Oscars tweak Best Picture race...again

Well here we go again.  This quiets the haters, and keeps the quality.  Two years ago, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), extended their decades-old Field of Five nominating system.  In lieu of five nominees, we got ten.  Many people (not yours truly) weren't fans of this system, claiming that many were scrapping the bottom of the barrel to nominate 5 more films and that the prestigious nature and exclusivity of the "Five" was all but gone.  I, however, found nothing but merit from it, and because of it Up, Toy Story 3, An Education, The Kids Are All Right, District 9, Winter's Bone, and A Serious Man are Best Picture nominees, many of which, in my opinion, were far superior than the Assumed Five, or the Five that would have made it in with five nominees.

BUT, those days are behind us.  Not totally, but in a big way.  There's no longer 10 nominees.  Sometimes.  And we're back to 5 nominees.  Sometimes.  Basically, based on the percentage of Number One votes from the nominating ballots, we can be looking at anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees depending on how many films snag the coveted percentage.  Many Oscar followers complained that The Ten made precicting the Best Picture nominees devoid of excitement, and now we don't even know how many nominees there are going to be.

I fear, however, that should this year or even the next year bear 5 or even 6 nominees, that that could persuade the AMPAS to go back to their old Just Five ways.  We'll have to see though.  Time shall tell.

The thrilling press release is after the cut.

June 14, 2011FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAcademy Builds Surprise Into Best Picture Rules 

Beverly Hills, CA – The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted on Tuesday (6/14) to add a new twist to the 2011 Best Picture competition, and a new element of surprise to its annual nominations announcement. The Board voted to institute a system that will now produce anywhere between five and 10 nominees in the category. That number won’t be announced until the Best Picture nominees themselves are revealed at the January nominations announcement. 

“With the help of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we’ve been looking not just at what happened over the past two years, but at what would have happened if we had been selecting 10 nominees for the past 10 years,” explained Academy President Tom Sherak, who noted that it was retiring Academy executive director Bruce Davis who recommended the change first to Sherak and incoming CEO Dawn Hudson and then to the governors. 

During the period studied, the average percentage of first place votes received by the top vote-getting movie was 20.5. After much analysis by Academy officials, it was determined that 5% of first place votes should be the minimum in order to receive a nomination, resulting in a slate of anywhere from five to 10 movies. 

“In studying the data, what stood out was that Academy members had regularly shown a strong admiration for more than five movies,” said Davis. “A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.” 

If this system had been in effect from 2001 to 2008 (before the expansion to a slate of 10), there would have been years that yielded 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 nominees.The final round of voting for Best Picture will continue to employ the preferential system, regardless of the number of nominees, to ensure that the winning picture has the endorsement of more than half of the voters. 

Other rules changes approved by the Board include: 

In the animated feature film category, the need for the Board to vote to “activate” the category each year was eliminated, though a minimum number of eligible releases – eight – is still required for a competitive category. Additionally, the short films and feature animation branch recommended, and the Board approved, refinements to the number of possible nominees in the Animated Feature category. In any year in which eight to 12 animated features are released, either two or three of them may be nominated. When 13 to 15 films are released, a maximum of four may be nominated, and when 16 or more animated features are released, a maximum of five may be nominated. 

In the visual effects category, the “bakeoff” at which the nominees are determined will expand from seven to 10 contenders. The increase in the number of participants is related to a change made last year in which the number of films nominated in the visual effects category was increased from three to five. 

Previously, the Board approved changes to the documentary feature and documentary short category rules that now put those categories’ eligibility periods in line with the calendar year and thus with most other awards categories. The change means that for the 84th Awards cycle only, the eligibility period is more than 12 months; it is from September 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011. 

Other modifications of the 84th Academy Awards rules include normal date changes and minor “housekeeping” changes. 

Rules are reviewed annually by individual branch and category committees. The Awards Rules Committee then reviews all proposed changes before presenting its recommendations to the Academy’s Board of Governors for approval. 

The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Another Earth trailer drops

The official trailer for this Sundance hit is finally here.  Another Earth is from first time director Mike Cahill, who also co-wrote the film with its star Brit Marling.  I like where this film seems to be going, and I more like the fact that it's an Indie film that's going there.  I've enjoyed the Art House meets Sci-fi products like District 9 and Moon, and I certainly hope this continues that quality partnership.  One can only imagine if a studio got their hands on an original idea like this.  Such a fun concept, I really hope the film lives up to the ridiculously good trailer.


I don't usually post movie trailers because as a rule I don't usually get very excited over them (I'd rather read about the movie and see it, and there's something fundamentally of watching a movie trailer online; doesn't it feel more at home in a theatre?).  But on a whim, I watched this without really knowing the premise.  The premise is straightforward enough and quite obvious given the film's title.  I suggest watching this.  It looks awesome.


Oh, and for those reads who wants a full-on synopsis, it's below.

Rhoda Williams [Marling], a bright young woman recently accepted into MIT’s astrophysics program, aspires to explore the cosmos. John Burroughs [Lost's William Mopother], a brilliant composer, has just reached the pinnacle of his profession, and is about to have a second child with his loving wife. On the eve of the discovery of a duplicate Earth, tragedy strikes, and the lives of these strangers become irrevocably intertwined. Estranged from the world and the selves they once knew, the two outsiders begin an unlikely love affair, which reawakens them to life. But when one of them is presented with the opportunity to travel to the other Earth and embrace an alternative reality, which new life will they choose?

The film's two beautiful posters are after the cut

*Images from IMDb and AwardsDaily.com
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BATTLE LOS ANGELES

Written by Christopher Bertolini

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan and Michael Pena

Announcer: One thing is clear; the world is at war.

Director Jonathan Liebesman, the man who brought us DARKNESS FALLS and a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE prequel, is about to make contact with his latest film, BATTLE LOS ANGELES. He drops his audience right in the middle of an epic alien invasion bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before on screen. And then, right when it looks like it’s about to get really dire, he takes the action back 24 hours, like a bad television drama might, so that we can contextualize exactly what this devastation has consumed, without realizing whatsoever that no one really cares what happened earlier. All we want to see is what happens next.

By the time you get to what happens next, you won’t care. First you have to meet the platoon that will try to save the world. You’ve got a staff sergeant with a sketchy service record who has just put in for retirement. He will be leading a band of assorted military types who have never been in combat before. There is one grunt who is getting married, one whose wife is pregnant, one who is a virgin still (and therefore cannot die before losing his virginity) and there is even one soldier whose brother died under the command of his new sergeant. There is oh so much at risk for these boys and, thanks to the blatantly obvious setup, we already know what horror awaits them. Once in combat, hardly any of this back-story even gets brought up though, making it so worth going there to begin with, and Liebesman can then focus on what he should have to begin with, blowing stuff up. He blows so much stuff up though that one wonders how he can sustain everything for another 90 minutes. Enter yet another tried and true tension builder; the troops must get themselves and a handful of civilians out of their war zone by a certain time or they will be bombed by an impending American air strike. At least the entire cast getting blown up would have been original.

BATTLE LOS ANGELES is lazy filmmaking. It is one of those pictures that plays out like a bad pitch, so transparent that you can see the Hollywood suits behind the screen counting the money they will make off all who are unfortunate enough to see this disastrous disaster pic. The script is riddled with clichés and none of the actors, not even the usually stellar Aaron Eckhart, can find any meaning in the dialogue they have to force out. (Michelle Rodriguez does a solid job but she’s got to be used to spitting out contrived nonsense by this point in her career.) Even the film’s visual style, the only reason I went to see it, is derivative of DISTRICT 9 – only with all the excitement and electricity sucked out of it. Clearly somebody somewhere wanted to capitalize on that film’s success by stripping it of all intelligent and provocative thought, allowing for more middling audiences to just enjoy kicking some alien ass. In the end, it all amounts to nothing more than a losing battle.