Best Picture Category to Include 10 Nominees at Next Oscars

BuzzSugar — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:30:25 PDT

For the first time since 1943, the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards will include 10 nominees instead of five. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis made the announcement today, and assured us that the outcome - just one Best Picture winner - will still be the same.

Ganis commented, "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize." It makes me wonder if Wall-E might have gotten a nomination if there were 10 slots at the last Oscars.

Wow - five more nominees. This should be interesting! Do you think it's good that the Academy will have more options for Best Picture? What other five movies from last year (so, in addition to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire) would you have put in the Best Picture category if it allowed for 10 then?

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I Dream of Jeannie Film Adaptation Gets a Screenwriter

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:30:51 PDT

Screenwriter Rita Hsiao, writer of Disney's Mulan and rewriter of Enchanted and 13 Going on 30, has apparently written a screenplay about a new Jeannie for all of us to dream of. Her script for the big-screen adaptation of the 1960s series I Dream of Jeannie apparently wowed the producers, who had already seen five other attempts at Jeannie scripts.

Producer Sid Ganis has only glowing praise for Hsiao: "She has a terrific, bright, fresh approach to Jeannie's story, with a twist and turn along the way. She captured all of our imaginations in the telling of it."

This project has been rumbled about for years, but is only now getting serious attention. Ganis notes, "This is such a beloved and iconic character that it has to be told the right way. You have a loyalty to the character that has to exist, and sometimes it takes time to get there." Not to mention the fact that the new movie would probably need to be palatable to modern audiences, and I have to wonder how today's feminists might feel about this story following a woman who exists to serve her "master."

Anyway, I say sure, take your time. We don't want another Bewitched remake on our hands! Now, as for casting, I smell our next recast challenge coming on. . .

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