THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS!!!

YAY!!! The Oscar nominations were finally anounced! There are definitely some surprises and possible snubs, so let me get to talking.

Best Picture: Firstly let me say, that I am in no way a big "Dark Knight" fan, so I will not be complaining about its non-presence in this category. Actually, I'm kind of happy that it wasn't, sorry. I feel like all of these movies were better (with the possible exception of "Curious Case of Benjamin Button", but I won't go there). Four of these nominees were completely expected ("Benjamin Button", "Frost/Nixon", "Milk", and "Slumdog Millionaire"), while "The Reader" kind of came out of left-field, though it was definitely a possibility. I am pretty excited that "The Reader" is getting some recognition. I loved it. Of course there were two movies on my Best Picture list that didn't make it on ("Revolutionary Road" and "Rachel Getting Married" instead of "CCoBB" and "F/N"), so I am a bit disappointed. Personally, I would've added "Revolutionary Road" before "The Reader", but I still love the Academy's choice.

Best Director is pretty much the same.

Best Actor: I also picked three in this category in my list (Penn, Rourke, and Jenkins (YAY)). I picked Michael Sheen for "Frost/Nixon" instead of Frank Langella because I thought his performance was equally as good, if not better, and because he hasn't gotten any recognition so far. Brad Pitt's performance his fine, but a lot of it is the CGI, so I just can't count that as one of the five best. Leonardo DiCaprio ("Revolutionary Road") was phenominal and completely deserved this nomination over Pitt. Overall, this was pretty much expected.

Best Actress: So, I picked 3 1/2 in this category (Hathaway, Jolie, Streep, and Winslet). I saw half because I picked Winslet for "Revolutionary Road" for this category and put her "The Reader" performance in Supporting. I LOVED her in "Rev Road" and think totally deserves to be nominated for that. She was also amazing in "The Reader", so I'm not really that upset, though now she only has one chance to win. I had picked Kristen Scott Thomas ("I've Loved You So Long") for the last nominee and feel she was snubbed, though I haven't seen "Frozen River", so I don't completely know.

Best Supporting Actress: I only picked one in this one (Adams). All the actress nominated (Cruz, Davis, Hensen, Tomei) were great in their roles, so I really don't have anything to complain about. I think that some of my picks (Zylberstein, Abbass, and DeWitt) are completely underrated and underlauded. My last pick was Winslet for "The Reader", which moved to Lead Actress.

Best Supporting Actor: I got 3 of these (Brolin, Ledger, and Shannon). Personally, I wasn't very impressed by Robert Downey, Jr., sorry. He was fine and all, but Oscar-nominated?!? Seriously? Hoffman is also a very good choice. He was just slightly off my list. I was really rooting for Dev Patel in "Slumdog Millionaire". I LOVED that movie!!! and Dev was awesome in it!

I'm also excited about Original Score and Original Song. "Slumdog Millionaire" for Best Score and two songs from the film, "Jai Ho" and "O Saya", were nominated for Best Song. Wall-E was of course nominated for Best Animated Feature against "Bolt" and "Kung Fu Panda". "Wall-E" was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (strangely), against "Milk", "Frozen River", "Happy-Go-Lucky", and "In Bruges" (YAY!). Best Adapted Screenplay has the other four Best Picture nominees against "Doubt".

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" racked up the most nominations, 13, including the 5 I already mentioned plus: Original Score, Cinematography, Costume Design, Art Direction, Makeup (Well deserved), Film Editing, Visual Effects (Also well deserved), and Sound Mixing.

"Slumdog Millionaire" has the second most with 10, including the 6 I mentioned before plus: Film Editing (IT BETTER WIN!), Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.

WHO I WANT TO WIN:
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Actor: Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, Doubt or Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Screenplay: someone, In Bruges
Best Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Song: "O Saya" or "Jai Ho", Slumdog Millionaire
Best Animated Feature: Wall-E
Best Art Direction: Revolutionary Road
Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Costume Design: The Duchess
Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Sound Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In my world, that would be 9 wins for "Slumdog", and 2 for "Revolutionary Road" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Of course, some of this is unlikely to happen.

Click here for full list of nominees!