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Five more nominations for best picture?

While you’re at it, tag on another five nominations at the Grammy’s for album of the year.

Let’s add ten more teams to all professional sports leagues.

And since we’re being so generous, how about we have five more presidential candidates presidents every four years.

While opinion will always be objective, there’s greatness sought in many awards. Do you know the reason for this? Because only a rare few truly qualify for an award’s elite status. Possibly the single most prodigious accolade in all of entertainment, is the Academy Award. The Oscar for Best Picture, lives on forever, in history and our minds. When it comes to the screen, even the greatest television actors would gloat over an Academy Award more so than an Emmy. Be that as it may, disagreements about which five nominations for each category will burn on between film enthusiasts. But, at the end of the day, the picks for Best Picture have always been pretty good. I can’t remember an Academy Awards year where every single nomination for the biggest award all sucked. Again, I’ve disagreed with some, but not many. Part of its recognition was due to the fact that only five films get nominated from an Academy of over two thousand voters. If you think about it, that’s a large number of people. These folks work in the industry and know how tough it is to make a movie. Sure, the big studios dish out a lot of dough to market their critically acclaimed films each year, but the indies get their love for the most part. It’s not perfect but nothing ever is.

So here we are, the 83th Academy Awards coming on February 27th and we have ten nominations to choose from! Why? The excuse for its change is silly. Changing up the Academy Awards actually doesn’t work as last year’s show (the first in which ten Best Picture nominations were introduced) was rather boring and didn’t really do the films that were nominated much justice. What’s strange is how they only do ten nominations for Best Picture but left the other categories with their original five nods. This wasn’t one of the better years in film but let’s take a look at the ten nominations.

Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone

Let’s not delve into which movies deserve a nod and which don’t. But, come on, people! It’s not hard to pick five out of these ten. You did it for eighty one years so obviously it’s been working. Now we have an extra five films to sort through and try to watch before the Awards on February 27th. I guess, my biggest question to the Academy or the producers of the show or whoever made this silly decision is: what’s your argument?

How can you argue that ten nominations is better than five? What makes it better to plug in ten different movies throughout a three and half hour telecast instead of a mere five? Believe me, audiences won’t be able to remember all ten by the time the Best Picture winner is announced at the end of the night. Many folks will be turning to their friends or significant other asking “okay, what were those ten films again?” because they’ll only remember about five or six at the most.

Sadly, I believe this turn into ten nominations has now given viewers even more distrust for the Academy than ever before. If you guys can’t even decide on the five best films in a given year, who are we to trust anymore in regards to great films? Look, I’m not trying to be an Oscar Nazi but this change of function for the Best Picture makes this prestigious awards show look messy and confused.

So, pretty please, with a cherry on top, change the format back to five nominations. Don’t do it because I say so or anyone else demands it. Do it to honor great films. Do it to honor a great awards ceremony. Do it to honor the history of cinema. Do it to honor greatness in general. Do it because the movie-watching public puts their faith in your opinions to determine the best films of the year. Ten makes it seem like you’re picking ten of your favorite films of the year rather than the best.

However, until then, how about making the Grammy’s worth watching again?

Tags: 127 Hours, 87th Academy Awards, Academy Awards, Best Picture, Black Swan, cinema, film, flicks, Grammy Awards, Inception, Movies, nominations, Oscars, ten nominations, The Fighter, the industry, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone
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