As the quality of movies being produced in Hollywood goes down, the amount of best picture nominees goes up? Apparently about 60 years ago, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to limit the number of films that could be nominated for best picture to only five. Now, after 60 years of limiting the genres and films that can be selected, the Academy has upped the limit to ten.
Now that ten movies can be nominated for an Oscar, does this mean that the quality of movies being given a "best picture" nod is going to diminish? Long gone are the days when films of high caliber were produced and respected. Not to say that all of the movies produced today are crap, they're not, but needless to say, I think there are a lot of crappy movies out there.
On the other hand, having the Academy vote on ten films does allow the academy members to select movies from a larger variety of genres. For example, Man on Wire, which was an amazing film from last year could have potentially been nominated had the limit not been in place. Other movies could have been Wall-E, Changeling, Tropic Thunder (that was not recommended by me!), and lots of others.
Could this be the year that the Oscar goes to a comedy? How about a Sci-Fi film? Documentary? Only time will tell.
As for this years crop of films so far, I have my heart set on seeing a movie like Up take home a best picture Oscar. I've also heard that a film called The Cove, coming out this summer is supposed to be amazing.