Okay… so all the chatter is about the 10 nominees. Emotional responses… been there, done that.

That said… it’s interesting that studios are facing a widening base of pressure to pursue Best Picture nominations at the very same time they are facing very tough economic realities. (Isn’t in funny – not ha ha – that all those people who were screaming about every film being profitable and the studios being indestructible have shut up now that the DVD problem some of us were writing about 3 years ago has become an on-the-record problem? Beware people who don’t want to hear about what’s next, only what bubbles into the mainstream.) Not only that… Oscar dollars are marketing dollars… and marketing is the area that screams for cutbacks more than any other. (Have you driven around L.A. lately… notice the empty buildings that were massive billboards a couple of years ago?)

It also strikes me, when laying out the season to come, is that the expansion that we all knee-jerked into being such a very big deal seems to be falling into some pretty traditional patterns. Paramount and Warner Bros. have the most pictures in play. Sony Classics has a number of titles, all of which have more muscle in categories other than Best Picture. And everyone else tends towards one-offs.

But as you’ll see… even with the contenders being bunched, the resulting nominations could be quite unexpected.

One publicist brought up an angle that I hadn’t yet considered… what about the movies that don’t get in, even with 10 slots open. How much more pressure will that put on the situation?

But most importantly, how will 10 nominees change the dynamic of desperate efforts to spin trend stories? How can it be The Year Of… anything with such inevitable diversity?

It could, I guess, be The Year of Matt Damon, who has Invictus, The Informer!, the animated Miyazaki film, Ponyo, and maybe even Green Zone coming out.

It could be The Year Of Not Bio-Pics, in spite of the Nelson Mandela film from Eastwood, Invictus, and Meryl Streep invoking Julia Child.

Some will try to make it The Year of The Woman, with Nine leading the way for such hopefuls as Julie & Julia, Bright Star, Precious, An Education, Broken Embraces, the 2 SPC Coco Chanel movies, Amelia, Cheri, and even the female director of The Hurt Locker. And maybe they will have a point… there could be 5 nominations in that group.

Or not.

What is truly shocking to me – and readers will have to have faith that it is purely a coincidence – is that as I laid out the chart to go with this column, my current Top 10 contenders… gulp… are from 10 different distributors.

And I don’t even have any tables to sell.

Obviously, a July list is going to change a lot. Universal, for instance, has a Paul Greengrass film that may or may not be ready for release into this season. If it is, then it probably leaps into that Top 10 projection. But today… it’s just a bill. (FYI… see Schoolhouse Rock if you don’t understand).

But for now, in my first 10 are The Weinstein Company, Summit, Lionsgate, and Overture… and though Lionsgate has been there with Crash, still… 4 stand-alone indies. This is a good reason to have the 10 nominations, no? Not to mention that its been a decade since Disney/non-Miramax has had a Best Picture nomination. Plus Sony Classics and Focus.

That’s only 4 slots for major studios after all the talk about The 10 being a boon primarily for big, less effete commercial pictures. (Like Invictus, right?)

Of course, change, as I wrote, is very likely. Paramount isn’t in my Top 10 right now… but has 3 films on the launching pad, any of which or all of which could end up being nominated.

Even more so, there are a bunch of movies that no one has seen that are obvious possibilities. (Watch out for that “Oh, people are seeing that… they aren’t very excited” buzz, which is already ramping up on the dubious highway against The Lovely Bones and Avatar.) Shutter Island, A Christmas Carol, Star Trek, and The Lovely Bones are the top of that list, with three Oscar-winning directors and a surprise smash hit that people really liked.

Precursors be damned. Sundance didn’t help much. Precious and An Education were the two BP potential films emerging, though the first will be driven by a “it’s important for you” campaign and the second is a classic Euro coming of age piece that will race on old school elegance and the emergence (and gentle British charm) of Cary Mulligan. (Also, look for heavy screenplay chatter around Humpday). Cannes was pretty much an Oscar bust, though a few titles will be discussed. And the commercial cinema has been enormously uninteresting this year, though we may have seen a couple of films in The Ten that have already been released… but really, only because it’s ten.

In other words, it’s very, very early in what promises to be a very long Oscar season. Next stop, Toronto.

– David Poland
July 9, 2009