Really, with it going up from five to ten Best Picture Nominees, I have to wonder, did I get a nomination? What is this – the frickin’ Grammy’s?

One of the great things about that dude, Oscar, is that he is so difficult to win that people in fact say they are “just happy to be nominated.”

Well no more.

In most normal years they strain to locate five really great pictures. So why jump to 10? Why not all the way to 11? Seems like a money ploy to me and it stinks. I would suggest boycotting the Oscars this year.

Oh, but there is precedent they scream! Up to 1943, there were 10 nominees! Yes, but they learned to change it and kept it at five since. It’s called ‘tradition’ and this one is not worth going back on.

Few thoughts on the nominees:

- Enough with “UP”
While the first fifteen minutes made me cry, the rest of the movie was good but not so great as to the best ever, or a nominee. I think critics are just so over-wowed by anything Pixar touches that they lose sight that almost all of them follow the same storyline narrative – and some better than others. Pixar-love has gotten out of control, manifested in love for Wall-E, a flick with a great first half but cartoonish and disjointed second.

- Cruz Go Home
Can’t stand to listen to her talk much less sing in English. LOVE everything she does in Spanish but she needs to be happy being famous in one language…her own.

- Inglorious Indeed
As a historian, I can’t help but be appalled at this movie. We are all better off for NOT having stooped to the Nazi level. If we had, we would be haunted, as they are, by the moral anvil that sits on their historical heads.

- District 9
In no way, shape or form does this movie belong in the BP category. Shows how far they had to srain to get ten by including this movie and The Blind Side plus Up in the nominations. Can’t they see they failed the first time out?

- Avatar?
Truly, isn’t Avatar just an animated picture? It is up for best cinematography even though it was shot in a warehouse. I think this is what people miss about this movie – as breathtaking as it is, it is also the next step in the evolution of ANIMATION – not of filmmaking and should treated as such. Truth is, this film should be placed within the ‘Best Animation’ section and voted on as such.

I tremble to think it might take home the same Oscar taken to cinematic heavens in The Last Emperor.