By CRAIG YOUNKIN – February 3, 2010

The Oscar nominations were announced and so I felt it only best to make the GOOD, BAD AND UGLY news all about that. An article with predictions will be coming soon but today it’s all about congratulations and bitching about the snubs. So without further ado, here are the 2010 Oscar nominations, but first a little more ado.

The Good- ‘Avatar’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’ lead the way with nine nominations. I’m glad that Tarantino is getting the credit he deserves for both writing and directing (he definitely deserves the writing one). Jeff Bridges versus Morgan Freeman is a homerun best actor showdown in my book. Christoph Waltz (‘Inglourious Basterds’) should walk away with the supporting actor Oscar in maybe the best performance I saw all year long. ‘Coraline’ is one of five best animated picture noms and despite the strong competition from ‘Up’ and ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ I hope Henry Selick (who also made ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’) gets his due here. The directing Oscar creates a very interesting showdown between Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron. And I’m glad “The Weary Kind” got the nomination (and I can call the win right now) for best song. What’s interesting about this year is that everyone who got the least bit of buzz around them got a nomination. You can chalk that up to it being a subpar year but nonetheless, everyone who deserved it got in except…

The Bad- I’m confused by the lack of love for Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism.’ This movie had some fantastic investigating yet not even a best documentary nomination. I also don’t understand the inclusion of any nominations for ‘Precious’ or ‘The Blind Side,’ both Lifetime-movie-of-the-weeks that don’t deserve to be placed in the same categories with ‘Avatar’ and ‘Inglourious Basterds.’ The lack of ‘Star Trek’ is disapointing but less than shocking. It’s not usually the kind of movie that gets nominated. But overall the nominations basically reflect on the year pretty well (it wasn’t a great year) and I can’t complain too much with the way things turned out except….

The Ugly- Again, I have to stress the fact that ten best picture nominees is a terrible idea. This will only make the show longer and it still won’t detract from the cold hard fact that the Academy is and always will be about the movies that have the most buzz. ‘Avatar,’ ‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Up in the Air,’ and as a wild card, ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ There, I did it in four. ‘Precious,’ ‘An Education,’ ‘A Serious Man,’ and ‘Blind Side’ got mixed receptions and ‘District 9’ just ain’t the kind of movie voters usually go for and I don’t think it had the buzz to stay on many people’s minds all the way to the end of the year. Even ‘Up,’ good as it was, just doesn’t strike me as one of the better animated movies to possibly throw a wrench into the mix. So again, this ten nominations is a waste. You could put in twenty nominations in there but it still would not detract from the fact that only few movies really keep their buzz up all the way to the end. But take a look and maybe you’ll see it differently. Here are the 2010 Oscar noms:

BEST PICTURE
AVATAR
THE HURT LOCKER
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
PRECIOUS
UP IN THE AIR
UP
AN EDUCATION
A SERIOUS MAN
DISTRICT 9
THE BLIND SIDE

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges – CRAZY HEART
George Clooney – UP IN THE AIR
Colin Firth – A SINGLE MAN
Morgan Freeman – INVICTUS
Jeremy Renner – THE HURT LOCKER

BEST ACTRESS
Meryl Streep – JULIE & JULIA
Carey Mulligan – AN EDUCATION
Gabourey Sidibe – PRECIOUS
Sandra Bullock – THE BLIND SIDE
Helen Mirren – THE LAST STATION

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Woody Harrelson – THE MESSENGER
Christopher Plummer – THE LAST STATION
Stanley Tucci – THE LOVELY BONES
Matt Damon – INVICTUS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vera Farmiga – UP IN THE AIR
Anna Kendrick – UP IN THE AIR
Mo’nique – PRECIOUS
Penelope Cruz – NINE
Maggie Gyllenhaal – CRAZY HEART

BEST ANIMATED FILM
UP
CORALINE
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
THE SECRET OF KELLS
THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow – THE HURT LOCKER
James Cameron – AVATAR
Quentin Tarantino – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Jason Reitman – UP IN THE AIR
Lee Daniels – PRECIOUS

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nick Hornby – AN EDUCATION
Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell – DISTRICT 9
Jesse Armstrong and Armando Iannucci – IN THE LOOP Geoffrey Fletcher – PRECIOUS
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – UP IN THE AIR

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Quentin Tarantino – INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Mark Boal – THE HURT LOCKER
Pete Docter and Bob Peterson – UP
Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon – THE MESSENGER
Joel and Ethan Coen – A SERIOUS MAN

BEST ART DIRECTION
AVATAR
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS
SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE YOUNG VICTORIA
NINE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
THE HURT LOCKER
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
THE WHITE RIBBON
AVATAR
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
THE YOUNG VICTORIA
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSSUS
BRIGHT STAR
NINE
COCO BEFORE CHANEL

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
FOOD, INC.
THE COVE
BURMA VJ
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA
WHICH WAY HOME

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
“Music by Prudence”
“Rabbit a la Berlin”
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”
“The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant”

BEST EDITING
AVATAR
THE HURT LOCKER
DISTRICT 9
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
PRECIOUS

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
A PROPHET
THE WHITE RIBBON
AJAMI
EL SECRETO DE SUS OJOS
THE MILK OF SORROW

BEST MAKEUP
STAR TREK
THE YOUNG VICTORIA
IL DIVO

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
AVATAR
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
THE HURT LOCKER
SHERLOCK HOLMES
UP

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Almost There” – THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
“Down in New Orleans” – THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
“Loin de Panama” – PARIS 36
“Take It All” – NINE
“The Weary Kind” – CRAZY HEART

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
“French Roast
“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty”
“The Lady and the Reaper”
“Logorama”
“A Matter of Loaf or Death

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
“The Door”
“Instead of Abracadabra”
“Kavi”
“Miracle Fish”
“The New Tenants”

BEST SOUND EDITING
AVATAR
DISTRICT 9
STAR TREK
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
UP

BEST SOUND MIXING
AVATAR
THE HURT LOCKER
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
STAR TREK
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
AVATAR
DISTRICT 9
STAR TREK