The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group who hosts the Oscars, has made a bold move to return to an old custom and nominate not the usual 5, but 10 films for its Best Picture Award.

They’re doing this in response to criticism in recent years that the Best Picture category has become too elitist, and because in the years when popular films are nominated (such as Titanic or LOTR), ratings go up.  And they do have to worry about ratings if they want to keep broadcasting a 4-hour TV show every March. 

With this change, the Academy can nominate more–and possibly more popular–titles.  People were pretty irritated that The Dark Knight and Wall-E didn’t get nominated last year, and with this change, there would be room for those kinds of films.  In short, they can nominate both high-brow and low-brow films, making both film snobs and real people happy. 

The Academy did have a list of 10 in the years 1939-1943.  However, if you look at the films that were released in those years, I’m pretty sure that was because there were too many good films to narrow it down to just 5.  Wouldn’t it be great if that were still our problem?