What the What?

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced, starting this year, the Academy Awards' Best Picture category would expand from five nominees to ten, an entirely unexpected surprise. The last time the Academy shook up the award categories, adding Best Animated Feature, there was a drawn out process. The category was suggested in 1999 (great year for animated movies), approved in 2000, and the first award was handed to Shrek in March of 02. While there must have been talks behind the scenes, the decision to go from five to ten Best Picture nominees appeared to come out of nowhere. A ten nominee field, while surprising, isn't unprecedented. For a period of time in the thirties and forties, the Academy experi The urge to expand must have arisen from the failure of The Dark Knight and WALL-E to score nods earlier this year. Both films were in the running, garnering enough precursors, but ultimately failed because they were genre pictures. Had one or both made the cut, the ceremony would likely have garnered higher ratings. It just came off as missed opportunity for the Academy, and I'm guessing they didn't want it to happen again. The move does increase the chances for a Best Picture nomination for Up, making it only the second animated film to garner a Best Picture nod, after Beauty and the Beast, and it brings some excitement to the race, as we don't know what to expect. However, I still remain cautious, because while we think this opens the race to more independent or foreign-language films, it more likely means getting more midbrow "prestige" pics that didn't have enough critics' support to break into the top five. Had the ruling been in 2005, Memoirs of a Geisha and Cinderella Man would have been nominated over the likes of A History of Violence and The New World.