If there are 10 Oscar nominees, will it dilute the importance of a nomination, enrich the coffers of the producers, or both?

Update:

With today's news that in February, the Oscars will field 10 best-picture nominees, the horserace that is the Academy Awards promises to look a lot more like - a horserace.

"This year [when Slumdog Millionaire emerged victorious], five formidable films were nominated, but The Dark Knight, Iron Man and WALL.e were not," Academy president Sid Ganis said yesterday by phone. "We've felt for a while that we should widen the net of nominees."

In truth, it's a back-to-the-future move. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Oscars boasted 10 best-picture nominees. But it's been 65 years - when Casablanca took the top prize - since 10 films were in contention.

Read more.

As I previously reported:

This just in from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Next year there will be 10 nominees for best picture. Have a call into AMPAS and don't  know yet whether those 10 nominees will include animated pictures or not. In recent years I don't think there have been that many nominatable pics, do you? What I do know is that Oscar nominees get to use the Oscar logo on DVD and advertising merchandising and it's proven that a nomination boosts box office and ancillary revenues. I think this move is likely to dilute the honor of a nominee while enriching the coffers of the producer.

Your thoughts?

Dave Eggers would like to move to Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven."

What movies do you want to live in?  Here are Dave Eggers' answers. The author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What is the What and the screenplay (with wife Vendela Vida) of Away We Go (currently in theaters), a low-key comedy film about a couple deciding where to live, inspired thoughts of other move-in ready films.

What does it say that the movies I'd like to live in are (in no particular order) Terrence Malick's The New World (with its glistening images of English adventurer John Smith landing in pristine Pocahontas country), James Ivory's Howards End  (an English country home surrounded by fields of bluebells) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (with its cityscapes of Spain's loveliest place)?

Which movie real (or surreal) estate inspires you?

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Via e-mail and voicemail and watercooler, the pressure is on. The (predominantly) male friends of Flickgrrl want to talk Megan Fox, fetching co-star of Transformers II. What can I say but that in Transformers and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen she struck me as very pretty? What can I say but that in the tabloids, she gives saucy quote? What can I say but that her right shoulderblade is inscribed with a quote from King Lear (Act V, Scene III): "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies" -- a line from Cordelia's soliloquy?

I can say that green-eyed brunette possesses coloring that is a distinct asset. As legendary cinematographer Nestor Almendros observed, actors with dark hair and light eyes -- or the reverse -- are uniquely cinegenic. Almendros called this his "Theory of complementary contrasts" and his proofs were brown-eyed blonde Catherine Deneuve and blue-eyed brunet Mel Gibson.  Vanessa Williams is another excellent example. Consider this an open thread to discuss Fox, cinegenic coloring and stars with names that describe their personalities.

Klaatu barada nikto, Gort.

Transformers II storms into multiplexes next week. Unlike my colleagues, I'm less looking forward to Megan Fox and Shia LeBeouf than to the sequel's steel giants. Which of course got me to thinking of what makes a good robot movie performance. Is it the mechanics? The voice work? The disjunction between the two? Of course I'm fond of Bumblebee in Transformers, but my favorite movie robot -- the False Maria in Fritz Lang's and Thea von Harbou's silent film Metropolis -- didn't have an audible voice.

Great movie robots? Certainly Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still,  R2D2 and C3P0 in the Star Wars saga, WALL.E and Eve in Wall.E, the Iron Giant, Number 5 in Short Circuit -- and here's where it gets slippery. If  androids count, then certainly the replicants in Blade Runner and the 'bots in Sleeper and fembots in Austin Powers. I thought of RoboCop, but technically he's part human and therefore really Cyborg-Cop.

Can you put your finger on the components of a memorable robot performance? Your favorite 'bot?

Taking the Bullock by the horns.

There is a moment in Two Weeks Notice when Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock's soon-to-be-ex boss, lists what he'll miss about her. "She's funny...of course, not deliberately," he muses, hitting the Bullock's-eye on why she makes us laugh. She just goes about her character's business -- an FBI agent posing as a pageant contestant in Miss Congeniality, a public-interest lawyer in drag as a real-estate developer's counsel in Notice, a preoccupied mother pretending to be a free spirit in Forces of Nature -- and locates the humor of a square peg forcing itself into round hole.

I like Bullock, on screens this weekend in The Proposal, as a Canadian-born career woman who needs to get married to a U.S. citizen (her assistant, Ryan Reynolds), so she can keep her job. She's hilarious, he's hilarious, it's hilarious. And the funny thing about Bullock is that she's awfully good and undeliberate at the dramatic moments, too, so affecting as Harper Lee in Infamous and as the homicide detective in Murder by Numbers. Heck, I even enjoyed her in The Lake House, a preposterously involving time-warp romance between her and her Speed co-star, Keanu Reeves.

Bullock, 44,  has been a star for 15 years, which in actress years is like a half century. She's made some real dreck (Hope Floats, anyone? Practical Magic?), yet I wince when cinephiles like David Thomson write her off as "a household name who has yet to be in a vital movie." Apart from Diane Keaton and Drew Barrymore, is there a funnier female clown currently working?

Bill O'Reilly, making his point and exclaiming it, too.

In the debate over civil debate, Roger Ebert offers a critique of Bill O'Reilly  that refrains from name-calling and other polarizing language, eloquently and patiently modeling the the way he believes that political arguments should be conducted, "with sincere debate and friendly persuasion." A persuasive piece of persuasion. Your thoughts?

Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) and his porcine pal in "Babe."

Some movies are complex stews: They taste richer the second time around when all the flavors reveal themselves. I find this most true with comedy and mystery. In funny movies I'm laughing so hard I don't catch all the jokes the first time around. In mysteries, on repeat viewing I see how and where the filmmakers have seeded the story. It wasn't until the third time  I saw The Godfather that I could tell Tessio from Clemenza.

Recently Amy B asked for movies that fit the "Once is Not Enough" rule: Here is a provisional list, to which I'd add most screwball comedies and movies with fractured narratives and surprise endings. Just as certain music grows on you, so do these films.

All About My Mother; Angry Harvest; Babe; La Belle et La Bete; Blow Up; Bottle Rocket; Cache; Casablanca; Chinatown; Clueless; Contempt; The Conversation; The Crowd; The Departed; E.T.: The Extraterrestial; A Face In the Crowd; Femme Fatale; The Godfather (I & II); Groundhog Day; Howards End; I Know Where I’m Going!; It’s a Wonderful Life; Jerry Maguire; La Avventura; The Lady Eve; Laurence of Arabia; Lost in Translation; Malcolm X; Michael Clayton; Modern Times; The Man Who Would Be King; North By Northwest; Notorious; On the Waterfront; Ordet; Raging Bull; The Rules of the Game; The Searchers; Shadow of a Doubt; Sherlock, Jr.; Some Like it Hot; Something New; Spartacus; Spirited Away; Sweet Smell of Success; Swing Time; Syriana; Tokyo Story; Toy Story 2; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Singing in the Rain; The Sixth Sense; Training Day; Vagabond; Vertigo; The Wild Child The Wizard of Oz.

Your nominations?

Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills in the original "The Parent Trap."

Fun list from New York Magazine's Vulture: Best multiple-role performances. Agree about Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger, Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers and Nic Cage in Adaptation. But the Vulture forgot the "Eve" movies: Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve. And failed to mention Olivia de Havilland  and Bette Davis in the ultimate "there's two of them!" twin films, A Stolen Life and The Dark Mirror. And neglected Hayley Mills and Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap movies.

I love seeing an actor compete against him or herself, don't you? In the twinfilms, it's fun to watch the actor playing the bad twin pretending to be the good twin. Which films have we missed?

Irrfan Khan, Father Ganguli in "The Namesake"

Father's Day is more than a week away, but readers have been asking for movie titles devoted to Dad. Given an arbitrary date of films after 1960, here are the next best fathers to my own.

Bend it Like Beckham  (2002):  On the wedding day of his elder daughter, Anupam Kher allows his soccer-mad younger daughter to participate in a match. He couldn't resist the prospect of having both daughters happy on the same day.

Boyz N the Hood (1991):  Laurence Fishburne instills values and discipline in his son, steering him away from the drugs and violence that permeate the neighborhood.

Catch Me if You Can  (2002): Christopher Walken as the con man who loves his son unconditionally.

Cinderella Man (2005) During the Depression when he can't get work prizefighter Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) fights to keep his family together.

The Godfather (1972) Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, who puts his family before his Family.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)/Guess Who (2005) Gruff-but-loving Spencer Tracy and Bernie Mac are the patriarchs surprised by their daughters' choice in husband material in the original and remake about interracial marriage.

Hanging Up (2000) Walter Matthau has dementia and his daughters Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Diane Keaton remember who he was while dealing with who he is.

Juno (2007) J.K. Simmons as the dad who supports his daughter through unplanned pregnancy and first love.

The Namesake (2007) Irrfan Khan (pictured) as the emigre who gives his firstborn with an unusual name and takes him to a place where they can go no further.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) Gregory Peck in his signature role as the Southern widower who teaches his children tolerance and love.

Tortilla Soup (2001)/Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) The American remake and original Chinese film of a master chef, father of three daughters, who loses his tastebuds and helps his daughters find men as good as him.

Your favorite movie Dads? Tell me why.