83rd Academy Award Nominations

This morning, just after 5:30am, Mo'Nique, last year's winner of the Best Supporting Actress category, and Tom Sherak, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the following nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards, which will be broadcast live on Sunday, February 27th.

First "the Big" Categories:

Best Picture

Black Swan

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth, The King's Speech

James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

David O. Russell, The Fighter

Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

David Fincher, The Social Network

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Animated Feature Film

How to Train Your Dragon

Best Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours

Best Original Screenplay

Another Year

Best Foreign-Language Film

Mexico, Biutiful

Greece, Dogtooth

Denmark, A Better World

Canada, Incendies

Algeria, Outside the Law

Most-Nominated

The King's Speech = 12

True Grit = 10

The Social Network = 8

Inception = 8

The Fighter = 7

127 Hours = 6

We compared these nominations to Roger Ebert's predicted nominations just to see how he stacked up compared to our dismal performance predicting Golden Globe winners last week. Ebert got 9 out of the 10 Best Picture noms, 4 out of 4 for Best Actor, 2 out of 5 for Best Actress, 3 out of 4 for Best Supporting Actor, 2 out of 5 for Best Supporting Actress, 4 out of 5 for Best Director, 2 out of 3 for Best Animated Feature. Ebert did pretty darn good, kicked our 20%-correct butt in fact, but he's been doing this about 20 times longer than we have at this point. Since he knows he's a target for this sort of thing, he's put together a "$100,000 Outguess Ebert Contest" that you can enter later today at RogerEbert.com - count us in!

Here are the remaining categories:

Best Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland

Best Cinematography

Black Swan

Best Sound Mixing

Inception

Best Sound Editing

Inception

Best 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.

Best Original Song

"Coming Home" from Country Strong - Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey

"I See the Light" from Tangled - Alan Menken and Glenn Slater

"If I Rise" from 127 Hours - A.R. Rahman, Dido and Rollo Armstrong

"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 - Randy Newman

Best Costume

Alice in Wonderland

Exit through the Gift Shop

Best Documentary (Short Subject)

Killing in the Name

Best Film Editing

Black Swan

The Social Network

Best Makeup

Barney’s Version

Best Animated Short Film

Day and Night

Best Live Action Short Film

The Confession

Best Visual Effects

Alice in Wonderland

It's a bit disappointing to not see Tron: Legacy in more of these visual effects and art direction categories as there wasn't a film more visually stunning in 2010. Perhaps we can take solace in the documentary category which includes these excellent films: Exit through the Gift Shop, Gasland, and Restrepo - all Oscar worthy, but perhaps, for awareness' sake, a win for Gasland would be a huge win for all of us as it could help prevent a massive amount of pollution.