Oscar Nominations 2010 February 2, 2010

The nominations have been announced and they are pretty much what was expected. Some of the big categories and brief comments below.

Best Picture
“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”

If there was any sense, ‘An Education’ would win. But we are certainly looking between ‘Avatar’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’, both of which are good films. If it was the traditional 5 I would cut out ‘Precious’, ‘Up’, ‘Up in the Air’, ‘The Blind Side’, and ‘Inglourious Basterds’, but that’s just me.

And it is a shame ‘Up’ finally pushes Pixar into a best picture when ‘WALL-E’ was at least twice as good and snubbed last year. Such a shame.

Best Direction
“Avatar,” James Cameron
“The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow
“Inglourious Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” Lee Daniels
“Up in the Air,” Jason Reitman

Give it to J.C., in my opinion, but Bigelow has this all but locked up.