Best Picture Nomination!

Pixar's Feature Films Up
#11

Woke up at 8 AM ET to watch the announcements. I did the same last year and was disappointed by the The Dark Knight and WALL-E snubs, but this year, I must say I am absolutely thrilled with the nominations. Congratulations to Pixar and the Up crew for garnering the second Best Picture Oscar nomination ever for an animated film! This is certainly a historic occasion worthy of celebration.

The Blind Side came in as a bit of a surprise (I was expecting either Star Trek or Invictus to get the nod), but I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t really say much about its quality. But to be honest I don’t really care whether the Oscars get it “right” or “wrong” (if there is even such a thing as “getting the nominations right”), because to me, the Oscars are more about celebrating and perpetuating the tradition of film rather than simply a mere competition that pits films against each other. After all, from my perspective, the Oscars get the nominations “right” most of the times anyway, and even when they don’t get it exactly “right” (again, based on my own point of view), most of the winners and nominees are still worthy of being recognized.

#12

Yeah! :smiley: I never would’ve seen this coming a year ago. Congratulations to the whole Pixar crew!

#13

I don’t think Up stands a chance at winning Best Picture, but I am very happy that it got nominated. I’m sure the guys at Pixar are extremely honored for having the second animated film in history to get nominated for Best Picture, and the first animated film in history to get that nomination since the introduction of the Best Animated Feature category.

As for what will win Best Picture, I’m gonna place my bets on The Hurt Locker, and it’s well-deserved, too.
For Best Original Screenplay, my bets go for Inglourious Basterds. Again, that would be another well-deserved win (plus, Inglourious Basterds is my personal favorite film of 2009). But, Up would probably be the runner-up in this category.
I’m sure Up is pretty much guaranteed to win two Oscars for both Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score.
As for Best Sound Editing… at this point I really don’t know who would win that… something tells me Avatar would probably get that award, but I won’t place my bets on that.

#14

Congratulations to Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, and the entire Up/Pixar crew who made this dream a reality!! Needless to say, the nominations this film has earned were well deserved, particularly the “Best Picture” nomination – it’s an unexpected, yet extremely pleasant, surprise. :smiley:

– Mitch

#15

Just saw the Oscar nominations.
Glad to see Up got a Best Picture nod, even though it’s a foregone conclusion that it won’t win (since actors make up the vast majority of votes for this, and as an animation project, most actors tend to think that there were no actors “in” the movie. Yes, I know, but don’t argue with me… like it or not, that’s just the way most actors see animation). It took them having to broaden the number of nominations (basically doubling the number of films nominated from previous years) but, nonetheless, the Best Picture Oscar nomination for Up is richly deserved (even if there were only 5 slots it would have been deserved).

Of course, I was really glad to see Michael nominated for Best Score. I hope he wins, and think he might have a pretty good chance this year. The score was excellent (ironic that it was both never physically released on CD, nor were the orchestra personnel listed this time)… and of the other films I saw nominated for this catagory, the scores didn’t seem to stand out so much (though I haven’t seen them all).

Well, only time will tell. I’m not a big fan of award shows (if you couldn’t tell from previous posts), so at this point I guess I’ll just wait until the day after to see what happens. Whether or not a bunch of people (majority of whom are actors) vote for an animated movie or not, we (including the broadest spectrum of critics) know just how good this movie and its score were.

#16

I’m obviously thrilled about Pixar’s long overdue Best Picture nomination. But I think it’s sad that it comes with an asterisk. This is the first time in a few decades that we have ten nominees for Best Picture. We’ll never be able to say for sure if Up would have been nominated under normal circumstances.

If they’d had ten nominees a year ago, WALL-E definitely would have been nominated. Probably also true for Ratatouille.

It doesn’t stand a chance of winning, though. Sad, but true.

#17

An impressive achievement for an animated film. Good luck to Pete and the crew!

#18

Way to go, Pixar!
And, remember, Up isn’t just the second animated movie to get nominated for Best Picture, it’s the very first all CGI one, too!

#19

So happy right now!

It’s pretty great to be the second animated film in history to make the Best PIcture nomination . . . but, sadly, Up has no chance of winning. Hey, though, a nomination isn’t bad! And it’s definitely got Best Animated Feature. Crossing my fingers for MG on the Original Score; I love the music in Up.

Good luck, and congrats.

#20

This is so awesome! I don’t really care if they lose, because being nominated is still a very big thing. Do you think Toy Story 3 could have a chance as being nominated for best picture? It could, but I’ll make up my final decision when I’ve seen the final movie.

#21

Considering the other films that came out in 2009, I certainly think Up would have not been nominated if it was only limited to five nominations. Heck, I could think of five other films that were more deserving than Up.

Just to make it clear, I’m not playing favorites when it comes to deciding the best film of 2009. Up is definitely one of my personal favorites, but there are other films I know of that have more merits than Up when it comes to getting the award.

#22

While I do agree that Up likely would have been snubbed had there only been five available slots, I totally disagree with the statement that the nomination “comes with an asterisk”. Like you said, this is the first time in a few decades that we have ten nominees, but you have to realize that by saying that, you’re also implicitly stating that there was a time period during which there were ten nominees.

My point is, there isn’t really such a thing as “normal circumstances” because the Academy can make up whatever rules they wish (in which case the rules they operate under become “normal”), and even if there were such a thing as “normal circumstances” (I suppose from the perspective of the viewers), the Best Picture category still used to have ten nominees a few decades ago, so there is really nothing “abnormal” about the expansion to ten nominees.

#23

Three out of four of my top movies made the list, which doesn’t happen often, and that’s because of the expanded list. Anyone who has been following this knows that The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air are the leaders, which is too bad, and perhaps vote splitting for them by all the actors will help either Avatar or Up. My fourth movie is Star Trek, which does not have a completely original screenplay since it’s a franchise, albeit reborn. Avatar’s partly predictable + partly stereotypical storyline will hurt it, although Titanic was certainly not completely original, and the new stuff in that movie was a bit too melodramatic.

Like several others here, the unique screenplay of District 9 makes it my favorite to win, and yes, Ratatouille certainly was in the Top 10 movies of 2007, but the critics didn’t place it quite as high as either WALL-E or Up, presumably because the obligatory chase scenes were more interesting in the latter.

It’s nice to see sci-fi /fantasy films score so many places in this Top10 list.

#24

I am very, very happy to see Up nominated for Best Picture and for Pixar to gain such recognition outside of the ‘animation circle’, so to speak. I personally am not amazingly concerned about award ceremonies and that sort of thing - I don’t know half the other films on the Best Picture list, as most of them haven’t even been released yet here - but it is good that Pixar and Up have done well with Oscar nominations. It’s just backing up what we already know about the film. :smiley:

#25

I can’t believe it! Finally, Pixar gets the kind of recognition they totally deserve! :smiley: Hopefully, this is the first of many Best Picture nominations for Pixar! :slight_smile:

#26

As I mentioned in the “Up Awards” thread, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m very pleased Pixar has made history for being the second animated film to have a BP nomination, but then again, I’m disappointed this has to come after the Academy has ballooned its number of eligible nominations. It almost feels like they’re telling the viewer, “Ya see? We look out for the animated underdog, too!”

Of course, there’s the less cynical way of looking at it; as some of you have said, expanding the list is not a new thing and has been done before, and under the ‘new set of rules’, Up has earned its place. I don’t know… I’m still very bitter about the Slumdog sweep last year to trust the Academy again, but I’ll still be crossing my fingers and toes that Up will bring home the little man trophy.

On another note, I’m very pleased District 9 and Avatar also got BP nominations. It’s gonna be very tough, because these three (including Up) happen to be among my top favourite films of the year, so if any one of these wins, I’ll be a happy man.

IMO, here’s who I want to win in order:

  1. Up
  2. District 9
  3. Avatar

Surprisingly, I would probably rank them according to my own enjoyment this way:

  1. Avatar
  2. District 9
  3. Up

The reason why I want Up to win, though, is just so Pixar could prove a point to Academy that an animated film can win on its own merits, regardless of format. District 9 is the sci-fi’ underdog’ made on the cheap, with a much more original storyline than Avatar, so that’s why I want it second in line. And Avatar, as much as I enjoy it personally, last, because Cameron already made tons of moolah and awards, so it’s time to give recognition to another film for a change.

Haven’t watched Precious, The Blind Side, Inglourious Basterds or The Hurt Locker, but I’m very curious to do so. Couldn’t care about the rest, as they seem too artsy or indy for my taste.

#27

Amazingly, I have had the great pleasure to see most of the Best Picture nominations last year. From the list, I’ve seen Avatar, An Education, A Serious Man, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Up in the Air, District 9, The Hurt Locker, and Precious. The only film I haven’t seen yet is The Blind Side.

Overall, I hope one of these films win:

  1. The Hurt Locker
  2. Inglourious Basterds
  3. Up in the Air

As for what the top three films are this year (with the most nominations):

  1. The Hurt Locker (9 nominations)
  2. Avatar (9 nominations)
  3. Inglourious Basterds (8 nominations)

So, those are pretty much the big films of 2009 that you should expect to get a lot of attention when the show comes around.
Overall, I hope Avatar does not win. I think there’s a lot more to a film than just being a special effects showcase. While Avatar was a thoroughly entertaining film, there are other films released in 2009 with stronger merits than Avatar.

If I had to place a bet on any one film, I would bet on The Hurt Locker winning Best Picture. Hopefully, it does win, because it really deserves that win.

#28

The Academy will be using a new method to count votes in the Best Picture catagory with multiple counts and re-counts. It’s not going to be just “which movie gets the most votes at first” as it has been in the past.

For those curious as to what the new counting system will be, here’s an article in the LA Times that explains it. Hold onto your heads, to keep them from spinning…

latimes.com/entertainment/ne … 0933.story

The Oscars are using a preferential voting system this year to determine the Best Picture winner. Although attempting to understand the system can sometimes feel a little like trying to divine the secrets of cold fusion, the system is actually logical – sort of.

Whereas all other categories will use the same system used in the past – every voter gets to pick one of the five nominees, and the nominee with the most votes wins – the 10-nominee Best Picture category will function differently.

Voters will be asked to rank their Best Picture choices from 1 to 10 (though they are not required to complete the ballot in full). Then, the Academy will gather the ballots and separate them in piles according to voters’ first choices. Each movie gets its own pile – the film that appears most frequently as a first place choice will naturally have the largest stack, the movie with the next/most first place votes will have the second largest, and so forth. Then, each stack is counted.

If one film has more than 50% of the votes on the first round (unlikely), it will be declared the winner. If it doesn’t, the Academy will take the shortest stack – the movie that got the fewest first place votes – eliminate it from contention, remove its stack from the table, and redistribute those voters’ second choices to all the other stacks.

The tally then begins again: If a film now has passed 50% of the ballots (still pretty unlikely), it wins. If it doesn’t, the auditors go to the smallest stack left, eliminate that movie, remove that stack, and go down those ballots to voters’ next highest choice (of a movie that remains in contention, of course), and redistribute the ballots across the piles once again. The process repeats until one stack ends up with a majority.

What all this means in practical terms – apart from a lot of slips of paper – is that, because it’s unlikely that auditors will work their way past most voters’ fourth or fifth choices before arriving at a winner, it actually could be preferable for a film to garner a lot of second -and third- place votes than to be a polarizing choice that splits evenly between first place votes and, say, eighth and ninth place on the ballot.

That, in turn, means a movie could pull a Bush vs. Gore – win Best Picture despite not getting the most first place votes. Although, because the Academy guarantees a secret ballot, few people would ever know.

#29

Hmm, well that sounds like a very thorough and hopefully fair system of voting, though it’s very complicated. Interesting information, miafka.

#30

I think that’s a pretty good system to use. It sounds fair.

Let’s just say, if there was only 10 people voting, and the film that got the most number one votes had four of those votes… the other six votes were scattered between the rest of the movies. Would it really be fair to let a film win because it got 40% of the votes, and yet the other 60% may or may not agree with it? I think that the old way is more broken than this new method they’re using. If it turns out to work well, I hope they incorporate this method to all the other categories in future ceremonies.