And the Oscar goes to… how?
The awards season is an awesome time to be a film buff. Serious film buffs get to wax lyrical with their chums about which films and actors deserve which awards and why, and for at least a couple of nights (what feels like) the entire world stops to see what the film indutrsy offers.
For the upcoming 2010 ceremony of the Academy Awards, TEN films will be nominated for Best Picture as apposed to the usual five. The idea being that a larger scope of people’s favorites will be nominated, thus mentioned in news building up to the ceremony, thus generating interest in tuning in. (And for Avatar fans to not miss out like The Dark Knight did, perhaps? Just teasing…)
With the awards season also comes the online barrage of Oscar-haters. Those who care enough about the ceremony to claim they really don’t care and believe that it amounts to nothing and is pointless. They make some valid points, but there is no way I’m going to buy into their claims that the Oscars are pointless and should be scrapped. I like that the Academy is changing things up a little by having 10 Best Picture nominations, and I liked last years approach with Hugh Jackman hosting and the slight change of pace. At least they’re not letting appear too much of the same each year and become stale.
What always grit my shit about these haters was how they often like to imply that there’s a boardroom full of grumpy old men somewhere deliberately picking the drama movies for Best Picture while overlooking their favorite superhero fantasy film. I thought it was common knowledge that members of the Academy vote on what they believe is the best of each category. What we’ve never really known is how exactly that voting takes place, and how it is tallied to decide an eventual winner.
Screenwriter John August (Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish) recently posted on his blog about how the balloting system works for Academy members. This is his first year voting and he explains how he is required to vote and what categories he must nominate various puictures for. Take a read.
I must admit, I’m rather impressed. The system seems thorough and reasonable safe in weeding out films that truly deserve honors based on popular vote. And I like how each category is voted on by people of that profession. Screenwriters vote on Best Screenplay, editors vote on editing, etc.
There’s plenty of buzz around which films will be nominated for Best Picture this year and I look forward to speculation about which will win once nominations are announced on Tuesday 2 February 2010.
John Augusts’ blog: How Nominations Work
