... nonplussed for the Oscars

Normally this is one of the times of the year I get annoying.

Well, more so than usual.

See, the Oscars appeal to both the trivia nut (Quick: Which two movies were nominated for the most Oscars without winning any?) and the pundit in me ("The Best Animated Feature category has become a joke and really should be discontinued post-haste"). But this yeah, here's what I'm feeling.

"Ellipses"

Nuthin'. And it's not because of a bad year of movies: most movies I've seen this year have quite impressed me (and I could write many many words on how this was both a renaissance for science-fiction with Watchmen, Star Trek, and District 9, while also confirming all the things I hate about sci-fi in Avatar). Instead, what's ruining it for me is a change is the Academy voting policy that sets to cheapen all previous winners, and will also dilute this year's field.

I'm speaking of the return of 10 nominees for best picture. In the early days of the award this amount was the default. And you know what? There were a lot of movies nominated that people do not remember like Blossoms in the Dust, One Foot in Heaven, Kitty Foyle - The Natural History of a Woman.

The ostensible reason for this is that bigger budget, popular, crowd pleasing movies were not making it into the best picture field, so the ratings for the telecast were down. The point raised last year was that since The Dark Knight didn't get nominated for best picture, there was something wrong with the system.

Now I've seen most of last year's nominees for best picture, and the only one I didn't see (The Reader) Dawn saw and said she didn't hate as much as she expected. Of those the only one I would take off the list is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I liked much better the first time it was done when it was called This Movie Doesn't Exist. So, let's take that off the list. Does The Dark Knight make it based on that?

No, because here are other movies I saw that I both liked more and thought were better pictures than The Dark Knight, which I'll go on the record now as saying I loved (and yes, there are a few blockbusters in there):

• Doubt
• Gran Torino
• Waltz With Bashir
• The Visitor
• Wall-E

And those are just of the ones I saw. Now, Wall-E didn't get nominated because of the aforementioned segregation of the Aninmated Feature category. I mean, I still haven't seen Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, or a lot of other well received pictures for that year (The Wrestler suffers from the "Proximity to Evan Rachel Wood" demerit).

So, let's add my list there to get the ten. Does this still bring in a big rating? No! Because there's not much in the line whiz bang blockbuster there. And I'm fine with that. Because I like holding the Oscars to a higher level than, say, The Golden Globes.

Let's take a look at the Golden Globes: They give out awards for comedy and drama, so there are at least ten nominees there. And a couple of years ago they nominated 7 (!) pictures in the drama category. So let's take a look, using their logic of "More=quality", at some of movies that they would have considered the best of their years:

• Still Crazy
• The Hangover
  
• The Great Debaters
• Bobby
• Sunshine
• The Producers (musical)
• Phantom of the Opera
• Legally Blonde
• Analyze This
• Patch Adams
• Pret a Porter
• Ragtime

Now, the Oscars have a track record of embarrassing picks (Forrest Gump, Titanic, Crash) but they stand out more because the field, being more selective, is a better representation of what is actually good in that year.

We're all grown ups here. Our team is not going to win the World Series every year. Someone's favorite movie is probably not going to get nominated either even if there are 100 slots open. But that's part of what's great about the Oscars: You should be able to look at a list and say "Wow, I never heard of that movie/never thought of seeing it. I wonder if it's that good" and actually GO AND SEE IT! Then form an opinion. Don't sit there and say "Well, they just nominate arty farty crap and don't care about box office".

Because when you take pride in what you do, that's what you do: You don't cast a wider net in hopes that you can pull some chum in, you cast a better net in hopes of finding something worth celebrating.

(Answer: The Color Purple and The Turning Point)