Hannah Montana Oscar Contender? Academy Awards Expands Best Picture Nominees To Ten

The Academy Awards people announced today they were going to expand the field of Best Picture nominees from the current five all the way to ten. I think the reason for doing it is so more people will watch the show. By my calculations it will also increase the length of the show from 6 hours to about 3 days.

There are years where I think a movie should have been nominated and wasn't, but there are also years where I am stunned they could even find five nominees to put into the category. I think the Academy is hoping that by diluting the nominees to such an extent that a movie like Hannah Montana has a chance. No, I'm serious. Awful movie, but I know that is what they are hoping. That way they can invite someone like Miley Cyrus and that attracts a bunch of 12 year olds who are now suddenly wanting to watch the show with mom and dad and attracts new advertisers and gets people discussing why it is such an awful idea to make the Academy Awards look like the MTV Movie Awards.

Last year if they had expanded the field, Dark Knight probably would have made the list. It sucks that it didn't make the field, but if it had, what difference would it have made, right? Well, here is the thing. When you are voting in that first round you are just coming up with the five that get the most votes and those are your nominees. Then there is another round of voting where the winner is determined. So, all of the people who voted for something in the first round who didn't get one of their picks nominated pick something else. They may or may not have seen any of the five movies and so get influenced by the screeners they receive or ads in the trade magazines. But, if there are ten movies, the chances they have seen a movie like Dark Knight already is going to influence their choice and might not be as influenced by screeners and ads and just vote for Dark Knight.

I do know that ten movies is going to lead to some upsets and some movies which clearly don't belong. I would not be shocked at all if one of the ten movies nominated is also nominated for a Razzie.