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The Academy has added a new twist to the Best Picture category, which was shaken up two years ago with the expansion of the field from five to 10 nominees. According to a late-breaking press release Monday, the organization has elected the field to include anywhere from five to 10 nominees, depending upon what percentage of number one votes contenders receive during the ballot-counting process.
Think of it as kinda/sorta like the Best Original Song category, which can have anywhere from two to five nominees, but in order to place, a hopeful must first land a certain “score” from the branch. In this instance, the “score” would be the percentage of number one votes received by a given film, with 5% being the minimum. Assuming they hold onto the rule, we could have different years with different numbers of Best Picture nominees, etc.
It’s interesting because the race could shake out predictably — given that a handful of films are agreed upon leading up to the nominations announcement, with one or two already conceded as barely making the cut — or it could be ignited even more with a dash to squeeze into that top percentile. Who knows? But I’m a BIG fan of this measure. It seems like a happy medium between the exclusivity of five nominations and the perceived diminishing of the honor of 10. And maybe even a bit more dialed in. Not to mention, the resulting number of nominees could be a nice representation of the Academy’s stance on an overall year of film. Nicely done.
Full press release follows…
June 14, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Academy Builds Surprise Into Best Picture Rules
Beverly Hills, CA – The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted on Tuesday (6/14) to add a new twist to the 2011 Best Picture competition, and a new element of surprise to its annual nominations announcement. The Board voted to institute a system that will now produce anywhere between five and 10 nominees in the category. That number won’t be announced until the Best Picture nominees themselves are revealed at the January nominations announcement.
“With the help of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we’ve been looking not just at what happened over the past two years, but at what would have happened if we had been selecting 10 nominees for the past 10 years,” explained Academy President Tom Sherak, who noted that it was retiring Academy executive director Bruce Davis who recommended the change first to Sherak and incoming CEO Dawn Hudson and then to the governors.
During the period studied, the average percentage of first place votes received by the top vote-getting movie was 20.5. After much analysis by Academy officials, it was determined that 5% of first place votes should be the minimum in order to receive a nomination, resulting in a slate of anywhere from five to 10 movies.
“In studying the data, what stood out was that Academy members had regularly shown a strong admiration for more than five movies,” said Davis. “A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.”
If this system had been in effect from 2001 to 2008 (before the expansion to a slate of 10), there would have been years that yielded 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 nominees.
The final round of voting for Best Picture will continue to employ the preferential system, regardless of the number of nominees, to ensure that the winning picture has the endorsement of more than half of the voters.
Other rules changes approved by the Board include:
In the animated feature film category, the need for the Board to vote to “activate” the category each year was eliminated, though a minimum number of eligible releases – eight – is still required for a competitive category. Additionally, the short films and feature animation branch recommended, and the Board approved, refinements to the number of possible nominees in the Animated Feature category. In any year in which eight to 12 animated features are released, either two or three of them may be nominated. When 13 to 15 films are released, a maximum of four may be nominated, and when 16 or more animated features are released, a maximum of five may be nominated.
In the visual effects category, the “bakeoff” at which the nominees are determined will expand from seven to 10 contenders. The increase in the number of participants is related to a change made last year in which the number of films nominated in the visual effects category was increased from three to five.
Previously, the Board approved changes to the documentary feature and documentary short category rules that now put those categories’ eligibility periods in line with the calendar year and thus with most other awards categories. The change means that for the 84th Awards cycle only, the eligibility period is more than 12 months; it is from September 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011.
Other modifications of the 84th Academy Awards rules include normal date changes and minor “housekeeping” changes.
Rules are reviewed annually by individual branch and category committees. The Awards Rules Committee then reviews all proposed changes before presenting its recommendations to the Academy’s Board of Governors for approval.
The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
[Photo: AMPAS]
61 responses so far
1 6-15-2011 at 1:37 am
Guy Lodge said...
An improvement, certainly, and will be interesting to watch — but just a bit too messy for my liking. Seems to be a tacit admission of the prestige-diluting effects of The Ten, but going back to five just two years after the fact would seem too much of a tail-between-the-legs move.
Go back to five and stick with it, I say.
2 6-15-2011 at 1:40 am
Burning Reels said...
Whilst I would prefer five to ten, I think this is a decent decision, as clearly some years warrant more nominees than others.
3 6-15-2011 at 3:12 am
Samuel said...
I think this is a terrific change, at least in theory. It’ll be interesting to see how it works in practice. I always thought that ten films diluted the prestige too much, but with five you can potentially miss some great films. This should strike a good balance.
It should, again in theory, allow for a greater emphasis on better years than others.
I like it.
4 6-15-2011 at 4:22 am
Michael W. said...
Hmm. I don’t like this at all. I just seems so random and up in the air. And I don’t like when there’s a different number of nominees in the big categories. It has always annoyed me that the Globes sometimes do that.
5 6-15-2011 at 4:27 am
Graysmith said...
I agree that it’s a bit messy, not to mention it’s a bit annoying for us who like to make predictions since the final number of nominees isn’t a definite, yet to cover all bases you still have to put down 10 films. But that’s a minor quibble and issue for a very small number of Oscar geeks.
I actually think the bigger issue with this is that it will inadvertently signal to the audience whether or not Hollywood itself thought it was a good year for movies. If there are only five Best Picture nominees one year that would kind of come off like them admitting it wasn’t a very good year. How tragic that the five nominees that used to mean the hardest, most exclusive club to get into now will be seen as representing a weaker year (comparably). Of course, maybe they should be allowed to “show weakness” rather than putting up a facade of every year being a great year for movies.
That said, in theory it’s absolutely correct that only the films with enough love ought to be nominated for such an award.. It really is embarrassing that a film like The Blind Side is a Best Picture nominee.. So it’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. It can’t be worse than what they had, anyway.
6 6-15-2011 at 4:57 am
Zac said...
I know it would never happen, but I would love it if the Academy went back and applied this rule change to every year and see how many nominees there would have been each year.
Maybe that would shut up the fanboys (of which I’m one) claiming that The Dark Knight was snubbed.
7 6-15-2011 at 4:58 am
Zac said...
I meant to add: Release a list showing what the nominees would have been every year with this rule in place.
8 6-15-2011 at 5:19 am
Rashad said...
There was nothing wrong with 10. Just don’t nominate shit like The Blind Side. I didn;t see anyone complaining about last year.
9 6-15-2011 at 5:45 am
tdr said...
It’s certainly an improvement, but wouldn’t this unknown number of nominees situation open up the door for more aggresive campaigning and mud-slinging? Just in an effort to get their movie seen and liked, so it would get nominated. Two years ago it was the Nicholas Chartie fiasco and last year it was the screenwriter for Buried.
I like the idea but something’s not sitting right for me and I think that by the end of the season there would be some complaints.
Anyway, just my two cents.
10 6-15-2011 at 6:00 am
Peter Labuza said...
I guess the question is who is going to be helped by this? The popular audience loved films like District 9 and Inception or the critical indie darlings like Winter’s Bone?
11 6-15-2011 at 6:03 am
Ben M. said...
I had no problems with a ten-nominee system and this just seems really messy. One thing I’m willing to bet is not only did the academy look at how many films would have gotten in during those past years, but they probably saw that this system would have brought more diversity to BP slates in those years with blockbusters (my feeling is the academy was very concerned about so few blockbuster getting in with five, but saw more that had upwards of 5% first place votes) and less traditional academy choices.
12 6-15-2011 at 6:05 am
Squasher88 said...
I’m not a fan of this idea already. It’s way too soon to be changing rules again. I was just getting used to expecting 10 nominees after the stellar year that was 2010 (definitely made up for 2009).
13 6-15-2011 at 6:13 am
Loyal said...
The fundamentals stay the same, so those BP nominees that match up or will match up with BD will be nominated and are front of the pack. For me right now, that means
The Descendants
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
War Horse
Assuming the Oscar laws still apply you can cross off -
The Descendants
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
as viable winners.
That leaves an eerie repeat of 2010′s Oscar race, crowd favorite (I suspect War Horse will kill at the box office) vs Fincher. The BIG difference is that The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo will also be a crowd favorite. Maybe we’ll have a split (Fincher for BD, Spielberg gets his second BP win, one for each of the World Wars).
Trying to guess outside the 5 is really hard. Suddenly Bridesmaids (the successful summer film slot) is a pipe dream, Pariah is way too small, Tree of Life is too weird, Carnage may not find the support, Young Adult might not be important enough, Moneyball too safe, etc etc…
14 6-15-2011 at 6:14 am
JJ1 said...
I have ALWAYS thought (and said it here before several times) – even before the 10 BP nonsense – that 5 shouldn’t be the be all end all.
If 7 actors got a similar range of votes, then dammit, let their be 7 nominations that year.
Ditto BP (officially now), or BD, or BScreenplay, or Cinematography, whatever.
OR, if only 3 or 4 movies got a relatively similar cluster of votes, have there only be 3 or 4 nominations in whatever category it is.
I like this change. Think about it, in 2008, there ‘may’ have been 7 noms (including Wall-E and The Dark Knight) … theoretically speaking.
Me likey. A good change-up.
15 6-15-2011 at 6:15 am
Ben M. said...
Peter, I would normally assume indie darlings are more likely to get #1 votes and popular films on more ballots overall. But there is really no way to tell for sure until we see it done in practice and, as I said, I bet the academy saw that blockbusters would still get in under this system.
Also, I do feel Inception would be in even with five nominees considering the 8 noms and 4 wins. The only thing that gives me some pause is the editing snub, but it feels very much like the action heavy blockbuster that get a BP nom even while dismissed by the director’s branch (such as The Fugitive and The Two Towers).
16 6-15-2011 at 6:22 am
JJ1 said...
Loyal wrote: “That leaves an eerie repeat of 2010′s Oscar race, crowd favorite (I suspect War Horse will kill at the box office) vs Fincher. The BIG difference is that The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo will also be a crowd favorite. Maybe we’ll have a split (Fincher for BD, Spielberg gets his second BP win, one for each of the World Wars). ”
I know this kind of talk has been kicked around a lot in the past few weeks (trailer, poster, pedigree). But I’m surprised that there is all this talk of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo doing exceptionally well in the upcoming Oscar season.
Yes, it’s Fincher. Yes, it’s his team. Yes, it’s Rooney Mara (a story), Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, et al. Yes, it’s a beloved book. Yes, it spawned a successful string of films from Sweden.
But I honestly don’t see this being an omg-BP contender. Of course, this is all sight unseen (and I may be DEAD wrong). But I really don’t see a formula here for BP win or even BP nominated, honestly.
And Fincher winning? Because he’s been nommed twice recently and almost won last year? I still don’t see that with ‘this’ movie.
Anyone feel similarly? I feel like I’m out in left field on this one. :)
17 6-15-2011 at 6:33 am
Loyal said...
JJ1 I could be completely wrong as well. I’m just looking back a bit in the past to predict the future. Scorsese had a string of nominations (Aviator, Gangs of New York) and ended up winning for an over the top, violent, box office hit.
Fincher was never ever going to win Curious Case and last year’s events have been exhaustingly analyzed. I think that because Sony will play it cool with Dragon Tattoo works in its favor. And without Pixar in the race and the Summer Blockbuster slot, whatever box office Dragon Tattoo gets will look even more impressive.
Assuming War Horse the film works as well as the play, I can easily see it being very successful in the race. But would voters want to give Spielberg BP/BD with Fincher again in the wings? I don’t know.
Having 6, 7, 8 BP nominees makes it a little cleaner for one of these films to win, it’s narrows the conversation. And let’s face it, it’s just a step removed from the AMPAS saying that 10 was a flop.
18 6-15-2011 at 6:37 am
Matthew Starr said...
I like this as it is warranted in a great year for film like 2007. This would have helped say Diving Bell get in there and for me that is enough to make it worth it.
19 6-15-2011 at 6:38 am
john said...
The problem I see with this system is that it will provide incentive to NOT vote for your favorite film as #1. The beauty of the current nomination process is that your vote is never wasted if you choose to go with a long shot you love. Now you have to play games with your vote.
An example: In 2009, if I was an AMPAS voter I would have put In the Loop at #1. Its chances were very small but maybe not nil. It didn’t hurt to put it there. My #2 would go for An Education, a film that I thought would probably need every vote it could get to get into the ten. Most likely In the Loop would be eliminated and my vote would go to An Education.
Now I’d have to put An Education #1 to try to ensure at least one film I loved got in.
It’s going to be a lot harder for little guys to convince voters to throw some votes their way.
I think the intention is good but there must be a better way to measure broad support. Maybe the number of rounds of voting can be cut off at a set point. If by the 25th round of vote allocation there aren’t 10 nominees then stop, for example.
20 6-15-2011 at 6:44 am
Guy Lodge said...
JJ1: I’m with you — I’d bet money that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo won’t land a Best Pic nod, however much slick fun it is.
21 6-15-2011 at 6:48 am
sosgemini said...
Hearing you all analyse this year’s field of potential nominees before any of them are released or even finished in some case makes my stomach hurt.
22 6-15-2011 at 7:11 am
john said...
Another quibble: restricting the number of nominees doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall quality of the slate of films. A five nominee year doesn’t have to mean that it was a weak year, it could very well just mean there was a strong front-runner or two. If the top two films are hauling in over a third of the #1 votes, it’s going to be hard for even well-loved, high quality films to get over that 5% thresh hold. Years with lower overall quality but no front-runner could get 10 nominees in easily.
The “overflow” rule in the usual nomination process is a nice way to compensate for front-runners and the new rules undermine it.
23 6-15-2011 at 7:18 am
Will said...
My only quibble is that a lot of people seem to think this will prevent something like The Blind Side from getting a nod, which I think is pretty optimistic. I’d bet that if you looked at all the votes, The Blind Side probably placed no lower than 6th or 7th.
24 6-15-2011 at 7:18 am
Loyal said...
sosgemini I’ll get you some Cipro. I guess I could wait until December to speculate but that doesn’t sound as fun or interesting.
25 6-15-2011 at 7:47 am
Nick Davis said...
Totally with you, Kris!
26 6-15-2011 at 7:50 am
Andrej said...
On one side, I can’t help but saying “oh come on!”. Stop changing the damn thing so frequently. I’d have waited a few more years for this measure to be applied, as I still don’t think that the Top 10 system hasn’t brought back any noticeable results save for a few obvious nods for sci fi and animated movies (no docs, no foreign, and save for Avatar, none of these have been a frontrunner in any way).
But on the other side, it definitely sounds like a fun idea. If this year the debate was all about Winter’s Bone vs. The Town for the last spot, next year all the movies will fighting for this “last spot/s”. I’m expecting more than a couple twists here next year.
My only concern is whether this will hurt said sci fi and animated movies’s chances to get nominated, and since now it looks far easier to nominate all the overly Oscar bait flims they like as they see fit, excluiding the rest. They might as well give all the available spots to something like The Reader, leaving The Dark Knight, Black Swan, District 9, etc, behind, if they really love it so much.
It’s a double-edged system, and if their BP picks are terribly received by the audience, I don’t think this voting method will stay for the following year.
27 6-15-2011 at 7:51 am
JJ1 said...
Good points, Loyal. But yeah, as of now, I’m still pretty cautious about TGWTDT’s chances (thanks, Guy).
28 6-15-2011 at 7:52 am
Andrej said...
*as I still don’t think that the Top 10 system HAS brought back (…)
Erratum. :(
29 6-15-2011 at 8:02 am
Guy Lodge said...
I don’t see why the change “hurts” any particular type of film’s chances of a nomination, given that the voting and tabulation processes remain unchanged. It’s always been an uphill battle for foreign/animated/genre fare to be nominated — this certainly makes it no more difficult than it was in the days of five nominees.
30 6-15-2011 at 8:03 am
Jeremy said...
“The final round of voting for Best Picture will continue to employ the preferential system, regardless of the number of nominees, to ensure that the winning picture has the endorsement of more than half of the voters.”
This is still the larger issue to me. I’m relatively indifferent to the most recent change, although I suppose I liked the Academy publishing its own Top 10 list for each year. But regardless of the number of nominees, I still think the preferential voting system favors more watered-down, innocuous pictures over riskier fare. The rationale that a winner needs to receive at least 50% of all #1 votes never made sense to me. Here’s hoping they revisit that in years to come.
31 6-15-2011 at 8:27 am
Guy Lodge said...
The rationale that a winner needs to receive at least 50% of all #1 votes never made sense to me.
That’s not the rationale at all. The idea is that voters who don’t have one of the frontrunners in their #1 spot still get a say in the outcome of the race.
If a film did get 50% of all #1 votes, it’d be a pretty inarguable victor.
32 6-15-2011 at 8:30 am
Andrej said...
Guy:
While it doesn’t make it more difficult than in the years of 5 nominees, these genre/animated films lost their theoretical bye to Oscar night (which they had with the Top 10 system) if they proved to be too big to go unrewarded.
Baity, big name films almost always get a better chance, but how many of them can be released in a year, and how much will they like them over the genre/animated films to effectively deny them a nod, as now the BP race could range from 5 to 10 movies? That’s what I meant.
33 6-15-2011 at 8:33 am
john said...
Guy says, “the voting and tabulation processes remain unchanged”
But that’s not true. Only films that get 5% of #1 votes qualify and it’s quite unlikely that 11+ films get more than 5% of #1 votes. So the only vote that will count on the Best Picture nomination ballot is the #1 slot: either your choice will get 5%+ and it will be nominated or it will get under 5% and not be nominated.
34 6-15-2011 at 8:46 am
Mr. F said...
I guess this is to save themselves from the embarrassments nominating stuff like The Blind Side with 10 nominees and snubbing The Dark Knight with only 5
35 6-15-2011 at 9:04 am
Guy Lodge said...
Mr F: Who’s to say The Blind Side wouldn’t have made the cut with this system?
36 6-15-2011 at 9:07 am
Maxim said...
“I guess this is to save themselves from the embarrassments nominating stuff like The Blind Side with 10 nominees and snubbing The Dark Knight with only 5″
You are not getting this at all. Today’s change makes the field more closed not only in the sense that it can yeild fewer nominees but also because it makes the stakes even higher. Suddenly it’s not enough to be liked in a runner-up kind-of way, there is a certain demographic you gotta preach too to get those #1 votes.
37 6-15-2011 at 9:11 am
Maxim said...
“and a new element of surprise to its annual nominations announcement”
And this is what it’s really all about. AMPAS is going out of it’s way to make things “exciting” (you’d think they’d learn something by now too) without actually thinking if any of their changes make sense.
38 6-15-2011 at 9:16 am
Chris138 said...
Good move by the Academy. I thought they should have done this instead of just making the members come up with 10 movies each year.
39 6-15-2011 at 10:08 am
red_wine said...
Really great move. I think this works. Though the mathematics get a bit more complicated.
Ben M. said “Also, I do feel Inception would be in even with five nominees considering the 8 noms and 4 wins. The only thing that gives me some pause is the editing snub, but it feels very much like the action heavy blockbuster that get a BP nom even while dismissed by the director’s branch (such as The Fugitive and The Two Towers).”
I think Inception would have never made it in a year of 5. The four primary categories are supposed to be acting,directing, editing & writing. Inception failed to get nominations in three of these categories.
King’s Speech, TSN, Fighter got into all 4,
Black Swan, True Grit, 127 Hours got 3,
Winter’s Bone, The Kids Are All Right got 2,
Toy Story 3 & Inception got 1.
40 6-15-2011 at 11:24 am
Vinci S. said...
This is oddly timed with the blog series I’ve been doing for the last few months:
http://cinesnatch.blogspot.com/search/label/Oscar%20Revisionism
41 6-15-2011 at 1:15 pm
RealDogBoy said...
I like it. It appeals to the math nerd in me.
42 6-15-2011 at 1:38 pm
Loyal said...
I don’t know how accurate this is but apparently (or allegedly) Winter’s Bone BP nomination lead in part to the change.
43 6-15-2011 at 1:58 pm
Ben M. said...
Why would Winter’s Bone lead to the change? Even though I feel it was probably #10 on last year’s list it is not like that film was widely viewed as a bad choice. In fact many use it as advantage for a 10 nominee system that an critically acclaimed, small movie like that could get recognition.
The only reason I could see it being a factor was if it got in with 1% of first place votes or some really low number like that (but I kinda doubt it given that the film does seem to have a passionate fanbase, if anything I bet it got in because of more #1 votes while a film like The Town was on more total ballots).
44 6-15-2011 at 2:14 pm
Amir said...
LOVE the idea.
finally we’re in for SOME sort of surprise.
45 6-15-2011 at 2:21 pm
Amir said...
but i have to add, that’s mostly the only reason i like the idea. the surprise element. otherwise i feel bad for movies that are not nominated in a field of say 7, because it’s just a bit of slap in the face. but oh well…
46 6-15-2011 at 2:25 pm
Hans said...
@Chris138
“Good move by the Academy. I thought they should have done this instead of just making the members come up with 10 movies each year.”
Erm, if I’m not mistaken, voters still have to rank ten movies for the nomination. From there it will be the #1 votes that get tabulated. Granted, this does mean it will be easier for voters to rank the final nominees if there’s only 6 or 7 nominees.
Ooh, which sets up the potential for an interesting scenario where, for the first time in Academy history, the winner in a field of five will be determined by preferential voting instead of pure plurality. Now I’m wondering what other films, if any, would have won 1943-2008 with that in place.
47 6-15-2011 at 2:29 pm
THE Diego Ortiz said...
Cmon! If hackers can shut down the PlayStation Network (Right when I just bought Mortal Kombat and Portal 2) why cant they hack into PricewaterhouseCoopers and give us those results of the previous years?!?!
48 6-15-2011 at 2:38 pm
JJ1 said...
Amir says: “LOVE the idea.
finally we’re in for SOME sort of surprise”.
THIS.
Also, perhaps Winter’s Bone being a catalyst for this change was that it was seen by so few people and came in 10th (perhaps).
And maybe a much bigger/popular film that also happened to be stellar came in 11th. I dunno. Just figurin’.
49 6-15-2011 at 2:47 pm
Hans said...
^^LOL.
50 6-15-2011 at 2:48 pm
Hans said...
(@ The Diego Ortiz)
51 6-15-2011 at 3:34 pm
Evan said...
Hans, why would you have to rank ten films when only your #1 vote counts? That makes no sense.
I also don’t see your logic on the plurality v. preferential voting.
52 6-15-2011 at 3:42 pm
Evan said...
Hans- nevermind. I realized the ranking would be for cases where less than 5 films or more than 10 films get 5% of the vote. Sorry for the confusion.
I still don’t see why you made conclusions about the voting post-nominations.
53 6-15-2011 at 4:15 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Ben: Lots of Academy members were miffed by its inclusion.
54 6-15-2011 at 4:21 pm
john said...
Steve Pond reports that the 5% is calculated after all films with less than 1% of the vote are eliminated and their votes reallocated AND the surplus rule is put into effect for front-runners that grab lots of votes. I’d say it makes a lot more sense mathematically now.
55 6-15-2011 at 4:34 pm
Robert said...
I dunno. Put me down as a defender of the 10. Did it really lead to that many bad nominees? We got great genre films, great indie films, films with strong women, films with themes and structures that AMPAS usually ignores. All this rule does is lead to fewer of those.
I thought the fields of 10 actually created very nice representations of their respective years in film. Even The Blind Side represented what a certain demographic watched and liked that year.
56 6-15-2011 at 8:48 pm
tintin said...
Bad news for Harry potter…
57 6-15-2011 at 10:00 pm
Frank Lee said...
I dislike the change for two reasons mentioned above. It makes the ranking of ten nominees pointless since, as the academies explained it, every year there are between 5 and 9 movies that get 5% of the first-place votes. That’s the end of the tabulation, in other words: Did you get at least 5% of the first place votes? This retains those movies with narrow but rabid support (which is good) but eliminates those with broad but less rabid support (which is bad: let those widely admired movies fill out the top ten list, I say). The other problem is people will be inclined to put their second favorite film in the number one slot to give it a chance of being nominated, as long as they are confident their favorite movie will receive enough votes to be nominated without their first-place vote. In the past, when an academy member’s number one movie was especially popular, their number two movie also received a partial vote. Those partial votes will be meaningless now. And I may be alone in this, but I enjoyed “The Blind Side” and “The Dark Knight” about equally: each had one great performance that made it worth seeing, but the movie itself wasn’t my cup of tea.
58 6-16-2011 at 12:09 am
Jake Garza said...
Wow now all thats going to be nominated is the usual oscar dramas like The Reader! This is what the oscars want! They just can’t stand nominating an awesome action or sci-fi film like Super 8 or X-Men!!!
59 6-16-2011 at 1:16 am
red_wine said...
“Kristopher Tapley said…
Ben: Lots of Academy members were miffed by its inclusion.”
Kris, where did you hear that? Any source?
Winter’s Bone is a superb film, one of the best nominated last year. I’d kinda bet money that it got more no.1 votes than Inception and 127 Hours.
I would much rather that passionately loved movies by a small faction are nominated rather than broadly liked ones.
60 6-16-2011 at 8:21 am
Pete said...
If only 7 films receive 5% of the votes in the first round, they become automatic nominees for BP, as I understand the new rules. That means that AMPAS voters who chose a film other than one of these 7 will not have their vote counted. In a year like Titanic or Schildler’s List, there might be only four films that reach the threshold. What does the Academy do then?