So, the AMPAS didn’t embarrass itself TOO much this morning. At the end of the day, “Invictus” proved to lack the proper passionate support to yield a Best Picture nomination. The beneficiary of that: “The Blind Side.” Make of that what you will.
“Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” — get this — tied with a field-leading nine nominations each. “Inglourious Basterds” wasn’t far behind with eight, while “Precious” and “Up in the Air” tied with six apiece. Pixar’s “Up” managed five, while “District 9” and “Star Trek,” the other sci-fi entries in the race, each received four, the former landing a Best Picture nomination and trending on Twitter as I type. But how the hell it missed in Best Makeup is beyond me. More on the techs below.
“The Blind Side” and “A Serious Man” get the “winner of two Oscar nominations, including Best Picture” honors. But at least the latter made the cut after all. There was some nervousness for a while there.
As I look through the nominations, I see nothing particularly eye-catching. All of the “surprises” seem awfully reasonable and make perfect sense. First and foremost, I’m kicking myself for blinking on Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart.” In fact, I had that supporting actress category pegged 5/5 24 hours ago. That’s what I get for over-thinking it. I’m really happy to see her slide into contention. She worked it last month and at just the right time.
Unfortunately, though, her writer/director, Scott Cooper, was left off of the adapted screenplay contenders. He has a bright future ahead of him regardless, offers coming in left and right, so he’ll be just fine and might find himself back on Oscar’s doorstep one day. The film that DID make it into that adapted field was “In the Loop,” which makes perfect sense and seemed a safe back-up bet to me yesterday.
As for original screenplays, hallelujah, “(500) Days of Summer” was snubbed. And in favor of “The Messenger,” no less. Class. I really thought a Best Picture nod was in Oren Moverman’s future when this category was announced.
The tech fields are what they are. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” was thankfully remembered for its crafts, while “Avatar” was the expected dominating party.
Most revealing is the film editing category, where “Precious” managed a surprising (and MOST deserving) nomination. If you go by Oscar history, one of those films will win Best Picture or it would be the first time in nearly 30 years that it didn’t happen. Then again, using the preferential balloting system for the winners could change that this year.
Elsewhere, Guy and I were correct in our assumption that Dion Beebe would be the lenser left off of the cinematography list, but it was Bruno Delbonnel’s work on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” that made the cut rather than “The Road,” which is what we were thinking.
I had a hunch that if “Il Divo” had enough gas to make it to the bake-off then it might slid into the makeup field, and so it did, while the visual effects category was the only field throughout the techs that I nailed 100% Then again, who was betting on any other trio?
“Inglourious Basterds” managed nominations in both sound categories, as I suspected it might. Michael Minkler and Wylie Stateman are titans of their fields. And in the music categories — WHEW — “The Weary Kind” got its much deserved nomination and should go on to win the big prize.
The surprise nominee for song was a tune from “Paris 36,” while over in the score category, Alexandre Desplat managed to pull out a nod for “Fantastic Mr. Fox” after all, alongside Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders for their haunting work on “The Hurt Locker.”
Oh, in the animated feature category, it was “The Secret of Kells,” an Annie nominee you might recall, that got in over “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” rather than “Ponyo.” Very interesting. I’ll see the film some time next week at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. And in the documentary feature category (which had better be a clear path for “The Cove” on Oscar night), I was sad to see “Mugabe and the White African” miss, but you just never know what that committee will do.
Anyway, you can mull over the list of nominees below and draw your own conclusions. I have nothing major to complain about, to be perfectly honest. Yeah, the “Blind Side” nomination is silly, but it was either that or “Invictus,” so what can you do?
Anyway, the race between David and Goliath continues. I think the amount of support shown for “The Hurt Locker” speaks for itself, though, with clear support from the actors and the writers, which Cameron’s film just didn’t get. But with a preferential balloting system, things are a bit more wide open than the two-horse race we’ve boiled it down to, so we’ll see.
As for the experiment with the 10, I imagine by most counts, it will be considered a success. That is definitely a unique mixture of American film product. It’s a shame something truly independent like “Crazy Heart” or “The Messenger” couldn’t find room, but I think they were clearly close, so the logic holds that they still have a better opportunity in a scheme such as this.
As far as predictions, I managed 85/116 in the 23 categories I attempted. 94/116 if you count alternates. And I went 39/45 in the top eight categories.
Stick around throughout the day. Guy will offer his thoughts soon enough, while I’ll be taking nominees’ reactions for most of the morning and afternoon.
Best Picture
“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”
Best Director
James Cameron, “Avatar”
Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
“Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
“Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”
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”
Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelon, “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Adapted Screenplay
“District 9”
“An Education”
“In the Loop”
“Precious”
“Up in the Air”
Best Original Screenplay
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Messenger”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
Best Animated Feature Film
“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Up”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Ajami” (Israel)
“The Milk of Sorrow” (Peru)
“A Prophet” (France)
“The Secret in Their Eyes” (Argentina)
“The White Ribbon” (Germany)
Best Art Direction
“Avatar”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“Sherlock Holmes”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Cinematography
“Avatar”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“The Hurt Locker”
“The White Ribbon”
Best Costume Design
“Bright Star”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Film Editing
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious”
Best Makeup
“Il Divo”
“Star Trek”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Music (Original Score)
“Avatar”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Sherlock Holmes”
“Up”
Best Music (Original Song)
“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog”
“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36”
“Take it All” from “Nine”
“The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
Best Sound Editing
“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Up”
Best Sound Mixing
“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
Best Visual Effects
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Star Trek”
Best Documentary Feature
“Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country”
“The Cove”
“Food, Inc.”
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”
“Which Way Home”
Best Documentary Short
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
“The Last Campaign of Booth Gardener”
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”
“Music by Prudence”
“Rabbit a la Berlin”
Best Short Film (Animated)
“French Roast”
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”
“The Lady and the Reaper”
“Logorama”
“A Matter of Loaf and Death”
Best Short Film (Live Action)
“The Door”
“Instead of Abracadabra”
“Kavi”
“Miracle Fish”
“The New Tenants”
Comments
177 responses to “‘Avatar,’ ‘Hurt Locker’ lead Oscar nods with 9 each”
Wow, I’m kinda surprised about Julianne Moore not being nominated.
“The Secret of Kells” only has one review at Rotten Tomatoes. I never even heard of it. How did this film make the top five in this category?
@ Jim – I thought Marco Beltrami’s score in “The Hurt Locker” was extremely underrated – glad to see it nominated. You can listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELGxk2qGaLA
I prefer it to James Horner’s white-bread tribal drums nonsense.
So it’s official. The Academy Awards is The People’s Choice Awards. The Blind Side for Best Picture? Really?!
I guess Meryl will win her third Oscar next year… *sigh*
I woke up early for this shit?
And from that 10 list of nominees, only 5 deserve to be there, weird…isn’t it??
FOR FUCK SAKE!! THE BLIND SIDE!!!??
I want to die right now
GOOD:
Bright Star for Costumes
Horner and Desplat for Score
D9 and An Education for Picture
Gyllenhaal for Sup. Actress
and of course—
FUCKING A SERIOUS MAN IN BEST PICTURE!!!!!!
Bad:
Hurt Locker on ORIGINAL SCORE, im i dare to say, its winning
Pene Cruz on Supp. Actress
Lee Daniels in Directing
No nom for BASTERDS on Art/costume
Sandra Bullock on everything, even with a nom for worst actress she’s pathetic
and of course
FUCKING BLIND SIDE IN BEST PICTURE
overall, disappointed
Mo’Nique is in people !!! What are those comments saying she didnt make it ?
Hutrt Locker for score is WTF !!! Just to put it in there.
Love Potter in cinematography. When the ovie came out many praised that aspect of the movie and look, it did came true.
Mackie out… YAY !!!
Morton and Moore out… There’s always 2010 nominations girls.
The Cat Piano not nominated? WTF?
Z, you COULD be right. But I don’t see the technical guilds selling Avatar short.
I think Avatar is going to go on a run for the first half of the night and The Hurt Locker is going to take it the rest of the way.
But I could believe The Hurt Locker still only walks away with Picture, Cinematography, Editing and Director. Maybe not even Director. I don’t think the support is overwhelming compared to the front runners most years.
Eh. That’s how I feel about it all. Eh.
Glad to see that Invictus didn’t make the cut for Best Picture. That was definitely gratifying. Sad that Moore didn’t make Supporting Actress and that The Road was shut out entirely. Wish there was more love for A Single Man…especially for score and cinematography. Overall a big blah.
at least Nine didn’t nab a Best Picture nod, that would’ve really pissed me off. But I still don’t get why A Serious Man is in that Top 10.
Quick Hits:
The Good:
A Serious Man best pic nom
In the Loop best screenplay nom
The Bad:
The Blind Side best pic nom
The Last Station acting noms
Invictus noms
No Anthony Mackie!!
Penelope Cruz for Nine?!?
Avatar: 9 nominations (Art Dir, Cinematograpy, Director, Editing, Score, Picture, Sound Editing, Mixing, Visuals)
Hurt Locker: 9 nominations (Actor, Cinematography, Director, Editing, Score, Picture, Sound Editing, Mixing, Original Screenplay)
Inglourious Basterds: 8 nominations (Supp Actor, Cinematography, Director, Editing, Picture, Sound Editing, Mixing, Original Screenplay)
Up in the Air: 6 nominations (Supporting Actress, Supporting Actress, Director, Picture, Adapted Screenplay)
Precious: 6 nominations (Actress, Supp Actress, Director, Editing, Picture, Adapted Screenplay)
Up: 5 nominations (Animated, Score, Picture, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
District 9: 4 nominations (Editing, Picture, Visuals, Adapted Screenplay)
Star Trek: 4 nominations (Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visuals)
Nine: 4 nominations (Supporting Actress, Art Direction, Costume, Song)
An Education: 3 nominations (Actress, Picture, Adapted Screenplay)
Crazy Heart: 3 nominations (Actor, Supporting Actress, Song)
The Young Victoria: 3 nominations (Art Direction, Costume, Makeup)
Princess and the Frog: 3 nominations (Animated, Song, Song)
2 nominations each: Invictus (Actor, Supp Actor); The Messenger (Supp Actor, Original Screenplay); The Last Station (Actress, Supp Actor); The Blind Side (Actress, Picture); Fantastic Mr Fox (Animated, Score); Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Art Direction, Costume); Sherlock Holmes (Art Direction, Score); White Ribbon (Cinematography, Foreign Language); A Serious Man (Picture, Original Screenplay)
One nomination each: A Single Man (Actor); The Lovely Bones (Supp Actor); Julie & Julia (Actress); Coraline (Animated); Secret of Kells (Animated); Harry Potter (Cinematography); Bright Star (Costumes); Coco avant Chanel (Costumes); Il Divo (Makeup); Transformers (Sound Mixing)
oh and I TOTALLY CALLED Harry Potter getting cinematography.
Jim: Actually, The Hurt Locker score is a thing of subtle brilliance, very cleverly woven into the sound design. Good on the Academy for noticing.
To those puzzled about The Secret of Kells, it’s a rather lovely curio that’s done quite well for itself on the festival circuit. I just caught up with it myself, and am happy to see the voters take such a leap of imagination.
“District 9″ for Best Picture?
“The Blind Side”???
Matt Damon for “Invictus”? (over Informant!)?
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”?
Diane Kruger OVER Melanie Laurent???
“District 9″ for Special effects but no Transformers 2? Etc…
Good to know that collectively the Academy is as dumb as ever.
Okay, I’m not kidding. How many people who are outraged about The Blind Side can truthfully say they’ve seen it? Is it possible that the idea of The Blind Side – specifically, the fact that Sandra Bullock has historically been a terrible actress – is far more offensive to people than the actual movie?
Oh and White Ribbon for the Cinemotography. Should have seen that one coming.
We’re on PUNK’D for The Blind Side!!!! It spoiled the night…
I hope Meryl’s solitary nomination will beat The Blind Side’s BP nod… Screw the producers… They didn’t even want to name themselves… Haha..
Personally, I think it’s great to see a movie like “The Hurt Locker” get nominated for a subtle, but very effective score. “Public Enemies” was robbed in that regard.
James Horner’s is easily the worst on that list.
When will the NIGHTMARE that IS The Blind Side be over???
I still think it’s a joke I’m not in on or something…
I wont know what to think if Bullock wins an Oscar for that pathetic film and Streep goes home empty handed for the 14th time.
totally ludacris.
Goooood stuff; I’m a happy girl.
The Blind Side as BP nominee. Holy shit, folks.
Also, I feel completely awful for Mr. Molina, who was, in the days of yore, considered a lock alongside Mr. Waltz, and got completely ousted by Matt Damon’s “rah rah, sis-boom-bah.” Man.
Oh, OH. And who fucking called that either District 9 or Star Trek would drop out of editing, letting the Basterds in. That’s right, Megan did.
Overall, looking good. No major surprises. A few disappointments, but I’m not going go lose any sleep.
“Jim: Actually, The Hurt Locker score is a thing of subtle brilliance, very cleverly woven into the sound design. Good on the Academy for noticing.”
Thank you, Guy, for coming to its defense. It’s brilliant.
ups! I forgot about IN THE LOOP ON FUCKING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY!!! yayyyy!!!! loved!!
Because inglorious basterds is an ORIGINAL screenplay.
Pleasantly surprised at the Loin de Paname nom. for best song – such a good little dittie!
What happened to “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs”? Was it inelligible or something? If it wasn’t, it’s the biggest, most horrifying snub of the year.
When people are exasperated that Transformers 2 wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, you’ve gotta take a deep breath and admit that we all have favorites. Your trash is my gold and vice versa. All of these choices got in because they were important to someone.
oh, and I HAVE seen The Blind Side….
Sandra was good…..but she was Sandra Bullock, nothing special….and the film itself was mediocre at best.
Nowhere NEAR Oscar worthy.
How did that song from “Paris 36” get nominated? The movie is not good, and the song isn’t all that great either
I forgot : I’m really happy for Bigelow, Firth and..some recognition for ‘parnassus’ and ‘last station’— so, the academy has actually seen some movies! I’m shocked.
So, what does this mean for Clint Eastwood? Two years in a row now, his films have gotten “surprise” (i.e., non-guaranteed) acting nominations, but no Picture/Director nods.
And make no mistake, people: the inclusion of “The Blind Side” is exactly why the Academy switched to 10. If you’ve still got 9 other spots for “worthy” quality nominees, why not throw a bone to the middle-America populace that might tune in now? Give me a break… you all act like replacing “Star Trek” or something with “The Blind Side” takes out all of the Academy’s credibility. There’s still 9 other nominees to rejoice over! (Yay “A Serious Man”!) If you ask me, the inclusion of both “Blind Side” (middle-of-the-road popular movie) and “Serious Man” (critical favorite) is exactly proof that the switch to 10 was a success.
No Inglorious Basterds for Costume/Art Direction!
Seriously, what Dadid Wasco did to piss the Academy so much that they simply refuse to nominated him????
And poor Anna Sheppard, when she finally gets a chance to have some fun with her World War II costumes they snub her.
So Diana Kruger is NOT nominated after all. Well, that was hardly the main point anyway.
The Avatar bid is dead isn’t it? No movie has ever won BP without any acting noms and without a writing nom. It really labels it as just a technical visual accomplishment and it will win those awards but BP is dead.
One very good thing though, to make up for the “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” snub: GG Best Comedy winner “The hangover” got nothing.
The Blind Side is a movie that had it come out in the early to mid 80’s not only would have been nominated but possibly even won. The Academy proved one thing today. That short of a few film snobs on websites, everyone really does love that movie. I have seen 7 of the 10 nominated films and while The Blind Side is certainly #7 of the ones I have seen, it’s not a bad film. No one would be complaining if it had been Invictus instead other than to say it was expected.
And Ponyo. Should have been nominated.
!!!!
I would’ve preferred #1 the most, especially because it would give THL the most nominations….But perhaps that would result in an overestimation of THL’s chances, and thus backfire. It’s probably better that it’s tied with Dancing with Smurfahontas for the most, thus keeping it in the headlines.
Can you pleas make the correction and add Mo’Nique. This was the first site I checked, I didn’t see her name and almost went crazy!! Idk how a mistake like that could even be made…… hmm…….
Dear god, I almost had a heart attack. I read your Supporting Actress section a half dozen times before checking the Oscar website and realising that Mo’Nique had been nominated. That would have been the biggest upset of the year if it hadn’t come through…
The foreign film category is really good: all the films are fantastic (I’ve seen all but “Ajami”) and deserving of recognition. I really hope “The White Ribbon”, which is the best film of the year, gets the award.
Really saddened by the lack of love for A Single Man, my favourite movie of the year. I just felt it was far more of an emotionally honest work than Avatar or Inglourious. Still reeling a bit from the lack of Score recognition.
Really happy (though not surprised) for Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Colin Firth, Maggie, Anna Kendrick, Stanley, and Christoph, though I wish that we’d swapped in Molina or Sarsgaard in the supporting category.
Also happy for Daniels in the Director category, as I had lost hope for him at one point during pre-Globes.
Sick of the James Horner love. Was sick of it 13 years ago, and have not changed my mind.
Also happy for Coraline though given the amount of work it takes to make stop-motion look that natural and beautiful, it deserves a science categ nom as well. Not that it matters, since Up has and will continue to outshadow it and every other.
Where’s Mo’nique?!?
I only just realized now that Peter Jackson is nominated for producing District9. Should be some consolation to him after “The Lovely Bones” didn’t quite pan out.
Also, people are making to much out of Eastwood’s “snub”. This is neither suprising, unprecedented nor, ultimately, very telling.
What leads us to assume that, “The Blindside” took the “Invictus” slot? Because there both feel good movies?
If we’re going to go by that reasoning, then who’s to say that “District 9” didn’t take a slot away from “Star Trek.”
Hell maybe “The Blindside’ took a spot away from “Star Trek?”
I can’t just give “The Blindside” a pass. On an assumption that it was somehow replaced the slot that “Invictus” would have taken.
Some minor screw-ups on my end when copying and pasting nominees. Sorry, guys, Yes, Mo’Nique is n. Now THAT would have been a shocker. :)
Not “Diane Kruger, “Inglourious Basterds”.
that should be Mo’nique.
I can deal with The Blind Side making the cut if it meant Invictus didn’t and all the love for The Hurt Locker. Star Trek was a better choice imo, but I guess three sci-fis for BP would have been asking too much.
Something just occurred to me: Looks like having Invictus‘s picture as the icon above the BP field proved to be a curse after all! (A trend, following Amelia and Nine.)
I’d like to think I contributed as well: I saw Invictus at home, via a pirated screener–on the 13th. Hmmm….