Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Oscar expands Best Picture noms to 10

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 06-24-2009, 03:59 PM:

The Motion Picture Academy announced Wednesday that for the first time in more than 65 years, the field of Best Picture nominees will be expanded to 10 contenders for the 82nd. Annual Academy Awards.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 06-24-2009, 04:14 PM:

Wow, Michael Bay has more pull than I thought! [Big Grin]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-24-2009, 04:19 PM:

I'm sure the folks who run Variety are happy about this news. It could translate into a lot more award campaign ad buys from movie studios (you know those "for your consideration" ads).

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-24-2009, 04:28 PM:

So, they'll mix in some popular movies with the "art film" list that they normally honor. This, in hopes that "regular" movie fans will watch the show. But, in the end, the art films that nobody watches will still take home the awards. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 06-24-2009, 05:08 PM:

This is the equivalent of the wild card in sports playoffs. It will get more people to go see those movies that are in the running. 10 is a bit extreme. I could have seen 6 or 7. Most years it seems as if I don't see 10 movies I think are great. Maybe it will be a maximum of 10 kind of thing, but they won't always have to have 10?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-24-2009, 05:22 PM:

There is no way that ten good films are released in a single year.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-24-2009, 06:26 PM:

And there is no way the Academy will pick more than one deserving movie each year to make the nominee list (which won't win).

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-24-2009, 07:24 PM:

I agree with Joe. Most years there are only 6-7 films that are actually deserving of a nomination. Of course this will expand the telecast by another 30 minutes.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-24-2009, 09:37 PM:

I predict a lot of griping by fans of directors if there are still only five director nominations.

Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 06-24-2009, 10:40 PM:

Hopefully they will now include nominated animated movies with that 10. Did they mention that by any chance?

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 06-24-2009, 10:58 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
There is no way that ten good films are released in a single year.

No, but sometimes there aren't even five and there's no guaranteeing the good ones would be nominated anyway.

This certainly changes the dynamics as much as adding five more horses to a five horse race. I kinda' like the shake up. Hey, a. It will stay around, or, b. It will go back to five next year.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-24-2009, 11:25 PM:

No, no, no...
If they want to get more people to watch the Oscars, HERE is what they should do:

Nominate ALL of the movies made all year long but do it two months before the awards. They all have to compete for top honors. The directors and cast have to compete in silly stunts. Every week, six of them get voted out.

Then, at the end, when there are only five movies left, the television audience gets to call in and vote for their favorite.
(1-888-OSCAR-01, 1-888-OSCAR-02, etc.) The audience vote counts for 50% of the final score. The other half is comprised of a panel of celebrity judges.

In the end, on Oscar night, the winner is revealed, live, on national television.

Yeah! That will work!

[Big Grin]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-24-2009, 11:37 PM:

Sadly, that sounds completely possible.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 06-25-2009, 12:12 AM:

Ugh. How much longer is the show going to be? 5 hours instead of 4?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-25-2009, 12:45 AM:

They should just get rid of the awards nobody gives a shit about, like Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary and Best Animated Film.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 06-25-2009, 01:05 AM:

Wow, a pirates wet dream. Look at the amount and quality of the screener DVDs that will be available for download in December.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 06-25-2009, 09:16 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
They should just get rid of the awards nobody gives a shit about, like Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary and Best Animated Film.

Or they could do what they did the last time I watched the Grammys and begin presenting awards like these off the air (in the case of the Grammys, the "spoken word" category had been presented before the broadcast aired).

Lately the Oscars have really been just another soap box for Hollywood folk to stand on and beat us over the head with their skewed, Utopian political agendas.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 06-25-2009, 09:42 AM:

They already do present a lot of Academy Awards off air. Keeping more off air is what is likely. They could just do the big 6 categories on air, make it a one hour program, everybody's happy.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-25-2009, 11:42 AM:

Except all the thousands of people who would make much less money from a shorter program. And the millions of "buffs" who like the long overblown show.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-25-2009, 12:55 PM:

With 10 Best Picture nominees the bulk of the show will be taken up by fluff pieces about all ten movies, perhaps even with 10 musical performances.

In an attempt to balance the ego massaging taking place, the show's producers will likely throw in even more overly drawn out crap involving actors awards -like the new crap with 5 different presenters talking to 5 nominees and taking forever and a day to get the crap done.

There's a good chance all the artistic and technical awards categories will get shoved off into another awards show like what takes place with AMPAS' Science and Technical Merit Oscars. No more Visual Effects Oscar presentation or Film Editing, Sound, Production Design, etc.

Whatever takes place, the show will still run upwards of 4 hours in length.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-25-2009, 04:25 PM:

The news media is saying that this will give more of those blockbuster pictures that were "snubbed" last year more chances to make the cut. So why don't they just run with that and have two nomination categories -- Best Picture (under $100 million gross) and Best Picture ($100 million and over), pick a winner from each group, and then give the award to one of them via a live drawing on the air. That way all these stupid "prediction" people would have less to crow about, but that would be no loss, and you would truly have some suspense.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 06-25-2009, 10:19 PM:

That won't work Mike, nobody wants to win with an asterisk after the title ... to be best picture, you have win against all the competition ... I mean, Sunrise won best picture in 1929, but it's not among the list of films to win "best picture" (in '29 it is Wings) because Sunrise has the "unique and artistic production" junk after "best picture". Also, what if a film grosses over $100m AFTER it wins best picture (but "qualified" in the under $100m group) - would its Oscar become null & void?

---

quote: Greg Anderson
But, in the end, the art films that nobody watches will still take home the awards.

Of the past ten films to win best picture, only two have grossed less than $100m, and those weren't little no-namer films by any means ( Crash & No Country For Old Men) so, I don't quite get what you mean...

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-25-2009, 10:46 PM:

quote:
-like the new crap with 5 different presenters talking to 5 nominees

I thought the way they presented the acting awards this year was fantastic - and most people I've talked to seem to agree. I felt it gave the award a much more personal feeling.

If they are going to move any awards to a pre/post telecast presentation, it should be the technical awards like cinematography, sound editing, sound mixing, and maybe even costumes and art direction. For one thing, the average Oscar viewer doesn't know enough to understand what is award worthy in these categories.

I know it's not the popular opinion around here, but I actually enjoy watching the Oscars and I thought this year's show was the best in recent memory.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-26-2009, 09:14 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I thought the way they presented the acting awards this year was fantastic - and most people I've talked to seem to agree. I felt it gave the award a much more personal feeling.

The problem is that format took way the hell too long to present. One category dragged out to an extreme.

This is one of the main reasons I really HATE "unscripted" so-called reality TV shows, prime time game shows and shows like American Idol. Those producers stretch 30 minutes of actual content into 1 or 2 hours of running time. The pacing is utter crap. Not only do viewers need a DVR to skip the commercials, they need it to skip over all the fake dramatic pauses, over-bearing stupid fake suspenseful music and all the other foot dragging nonsense that makes watching shows like that about as pleasant as slamming one's fingers in a door. The Oscars are adopting the same bullshit style. The Oscars telecast is already excruciating enough to watch as it was. Now it looks like the show will have even less substance yet stretch out to 4 hours anyway.
[Roll Eyes]

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-26-2009, 11:08 AM:

quote:
Of the past ten films to win best picture, only two have grossed less than $100m,

I think it's time to admit that grossing $100 million these days isn't much of an achievement. How much did a ticket cost when Star Wars was new?

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 06-26-2009, 11:17 AM:

quote: Greg Anderson
I think it's time to admit that grossing $100 million these days isn't much of an achievement. How much did a ticket cost when Star Wars was new?

Which serves to show the point of how commercially unsuccessful the "Best Picture" winners have been. $100M gross takes maybe 14 or 15 million tickets sold. So these "works of art" grossing $50M or less getting nominated have sold less than 7 million tickets.

I think what really kills the Oscars is that Hollywood forgets that they are in the entertainment business not the art business. By nominating all the art films you turn off most of America. I'm not saying that Transformers 2 should win Best Picture but Dark Knight should have last year.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-26-2009, 11:28 AM:

Back in 1977 I remember our family visiting the Crest Drive-In in Yuma, AZ. We paid $2 per car load. Not sure what movie ticket prices for indoor theaters were averaging at the time. I do remember paying in the $3 to $3.50 range in the early 1980s.

Near the end of the 1980s there was a fair amount of public outcry in New York City when some theaters in Manhattan hit the $7 price level.

Today it is possible for a movie to gross $100 million with fewer than 10 million tickets sold (based on the growing number of theaters whose regular admission price is over $10 and the surcharges for 3D, IMAX, etc. being added in many other places). This is essentially why I have long thought measuring movies by their grosses is just utter bullshit.

The marketing people love measuring movies in terms of dollar grosses because it sounds a lot more impressive to say a new movie had an opening weekend gross of $80 million than say 8.3 million people visited theaters over the weekend to see the show.

Actual tickets sold should be the only legitimate measuring tool. Sure, that would upend the status of a lot of recent hit movies on all time box office champ lists and not make them compare very well with much older blockbusters like Gone With the Wind. But I think that's just tough toogies for the marketing people. If the studios actually measured by tickets sold then it might actually make them work harder on making better movies -that is if they actually care at all about having a new release truly rank high on an all time success list.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-26-2009, 01:21 PM:

I think there is a basic difference in the philosophy of what constitutes a "best" picture. I loved Dark Knight as much as the next guy, but realistically, in ten years, it will be mostly forgotten. Compare that to Casablanca (Best Picture, 1943), for example, which came out when my grandparents were younger than I am now. Casablanca is still a vitally important film, and you will be roundly mocked if you haven't seen it. Now, I'm not saying that this is a standard that can even be accomplished these days, but this is an ideal that I think should at least be striven for. Does Dark Knight have that kind of staying power? No. Neither does Slumdog Craptaculaire, but my grandchildren may very well see Milk, at least.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-26-2009, 01:32 PM:

quote: Greg Anderson
I think it's time to admit that grossing $100 million these days isn't much of an achievement.

$100 million doesn't mean what it did 5-10. But given that a majority of films don't reach $100 million, I think it's a decent benchmark.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-26-2009, 02:01 PM:

Given inflation, I think the "blockbuster benchmark" should be $150 million. But they really ought to measure by ticket sales numbers, not money.

Comparisons to really old movies like Gone With The Wind are very irrelevant and I get irritated with media that trumpets those statistics in the middle of a "people don't go to as many movies anymore" story. Well OF COURSE they don't, because there are about a dozen or more OTHER ways for them to be entertained now that didn't exist in 1939, or 1969 for that matter. Comparisons within the last 10 years or so are the only valid ones.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-26-2009, 03:39 PM:

IMHO, a Hollywood movie isn't a real "block buster" unless it has sold at least 25 million tickets in the United States during its original theatrical release. And I think I'm being generous with that because 25 million tickets might get a movie across the $200 million barrier or even close to $250 million. I don't start getting the slightest bit impressed with a movie's domestic box office gross until it has gone well past $300 million.

I think a movie can be called a commercial hit if it has sold 10 million tickets, such would be impressive it the movie was an independent release in a limited number of theaters. If the movie can climb up to levels of 50 million or more tickets sold then it can be crowned a major box office champ.

In one respect it's currently impossible for any movie to be a "block buster" since any hugely hyped release will be booked on several thousand theater screens. Customers are moved in and out of a given megaplex too fast to provide any chance of lines wrapping around a block.

The last time I had to wait in a pretty long line for a couple of hours to see a big event movie: 1989. And that was to see a 70mm Dolby SR screening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the Loews Astor Plaza theater in Times Square.

I do agree that it is unfair at least to a certain extent to compare the unbeatable ticket sales levels of Gone With the Wind to movies released today. We do have many more outlets of entertainment now than what was available 70 years ago.

However, event movies that are truly great will draw huge crowds regardless of other entertainment alternatives. Titanic was a modern era block buster, one of those rare movies that sold out shows for many weeks on end. If Star Wars had been released today and received with the same level of public frenzy it had in 1977 that movie would cross the $1 billion mark in US box office grosses alone.

The biggest problem with too many recent movies is they're too damned derivative. The marketing people have to bust their butts (and charge huge sums of money for the effort) to spin that turd into sounding like it might be a good movie to see. Trumpeting opening weekend gross figures is one of those tools, "everybody get on the bandwagon to go see the new Transformers movie! I made a ton of money Wednesday and Thursday night!"

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 06-28-2009, 09:17 PM:

quote: Greg Anderson
I think it's time to admit that grossing $100 million these days isn't much of an achievement.

Oh, come on. My bringing up $100m was simply in response to your statement about nobody watching - whether one thinks $100m is an "achievement" or not, it's certainly a far cry from being an

quote: Greg Anderson
art films that nobody watches

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-29-2009, 12:13 AM:

There are lots of ways to look at it. Beyond the Best Picture nominees, the acting categories are full of little-seen "art films" like The Reader, The Visitor, Rachel Getting Married and even Frost/Nixon grossed less than $20 million! The time before, you had stuff like Away From Her, The Savages and In the Valley of Elah. And the viewers just go "Huh?"

So what I perceive is a message to the average viewer of the Oscar telecast which says, "You weren't sophisticated enough to have seen the really good stuff this year." When I was a kid and Johnny Carson was the host, the message seemed to say, "Hey, we're having a great party. Won't you come and join the fun?" Now it seems like just a bunch of elites in their opulent clothing, walking the red carpet and telling us "average WalMart shoppers" that we're causing global warming or homelessness or wars or whatever else is bothering the elites.

The bottom line isn't so much about whether the winning movies were hits. The bottom line is that watching the Oscars just isn't fun anymore!