The Oscar Race and will it change this year?

Slowly the ratings for Oscar have been doing down like Samantha Jones on New York, and you know ace girl goes down a lot. No one is pressing the on botton on their remote to watch the show aside from us lot.
It seems the Academy has sort of got itself into a predicament. Should they continue to reward the smaller critically acclaimed and more artistic films (as they have been of late) or should they celebrate what the populous love?

This is a question that needs an answer that walks a fine line. ‘The Dark Knight’ is critically acclaimed, has huge box office and the people love it. Can it score a best picture nomination even though it is a Super Hero movie? At this moment in time I am thinking it will miss out of BP, but Christopher Nolan will pick up a directing nom, then again the MASSIVE box office could be enough to get it in (out of the top five US domestic grosser’s, 3 (not including TDK) have gotten Best Picture Oscar noms. This is not saying the Academy are money grabbers, in fact they have seemingly been embracing the notion of actually awarding the ‘best’ films of the year, but in these hard times a big earner could sway the vote.

Last year ‘Juno’ was the biggest hit of the bunch, but was also critically acclaimed, so this could in fact be a good sign for ‘The Dark Knight’. However there are a bunch a films that have yet to be seen: ‘Australia’, ‘Doubt’, ‘Revolutionary Road’, ‘Frost/Nixon’, ‘The Soloist’, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, ‘The Reader’, ‘Body of Lies’, ‘The Road’ and ‘Milk’. You have to plan on at least 2 or 3 of these films making the short list.

Then you have the films that have been screened to extremely positive reviews: ‘The Wrestler’, ‘Changeling’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘The Hurt Locker’, ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ and ‘Rachel Getting Married’.
These all have a chance at making the final 5 as well.

To be honest this is one of the most exciting years for B.P. I can remember. Even the films that have had poor to ok reviews on ‘AICN’ could be re-edited and stand a chance: ‘Valkyrie’, ‘Nothing but the Truth’ and ‘Defiance’ are a few of these.

Plus there are always those films that are never on any ones radar that come out of nowhere.

I am going to have to seriously think about what to put in the top 10 this time around. A top five is near impossible at this time considering every film you put in there, you can also easily see falling out. There is no front runner emerging yet, and that is good news for those of us who like an exciting race.

In fact there is not one of those films I have mentioned that I am willing to put money down and say “It will be nominated”. Perhaps I am overly cautious, or perhaps 2008 is going to be a great year for movies. What do you think?

I do think the Academy needs to nominate the more popular movies to gain audience ratings for the ceremony, but not at the expense of the best films of the year. Will ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Wall-E’ still be able to stand up at year end as the best of the bunch, or will 5 better films take over the slot? If that happens I will be one happy movie goer.