When the Motion Picture Academy so often can’t even pick one movie correctly, I’m not entirely confident in their ability to pick ten movies correctly:

At a press conference Wednesday morning in Beverly Hills, Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said that future Oscar races will include 10 nominees for best picture rather than five. It’s a dramatic change that is sure to roil future Oscar contests, beginning with the upcoming one set for March 7 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

Actually, though, this is a return to the way the Oscars were run in its earliest years. The change effects only that one Oscar category.

Sounds like a pretty transparent ploy from the Talkie Execs to boost box office sales for non-blockbusters by giving them “Oscar nominated” exposure, although if it results in more studios greenlighting “legit” movies that otherwise wouldn’t have been funded because of the limited marketing possibilities, it might actually benefit moviegoers in the long term. It’ll also piss off those smug bastards who pride themselves on seeing every Oscar movie before the show airs and talking about it really loudly so everyone at your Oscar gathering knows what a comprehensively awesome film connoisseur you are (aka, me.)

So there’ll be 10 movies nominated for Best Picture this year? By my unofficial count, here’s how the nominees are shaping up:

1. Up
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ???
9. ???
10. ???

(??? could also be replaced with “Random Thing That Comes Out In December”)

Better get to work, Random Ron Howard Historical Thing Or Whatever!

This also means The Dark Knight BETTER get frickin’ nominated this year. I mean it. I don’t want to hear any “it came out last year so it isn’t eligible wah wah wahhh” excuses.