Perhaps the most troubling effect of the Academy’s decision to have 10 Best Picture nominees this season is that whenever any movie does at all well, people start talking Oscar. I for one am certainly guilty of that—remember my Hangover-for-Best-Picture item? And now it’s happening again with the Michael Jackson documentary This Is It, which the Associated Press‘ Sandy Cohen and the Hollywood Reporter‘s Steven Zeitchik have put forth as a possible Best Picture nominee. (Sony is submitting it for consideration for all the major races, though it’s too late to qualify for a Best Documentary Feature nod.) I have to say, I’m not so sure about this one. The film is something of a cultural phenomenon (though it doesn’t look like it’s going to bust any box office records after all), and considering how quickly it was put together, it’s a very impressive achievement. But it’s still essentially just a bunch of concert-rehearsal footage strung together. I can’t visualize voters in the acting, art direction, costume, writing, or makeup branches even considering putting it on their ballots, even with twice the nominees. I don’t think it’s going to be completely ignored: I would give it a decent shot at a sound editing or sound mixing nomination. But this, as they say, is it.

Image credit: Kevin Mazur

Many OscarWatchers are of the mindset that this season’s mega-sized Best Picture race will allow for at least one “atypical” Oscar contender to make it into the mix. And certainly, while many of this year’s live-action narrative (i.e. “regular”) movies have been disappointing at best, there’s a wealth of animated, foreign-language, and documentary films that deserve consideration. It’s cool to imagine a Best Picture race made up entirely of eye-popping animated entries like Up, Ponyo, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox; gripping foreign dramas like The White Ribbon, Sin Nombre, and Broken Embraces; and ultra-entertaining documentaries like More Than A Game, Valentino: The Last Emperor, Tyson, and Anvil!: The Story of Anvil. But given the fact that these three genres already have their own categories, there will probably only be room for one or two of them. So does an animated, foreign, or documentary film have the best shot at making the cut? Will it be Pixar and no one else who makes it into the exclusive club? Or could we be in for a major surprise when the nominations are announced on Feb. 2?

Image credit: Disney/Pixar

Over the last several years we’ve seen a handful of unexpected Oscar contenders: Out-of-nowhere film festival entries (Slumdog Millionaire, Juno), hastily planned late-year releases (The Reader), and whatever Clint Eastwood decides to put out at the last minute (Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima). But now that the Venice/Telluride/Toronto trilogy has ended and October is nearing, I’m wondering if this Oscar season will be shocker-free. Right now it certainly looks like the 10 Best Picture nominees will simply consist of summer successes like Up and The Hurt Locker, festival hits like Precious and Up in the Air, and holiday awards bait like The Lovely Bones, Invictus, and Nine. So is there still a chance for a bona fide left-field contender? And if so, what is it? A comedy like Nancy Meyers’ boomer love triangle It’s Complicated? Something family-friendly along the lines of Where the Wild Things Are or The Fantastic Mr. Fox? The mysterious Terrence Malick drama The Tree of Life? Or something we don’t know about at all? Surprise me, OscarWatchers—I need the jolt.