Silly Oscars, Tricks Are For Idiots

Today there was Earth-shaking news in the world of entertainment for everyone who cares deeply about movies (It's just me? Moving on...). The Academy Awards, aka Oscars, have inexplicably decided to bump up the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. TEN. Considering I thought last year's Oscars included two movies (out of a nominated five) that should never have been near that title, I will say in my kindest words that finding another FIVE movies to fill the new void is going to be troublesome at best.

The Academy finally caught on (only five months after announcing nominations! Not bad for them!) that people in the public were "mad as hell and [they] were not gonna take it anymore!" because "their" movies (aka blockbusters, or really just movies that might actually make you laugh a tiny bit instead of just making you sob or roll your eyes the whole way through- I'm looking at you Dances with Wolves). The Academy missed the boat last year by not nominating The Dark Knight or even WALL-E (I don't think they should have nominated WALL-E but at least it was better than The Reader) as they represented high quality movies that are arguably the respective bests of their genres who happened to appeal to a large mass of people. But instead, good ol' Harvey Weinstein and his incessant campaigning had to go on and remind voters (who are very, very old) that the Holocaust did indeed happen, was a horrible event, and they should celebrate it and Kate Winslet being the possible most nominated loser by nominating it for Best Picture, which they kindly did.

So now the Academy is trying to mea culpa it's way out of it by adding five more slots to the Best Picture lineup. I say, why stop there? If they're so eager to boost viewer membership/caring by adding movies that people will have actually heard of in large theater chains while simultaneously boosting revenue/losing credibility by letting "NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE" be on every forseeable DVD cover from now until eternity, why not let Flavor Flav host and let the ceremony be sponsored by Coca Cola? That, I can guarantee, will bring in viewers. Especially when they cut to the money shot of Martin Scorsese knockin' back a Coke and winking into the camera lens. The type of advertisement money can buy, because it did (in my imagination).

So, since there are now ten nominees I wanted to get a headstart on the competition and list my picks for the ten nominated pictures for the year 2009. I have to start this soon so I can actually watch all of them. It's hard to schedule in ten movies before the ceremony.

1. (Winner) Nine- The Musical
2. Shutter Island (Scorsese)
3. Broken Embraces (Almodovar)
4. Public Enemies
5. Where the Wild Things Are
6. Julie & Julia
7. Inglourious Basterds
8. The Hangover (my pick)
9. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay will finally be an Oscar-nommed producer!!)
10. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (sleeper hit of the fall!)