At first I thought, “what a bizarre novelty, why are they doing this,” but then I learned that this is what they used to do back in the olden days and am now, as such, completely in favour of it:
The Academy Awards are doubling the number of best-picture nominees from five to 10.Academy President Sid Ganis said at a news conference that the academy’s board of governors made the decision to expand the slate. Ganis said the decision will open the field up to more worthy films for the top prize at Hollywood’s biggest party.
//The move is a return to Oscar traditions of the 1930s and ’40s, when 10 nominees were common.
The change takes effect with next year’ Oscars on March 7.
Which means, of course, that if they can’t find a way to slip Pixar’s Up into that category we will know there’s a conspiracy against animated films rather than just strongly and justly suspecting as much. My review of that really will be coming up very soon, honestly; I think you’ll be quite shocked by at least half of the post once it goes up.
