And the 2009 Oscar Nominees Are...

As I said yesterday, we haven’t paid a ton of attention to the various awards on the main site (although our friend Tony has done a great job of keeping track of them on our “super secret” forums which can be found here). The big awards for the industry are, of course, the Oscars, and we’d be foolish not to pay them some attention. So here’s our take on the various nominations, announced this morning by the lovely Anne Hathaway - if ever there was a reason to get up early for these announcements, the Academy found it by having a beautiful host to present them.

If anyone has any doubt about the competition between James Cameron’s science fiction adventure Avatar and Kathryn Bigelow’s war drama The Hurt Locker, we only need to look at the quantity of nominations the two powerhouses received. Tied at nine nominations each, the movies are the big contenders of the night. The great thing is neither film stands out 100% above the other. Both are excellent picks for the different categories, and I expect a lot of difference in critic picks over which movie will emerge triumphant for the night. We’ll put a lot of our money on The Hurt Locker, but Avatar is still a favorite.

The 82nd Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 7th, hosted by returning host Steve Martin and newcomer Alec Baldwin. Expect we’ll be participating in some sort of live Oscar event - details to come. For now, the nominees are…

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz - Nine
Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhall - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Mo’Nique - Precious

Rafe says: Cruz’s nomination is probably the most surprising part of these nominations as a whole. Sadly, she doesn’t have a chance, nor do either of the wonderful performances from Up in the Air. Mo’Nique has won award after award for her performance in Precious, and I have no reason to believe this will be any different.

Rafe says: Much like Mo’Nique has claimed the Supporting Actress award, Waltz should be prepping his speech right now. A talented bunch of actors, but Waltz owns his movie from the opening scene.

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Helen Mirren - The Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabriele Sidibe - Precious
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Rafe says: This is probably the second hardest category to pick. I doubt Streep will get the statue - comedies are so much harder to win with than dramas. I felt like this was Sidibe’s award from the start, but then Bullock won the Golden Globe and has been getting most of the public buzz. It’ll be curious to see what happens on Oscar night.

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

Rafe says: Again, not a miss in the list, but Bridges will probably get it for a movie a lot of us haven’t had the opportunity to see yet. He’s been dominating the other awards, so I expect he’ll get the Oscar as well.

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

Rafe says: Here’s the hardest category for my money. I expect the real competition is between former husband/wife couple Cameron and Bigelow. She won the Director’s Guild award, but Cameron took the Golden Globe. Still, a lot of people have faith in Cameron’s titanic CG endeavor. I’m expecting a split between Director and Best Picture like we saw at the Golden Globes, with Bigelow taking this one.

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

Rafe says: Wait a minute - what in the heck is The Secret of Kells? This is the only movie to receive nominations that I haven’t heard about. Time to go check it out, but expect Up to win the award. It managed to get a nomination for Best Animated Picture and Best Picture. With ten films up for the big award, I expect this to be Pixar’s consolation prize.

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

Rafe says: Did ten nominees damage anything? I don’t think so. These are pretty much the expected contenders anyway, and it’s easy to see who the real contenders are and which films will be happy just to have been nominated. Expect the serious competition between Avatar and The Hurt Locker to continue here, although an upset from Up in the Air would be fantastic.

And then there are the awards that are more focused in specific areas, and wind up getting overlooked by a lot of people. Here we include these nominations, although we don’t have specific commentary on all of them.

Original Screenplay
Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds
Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman - The Messenger
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen - A Serious Man
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter (story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy) - Up

Adapted Screenplay
Neil Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell - District 9
Nick Hornby - An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche - In the Loop
Geoffrey Fletcher - Precious
Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner - Up in the Air

Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Film Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Music - Original Score
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Music - Original Song
“Almost There” - The Princess and the Frog
“Down in New Orleans” - The Princess and the Frog
“Loin de Paname” - Paris 36
“Take it All” - Nine
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart) - Crazy Heart

Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Animated Short Film
“French Roast”
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”
"The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)"
"Logorama"
"A Matter of Loaf and Death"

Live Action Short Film
"The Door"
"Instead of Abracadabra"
"Kavi"
"Miracle Fish"
"The New Tenants"

Documentary - Feature
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Documentary - Short
“China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”
“Music by Prudence”
“Rabbit à la Berlin”

Foreign Language Film
Ajami
El Secreto de Sus Ojos
The Milk of Sorrow
Un Prophète
The White Ribbon