And The Nominees Are ...

This morning the nominees for the Academy Awards were announced. Despite sleeping in and having my wife record the broadcast, she did give me one tease about a nominee that made me very happy to hear.
Avatar and The Hurt Locker each received nine nominations, the most for a movie this year. Inglourious Basterds fell short of that honor by just one. Precious and Up in the Air received six nominations. Pixar's Up received five nominations.
So here are the nominees for the major nominees.

Best Picture:
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

I've seen four of the ten nominees for this category and hopefully I can find time in the next month to view the other six. Well, what am I saying hopefully. I've got nothing else to do. I am happy to see Up nominated because ever since it was released I have been saying how good of a movie it was.
This year the Academy changed things up and allowed ten movies to be nominated for the Best Picture category. If I had to guess, I would say the five movies lucky enough to benefit from the new rule are District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, and Up.

Best Director:
James Cameron for Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels for Precious
Jason Reitman for Up in the Air

The real showdown will be between Cameron's Avatar for its visual 3D/CGI magnificence and Bigelow's The Hurt Locker for its compelling story. Going into the Oscars, Avatar has already won two Golden Globes for Best Picture and Best Director and The Hurt Locker won at the Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement as well as Best Picture and Best Director awards from the National Society of Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Chicago Film Critics Association, Boston Society of Film Critics, Austin Film Critics Association, and Las Vegas Film Critics Society.
The most interesting thing about the Best Director race between Cameron and Bigelow is they used to be married to one another. Bigelow was Cameron's wife before marrying Terminator star Linda Hamilton. So it is sort of like a Battle of the Exes.

Best Actor:
Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
George Clooney for Up in the Air
Colin Firth for A Single Man
Morgan Freeman for Invictus
Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker

Firth and Renner are receiving their first Oscar nominations this year, but Bridges, Clooney and Freeman have all been nominated four times before (although Clooney's nominations weren't all for acting categories).

Best Actress:
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side
Helen Mirren for The Last Station
Carey Mulligan for An Education
Gabourey Sidibe for Precious
Meryl Streep for Julie and Julia

This is Streep's sixteenth Academy Award nomination, previously winning for 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer and 1982's Sophie's Choice. Both wins were in the supporting actress category.

Best Supporting Actor:
Matt Damon for Invictus
Woody Harrelson for The Messenger
Christopher Plummer for The Last Station
Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress:
Penelope Cruz for Nine
Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
Mo'Nique for Precious

Best Original Screenplay:
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

Best Adapted Screenplay:
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

Best Animated Picture:
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

There really is no question as to which movie is going to win. It is kind of hard to justify allowing an animated picture being nominated for Best Picture and it not be the best in the animated category.