Anyone wondering how the Best Picture line-up might have shaken out if the number of nominees had remained a the traditional 5 can perhaps now get a clue from looking at how the 3 major guilds have rallied in near unanimous consensus behind the same 5 movies this month.
Looking back to last year, 5 films hit the PGA-DGA-WGA trifecta:
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- The Dark Knight
- Frost/Nixon
- Milk
- Slumdog Millionaire
This year we’re seeing the same cluster …er, effect:
- Avatar
- The Hurt Locker
- Precious
- Up in the Air
- (Inglourious Basterds, 2 out of 3, ineligible for the WGA)
Otherwise, those 5 films are firing on all cylinders and seem to have risen into the top tier, neatly dividing the 10 PGA nominees in half, and hence becoming the most promising pool from which the likely eventual winner will emerge.
This is not earth-shattering news by any means, but our gut instincts have at last been quantified with rather reliable measuring sticks. Worth noting?