The Hot Blog: Are There Really 10 Best Picture Candidates?

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June 26, 2009

Are There Really 10 Best Picture Candidates?

This has been delayed by a couple of days because I was without a computer, but now I have my computer and this link, in which we have pulled the Top 20 from our annual critics' Top 10 chart. Here is what my personal look at the last 3 years delivers...

2008/9 Oscar Nominees
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Note that nominee The Reader was #32 on this list... the only case of a nominee outside of this measure's Top 20 in these last 3 years.,

I have no problem picking 5 more excellent nomination candidates from the critics consensus top 20

Wall-E
The Dark Knight
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Man on WIre
A Christmas Tale
The Visitor
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

And that doesn't even include Doubt, which would surely be one of the next five nominees.. and was ranked #25.

2007/8 Oscar Nominees
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

I have no problem picking 9 more excellent nomination candidates from the critics consensus top 20

The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
Into The Wild
Ratatouille
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
Sweeney Todd
I'm Not There
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
The Lives of Others
The Savages

And that doesn't even include Zodiac, which has a very passionate following.

2006/7 Oscar Nominees
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

I have no problem picking 6 more excellent nomination candidates from the critics consensus top 20

Pan's Labrynth
Borat
Little Children
Dreamgirls
Volver
The Proposition

And that doesn't even include United 93 or Children of Men or Half Nelson, which have very passionate followings, U93 most likely to make the cut.

Posted by dpoland at June 26, 2009 10:41 PM

Comments

Are There Really 10 Best Picture Candidates?

Yes.

Will the Academy pick the right ones?

I'd bet on "no."

Posted by: LYT at June 27, 2009 12:31 AM

Agreed. Making the list is easy, agreeing on which 4-5 are the 'real' nominees is what will become the next stage of the game.

Borat as a Best Pic nominee? Really? Never would have happened under these rules, I'd bet anything. That year's +5 would have been Dreamgirls, United 93, Pan's Labyrinth, maybe Children of Men, and maybe Volver...or maybe Flags of Our Fathers or maybe The Pursuit of Happyness.

Posted by: jeffmcm at June 27, 2009 02:47 AM

Not that it matters to this discussion or to anyone else but looking at these lists reminded again that Letters from Iwo Jima was an amazing film. I and my packed theater seemed stunned when it was over. Just silence, reflection, and a lot of knowing nods to those sitting next to you. I wish it had won.

Posted by: Direwolf at June 27, 2009 04:37 AM

http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/TenWideExperiment.html

Someone else's idea.

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at June 27, 2009 07:40 AM

I meant that as "somebody else's idea of what the nominees would be" not "you stole somebody else's idea".

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at June 27, 2009 07:41 AM

Outside of just an out and out atrocious year in movies, you'll always have ten films that could be nomination worthy. If anybody is seriously believing that the five new slots are going to be filled with pictures like those great movies that just miss the cut in years past (e.g., Children of Men), they really are lacing up their Charlie Brown football cleats. If there were already 1 or 2 films in the top five that shouldn't have been there, now you'll probably get 3 to 4 instead.

Posted by: Hallick at June 27, 2009 11:38 AM

The Hot Blog

June 26, 2009

Are There Really 10 Best Picture Candidates?

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