News: The 2010 Oscar Nominees

     The day has finally come, and we have our 2010 Oscar nominees (check out the full list of nominees here). In terms of most nominations, "The King's Speech" leads the way with 12 nominations, while "True Grit" came in second with 10 nominations, and "The Social Network" and "Inception" coming in tied for third with 8 nominations. So what are the big stories of the day?

     For me personally, I was most excited about two things. First, I was extremely happy to see John Hawkes get nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "Winter's Bone". Hawkes gives the best performance out of anyone I have seen in the category (and outside of Jessie Eisenberg in "The Social Network", he gave the best performance of any actor in any category in my opinion). The second thing, which is a little stupid and prideful (but what the hey), is how well I did on my predictions (click here to take a look and compare them to the actual nominees). In the "big 8" categories, I was 41 for 45 (only if I had went with my gut and picked Javier Bardem and John Hawkes), including nailing Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, and got 85 0f 105 overall, including correctly guessing Best Film Editing and Best Cinematography.

     The biggest news you are going to hear on the web though, is about Christopher Nolan's absence in the Best Director category, who was likely replaced by the Coens who received their third Best Director nomination. Most people had Nolan in, and were predicting David O. Russell to be kicked out by the someone if there was going to be a surprise, but I correctly picked Nolan's absence because for some stupid reason, the directors branch of the Academy seems to have something against him. If they weren't going to nominate him for "The Dark Knight", one of the greatest films of all-time (it made #25 on my list), I didn't think they would nominate him for the lesser "Inception", which is too bad, because out of the directors who had a realistic shot at a nomination, he definitely deserved to be on there.

     The biggest news after that is probably the 11th competing Best Picture film that did not get in, "The Town". If you read my review (and if you haven't click here), you'll know I wasn't a very big fan of the stereo-typical action/drama pic, so I was happy to see it not get in. Especially at the cost of "127 Hours" (check out my review), which, after "The Social Network", was my favorite film this year.

     To sum up my feelings on the nominations, click the read more button below and see my bullet point dissection of the nominees into "Good" and "Bad".

Good

• John Hawkes received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for "Winter's Bone"
• "The Town" did not knock out "127 Hours" or "Winter's Bone" for a Best Picture nomination.
• Robert Duvall was not nominated for his typical "old-man" performance in the terrible "Get Low"
• I correctly guessed 41 of 45 in the "major 8" categories and 85 of 105 overall (not important to most people though).

Bad

• "The King's Speech" receiving the most nominations (12) and actually having a legit shot at upsetting "The Social Network" for Best Picture.
• Christopher Nolan still not getting an Oscar nomination for Best Director
• "Shutter Island" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World" receiving zero nominations
• "The Fighter" screenplay replacing the superior screenplay for "Black Swan" in Original category