Episode 77: Fairy Tales Can Come True (2009)

The Academy increased its number of Best Picture nominees from five to 10 for the 2009 movie year, but the minimum of Best Original Song nominees dropped from three to two. Was this a signal that maybe the music branch was worried about getting at least three quality songs nominated? That wasn't a problem in 2009, when Randy Newman got two nominations for his songs from the musical The Princess and the Frog and a little-known movie from France got one of its songs named as an Oscar nominee, thanks to the Academy's nomination system for movie songs.