83rd Academy Awards Nominations

It's time, it's time, it's time! Oscar nominations were announced at 8:30am this morning and every year I spend the morning wading through the nominations by category and compiling my traditional three this, the full nominations (below), by film with nomations detailed and a simple film list. While reading through and absorbing all the information, here are some reactions:

The King's Speech leads the way with 12 nominations, then True Grit with 10, the Inception and The Social Network with 8, The Fighter with 7, 127 Hours with 6 and Black Swan & Toy Story 3 with 5 each. The most nominations last year was Avatar & The Hurt Locker with 9, so this is a big shift.

I'm thrilled to see Incendies up for foreign language film of the year, Jacki Weaver nominated for supporting actress for Animal Kingdom, John Hawkes for supporting actor for Winter's Bone, but I'm surprized Christopher Nolan not nominated for director for Inception (although he is nominated for original screenplay and the film has 8 nominations total). As predicted, it feels odd that James Franco is one of the hosts of the show (along with Anne Hathaway) and he is up for an award for 127 Hours - that's going to be one nerve wracking night for him!

A category that I am loving this year is Achievement in sound editing: Inception, Toy Story 3, Tron: Legacy, True Grit and Unstoppable. Great set of films. Re-iterate for emphasis that that I love that Tron: Legacy was nominated for an Oscar. More awesome strangeness is that I'll be cheering for the Coen Brothers (this is the most surprizing, I'm very polar on them but loved True Grit).

The Achievement in costume design nominations and we have have great work acknowledged here with I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi), The King's Speech (Jenny Beavan), True Grit (Mary Zophres) and Alice in Wonderland (multiple-winner Colleen Atwood). I'm now kicking myself even more for not seeing The Tempest (Sandy Powell), it's the only film in this category I haven't seen and looks delicious.

We also have a powerhouse group of nominees in Original Score category with Hans Zimmer (Inception), A.R. Rahman (127 Hours), Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech) nominated along with some more non-traditional nominees including Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network) and John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon). I've come to really appreciate scores over the past could of years, so this is a category I always enjoy.

Animated films have come so far in the past few years, and although I'm surprized to see only 3 films in the nominations category itself (Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist), they have made waves in other categories as well with Toy Story 3 getting 5 nominations including best motion pictures, and How to Train Your Dragon got 2 nominations.

Films that are now bumped up my to see list are The Fighter, Toy Story 3 and Exit Through the Gift Shop, although overall I've seen the majority of the films that have been available to see. I'm on the fence on 127 Hours, still not really interested in seeing it

A short list of recommends I'd highly recommend people see The King's Speech, True Grit and Inception as we'll be seeing a lot of those during the ceremony. We'll also see a lot of The Social Network and Black Swan although I wasn't particularly fond of either of them.
I really hope we'll be able to see some of the foreign films here in Toronto, Dogtooth is on DVD today and opens at the Royal on Friday January 28, 2011 but I'd also love to see the Danish film In a Better World.

Overall it's been a really, really strong year for film!

Reviews of Nominated films:
The King's Speech, True Grit, Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Animal Kingdom, Blue Valentine, Country Strong, Hereafter, Incendies, Salt, The Wolfman, Tron: Legacy and Unstoppable

See also nominations listed of films ranked by number of nominations with nominations detailed and nominated films list.

The 83rd Academy Awards will be hosted by Anne Hathaway and James Franco, broad casted live Sunday February 27, 2011 starting at 8pm EST on ABC.

83rd Academy Awards Nominations

Best motion picture of the year
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Javier Bardem in Biutiful
Jeff Bridges in True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
Colin Firth in The King's Speech
James Franco in 127 Hours

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Christian Bale in The Fighter
John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner in The Town
Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams in The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom

Best animated feature film of the year
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland - Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O'Hara (Set Decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
Inception - Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)
The King's Speech - Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
True Grit - Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)

Achievement in Cinematography
Black Swan - Matthew Libatique
Inception - Wally Pfister
The King's Speech - Danny Cohen
The Social Network - Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit - Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design
Alice in Wonderland - Colleen Atwood
I Am Love - Antonella Cannarozzi
The King's Speech - Jenny Beavan
The Tempest - Sandy Powell
True Grit - Mary Zophres

Achievement in directing
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
David O. Russell for The Fighter
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
David Fincher for The Social Network
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for True Grit

Best foreign language film of the year
Biutiful - Mexico
Dogtooth - Greece
In a Better World - Denmark
Incendies - Canada
Outside the Law / Hors-la-loi - Algeria

Best Documentary Feature
Exit through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

Best documentary short subject
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

Achievement in film editing
Black Swan - Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter - Pamela Martin
The King's Speech - Tariq Anwar
127 Hours - Jon Harris
The Social Network - Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Achievement in makeup
Barney's Version - Adrien Morot
The Way Back - Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman - Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Score)
How to Train Your Dragon - John Powell
Inception - Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech - Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours - A.R. Rahman
The Social Network - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Song)
Coming Home from Country Strong - Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
I See the Light from Tangled - Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
If I Rise from 127 Hours - Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 - Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best animated short film
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let's Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage / Madagascar, a Journey Diary

Best live action short film
The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

Achievement in sound editing
Inception - Richard King
Toy Story 3 - Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
Tron: Legacy - Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit - Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable - Mark P. Stoeckinger

Achievement in sound mixing
Inception - Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
The King's Speech - Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
Salt - Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
The Social Network - Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
True Grit - Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

Achievement in visual effects
Alice in Wonderland - Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter - Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Inception - Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2 - Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Adapted screenplay
127 Hours - Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network - Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 - Screenplay by Michael Arndt. Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit - Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone - Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Original screenplay
Another Year - Written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter - Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception - Written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech - Screenplay by David Seidler