The 82nd Annual Academy Awards

[Gold Trumpet]

Beverly Hills, Ca
The Academy Awards are doubling the number of best-picture nominees from five to 10.


Academy President Sid Ganis said at a news conference that the academy's board of governors made the decision to expand the slate. Ganis said the decision will open the field up to more worthy films for the top prize at Hollywood's biggest party.

The change takes effect with next year' Oscars on March 7.

The move is a return to Oscar traditions of the 1930s and '40s, when 10 nominees were common.



Sounds like a waste to me because there are already so many analyzers of the awards that there is only a real race between a few films instead of all five. Some are the nominees are just nominal recipients and not true challengers. Extending the list to 10 will allow Hollywood to start putting on some popular films that have no chance to win, but their mere nomination could bring in more viewers. Or Hollywood can be decent and start including more obscure choices to represent greater diversity in the filmmaking world.

[Stefen]

Holy shit. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, it's good that more films will get recognized, but on the other, it's just another way for Hollywood to overrate even more films that totally suck while overlooking even more truly great films.

[Fernando]

^^ same here, i don't really know how I feel about, in written it seems like a good idea (kinda), because...

- what better year to begin this than 2009? coincidence of course
- also i wonder if with that many films nominated some foreign films might make it to the list

OTOH, this 10 nominations will prove for the nth time the academy's shitty taste.

[Stefen]

I don't even think there were 10 good movies last year. This year is shaping up awesome.

[hedwig]

82, huh.. the perfect year to finally wise up and kick my addiction to the Oscars. 

[©brad]

I don't like this idea. Not only is it going to make the longest goddamn show of the year even longer, it dilutes the prestige that comes with a best picture nomination.

[Gamblour.]

I don't know why anyone is complaining. The show is already long, and the length of the show has no long-term impact on the prestige of being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Besides, big deal. I like the length of the show, it happens once a year. Who cares?

Second, this only increases the chance that documentaries, animated films, and foreign films will be nominated, even comedies. Having so many spots, I think people start to think, "Oh yeah, let's nominate Wall-E for Best Pic." I think the purpose is to be able to recognize films other dramas. They'd be sharply criticized if they just filled out these five new spots with more undeserving bullshit.

As a marketing tool, seriously, who gives a shit? If it's nominated for Best Sound Editing, the movie's going to use it on the DVD cover, so why complain about that? At least a film with a more honor-worthy nomination will get to say that it was a Best Pic nominee.

I think this is great.

[©brad]

I don't know why anyone is complaining. The show is already long, and the length of the show has no long-term impact on the prestige of being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Besides, big deal. I like the length of the show, it happens once a year. Who cares?

Nah I meant when there are 10 best picture nominees, it kind of makes getting nominated a little less impressive. Like "yay, we got nominated for best picture!" Yeah you and 9 other assholes.

[Gold Trumpet]

I don't know why anyone is complaining. The show is already long, and the length of the show has no long-term impact on the prestige of being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Besides, big deal. I like the length of the show, it happens once a year. Who cares?

Nah I meant when there are 10 best picture nominees, it kind of makes getting nominated a little less impressive. Like "yay, we got nominated for best picture!" Yeah you and 9 other assholes.

A top 10 hasn't hurt AFI's credibility.

[Stefen]

Plus, it's not like the Academy ever picks the 5 best movies. They just pick the 5 most accessible that also happen to have a bit of artistic credibility.

Maybe now they'll pick at least a few movies that are actually deserving even if they don't win.

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

Oscar tweaks best song standards
Academy aims to 'improve quality' of music in movies
Associated Press

No Academy Award will be presented for best song at next year's ceremony if none of the tunes is considered good enough, Oscar organizers said Friday.

Rules for the 82nd Oscar show next March will require that at least one song must achieve a minimum score of 8.25 on a scale of 6 to 10 in voting by members of the academy's music branch.

"We're trying to improve the quality," said composer Bruce Broughton, who heads the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "There's been a lot of talk about the songs in films, the lack of memorability compared to songs in the past, the almost forgetability of some of them. ... This is an attempt to really make the songs as good as possible."

In another significant change for next year's show, the academy is moving its honorary Oscars out of the Academy Awards ceremony itself and presenting them at a separate event.

The two changes come days after the academy made its most drastic Oscar change in decades, doubling the number of best-picture nominees from five to 10.

The music branch has about 230 members, who rate songs after viewing them in a marathon screening or on a DVD compilation of the tunes as they appear in the films.

If no song achieves the minimum score, there will be no best-song Oscar awarded. If only one song scores that well, then it and the tune with the next-highest score will be the category's two nominees. The number of nominees in the category can range from two to five depending on how many hit the minimum score.

Broughton said while the change sets minimum standards songs must meet, he doubted that there would be a year when the category would be scrapped because no tunes rated highly enough.

Starting this awards season, honorary Oscars for career achievement will be presented at a black-tie dinner in November, along with the academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Academy overseers said that will allow more time to pay proper tribute to recipients without crowding those awards into the Oscar ceremony, which often draws criticism for a running time that has topped four hours some years.

The academy board of governors "noticed that subtracting the honoraries from the broadcast would help reduce its length, but that really wasn't the motivation that was driving the change," said Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director.

Sid Ganis, academy president, said creating a separate event will insure "that each honoree will be given his or her full due."

[Gamblour.]

Won't people just inflate a songs' rating to make sure it gets nominated?

[MacGuffin]

Best Picture voting gets a makeover
Oscar nominees to be ranked in order of preference
Source: Variety

Voting for the Best Picture Oscar nominees is set for a sweeping shift with voters ranking the 10 films in order of preference, rather than the decades-old practice simply voting for a single nominee.

Monday's announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences came two months after the board's surprise decision to double the category to 10 nominees. AMPAS had not previously disclosed the specifics of how the votes would be tabulated.

Under the new system - which will only be employed in the Best Picture category -- voters will be asked to rank each of the 10 nominees.

The process calls for PricewaterhouseCoopers to first determine if one nominee has more than 50% of the first-place votes and then begin eliminating the films which are ranked first on the fewest number of ballots. When a film is eliminated, the film ranked second on those ballots will be accorded a first-place vote until a single film has over 50%.

[Fernando]

I wonder if this will work, lets say there are clearly two films for the gold race, one is from your friend ronnie howard the other is from this lonely guy terrence malick that nobody has seen in 30 years, what will he/she do? put ronnie 1st and malick in 10.