it is because of this system that Dark Knight lost out to The Reader last year. It was probably on a ton of lists, but not high enough or what have you."

I'm sure Dark Knight scored several first-choice votes. Just not enough. The "old dogs" voting in the Academy aren't about to take a comic book movie seriously, no matter how good it is. That will change, in time, as the generations change. It's a prejudice against a genre.

Keep in mind that the ONLY fantasy film ever to win a Best Pic Oscar is Lord of the Rings. It had never happened until then.

"And, the tie breakers you mentioned are based on the ballots left over after the first round of counting. It's all so random."

They aren't actually leftover ballots. The initial votes are given points, all on the same page. Five points for a number one slot, four for number two, etc., on down.

The nomination ballot looks like this on an ordinary piece of plain white paper:


BEST PICTURE:

1. ________________
2. ________________
3. ________________
4. ________________
5. ________________


For the Actors Branch, they get a blank, colored, legal-sized sheet of paper with all four categories written on them. Again, the numbered blank lines.

So really, the accountants add up everything by points. Then they initially count only the number one choices. If they need to break ties after that, they look at the point tallies.

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"With 10 noms, the winner could win with a very small amount of the vote, so it could be anyone's game."


That's one of the main reasons the Academy has given for increasing the number to ten this year. By adding more movies into the mix, it will be less likely to predict a front-runner for the award. They're trying to make it more "exciting."

Okay.

Not sure I see it that way, but they are definitely using that as a selling point.

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If "Up" gets the best picture nomination as many predict, doesn't that basically just give us nine nominations for best movie since it'll almost definitely win best animated and not have a real shot at best movie? It seems like having the extra category makes it impossible for an animated movie to win.

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(jrb actor) Some are saying IB is going to win.
You've been reading Tom O'Neill at Gold Derby, haven't you?
I don't recall anyone else coming out and saying that they think it will win. Nominated, yes. More have jumped on that bandwagon very recently.
I loved that movie.

It was an incredible year for animation. And next year is shaping up to be just as good.

I haven't seen Fantasitc Mr. Fox yet and it is favored to win best animated feature, but I am hoping for Coraline to win.

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Moon with Sam Rockwell getting the chance for a Best Picture nomination. I myself have yet to see the movie, but I've heard it received great reviews not only for the movie itself but for Sam Rockwell's performance.

I watched about half of the Mr. Fox movie but I didn't like it so I went into another room.

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I haven't seen Fantasitc Mr. Fox yet and it is favored to win best animated feature, but I am hoping for Coraline to win.

Everything I've read seems to indicate that Up is a shoe-in for Animated Feature and actually a serious contender for Best Picture of the year.

UP blew me away, on many levels.

Well, I give them in my head to the most deserving - they can deal with all the politics involved

I think PIXAR might contain the only truly creative voices being allowed to be heard these days.

To be clearer, that's what I was meaning with my 'allowed to be heard' comment. I see many worthwhile films, but they're not given much of a voice.

Well that would certainly be interesting. It will be fun to see how it all plays out.

Either way, it's just not Pixar's year to take a trophy home.

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