Call it bad luck or foolish optimism, but the decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to double the size of its Best Picture Oscar field from five to 10 nominees this year has put it at risk of not having a full ballot when nominations are announced Feb. 2. And it has given itself an absolute assurance of having nominees that don’t belong.
The Academy’s screwy preferential voting system begins by separating ballots by movies listed first. Every ballot with ‘Avatar’ as No. 1, for instance, goes in one stack, every one with ‘The Hurt Locker’ first goes in another, and so on. That’s no problem for those two movies, or for ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ ‘Up in the Air’ and ‘Precious,’ all slam-dunk Best Picture nominees.
But to be eligible for a nomination — to have its own stack — a movie has to have at least one first place vote, and the movie with the fewest first-place votes is thrown out. (Huh, even if it’s in the top 10?) With 5,777 voters, it’s likely that there will be at least 10 stacks, but God help us, what can they be? Veteran Oscar watchers who normally bite their tongues rather than utter the name of a locker room comedy like ‘The Hangover’ or of a sci-fi action film like ‘District 9′ are, gulp, uttering them.
If there had been the traditional five spots on the Best Picture ballot, it would have been a snap to predict them, as I already have above. To fill out 10 slots, the voters had to consider doubling-down on ‘Up’ and ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ a pair of fabulous animated features that are sure to be on the ballots for Best Animated Feature. If Michael Moore’ latest documentary, ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ had been as popular as his ‘Fahenheit 9/11,’ it might have made the Best Picture list, too.
I’ll return to the Best Picture category later in this forecast of the nominations. As you read through, bear in mind that nominations for individual craft awards — acting, directing, writing, film editing, etc. — are made by members of that branch of the Academy. Only for Best Picture do all members vote.
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