I'm nearly a month late, but this is the first that I've seen the nominations and I must say that that is one sorry group of Best Picture nominees. Roma, The Favourite, Green Book and A Star Is Born would probably be there in most years (even back when there were only five nominees), but the rest are pretty laughable, IMO. If there were ever a year to make a case for going back to only five nominees, this would probably be it. Having one film that doesn't really belong would look a lot better than having six, or over half of the field, not belong. It may not have been a great year for eligible films, but you can see the pandering to audiences, especially with Black Panther, which was simply popular, rather than excellent in any way that deserves artistic recognition.
The really silly thing is that the Academy listened to the stink over their proposed Popular Film category and, evidently, responded by dumping some of the films that would've gone into it into the Best Picture category. That suggests either that they misunderstood what the stink was over (thinking that it was over a new category, rather than the recognition of popularity) or don't care because they know that having popular films nominated for big awards will help with ratings.
