Sean Penn! Come back! We forgive you for everything! But come back! We need you now more than ever!

Sean Penn has literally picked the worst time ever to take a career break. You see, it’s just been announced that at next year’s Oscars, 10 movies will be nominated for best picture instead of five. That means Hollywood needs to make twice as many drearily highbrow movies about either civil rights, the horrors or war or mental illness to fill the nominations quota.

Otherwise, God help us, a film that people actually enjoy might be nominated. Sean Penn, we’re begging you.

Remember all the fuss that was made at last year’s Oscars when The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for best picture? It was shocking, and it was absolutely the fault of the Oscars. It wasn’t that the film went on for a bit too long, or that people pretended to like it more than they really did because Heath Ledger died, or that nobody could understand what the lead character was saying at any given point in time because he was intent on doing the world’s longest impression of Phil Mitchell straining for a poo – it happened because the Oscars hate films that people like.

But to be fair to the academy, its hands were tied. It couldn’t nominate The Dark Knight for best picture because there were only five nomination spots – and Oscar rules clearly state that preference should be given to films about the Holocaust, gay rights, ethnic minorities, infamous real-life politicians and muddled adaptations of literary works. So between The Reader, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, that didn’t leave any room for The Dark Knight.

But next year? Next year things are going to be different. For seemingly no reason whatsoever, it’s been announced that the number of best picture nominees will double to 10 at next year’s Oscars. The LA Times reports:

The change is a direct result of a two-year, in-house search for ways to broaden the appeal of the show, and with good reason — viewership is sagging. “Last year there were more movies that I thought might have fit in the nominations,” Academy President Sid Ganis said Wednesday, acknowledging that hits such as “Iron Man,” “The Dark Knight” and “Tropic Thunder” resonated far more with moviegoers than with academy voters.

It makes so much sense – from now on the academy will be able to nominate a whole new wave of populist, audience-pleasing movies and still end up giving the best picture Oscar to the same highbrow, barely-watched, uncomfortably bleak biopic of a disabled celebrity that it always does. Everyone’s a winner.

Or maybe we’re being cynical. Maybe next year the Oscars really will start to focus on movies that audiences like. And maybe it can introduce a best haircut Oscar while it’s at it. And an Oscar for the star with the winningest smile. And Twilight can win everything. Oh, what fun it’ll be.

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Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, tough, you’re getting the bad news – it’s awards season.

You know, that long, slow, dull deathmarch to the Oscars where every single vaguely filmy organisation on the face of the planet announces which movies it enjoyed watching most. But more than that, awards season marks the time of year when we wish we had another job. Any other job. A job involving heights and spikes and angry bears, even.

And now the good news – The Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave its best picture award to WALL-E.

We’re going to be cautious here and meekly suggest that this awards season isn’t going to be as throat-slittingly interminable as it usually is, on the basis that something quite incredible is happening – this year, movies that people have actually seen might win something.

It’s still a long shot – after all, don’t forget that Sean Penn is still starring as an inspirational yet tragic figure this year and Hollywood’s got Holocaust movies coming out of its arse – but if the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is anything to go by, this year might be the year that bone-dry dramas based on issues and tragedy and crying might be replaced by, gasp, entertainment.

Although the last two years has seen the Los Angeles Film Critics Association name the likes of Brokeback Mountain and There Will Be Blood as its best films, this year it has decided to give its top award to WALL-E, the almost dialogue-free kid’s cartoon about a funny robot. BBC News reports:

Wall-E has been named best film of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as Hollywood gears up for Thursday’s Golden Globe nominations. The Pixar film was chosen ahead of The Dark Knight by the body, which gave its best actor prize to Sean Penn for Milk.

Weird, huh? WALL-E. Not a rites of passage film about a boy who treks across the Andes. Not a film about Darfur starring a popular actor who wants an Oscar more than life itself. Not a biopic of a recently-dead musician. WALL-E, the film that people a) paid to see in the droves and b) actually enjoyed. How utterly mystifying. WALL-E isn’t even based on a book or anything.

But just because a bunch of dusty old movie critics happened to like it, it doesn’t mean that WALL-E should hang out the bunting just yet – the Los Angeles Movie Critics Association hardly ever picks the same movie for Best Picture as the Oscars.

But still, this is still undeniably good news – not just for WALL-E but for populist movies in general. Finally, after years in the wilderness, it looks like they’re being accepted alongside all the impenetrably highbrow arthouse fodder that has dominated the awards scene lately.

And you know what that means – come the Oscars, Beverly Hills Chihuahua‘s going to win EVERYTHING!

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