Topic Of The Day: Best Picture To Go Back To 5 Nominees?

Hello, Bloggers, it has been announced that the Academy may potentially go back to having 5 Best Picture nominees since one, or a few, anonymous Academy members saw the expansion as a failed experiment. Now, this announcement has me completely on the fence and here is why:

I'll start off with the negatives to this transition. First off, by reducing it back to 5, then it might prevent some audience favorites from sneaking into the Final Five. That is the sole reason they expanded the field after The Dark Knight got snubbed for Best Picture. If there were 5 nominees last year, then films like Wolf of Wall Street, Her, or even Captain Phillips, which all faired well at the box office and have their fanbases, probably wouldn't have made it in. Also, if the field wasn't expanded in 2010, then Up and District 9 wouldn't have made it in, I'm sure. Plus, Christopher Nolan's own Inception probably wouldn't have made it in if the field wasn't expanded and smart independents like Whiplash would slip through the cracks. In my opinion, this is the biggest con to going back to tradition. Not only that, but even of they were to go back to 5, they'd still unfortunately have single-serving awards-bait.

However, because in more recent years, they have had trouble including audience favorites, and the audience favorites they do include have no hope of winning, then that would be one justification to revert back to five. I mean, when they had the opportunity to nominate The Dark Knight Rises, as a way of honoring the trilogy that includes the film that was the catalyst for the expansion, they still didn't include it. So, I guess at this point, it wouldn't make much of a difference. I would say another positive is that it would help eliminate the films the Academy tries to weed out, like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Tree of Life, The Blind Side, Winter's Bone, and Selma. Lastly, even though the field is expanded, each year is still a one, two, or three person race with little surprises, so you can still get the idea of who the contenders or non-contenders are, and they have had trouble sticking to 10. So, I guess that's another reason they could move back to 5.

But, while I am on the subject of the Oscars, I'd like to say that they should change their voting process. They have the different voting branches pick out the nominees in their respective positions, but everybody in every voting branch picks out their winners in each category. But, I think they should do the same thing they do with the nomination process : Let the actors picks the actors, costume designers pick the costume designers, etc. It just seems confusing to have a sound mixer try to figure out who did the best makeup job or have a costume designer wonder who gave the best supporting performance when it isn't their area of expertise.

So those are my thoughts on whether or not the Academy should go back to 5 nominees. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading!