Popular movies make Oscars list

LOS ANGELES – They are precisely the kinds of movies hardly ever nominated for the best-picture Oscar – a tear-jerker sports film, a space-alien thriller and an animated feature with a flying house and talking dogs – but the populist pleasures “The Blind Side,” “District 9” and “Up” all made the final cut for the top Academy Award.

Concerned that a steady stream of challenging, often little-seen art movies were dominating the Oscars and deflating television ratings, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doubled this year’s best-picture race to 10 contestants, and the results Tuesday were exactly as intended: the inclusion of movies that have sold a boatload of tickets.

The nominations for the 82nd annual Academy Awards were led by the presumptive best picture favorites – “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” which each scored in nine categories. The two movies represent opposite extremes of audience recognition, as “Avatar” has generated almost 50 times more domestic revenue than “The Hurt Locker.”

But to the delight of the March 7 ceremony’s producers, four movies besides “Avatar” that have grossed more than $100 million made the best-picture competition: “Up” ($293 million), “The Blind Side” ($237.9 million), “Inglourious Basterds” ($120.5 million) and “District 9” ($115.6 million).

When last year’s statuettes were presented, only one of the five best-picture finalists – “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – had grossed more than $100 million.

The last time the academy nominated so many films for best picture was in 1944 (“Casablanca” won), and the return to the expanded list was sparked by declining ratings (about 36 million people watched last year’s ceremony, down from 1998’s “Titanic” sweep record of 55.2 million) and viewers who were growing older and more concentrated in large cities.

In recent years, Oscar voters also had been singling out works often unfamiliar even to regular moviegoers: challenging and sparsely attended productions such as “The Last King of Scotland” and “Milk.”

Some of Tuesday’s best-picture picks almost certainly would have been nominated by the academy’s 5,777 voters even if the category was its usual size: James Cameron’s science-fiction blockbuster “Avatar,” Kathryn Bigelow’s bomb-defuser drama “The Hurt Locker,” Quentin Tarantino’s World War II fantasy “Inglourious Basterds,” Jason Reitman’s downsizing dramedy “Up in the Air” and Lee Daniels’ incest survivor story “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.”

While some of the year’s most popular films – including the beloved bachelor-party comedy “The Hangover” and the popular “Star Trek” reboot – didn’t make the short list, the five other best picture nominations represented a diverse slice of film genres, audience appeal and critical acclaim: “The Blind Side,” “District 9, ” “Up,” the coming-of-age movie “An Education,” and the quirky, dark comedy “A Serious Man.”