WHAT WILL SNAG THE TENTH SLOT?
At the moment, most objective, serious prognosticators agree that the following nine films will score best picture nominations: “The Social Network,” “The King’s Speech,” “Inception,” “127 Hours,” “The Fighter,” “Toy Story 3,” “True Grit,” “The Kids Are All Right,” and “Black Swan.” There is, however, significant disagreement about which film will claim the tenth slot — “‘The Blind Side’ slot,” if you will.
When considering the options, it’s important to remember how Academy voting works: the 10 nominated films aren’t necessarily the 10 films that garnered the most votes; they are the 10 films that garnered the most passionate votes. In other words, voters are not asked to simply list the 10 worthiest films; they are asked to list them in the order in which they think they deserve to finish. Disproportionate weight is given to those at the top of the ballot, meaning that the films about which voters feel most passionate (and put in the top few slots), rather than the films about which they feel dispassionately respectful (and put in the bottom few slots), will ultimately have an advantage. That’s how “The Blind Side,” a low-brow but crowd-pleasing film, managed to snag a slot last year over more critically-acclaimed efforts like “A Single Man” or “The Messenger.”
In my weekly forecasts this year, I have fluctuated between all sorts of films when it comes to the tenth slot, from the British domestic drama “Another Year” to the feminist paean “Made in Dagenham” to the education doc “Waiting for ‘Superman’” to the mid-year release “Winter’s Bone.” The truth, though, is that — at the moment, at least — neither I nor anybody else is all that confident in whatever we insert there.
Therefore, let me pose the question to you: which of the following best picture hopefuls that are now believed to be “on the bubble” do you believe stands the best shot at making the cut in the end?
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Photo: Actress Anne Hathaway and Academy president Tom Sherak announce last year’s 10 best picture nominees. Credit: AMPAS.
Tags: 127 Hours, A Single Man, Anne Hathaway, Another Year, Black Swan, Inception, Made in Dagenham, Polls, The Blind Side, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Messenger, The Social Network, Tom Sherak, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Waiting for Superman, Winter's Bone