The nominees in the major categories:

BEST PICTURE
"Atonement"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Laura Linney, "The Savages"
Ellen Page, "Juno"

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd"
Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises"
Tommy Lee Jones, "In the Valley of Elah"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"
Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"
Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Hal Holbrook, "Into The Wild"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
Jason Reitman, "Juno"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Nancy Oliver, "Lars and the Real Girl"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
Brad Bird, Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird, "Ratatouille"
Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
Christopher Hampton, "Atonement"
Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"

BEST ANIMATED FILM
"Persepolis"
"Ratatouille"
"Surf's Up"

Okay some thoughts:

Surfs Up over The Simpsons Movie? Ugh!

Cate Blanchett could star in Fart: the Movie and get a nomination.

Ruby Dee is in American Ganster for less than 5 minutes. It's the shortest screen time to ever score anomination.

A pretty boring list. But then, my favorite film of 2007 was The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

Ruby Dee was nominated for "American Gangster," but both Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington were overlooked? And the Academy wonders why it's become such a laughingstock.

On the other hand, Viggo Mortensen was very deserving........

The only Best Picture nominee I have a problem with is Atonement. Put British people in period costumes and score an Oscar nod. Made The English Patient look like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Atonement -- UGH! Juno -- WOO-HOO!! The other 3 I haven't seen yet.



Especially since there were only 3 nominees in that category.

My winner pics:

BEST PICTURE
Should be: "There Will Be Blood"

BEST ACTRESS
Should be: Julie Christie, "Away From Her"

BEST ACTOR
Very hard: either:
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
or
Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Either: Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
or
Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Hmmm....maybe:
Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
or
Hal Holbrook, "Into The Wild"

BEST DIRECTOR
Either:
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
or
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
or
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
or
Jason Reitman, "Juno"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Easily, should be:
Diablo Cody, "Juno"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Should be:
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Should be:
"Persepolis"



I agree.


True dat. She's an outstanding actress, though. And how bizarre that she's again nominated for playing Elizabeth! Julie Christie was sublime in her role.

The Best Actor category has one of the strongest fields in years, as does the Best Director. The Coens, Anderson, and Reitman all shone.

BTW, was "Lust, Caution" nominated for anything? Tony Leung should have gotten a nod for his sadistic collaborator performance, as should the young actress who played the spy.



This is the kind of thing that makes the Academy Awards seem ridiculous. I mean, come on. I love Ruby Dee and yes, she has over 50 years of acting to her credit, but seriously.

Agreed. It was a dreadful movie.

But James McAvoy was gorgeous and quite good.

Hal Holbrooke? Ruby Dee? Gimme a break.

Cate was nominated again for Elizabeth because it's still one of the greatest rip offs ever that the oh so pretentious Gwyneth won for Shakespeare in Love over Cate Blanchett for the first Elizabeth - which is one of the best performances I've ever seen.

Angelina got ripped. Tim Burton and Sweeney Todd got ripped. No Josh Brolin, no Tommy Lee for No Country for Old Men. No Paul Dano for There Will Be Blood. No Emile Hirsch for Into the Wild and a total snub for Sean Penn's movie except for Hal Holbrooke...

Hairspray received a total of zero nominations.

I hope the writers strike cancel the Oscars...I don't have any strong feelings about the films nominated for Best Picture. I did see " There Will Be Blood" which has a brilliant first hour but then becomes a repetitious sermon with a stupid ending.

Is it me or the Oscars getting boring? When I was younger and in love with movies, the Oscars were my Super Bowl. Now I could care less. I agree with jaragonus, I hope the writer's strike cancels the Oscars. There's no movie or star, I'm rooting for except Hal Holbrook. Not even Hairspray got a mention for best costume design. Those retro dresses were da bomb.

"Hairspray" was one of the most entertaining movie of the year- but obviously the Oscars have become anti- musical ( gay?) last year they ingnored "Dreamgirls" and this year they ignored "Sweeny Todd"

There's only one "Hairspray," and it's the one by John Waters, starring Divine and the young Ricki Lake. The new version was a bad cartoon, starring that Scientology experiment, John Travolta. I'm glad it got zero nominations.

This was not a great year for movies. I still think "Lust, Caution" got robbed. Hal Holbrook got one of those been-hanging-around-here-long-enough nominations, like Ruby Dee's. Maybe the show will be canceled. Or Will Ferrell or someone really silly will host, and just turn the whole thing into a farce.

Thank you. I did NOT think that Hairspray was all that, and certainly not worthy of Oscar nominations. For what exactly?

Ruby Dee has long been overlooked regarding Oscar so I have no problem with her being nominated. And good lord...I don't know why I thought Hal Holbrook was dead.

I would think in the areas of costuming, sound-editing, make-up that Hairspray could have been included on the short list at least.... or even one nomination in those areas.

I get sick of some of these Best Picture nominees being nominated in these areas when they truly weren't nearly as much a challenge as the others for sound, costuming, etc.

Dreamgirls was hardly ignored with 8 nominations and two wins. It won for supporting actress and sound mixing and got nominations for three of songs as well as costumes, art direction and supporting actor. The original Hairspray was a much better movie IMOthan this year's model. And a Best Supporting Actor nom for Travolta would have been a joke. I suppose makeup and costume and music noms could have been possible (and maybe deserved) but no way it deserved a Best Picture nomination IMO. Off the top of my head, Ratatouille, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Away From Her, Into the Wild, Easten Promises, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, even Gone Baby Gone were way more worthy than Hairspray to replace Atonement.

"Atonement" is the type of pretentious British costume drama the Academy loves... I did not say "Hairspray" was a masterpiece but it did deserve some recognition...

I thought this year's version of Hairspray was awful. Travolta was unintelligible, and he seemed so uncomfortable in the role. The original was far, far superior. I completely agree that movies like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, American Gangster, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and Live In Maid (Hello! Best movie of the year, with a bravura performance by Norma Aleandro) were all far more deserving of recognition than Atonement.

Beats Judy Dench's record of 8 minutes in her appearance in Shakepeare in Love.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001132/bio
Excerpt from the link above: "Her 1999 Oscar was awarded for an eight minute performance in only four scenes as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998). It is the second shortest ever performance to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the only shorter performance being Beatrice Straight's six minute performance in Network (1976)."

Another oddity/Oscar trivia. Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for Silence of the Lambs and was only on screen for 20+ minutes. The studio decides which category to promote their actors for, but he probably should have been in the Supporting Actor category.

The opposite has also happened when actors get nominated in the supporting category when they really were leads or co-leads. George Burns won a Supporting Actor Oscar for The Sunshine Boys. He was in that category so as to not split the vote in the Best Actor category with costar Walter Mattheau.

And Ellen Burstyn was nominted for an Emmy last year for an HBO movie (forget the title) for Best Supporting Actress and she was onscreen for less than 2 minutes. I think she had 2 or 3 lines!

Happens all the time; Timothy Hutton won supporting actor when Ordinary People was about his character; Marlon Brando wasn't in The Godfather for nearly as long as Al Pacino; Frances McDormand had less than 30 minutes onscreen in Fargo. This year, Casey Affleck was nominated as supporting when he has the most screen time in Jesse James.

Yet one more part of why grownups don't take such things seriously.

(However, George Burns had a significantly smaller part than Walter Matthau in The Sunshine Boys.)

Wow. Of all of the films listed above in all of the nomination categories, I have seen exactly none of them.

Well, I saw the first twenty minutes of La Vie en Rose, before I left with a headache.

And I do want to see Gone Baby Gone because a friend of mine gets killed in it.

If you want a headache try watching " There Will Be Blood" or better yet listen to the soundtrack.

It's a very good film, until the end, and yes, the soundtrack is annoying, but Daniel Day-Lewis is outstanding.

Speaking of Ordinary People, I will never forget that the Academy did not give Mary Tyler Moore the Oscar for what has to be one of the most unforgettable performances on film, the ultrabitch, ice-princess suburban (North Shore Chicago!) mom who absolutely CANNOT figure out how to love the surviving child she blames for the death of her favorite. And if you remember that this movie came out in 1980, not that long after she'd wrapped up her very popular run as Mary Richards in the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and before that as the winsome Laura Petrie in the Dick Van Dyke Show, her performance was even more significant. I'm sure there are many women who saw that character she played and thought, am I looking at a home film or a mirror of myself?

"3:10 to Yuma" was the most satisfying movie I saw last year- it should have been nominated for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay-Actor- Christian Bale - Supporting Actor-Ben Foster.

I agree with you. They overlooked Mary Tyler Moore--- and it's so out of character for the very much liked woman. That's probably one of my favorite movies because of her and Donal Sutherland's performance. Anyway---I don't think she'll need the statue to validate her work in that movie---

And don't forget Madeline Kahn getting robbed by Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon. Both were nominated for Supporting Actress but Tatum is in the entire movie! Sooooo pissed me off.

On a side note, I selfishly hope Julie Christie does not win Best Actress at the Oscars. I thought her performance was very good but her acceptance speech at the SAG awards was so pretentious, rehearsed and in extremely poor taste that I don't want her to give another shot at the podium. "Oh and if I've forgotten to thank anyone...well it's simply because I'm still in character, aren't I? Tee-hee." Yeah...Alzheimer's is such the perfect topic for a guffaw. Get off the stage.

Glad I wasn't the only one who was miffed at Julie Christie's lame attempt at humor at the SAGs. I thought it was an extremely insensitive comment, and I was stunned when she said it. Making light of Alzheimer's after starring in a film about Alzheimer's was shocking.

I agree. Julie Christie's comments left me cold. I thought it was shocking that someone who just depicted the ravages of Alzheimer's on screen could be so cavalier. I guess she didn't have any cancer jokes to tell.

A bit of off topic, but a question about the SAGs. Why are awards just given out to Movie and Primetime TV actors. What about daytime TV? Don't Soap Opera actors count? They are actors. Where did Alec Baldwin get his start anyways?

Mary Tyler Moore sooo deserved the Oscar. It was a devastating performance.

Ruby Dee is such an appealing actress with an amazing body of work - career awards are frequently given out at Oscar time; it's the nature of the beast but this actress can back it up bigtime...it's just sad that Ossie Davis won't be there to watch her glory if she wins.

And I don't think anyone disputes the incredible presence and performance of Judi Dench in SIL - the real ripoff was Ms. Paltrow the royal snob in real life (who was good in it) winning over Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth. No contest - a true and lasting ripoff. Of course Cate's rise to the very top of the acting tree and Ms. Paltrow lack of any lasting career speaks volumes.

And don't even get me started about Madeline Kahn not winning. She was brilliant.

Julie Christie is amazing in that movie. I didn't see her speech. I'm a little shocked about what she said - it sounds awful just reading - I can only imagine how it came across seeing it.

Oh, and 3:10 to Yuma - I thought it was an incredible movie. Christian Bale, Russell Crowe and Ben Foster all were captivating.

Julie Christie very clearly cares about Alzheimers. The film has some very refreshing gallows humor about the subject too, which distinguishes it from typical "disease melodrama." Get a life.

Mary Tyler Moore lost the Oscar to Sissy Spacek, who was just as fine in Coal Miner's Daughter. Picking and choosing between performances like that is entirely idiosyncratic and not at all meaningful. Awards are bunk.

Our resident curmudgeon weighs in...Perhaps we can also get someone up there to make fun of AIDS if only to differentiate from other disease melodramas and not to appear too sincere...

Sissy Spacek was great in Coal Miner's Daughter...but MTM was devastating...

Only the small-minded would confuse humorlessness with sincerity.

Actually, what I liked best about MTM's performance was that it was FUNNY. "Just German, I think."

I was living in Evanston at the time of Ordinary People - and what was amazing about MTM's performance was how accurately she captured the very real ladies of the North Shore. There were so many of her walking around shopping in Wilmette and Winnetka, etc...it was chilling.

Julie Christie was oh so chilling in Away From Her because of her acceptance of her condition and a fascination with the disintegration process. I'm afraid the husband didn't feel the same.

How do you know? Are you sure her agent didn't give her a script and say it has "Oscar" written all over it?

I've now seen all 5 Best Picture nominees. Here's how I'd rank them:

1. Juno
2. Michael Clayton
3. There Will Be Blood
4. No Country For Old Men
18. Atonement (that's a conservative guess, the number of other pictures that are better could be higher)

WOW _ That last comment made me laugh so hard I shot coffee out of my nose !! Seriously-

I saw "No Country for Old Men" I didn't care for the random acts of violence against innocent and some not so innocent people , It did have excellent acting and great photography, though.
Unlike most of the posters here I actually liked "Atonement" , and I usually don't care for that kind of movie. I thought the re-creation of wartime England was well done and it was beautifully photographed, too.
"Juno" was an ironic comedy rather than a guffaw getter, but all in all, good lighter fare, this year's "Little Miss Sunshine"
I still have to see the other 2 nominees.

copman - I like Atonement to a certain as well...the art direction and some other technical awards should go to this movie. Some of the structure bugged me but the story was one of the more intriguing ones this year. And that little girl was eerie...Vanessa Redgrave amazing...And I could easily have looked at James MacAvoy another two hours...

Julie Christie is basically in semiretirement, and a small Canadian film directed by a 28-year-old actress was no guaranteed award bait.

I usually bypass seeing Oscar's "big-studio-financed Sundance quirk" candidate, and Juno is no exception. A contemporary 16-year-old girl casually refers to '60s kiddie show host Soupy Sales? F**k that cutesy s**t.

This year's Oscars are a relatively uninspired lot for me. Unlike the trend here, I liked Atonement better than the other best picture nominees, except possibly Juno. No Country for Old Men is brilliant on many levels, but the near capacity crowd in the theatre when I saw it groaned loudly at the ending. It took me awhile to decide that it wasn't a horrible ending, but rather just depressing. Daniel Day Lewis is brilliant, but that's the only thing going for There Will Be Blood, in my opinion. Michael Clayton is very good, but again mainly for its performances.

I'm tired of the recent trend of serious films with no "pay-off" at the end, like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. I know life usually doesn't wrap things up neatly, but I'm bored and dissatified with films that just end with nothing approaching a resolution. It's almost as though the filmmakers are trying to be a little too profound, and it doesn't work all that well.

I'm also irritated that the Academy has an 80 year tradition of mostly ignoring lighter, but well-done films. I think Enchanted was outstanding, and a more worthy Best Picture nominee than several of the films that were nominated. Amy Adams was outstanding, and deserved a Best Actress nomination.

If I were a member of the Academy, I'd vote for Atonement, Julian Schnabel, Viggo Mortensen, Laura Linney, Javier Bardem, and Cate Blanchett.

I don't like the TWBB ending but it's bizarre to say it's not a payoff. As for NCfOM, I've only read the book, but there too, the lack of "resolution" is kind of the point (like the way we neatly wrapped up those Kennedy assassinations).

American mass audiences are too used to spoonfed Hollywood endings that end with parades, smiles and confetti. See more Antonioni, maybe.

Gee, thanks for the condescension. I'll put my film watching experience up against yours any day, and I have seen Antonioni, most notably Blow Up, which I liked. I also clarified that, with additional thought, I appreciated the ending of NCfOM more. I've seen plenty of films that don't wrap things up neatly, but neither do they all end as abruptly as the two examples I gave above. TWBB isn't a payoff, in my opinion, because I'd like to know what happened after the final bloodletting, which could not have been as easily covered up as the previous ones.

"What happened next" is for police blotters, not fiction. If the film is about Plainview being menaced by what Eli represents, then that's the natural ending.

I don't think it was important for that particular film. It would be "demented rich guy on the lam" or "demented rich guy arrested" or whatever.

I loved Coal Miner's Daughter (no jokes) but really didn't care for Ordinary People

What a snooze-fest. I always have high hopes then am disappointed. Tonight was no exemption.
In fact, there weren't many interesting people that died this year. And no American winners in the acting catagories. France, Spain, Ireland, England.
But I did like the stage set.

Jon Stewart was rather good. But the Independent Spirit Awards show was more fun than the Oscar show.

I thought Jon Stewart was embarrassingly bad. He was bland and boring from start to finish. I usually like him but he was off his game tonight, especially with that "Gaydolf Titler" bit.

There were virtually no memorable acceptance speeches. The only truly interesting moment was the ironic part where the U.S. military members serving in Iraq presented the Oscar for Best Documentary Short to a film chronicling the life of a lesbian police lieutenant whose dying days were spent trying to secure pension benefits for her domestic partner.

Overall, it appeared to be an awards show that was slapped together at the last minute, which it was. I'm shocked that Stewart was so bland. And who was the jokester who thought it would be appropriate to have Miley Cyrus and The Rock as Oscar presenters? Ugh.

Yeah! Julie Christie didn't win!

I thought Jon Stewart was rather funny. Loved both "Once" acceptance speeches. They didn't give Heath enough face time but it could be me... I didn't think Madeline Kahn got enough face time the year she passed as well.

After watching the telecast I really wanted to go out and make a film. Too bad I'll wake up tomorrow with a Pinot Gris headache and 4 dishes to prepare for school.