There are a number of ways — eternally optimistic or typically jaundiced — to greet the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ announcement that, come next March, there will be 10 movies vying for the best-picture Oscar.
“After more than six decades, the academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,” academy president Sid Ganis said at a news conference Wednesday.
“The final outcome, of course, will be the same — one best-picture winner — but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.”
Ganis’ optimism is admirable. Some years, putting together a list of even five “great” nominees is a challenge for the academy.
But his use of “race” is a clue to part of what makes this move exciting. Who doesn’t like the chance to have more horses in the running, especially dark horses? Had the 2008 awards been expanded, “WALL*E” and “The Dark Knight” surely would have made the cut.
Making the race more interesting might be the key to keeping the public interested in the Oscars. A close viewing of this year’s ceremony makes it clear that those clueless elites aren’t so clueless.
Academy members are aware of their supposed annual disconnect with big-flick audiences. This change might lead (though I’m not convinced) to a list of competitors that leavens the serious and the indie with films that are, well, if not quite ebullient (did we mention “The Dark Knight”?) at least moneymaking. It could also add new life to movie releases as Oscar-pool bettors bone up on the nominees.
Of course, it’s hard not to read this move as a shot across the bow of that star-studded, yet decidedly lesser award event called the Golden Globes, an event that continues to steal Oscar’s thunder.
The Globes, put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, packs in the bejeweled, though the telecast is vulnerable. This year’s had 14.6 million tuning in. By comparison, the Oscars’ Hugh Jackman-hosted song-dance-clip extravaganza had 36.3 million viewers, a 13 percent jump.
Take it from an Oscar lover who at 13 forced her parents and brother to toast the anticipated win of Faye Dunaway for “Chinatown,” this year’s Oscar was a fabulous show (Dunaway lost back then).
With six months to go, the list of contenders is rather short. (“Star Trek?” Really? And I loved that flick.) Friday, a possibility arrives with the yet-unseen “Public Enemies” with Johnny Depp.
What other summer fare might make it to the starting gate? The latest “Harry Potter”? Meryl Streep and Amy Adams’ “Julie & Julia”? Or (I’m not trying to be funny) the serio-comedic “Funny People,” because Judd Apatow still does the best “Apatow” movies?
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@ ; also on blogs
