82nd Annual Academy Award Nominees: My Predictions

Blame The Dark Knight for ruining the Oscars. Last year, people were so upset their precious Batman movie wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, the Academy responded with a most illogical decision: Expand the Best Picture race to 10 nominees instead of 5, in an attempt to boost the telecast’s ratings with bigger box office hits among nominees. In short, they decided to dumb it down.

This is incredibly short-sighted and unimaginative; do they really think more people would have tuned in for an unceremonious Best Picture nod for The Dark Knight, one it was sure to lose? To merely hear the title mentioned before the drum-roll of the final envelope? No, DK fans tuned in for the far more compelling reason of seeing whether Heath Ledger would win, who would accept the award, and for their hearts to break one more time over his passing.

If the Academy truly wants to bring in a wider audience, they should improve the entertainment value of their telecast, not devalue the nominees. Add star power to the presenters, limit musical numbers to the Best Song nominees (and keep those moving briskly at that), and trade dull montages of movies we’ve presumably seen for new content. (Personally, I’ve always wanted to see more acting at the Oscars. How about live skits where actors re-enact scenes from the nominated films, to hilarious effect?)

The Oscars will never be the Superbowl. They are not the People’s Choice Awards. (Or the Kids’ Choice Awards. Or the MTV Movie Awards, etc.) The award for the movies making the most money is…the money. However often we may disagree with the Academy’s choices (choices I am never shy to criticize), there is at least the intention of honoring quality work that will stand the test of time, rather than soak up box office dollars and then immediately evaporate from our consciousness. (Yes, it was an outrage that Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash, but at least it didn’t lose to Wedding Crashers.)

The Academy has chosen to reach beyond its modest ratings and greedily court a demographic that isn’t going to watch their show anyway. And they will alienate their true fans in the process.

Alright, that’s my rant. Down to business.



(Note on abbreviations: NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, NBR, and CC are the major film critics' awards. GG is the Golden Globes. SAG, WGA, DGA, and PGA are the guild awards for actors, writers, directors, and producers. All actors, writers, and directors have their Oscar record to date expressed as their number of nominations, comma, number of wins.)