Broadway Star Joined: 5/6/04
What...
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/8/08
Will this be annual or a one time thing?
Probably annual. They used to have 10 noms, so in reality, it's more a case of going back to their roots.
This is either going to be great or a disaster. All depends how they end up using those 5 extra nominations.
permanent thing... and thank god! its about time. this is great news. finally some of the smaller (but equally great) films that wouldn't normally have a chance may earn some well deserved recognition!
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/08
It's definitely a response to films like The Dark Knight and Wall-E coming up just short of the final 5 year after year after year. Commercial successes getting more play on the telecast will get more viewers.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/8/08
Hopefully Tim Burton's new movie (if it's as good as his others) will get up there. It still angers me that 'Big Fish' and 'Sweeney Todd' never made the cut.
*Waits to be eaten*
I think this is great news! Can't wait to see the first Oscar worthy movie of this season...but I'm sure that's not coming around til fall.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
What a terrible idea.
It will be theoretically possible to win Best Picture with 10.01% of the voters.
And what if there really aren't ten worthy nominees? Sometimes there aren't five much less ten.
It's a great idea for the show's ratings and to hopefully honor more deserving, smaller films and help them out at the box office. It should be fun to see!
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
Ughhh, why even make an awards show at all if you're just going to nominate everyone?
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/05
I'm not sure how I feel about it. It seems to me it would take some of the prestige away from the nominations.
What I find odd is that it will be the ONLY category to have 10 nominees. Why not any of the others? I'm not convinced this would change the outcome in any way. More films will get to add "Nominated for BEST PICTURE!" to their ads and DVD covers, which is great for them, but I think the winners will pretty much wind up being the ones we'd expect as per usual.
I think it's a wonderful idea of going back to their roots. Since back in early days of the Academy, many films were nominated for Best Picture, not just 5.
And, who knows, maybe every year there won't be 10? Some years it could be 7 or 8. Who knows?
I know this is re-inventing the wheel, but with the quality of American films these days I think it would be most wise to merge Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film into the same category and do away with the notion that each country can only submit one film. That is an antiquated, xenophobic and ridiculous rule that should have been done away with in the 50s. I think in '07 were this the case (ALL live action feature films, no matter what the language) you would have seen more foreign films than American, which would rile up the natives like little else and maybe inspire them to do something a little more risky next time out (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN would never have been made in this country, and were the Academy not fools would have recognized it was probably the best film of last year).
I think it's a good IDEA, but will be wasted by nominations for more animated films (if that category disappears you now know why) or "family friendly" films.
I just cannot see the Academy ever awarding something like PIECES OF APRIL with a Best Picture Nomination because Best Picture seems to imply something more "significant" than independant film budgets usually allow (aka not enough flash, pop, and sizzle for the Academy).
I still can't believe BABEL and DREAMGIRLS were slighted (winning few, if any, of their nominations if they were nominated at all in certain categories (i.e. no DREAMGIRLS Best Picture-puhlease) the way they were). Offensive, truly, to people like me who work in the industry and still, foolhardy as it may be, believe art and commerce can co-exist.
While that's the cover story for this new nominating process, the truth is the 5 other films they pick are just gonna be the "prestige" pics that didn't make the Top 5 cut and maybe a random boen thrown to an indie-of-the-moment to make the Acamedy feel charitable.
P
Updated On: 6/24/09 at 03:04 PM
i think it should be 7. 10 is just over the line. they obviously changed it for a reason.
Swing Joined: 8/19/07
Pgenre, Babel WAS nominated for Best Picture unlike Dreamgirls which was snubbed. Did you mean that Babel was snubbed in that it deserved to win Best Picture?
This is a little ridiculous...
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
I'd rather they make separate categories for comedy and drama like the Golden Globes does, tbh.
I think this is great news! Can't wait to see the first Oscar worthy movie of this season...but I'm sure that's not coming around til fall.
BRUNO opens July 17.
Maybe the Tony's could follow suit. Not with 10 slots, but perhaps 6 or 7. It would be nice for other shows to get exposure and have the "Tony nominated" title attached to their show.
The TONYS has trouble filling 5 slots let alone 6 or 7.
Well, this is certainly a reaction to the excellent mainstream films last year, but since there are almost NONE this year, it's sort of frustrating that they're starting now.
DARK KNIGHT's slight (and their positively apalling falling over themselves to award everything (but the best part - Kate Winslet) on the similarly applauded and successful TITANIC) will haunt the Academy for years to come.
I've been a Christopher Nolan fan since FOLLOWING (and MEMENTO) but what he has achieved with the BATMAN franchise, particularly this new entry, is the best American studio film work of the year.
Michael Caine, who has appeared in nearly 100 films (some them among the greatest of all time such as HANNAH AND HER SISTERS for which he won an Oscar), says that THE DARK KNIGHT is the film he is proudest to be associated with, not for its success (this was in a GQ interview months before the film came out) but for its quality.
And Eric Roberts deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination just as much as Ledger. Question what I said? Watch the film again and focus on Roberts: his best work since STAR 80 (which, along with DeNiro in TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL is one of the most fearless and explosive performances every committed to celluloid).
P
P.S. I wonder how much Katie Holmes regrets pulling out what may very well end up being the most successful film of all time. What promise she showed in PIECES OF APRIL... and how sad that it has all vanished. I'll take Maggie over her anyday, anyway. And Maggie Gylenhaal's performance in HAPPY ENDINGS is up there with Goldie Hawn's Oscar winning role.
P.S. Indeed, Oldman is excellent as always and one of my favorite actors. The fact that he did not win for BOTH his leading performance in DRACULA and his supporting role in HANNIBAL shows the bias the Academy has against horror films, and their pure unvarnished stupidity, so for such an un-show-y role I wouldn't expect them to show him any respect. And Ledger's role in THE DARK KNIGHT, while masterful, is about as much a supporting role as the equally masterful Jennifer Hudson in DREAMGIRLS. Politics as usual. At least they were recognized.
P.P.S. I think this film stands on its own and to say it is better than other batman movies, or superhero movies, is true but deductive. It is better than most movies, period and you could virtually remove batman and all the trapping and it would still stand up.
Updated On: 6/24/09 at 04:55 PM
Personally I think Gary Oldman deserved a supporting Oscar for Dark Knight, but it was really one of the best ensemble casts ever assembled for a film.
And Christopher Nolan's snub was absolutely unbelievable.
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