-Oscar Nominees-

Here is the full list of nominees. They were announced this Tuesday by actress (and last years' nominee) Jennifer Lawrence and Academy President Tom Sherak: 

 

There were few surprises, mainly the acceptance of  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as a Best Picture nominee and Rooney Mara's Best Actress Nomination for the film Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which I'm going to see this weekend, can't believe I've missed it!).  And even though Harry Potter didn't get nominated for Best Picture, I was super glad to see that it got 3 nominations, and in categories that I think they have a good chance of winning (Visual Effects, Make Up, Art Direction). And although the Help only got 4 nominations, I'm happy to see that 3 of them came from acting, since that is where the movie excels.

There were so many great performances the past film year, so there were bound to be some snubs, especially in the acting categories. Likes of Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Albert Brooks (who told "Academy really hates me") didn't get nominations, and these were are plausible nominees, not just ones I wanted to see nominated. I was also very surprised not to see The Adventures of Tintin nominated after taking home the Golden Globe and Producers Guild Award for best Animated Feature Film.

Hugo leads the race with 11 nominations, and even though in the past 20 years, 15 times the winner has been the film with most nominations, the Artist remains as the general front runner for Best Picture, especially after its Producers Guild Award, wich remains as the most accurate prediction for Oscar Winner. And amazing footnote: with the dual nominations for the Best Score, John Williams  reaches total of 47 nominations, wich is just incredible!

I was shocked when I saw the Best Original Song slot, 2 nominees!! What is wrong with the academy? Although it is a smaller category, I'd still like to see some effort, especially after there were so great contestants for that nomination, like Mary J. Blige, Madonna, Elton John and Zooey Deschanel.  It seems like the academy is losing interest in the category, last year there were only 4 nominees. I'd like them to bring 1945 back, when there were 14 nominations. With only 2 contenders I'm expecting to see great performances from both. Here are the songs nominated:

I'd love to see the two white piano scene recreated on the Oscar night, with Jason Segal, Jim Parson and fellow Muppet's singing on stage. I'm not quite sure how seriously I can take this song, but this category has always favored "kid's" movies (remember all those golden Disney nominees?). The second song nominated is "Real in Rio" from the movie Rio. It includes part where the cast sings (Jesse Eisenberg, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am), but if that is too hard for the producers to put together, they might go with over the top samba-carnival type of performance with colours and feathers all over the place. 

I'll be providing my picks for the categories in few weeks after seeing most of the nominated films. And don't forget the Screen Actors Guild awards this weekend, which will give us more info how the actor awards will go and off-course a star filled red carpet :)