The Five
There is of course an undeniable truth about the 10 Academy Award nominations that is worth noting. Only five of the choices really matter. The five movies attached to Best Director should go down in history as the "real" five Oscar nominations of 2010, and that goes for every year in the future they decide to continue this debacle. Not this extra padding crap so the Academy can award a Pixar movie, or a populist audience pleaser to help viewing figures (though it still didn't work with the 10 chosen and honestly, Star Trek/The Hangover probably wouldn't have made a top 20!), or to give them more room so there's less chance of them forgetting a classic. I mean of course, it doesn't hurt anyone that the extraordinary An Education or the rather brilliant A Serious Man has a Best Picture nomination, and that District 9 - a great artistic contribution to the best of 2010 has been recognised in this way. But The Blind Side devalues the thing, and each and every year there's gonna be one or two movies that make you shudder to think that the new ruling system has allowed them to join the party. Five was a good number, especially in the years they got the correct five. 10's a crowd, quite frankly. The five Best Picture nominations of 2010 in essence are the five we all expected when the likes of Invictus, Nine and The Lovely Bones failed to live up to their potential towards the end of the year...