Announcement: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to Nominate 10 Films for "Best Picture" This Year in Film

Tweet

Also via Awards Daily, yesterday I learned of the following dramatic shift away from tradition regarding the "premier award given for filmic achievement today": 10 is now the number of works to be nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) for its Best-Picture Academy Award this upcoming January - and all Januaries in the foreseeable future. Whoa! Granted that this shift does leave an incredibly enhanced opportunity for good films to boost their historical reputations by earning such a nomination from the Academy - and Awards Daily has compiled a list of some films that may have been worthy of doing just that in the recent years gone by (a list viewable here) - the shift invariably alters the chemistry of the awards, in that it may be now that all other awards (particularly the acting and directing awards) will come eventually to take center stage as the more rarified, thus more coveted, and double-thus more esteemed prizes to be won in the industry. Such an effective dilution of the "top prize," furthermore, would mean that, while the competition could be more open, the competition could be less "best:" See the Golden Globes' similarly extended list of nominees for Best Picture every year. Admittedly, we should not get ahead of ourselves in such kinds of prejudgement here, but these aforementioned are things to be considered and to be suspected as the days roll on, closer to the January date and afterward. In any case, we could stand to see a film like Away We Go hit the list this year in film. Now wouldn't that be something?