by Erik Childress

When the Academy Awards announced it was boosting its Best Picture nominees from five to ten, the status quo of the Broadcast Film Critics Association must have been shaken to their foundation. How could they be considered "the most accurate predictor of the Oscars" when their work was now cut out for them? You see, for years the BFCA Awards (or Critic's Choice as they like to be called) have nominated ten films for their top prize. Ten films. Only five have to be correct to keep that percentage up. In 2001, they failed to nominate Gosford Park. In 2000, it was Chocolat and in 1996 Secrets & Lies. Those are the only three films that didn't match up between their lists and Oscar. Technically that leaves their "guessing" percentage at 47% (62-of-130), but their fuzzy math sees it another way. To them they are laying the groundwork to proudly announce that the five Best Picture nominees can almost always be found amidst their ten choices, thus bringing more attention to a group of critics made up primarily of the junket whores who blurb on anything and everything they can get flown to.

Ah, but now the tables are turned. They are on the same playing field every other critic's group with nominees have faced over the years. It's time to nut up or shut up and be dead-on balls accurate otherwise their precious percentage will go down. How can they pull this off? Quite simply by nominating ten films right off the current odds-on depth chart for films with a shot at Oscar.

Avatar, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Nine, Precious, A Serious Man, Up and Up In The Air.

Anyone want to argue that these aren't the ten films with the best shot at the Oscar's expanded field? Over at eFilmCritic's Oscar Eye (updated mere hours before this morning's announcement) that is precisely how they are laid out. With Pete Hammond's enthusiasm towards The Blind Side, the biggest surprise is that the unlikely underdog didn't sneak into their list. Therein lies the key word, however. "Unlikely" Chicken and the egg theory one could argue into how the minds of certain BFCA members work. (There are some legitimately honorable members in that bunch.) Are they thinking ahead to keeping the Oscar status quo or is their heart actually involved in marking their ballots?

The BFCA's own personal depth chart is an interesting one to consider when looking at their top nominees. Breaking it down to films with potential to play their way onto the ballots of Oscar voters and critic groups everywhere, there are give or take thirty such titles that received a rating score of 80 or better from the BFCA collective. (The White Ribbon and In The Loop currently have no rating at the site.) Nine of those films received a score of 90 or better with two of them (Me and Orson Welles & Up) receiving a perfect 100. Yet, Richard Linklater's film is nowhere to be found amongst their top ten choices for Best Picture, receiving only a single mention in the Supporting Actor category for the well-deserving Christian McKay. Granted, the argument against such a scoring system is the same as it is over at Rotten Tomatoes. A 95% rating there could be loaded with decent 3-star reviews while something at 80% could be making Top 10 lists left and right.

Is it unfair to suggest then that BFCA members have their pulse so firmly in sync with what are perceived as Oscar bait that they would become nothing but glorified guesstimators than professional cinema critics? After all, Ben Lyons is a member and made a year's career on At The Movies looking ahead to next year's Oscar cast. His biggest criticism of Public Enemies was that "he wanted an awards show contender and it's just not that." Forget about Orson Welles for a moment and go to the next ten highest rated films on the list. Seven of them they nominated for Best Picture. But what happened to Star Trek (93), (500) Days of Summer (92) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (91)? The Star Trek buzz has certainly calmed down after many initially leapt at it as a potential contender with the added space on the ballot. Summer got knocked back to a comedy nomination and a much-expected Original Screenplay nod. And if there's only enough room for one Animated Feature on the big list, that was always going to be Up.

Taking the remaining animated films off the consideration table (Ponyo, The Princess & The Frog and Coraline), what of the other three films on their Best Picture list? A Serious Man (86) trails the likes of Julie & Julia (88), District 9 (87) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (87) . Invictus comes up behind five other films sporting an 85 (The Blind Side, Broken Embraces, Crazy Heart, The Messenger and Sherlock Holmes) and equals The Informant's score of 83. Ranked just under the likes of Away We Go, The Last Station and The Young Victoria (all with 81) is Nine with 80.

Now you tell me - which of those films stand out as Oscar contenders? All the opinions haven't been registered yet but Rob Marshall's film is only hitting a 36% at Rotten Tomatoes (9-of-14 negative reviews). Two of the five positives come from BFCA members Pete Hammond and Emmanuel Levy. (And two of the negative also come from members Victoria Alexander and David Poland.) If it's Rob Marshall though it must mean Oscar, and the BFCA have followed suit nominating each of his three features for Best Picture. Yes, even Memoirs of a Geisha. But there's an interesting juxtaposition at work here. Both Me and Orson Welles and Nine are period pieces. Each sets its action mainly around the stage, despite one of them supposedly about the cinema. Seems reasonable to suggest that either film could be nominated for such technical merits as Art Direction, Costume Design and Makeup. If it's good enough for Best Picture it's always safe to assume good Editing can be in play. Both films boast an impressive Ensemble of actors. Still it was only likely Oscar nominee Nine that received a record 10 BFCA nominations (tying with Inglourious Basterds) with its 80 rating, 30th ranking and 36% while the unlikely Me and Orson Welles with its 100 rating, #1 ranking and 85% (at Rotten Tomatoes) walked away with only one. If Welles were alive today he might apologize to Switzerland since the majority of cuckoos are clearly in the BFCA.