As Roger Ebert notes, this does seem like one of the easier years to predict winners, especially in the acting categories, making long-winded analysis unnecessary. For once, however, the Best Picture category is legitimately, um, up in the air with only a few days to go.

Early this morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this year's Oscar® nominations. Leading the pack were "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker," with nine nominations each. I think it's already safe to say the Best Picture winner will be one of those two films.

Yep, it's that time of year. Tomorrow morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce this year's Oscar nominees. The biggest news this year is the expansion of the Best Picture category to ten nominees, presumably to pull more box office hits into the mix, leading to bigger ratings for the ceremony's TV broadcast.

When this year's Oscar statues are handed out Sunday at the Kodak Theatre Slumdog Millionaire will be the unlikely heavyweight. It entered the awards season as an underdog, but with the big show looming it's the favorite to win most of the categories in which it's nominated, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Looks like I picked the worst possible photo to accompany my Jan. 9th post ("Best Picture Oscar nods might be locked up"). With this morning's announcement of nominees, it turns out The Dark Knight wasn't Best Picture material after all. But, surprisingly to many, The Reader was. And The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was the biggest winner of all.