OK, first thoughts:
- The White House website changed over from Bush to Obama at exactly noon on the 20th. So why does oscars.com not have the full list of nominees even now, nearly 30 minutes after the nominations were released? Isn't the private sector supposed to be better at this sort of thing than the government? Wikipedia is on the ball though, with the high profile nods at least.
- Revolutionary Road sort of got ignored, in the high profile awards at least. I haven't seen it, but the commercials didn't make it look very good, and even though I think he's improved immeasurably in recent years, I'm still a little suspicious of any film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Looking over the big list, I see it got a few more nominations, but still.
- I guess Academy voters didn't hold Bride Wars against Anne Hathaway.
- I don't remember that Jolie's performance was particularly highly praised back when The Changeling was in theaters. Kinda of the opposite, actually.
- I wonder when the last time was that a married couple got acting nominations in the same year? Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams were never married, so they don't count.
- A huge percentage of the acting nominees came from films that did not get Best Picture nominees. Best Actor is the only category that has more than one, and even there it's only three out of five.
- Doubt got a lot of high profile nods for a movie that didn't get a Best Picture nomination. Amy Adams becomes the first Buffy veteran with two Oscar nominations.
- There is a rare symmetry to the Best Director and Best Picture categories this year. Though it's the second time in the last four years.
- 9:22 AM -- oscar.com still doesn't have the full list of nominees. oscars.org (the official AMPAS site) is on the ball though!
- Only three nominees for Best Song this year, and two of them are in Hindi. So that's probably a second Oscar for WALL-E. Of course, a Spanish-language song won a few years ago, and people love Slumdog Millionaire, so who knows.
- Best Animated Short nod for Presto. That was a great cartoon.
More later maybe.
