Oscar Best Picture Nominees

The Academy Awards just decided to start nominating 10 movies per year for best picture starting with the 2010 ceremony. A lot of people are really upset about think because they think it will make it easier for movies that aren't as deserving to get an award. There were 573 movies released in 2008. Nominating 10 of these movies for Oscars represents 0.87% of the total movies released. I think that still makes it a pretty elite group.

Personally, I think having more movies nominated will give the Academy room to nominate all the movies that they love that no one else in America really liked without bumping out popular movies. Who's to say that comedy, action, cartoon, fantasy are all categories that don't deserve to win Oscar's? The movies are supposed to be all about enjoyment and I enjoy a good laugh as much as I enjoy a good cry.

My husband and I saw 42 of the movies released last year. Of those movies we came up with our top six of the year (in no particular order): Wall-E, Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire, Bolt, The Dark Knight and American Teen. The five movies nominated for best picture were: Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We did not see 3/5 movies nominated for best picture but from what we have heard, all three are movies that we will love. Our friends tell us The Wrestler and Doubt, movies which we haven't yet seen, would have been deserving of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a good movie. But it was too long and lost itself and the audience towards the end of the movie. It was not one of the best movies of the year but it had a very popular actor and some very good make up and camera tricks that made it an expensive movie to make. There always seems to be one movie nominated every year because of its big studio prestige or star power. The fact that this movie was nominated and Gran Torino wasn't is a shame. Clint Eastwood should have also been nominated for Best Actor and Director but Benjamin Button took up unnecessary space in both of these categories as well.

What if the Academy chooses the top 10 movies of the year and then the general public has the time between when the Oscar nominees are announced until a week or so before the ceremony to vote on which movie they think should win. These results are kept secret until the night of the Oscars. At the beginning of the show, the top 5 vote getters from the general public are announced. These movies are the the ones that are up for consideration by the Academy for best picture. This still gives the Academy the chance to choose which movie they think is best but it allows the general public to weed out movies that maybe shouldn't have been nominated in the first place. All 10 movies still get the prestige of being in the top 1% of movies that year and every one's happy.

But of course this will never happen because a bunch of power hungry, snotty movie executives have decided that they know better than the people who pay their salaries by attending all of these movies. Ideally, one day the public will get a say in this but I'm not holding my breath.