Looking Ahead: My Best Picture Predictions for Oscar 2009 (Oh, and there's been a change in the voting system)

Alright, there's been some patience on your part. I've decided to reveal my predictions for...

Wait, what's this?

Apparently the academy has just changed their voting rules for Best Picture (again, you ask? Well... yeah, again). You know how people in the Academy just peeled off a stick-it note and wrote their top choice in before slipping it in the ballot box? Well, with 10 nominees comes a big change to this voting system.

Now Academy voters will have to rank all 10 nominees in order of preference, and then be ranked through a complex preferential system. Let me explain. With an expansion to 10 nominees, the old system of voting would mean that a film could win with only 18-20% of the total vote (out of nearly 6,000 Academy members). However, what the new preference system a film will eventually wind up with a majority vote of over 50%. How, you ask? Well I'm damn tired of explaining already, so I'll let that guy from The Wrap do it for me:

Initially, PwC will separate the ballots into 10 stacks, based on the top choice on each voter’s ballot. If one nominee has more than 50 percent of the vote (unlikely, but conceivable some years), we have a winner.

But if no film has a majority, then the film ranked first on the fewest number of ballots will be eliminated. Its ballots will then be redistributed into the remaining piles, based on whichever film is ranked second on those ballots.

If those second-place votes are enough to push one of the other nominees over the 50 percent threshold, the count ends. If not, the smallest of the nine remaining piles is likewise redistributed. Then the smallest of the eight piles, then the smallest of the seven…

Eventually, one film will wind up with more than 50 percent.

Thank you for making our lives easier to understand, Steve Pond!

Anyway, the process is ultimately meant to uncover which of the 10 films has the most Academy support overall. This also means a change in marketing tactics in studio Oscar campaigns- instead of aiming for #1 votes, studios will have to make sure their films appear on the top 5 in as many ballots as possible.

In other words, attack ads!

"Don't waste your top 5 vote on Invictus! If you want a REAL good picture about apartheid, vote District 9! Clint's got enough gold at home already! Go for Blomkamp, who's hip and down with the kidz! At least HIS film has some explosions in it!"

"Do you want Oscar's first animation winner to star oversized ELITIST, SOCIALIST smurfs with bad teeth? And what about James Cameron? What's HE done in, like, 12 years? Screw Avatar! Give your Best Picture vote to Pixar's latest masterpiece, Up!
Vote- OR THE MOUSE HOUSE SHALL DEVOUR YOU ALL!!!"

"Vote The Lovely Bones and you have a chance to WIN an all-expenses-paid trip for 2 to NEW ZEALAND!! Second prize for 10 lucky voters is a Lord of the Rings prize pack!"

"Vote Nine, or else Judi Dench will be very disappointed in you... also because of the Weinstein money we already slipped in your drinks... and the poison, that too. We'll give you the antidote if you vote for Nine!"

Okay, I think I'm done with those. If you guys can come up with any, though, please write 'em up in the comments below!

Anyway, here's my (current) predictions of the 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees for 2009:

An Education (Sony Pictures Classics)
District 9 (Tristar)
Inglorious Basterds (Weinstein Company)
Invictus (Warner Bros.)
Nine (Weinstein Company)
The Hurt Locker (Equinoxe Films)
The Lovely Bones (Paramount)
The Road (Weinstein Company)
Up (Disney/Pixar)
Where the Wild Things Are (Warner Bros.)

Please tell me what you think in the comments below!