And the 2010 Oscar Nominees are.....

Further to my post two days ago about Pixar's "Up" being favourite for this year's best animated film Oscar, the current full list of 2010 Oscar nominations for the ceremony due to be held on Sunday March 7th is as follows (from Oscar.com - see also here):

Best motion picture of the year
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox)
"The Blind Side" (Warner Bros.)
"District 9" (Sony Pictures Releasing)
"An Education" (Sony Pictures Classics)
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment)
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company)
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate)
"A Serious Man" (Focus Features)
"Up" (Walt Disney)
"Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)

Best animated feature film of the year
"Coraline" (Focus Features) Henry Selick
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" (20th Century Fox) Wes Anderson
"The Princess and the Frog" (Walt Disney) John Musker and Ron Clements
"The Secret of Kells" (GKIDS) Tomm Moore
"Up" (Walt Disney) Pete Docter

Best animated short film
"French Roast"
"Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" (Brown Bag Films)
"The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)"
"Logorama" (Autour de Minuit)
"A Matter of Loaf and Death" (Aardman Animations)

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart" (Fox Searchlight)
George Clooney in "Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Colin Firth in "A Single Man" (The Weinstein Company)
Morgan Freeman in "Invictus" (Warner Bros.)
Jeremy Renner in "The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Matt Damon in "Invictus" (Warner Bros.)
Woody Harrelson in "The Messenger" (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Christopher Plummer in "The Last Station" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Stanley Tucci in "The Lovely Bones" (DreamWorks in association with Film4, Distributed by Paramount)
Christoph Waltz in "Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side" (Warner Bros.)
Helen Mirren in "The Last Station" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Carey Mulligan in "An Education" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Gabourey Sidibe in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate)
Meryl Streep in "Julie & Julia" (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Penélope Cruz in "Nine" (The Weinstein Company)
Vera Farmiga in "Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Crazy Heart" (Fox Searchlight)
Anna Kendrick in "Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)
Mo'Nique in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate)

Achievement in directing
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) James Cameron
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Kathryn Bigelow
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Quentin Tarantino
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate) Lee Daniels
"Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) Jason Reitman

Achievement in art direction
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (Sony Pictures Classics) Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro
"Nine" (The Weinstein Company) Art Direction: John Myhre
"Sherlock Holmes" (Warner Bros.) Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood
"The Young Victoria" (Apparition) Art Direction: Patrice Vermette

Achievement in cinematography
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Mauro Fiore
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (Warner Bros.) Bruno Delbonnel
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Barry Ackroyd
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Robert Richardson
"The White Ribbon" (Sony Pictures Classics) Christian Berger

Achievement in costume design
"Bright Star" (Apparition) Janet Patterson
"Coco before Chanel" (Sony Pictures Classics) Catherine Leterrier
"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (Sony Pictures Classics) Monique Prudhomme
"Nine" (The Weinstein Company) Colleen Atwood
"The Young Victoria" (Apparition) Sandy Powell

Achievement in film editing
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
"District 9" (Sony Pictures Releasing) Julian Clarke
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Sally Menke
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate) Joe Klotz

Achievement in makeup
"Il Divo" (MPI Media Group through Music Box) Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
"Star Trek" (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
"The Young Victoria" (Apparition) Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) James Horner
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" (20th Century Fox) Alexandre Desplat
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
"Sherlock Holmes" (Warner Bros.) Hans Zimmer
"Up" (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Almost There" from "The Princess and the Frog" (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
"Down in New Orleans" from "The Princess and the Frog" (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
"Loin de Paname" from "Paris 36" (Sony Pictures Classics) Music by Reinhardt Wagner
"Take It All" from "Nine" (The Weinstein Company) Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from "Crazy Heart" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Achievement in sound editing
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Paul N.J. Ottosson
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Wylie Stateman
"Star Trek" (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
"Up" (Walt Disney) Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Achievement in sound mixing
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
"Star Trek" (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro, Distributed by Paramount) Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

Achievement in visual effects
"Avatar" (20th Century Fox) Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
"District 9" (Sony Pictures Releasing) Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
"Star Trek" (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment) Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

Adapted screenplay
"District 9" (Sony Pictures Releasing) Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
"An Education" (Sony Pictures Classics) Screenplay by Nick Hornby
"In the Loop" (IFC Films) Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" (Lionsgate) Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
"Up in the Air" (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Original screenplay
"The Hurt Locker" (Summit Entertainment) Written by Mark Boal
"Inglourious Basterds" (The Weinstein Company) Written by Quentin Tarantino
"The Messenger" (Oscilloscope Laboratories) Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
"A Serious Man" (Focus Features) Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
"Up" (Walt Disney) Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter

Best live action short film
"The Door" (Network Ireland Television)
"Instead of Abracadabra" (The Swedish Film Institute)
"Kavi"
"Miracle Fish" (Premium Films)
"The New Tenants"

Best documentary feature
"Burma VJ" (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
"The Cove" (Roadside Attractions)
"Food, Inc." (Magnolia Pictures)
"The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"
"Which Way Home"

Best documentary short subject
"China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province"
"The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner"
"The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant"
"Music by Prudence"
"Rabbit à la Berlin" (Deckert Distribution)

Best foreign language film of the year
"Ajami"(Kino International)
"El Secreto de Sus Ojos" (Sony Pictures Classics)
"The Milk of Sorrow"
"Un Prophète" (Sony Pictures Classics)
"The White Ribbon" (Sony Pictures Classics)

Pixar's Up is favourite for animation Oscar

My favourite animated film from last year, Disney/Pixar's wonderful "Up" (see my previous posts about it here: Up Flash online games and here: Up is released in the UK), is seen as the clear favourite to win this year's Oscar for best animated film, according to an article in Yahoo! today:

(Quote)
The animation category at this year's Oscars ceremony presents a crowded field of singing frogs, sly foxes and spunky kids, but despite some tough competition, the high-flying adventure movie "Up" is expected to float away with the Oscar.

Disney/Pixar's "Up" this week became the only animated film apart from 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" to land a best picture nod, and the movie about a boy and an old man who fly off in a house tied to balloons is also nominated in the animated category.

There, it's up against Twentieth Century Fox's "Fantastic Mr. Fox", the Walt Disney Co's "The Princess and the Frog", Focus Features' "Coraline" and European production "The Secret of Kells", which critics say was a surprise choice, because it played in only a handful of U.S. cinemas.

Filmmakers and critics say the nominated movies are all very different, all very good, and rival the dramas in the coveted best picture category.

"Animation actually outdid the live-action movies this year, it's an extraordinarily competitive field in terms of quality," said Peter Hammond, a critic with Los Angeles Times awards tracker TheEnvelope.com.

But Hammond said "Up" is the "overwhelming favourite" in the animated category.

The five animated movies include two that came out in 3-D ("Up" and "Coraline"), two made with tiny figurines manipulated through a painstaking process called stop-motion ("Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Coraline") and two hand-drawn films ("The Princess and the Frog" and "The Secret of Kells").

"It's really cool, because I feel like a number of years ago all the films were in the same zone, all trying to do the same type of thing," said Pete Docter, co-director of "Up," which was made with computer-generated imagery.

"And now it's so many different approaches to it, that it shows that animation is in a healthy place," Docter said.

The Oscar field for animation was widened to five films this year, from its usual three, because of the amount of eligible films.

Even so, Tom O'Neil of TheEnvelope.com said some high-quality films failed to make the list, most notably Oscar winning Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo."

Henry Selick, the director of "Coraline," agrees.

"'Up' is a masterpiece and most likely will win, but there's a lot of great animated films, many of which did not get in the list of five nominees," he said.

For his part, Selick said that to compete with the likes of Disney/Pixar, he had to "take a chance on a different sort of story, a different sort of look."

"Coraline" is about a young girl who escapes mom and dad through a magical passageway in her home, but finds things were better with her real parents.

For the film, Selick hired one crew member whose only job was to knit miniature sweaters for the characters.

"The Princess and the Frog," a musical about a New Orleans waitress who falls in love with a foreign prince-turned-frog, is Disney's first hand-drawn animated film in six years.

The film has made more than $100 million (62.9 million pounds) in the U.S. and Canada since its November release, and the Oscar nomination could help as it expands its overseas roll-out, which Disney said has already brought in more than $100 million.

It looks like a success now, but in making "The Princess and the Frog" Disney was taking a chance that audiences would again go for a hand-drawn film, after years in which Pixar-style computer animation set the standard.
(End quote)

I am surprised that the highest grossing animated film of last year, Blue Sky's excellent "Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" didn't get nominated for an Oscar, or even mentioned in the above article.

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