For the past couple of years I’ve been going to the all-day movie marathon known as the AMC Best Picture Showcase. I’m a movie lover and the idea of sitting in a theater for close to 15 hours on a Saturday in February gives me a big smile, especially as I eat my unlimited bags of popcorn and soda. The showcase provides people with a great way to celebrate the Oscars, watch all five of the Best Picture nominees in one day and feel ready to win the office pool. But when the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Science decided to change things up this year and nominate 10 films for the top prize, it left AMC and it’s die-hard movie fans wondering what would happen to the Showcase.
I’m impressed with how AMC handled the situation. Knowing that it would be logistically and humanly impossible to show all 10 films at once, the theater chain decided to split the showcase into two days, each showing five of the films. But it also gave the fans the ability to help decide which films it would show together, especially since the three-hour megamovie Avatar would be shown in 3-D. Through a polling system, AMC allowed fans to vote on the movies it would show during the first weekend with Avatar and announce the results later today.
86,521 votes were cast and it looks like it may be a good year for me. I’ve seen about half of the films nominated, including Avatar, and those are also the ones that the majority of fans have voted on to be shown on the first Saturday. Of course AMC has the final say, but let’s hope that the peoples’ voices have been heard and it will save me $30 and an extra Saturday.
I’ll post the results as soon as I find out.