Oscars decide we can now pick 10

The Academy Awards announced today that they are going to have 10--count 'em 10--movies nominated for Best Picture.

Allow me to discuss for a second.

The Positives

On the one hand, this helps make room for commercially successful pictures in a field that for the last 10 years has been crowded by arthouse films. Last year The Dark Knight certainly would have been a nominee for Best Picture had the field been expanded to 10. This is a good thing. The Dark Knight should have been included last year over films like The Reader, which was good, but certainly not "Best Picture" material.

And because of that, we have to assume that the Academy thinks it will improve Oscar night ratings. If the commercial favorites of the year are nominated, then--in theory--more people will tune in to see if they've won.

We can also assume that it helps the studios sell more movie tickets and DVDs. Being able to put "Nominated for Best Picture" has a certain cash value.

There's also a sense that some years the Oscar field is just ... weak. Like last year's slate: Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, and The Reader. Nothing was particularly great.

The net effect of having 10 nominees would seem to be saying, "We'll always have something good on the list." On the other hand the list will almost certainly have something bad, too.

So with the change, hopefully we'll see a film like Up be nominated. Hopefully.

The Downside

Which brings me to the downside.

The Oscar "fight." With 10 films, that's 5 new films that the studios get to try to promote as Best Picture material. With a larger field to vote from, votes will likely be more spread out, meaning that well-placed marketing, and a concentrated effort (read: Weinstein) might push the balance of votes to a film that only a fraction of the voters liked.

It's the pluralism effect. With 5 films nominated, each has a claim to 20% of the vote. If you figure that one film has no chance, then you can assume that the remaining films have a claim to 25% of the vote. With that kind of distribution, I think it's fair to assume that a winning film can only grab 40 - 60% of votes.

But with 10 ... well. Each film has a claim to 10% of the vote. Figure 3 don't have a chance. That means each now has 14%. It seems unlikely that any given film can pull enough votes from the other six that they can get to the same kind of percentage. That means that a much smaller percentage of voters will have voted for the winning film (with the exception of years when there is a virtual lock, like Titanic and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.)

The other net effect is that the voters will now have to see 10 films instead of 5. Is that such a big deal? Maybe not. But it also might mean that smaller films are more likely to get overlooked. I'm glad that the system will help bring commercial films back in. But it will be interesting to see whether art films will be able to hack it.

My other concern: more and more of the actually good movies released in the fall. I don't know if it's bad to have a "movie season" but if more studios hold off their better work, it's going to make the spring and summer that much worse for movie-going.

Net Effect

I figure that, in the end, the real question should be whether better movies will win Best Picture. It seems that in years where there is no really great film nominated (like last year), votes will edge toward mainstream films that are now in the running. But in years where there is a great film, I think they would still probably win.

In which case ... maybe the net effect is not so bad. If great films will still win, then why not reward the very very good commercial films in years where there is no great film?

The last year the Academy allowed 10 films to be nominated for Best Picture was in the 40s. Look at the options:

Casablanca
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Heaven Can Wait
The Human Comedy
In Which We Serve
Madame Curie
The More the Merrier
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Song of Bernadette
Watch on the Rhine

How many have you seen?

I've only seen Casablanca, the winner.

Of course there are some years when the best film doesn't win. The most obvious in recent memory was Forrest Gump, which should have been beaten by either The Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction. If it's going to happen with 5 nominees, then it will probably happen with 10. I just don't see any reason yet why it will happen more often.

I started this post thinking I was going to pan the Academy for the decision. But I seem to have talked myself to the other side. I think this is a net benefit for movies. We'll have to judge after a few years.