As if this year’s Oscars ceremony wasn’t abnormal enough, next year’s telecast is sure to be even weirder. Today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced that it’s increasing the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. This isn’t a totally odd idea, since the Academy Awards used to nominate ten films for the big prize, but the last time we saw so many candidates was 65 years ago, when Casablanca beat out nine other titles for the win.

The first thing that I thought — and I’m sure I’m not alone — was, “are there actually ten great films made per year?” Certainly we’re a far, 70-year cry from 1939, considered to be the peak of American cinema, when Hollywood released such masterpieces as Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Dark Victory, Wuthering Heights, Of Mice and Men, Love Affair and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, all of which ran up against and lost to Gone With the Wind.

The second thing I thought is that the Academy is really slapping both The Dark Knight and WALL-E in the face with this change. Now, comparatively, should Star Trek and Up really be the ones to make up for those “snubs”? They’re good, but they’re not that good.

Check out the rest of the film blogosphere’s reactions after the jump:

• Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly’s Oscar Watch opens that blog’s doors from hiatus to state and ask the obvious:
  

  I’d say this could really help the chances of some more commercially popular films, which are often edged out of the running by typical “Academy films” like The Reader or Frost/Nixon. Certainly The Dark Knight and WALL•E would have made a top 10 Academy list this year—will we now see Up and Star Trek on the Oscar ballot?

• Sasha Stone at Awards Daily is screaming with joy literally from the top of a mountain:
  

  Nothing could have breathed more life into a mostly flaccid race than this most unexpected and delightful development.  I’m looking forward to seeing how many more films and studios have a shot in this kind of race, with such wide open possibilities…Also, I’m thinking that the Foreign Language race could benefit from a similar change.    Either way, from high atop the Sierras, I’m thrilled.   Way to go, AMPAS.

• Peter Knegt at The Lost Boy excitedly imagines what this kind of change would have allowed for in past years:
  

  And I can’t stop thinking about fantastic possibilities from the past. The past decade alone, Almost Famous, Requiem For A Dream, City of God, Talk To Her Finding Nemo, Mulholland Drive, Far From Heaven, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, A History of Violence, Ratatouille, United 93… All of them would have likely been best picture nominees.  But then, so would have Flags of Our Fathers, Blood Diamond, and The Last Samurai… and it wouldn’t have stopped the Crash‘s and Reader‘s from being there.

• Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog thinks the change may have come too late:
  

  Perhaps the biggest irony in all this is that the shift comes at a time when it’s least necessary. Five years ago, with nearly a dozen specialty units cranking out dozens of worthy movies, there were numerous legitimate contenders who couldn’t squeeze through Oscar’s bottleneck.

  But with so many studios out of the awards business, the expansion is needed. The Academy is doubling its slots at the exact moment when English-language awards-caliber movies are dwindling. It’s like a university doubling its eligible slots at the exact moment enrollment is down. (Already we and others have wondered, out of Cannes and elsewhere, where all the contenders were going to come from.)

• S.T. VanAirsdale at Movieline lists the parties who benefit from this change, including the few specialty units left out there:
  

  · Mini-majors: Fox Searchlight also would have been in the mix anyway with Mira Nair’s biopic Amelia, but Focus Features instantly goes from being a 2009 dark horse to a legit contender with the Coens’ A Serious Man. Sony Pictures Classics can nurture similar hopes for An Education, as can Lionsgate (Precious) and Summit (The Hurt Locker).

• Anne Thompson at Thompson on Hollywood thinks this may weaken the prestige of the category:
  

  What worries me about this is that ten is less exclusive than five. And given the limited number of quality movies that Hollywood is making, it may be hard to come up with a decent list. Also, this brings the Oscar show closer to the Broadcast Film Critics Awards or The Golden Globes, which nominates five comedy/musicals and five dramas.

• Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon also sees the category being watered down now:
  

  Personally I am not sure what I think about the move as it obviously cheapens the category, but then again I guess it will all but eliminate the complaining. This also means my year-end predictions will now be more about predicting slots 8-10 than 1-5. Could be interesting…

• The Playlist also focuses on how this cheapens the Oscars:
  

  Look we understand times are tight, every one’s lowering their standards to get noticed, posting “discuss this!”non-stories for traffic bait and there’s a general whoring-yourself-out at every turn, but isn’t this just a tad fucking drastic? World is going to hell in a hand basket, people. It’s not about quality anymore, it’s about quantity.

• Felix Salmon, on his Reuters blog, analyzes how the change will seriously devaluate the category and award:
  

  The move to 10 nominees from five is only going to exacerbate this problem: under the Academy’s first-past-the-post voting system, a film could theoretically win the award with less than 15% of the total vote. And as a result, tiny but much-loved films will have a serious advantage over big all-things-to-all-people features, which are much less likely to be any given voter’s absolute favorite movie of the year.

  So while this might be a good move in the short term for the studios, it’s a bad move in the long term for the Oscars. I don’t think it’ll last.

• Richard Lawson at Gawker points out how this is good for the studios:
  

  …if the studios have doubled chances of doing a blitz awards-tie-in marketing, then that’s even better. More money for everyone means nicer, bigger parties and then everyone wins!

• Kristopher Tapley at In Contention also addresses the potential effects on the marketing side:
  

  Additionally, this raises a whole other slate of questions as it regards competition and Oscar advertising.  With consistent awards budget cuts, a move like this could be seen as a breath of fresh air for studios stifled by the competition.  Then again, it could open the door for even more campaign dollars.

• Jon Chattman at The Huffington Post hopes the change has an affect on the kinds of films being made:
  

  There’s so much potential here… potential for small indies to get recognized and flourish at the box office; a chance for comedies to disprove that the Academy is made up solely of rich, uptight white people, and last but not least and arguably most importantly, it may very well entice studios to make more qualify films and less Year Ones and Paul Blarts. Pray.

• Vince Mancini at Film Drunk doubts this will affect the kinds of movies that are nominated:
  

  Will more nominees make them love retarded people and the holocaust any less?  I doubt it.  Retards and the holocaust are like the Beach Boys and lab puppies to the academy. I guess what I’m saying is, this could be your year, Britney Spears time-traveling Holocaust movie.

• David Poland at The Hot Blog is optimistic about the kinds of films being let into the race now:
  

  We should all keep in mind that while studios will fight harder for more, perhaps less worthy films, a more spread field allows for companies like Overture, who can’t chase a nomination with millions, but who have a movie that Academy members truly love, to have a shot.

• Lane Brown at Vulture lists ten reasons why ten nominees is better. Here’s the winner for best reason:
  

  4. This may spell doom for the yearly tradition of one film being crowned the Little Movie That Could (à la Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, and Little Miss Sunshine) — now practically any little movie could! — but did Slumdog or Juno really need $140 million anyway? Spread the wealth, guys!

• Michael Glitz at The Huffington Post calls the first sure-thing for one of the ten slots:
  

  Next year, if UP is not nominated for Best Picture, there will rightly be an outcry. Almost as loud an outcry if something commercially successful but godawful like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen does make it.

• Chris Hewitt at Empire makes a timely jab before criticizing the change:
  

  Well, one thing’s for sure – Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen won’t be on that list, unless they expand the category to include 1000 films. And probably not even then…something of a condescending [change]; a way of patting films like The Dark Knight on the head and saying, ‘see? You made it to the final ten! Well done! Now run along and play, while the real movies vie for the big award’.

• Andrew O’Hehir at Beyond the Multiplex addresses the Twitter buzz following this news:
  

  “So ‘Hotel for Dogs’ has a chance!” someone chirped moments after the announcement was made. Indeed it does, and so does the forthcoming Kelsey Grammer-Bebe Neuwirth remake of “Fame,” which I dread more than any other motion picture in history. But aren’t we just likely to see more nods for quasi-quirky projects involving Diablo Cody and/or Steven Soderbergh?

• Alex Billington at First Showing thinks the race will be more interesting now, and not just because quality genre films will have a better chance:
  

  It also just makes the final outcome so much more of a mystery. I’ve felt like that out of the five nominees in the past few years, we can usually spot the winners. This time there will be so much of a bigger selection to choose from, that it could be even more thrilling to see who the Academy eventually picks.

• Mark at I Watch Stuff foresees further changes in the future:
  

  I can only assume that, given another few decades, the Academy Awards will finally catch up to internet list trends and add nominations for “Ten Most Ridiculously Hot Aliens to Get Laid in a Sci-Fi Movie.”

• Dan Hopper at Best Week Ever sees a few extra slots that need filling:
  

  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.