Oscar Update: 'Moon,' 'Transformers 2' and Still Talking 10 Best Picture Noms

Who wants an Oscar nomination when it doesn't feel like anything?

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Tuesday, June 30th 2009 at 1:37 AM

This past weekend I painted the doors on the soon-to-be unveiled "The Contenders" for the 2010 awards season and I filled the stables with 29 horses. I still need to tidy up around the edges and make a few adjustments here and there, but with six months to go in 2009 and the upcoming release of Public Enemies (an awards contender disguised as a summer tentpole) it is time to begin talking Oscars on a more regular basis.

Today I have a couple of film updates as well as additional talk of that pesky Academy change from 5-to-10 nominations for Best Picture to talk about. First, let's talk about the movies…

The 63rd Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival closed Sunday with Duncan Jones's Moon winning the Michael Powell Award for new British feature reports Adam Dawtrey at Variety who goes on to say the sci-fi thriller "was arguably the fest's biggest success" and "was the first film in the program to sell out, and also ended up second in the voting for the audience award." Tomm Moore's Irish animated film The Secret of Kells took the audience top prize.

I mention this because Moon is not one of my 29 top contenders at the moment, but it seems to continue to gain notoriety including a large number of positive reviews (86% at RottenTomatoes) with many praising the work of Sam Rockwell and the story-telling ability of Jones. It could become an awards season dark horse, as could Cary Joji Fukanaga's Sin Nombre, which took the Skillset new directors award at Edinburgh, but the boat seems to have already sailed on that pic, a film that is expertly told but I'll be damned if it doesn't wallow in darkness.

Next we have this past weekend's box-office behemoth, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a film carrying only a 20% at RottenTomatoes, but one that will undoubtedly be earning Oscar nominations. The first Transformers was nominated for three Oscars in both Sound categories and for Best Achievement in Visual Effects. It didn't end up winning any, but I wouldn't be surprised if Revenge of the Fallen ended up with a similar three nods, but wins are going to be tricky with the likes of James Cameron's Avatar waiting in the wings and I would expect Star Trek to be a serious contender in the sound department.

Finally, we come to the continuing discussion regarding the move to ten Best Picture nominations. I already weighed in on this and many of you commented in that article and several of you in the original announcement, but yesterday a pair of award season regulars weighed in with their thoughts and bring up a few new issues some of you may be interested in.

First, David Carr at The New York Times comments saying, "The reporter in me that was bored to tears by last year's nonrace is inclined to be thrilled by the introduction of something, anything, to stir things up." However, he's hesitant to jump on board with the idea ten Best Picture nominations is the way to go.

He cites executives who "argue that the best-picture award continues to have resonance with consumers when used as a laurel in ads precisely because it is such a rare jewel" and how "niches could continue to rule, with smallish academy guilds like art directors, or special constituencies like British members of the academy, pushing through a particular movie crush that had left many others unmoved."

It's at this moment I should bring in Kris Tapley's column at In Contention and his addition to Carr's concern saying, "I imagine something will have to be done to address the concern that now one merely needs something like 600 people on board to get a film in the line-up… Block voting will surely thrive."

It's a shame, but as we saw the Weinstein Co. milk the system last year for The Reader, the change to ten nominations opens up so many more doors to roundabout ways of getting your name in that envelope. However, this brings up the issue of money.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

As Carr points out, "Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and mainstream newspapers (including The New York Times) will benefit from all that ad money." But as Tapley points out, "Those who like the idea of 10 nods and are hoping against hope for a Lovely Bones nomination come January will have to square themselves with the fact that Peter Jackson and company will now be sharing that pool of campaign dollars with Star Trek, for better or worse."

I'll finish that sentiment off with Carr's addition saying, "Who is going to be the one to tell J. J. Abrams that Star Trek is not worth more money and effort when there are 10 slots up for grabs?"

Personally I hold fast that if a film wasn't a contender before it won't be one now, but I can also see where one could argue the other side, but they'd be hard pressed to convince me Star Trek has a shot. Then again, we will all pretty much know what the top five nominees are in the Best Picture category by who is nominated in the Best Director category. The two don't always match up exactly but here's how they compared over the past ten years:

• 2009 – 5/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2008 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2007 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2006 – 5/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2005 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2004 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2003 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2002 – 3/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2001 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture
• 2000 – 4/5 of the director nominees were also nominated for picture

Only one year in the last ten had anything less than four of the Best Director nominees' films nominated for Best Picture. A pretty good barometer if you ask me.

Stay tuned as more Oscar coverage is on the way and the doors to "The Contenders 2010" will open very, very soon. For a look at last year's "Contenders" section, for those that may not have followed the Oscar coverage at RopeofSilicon, click here.