The Academy Award nominations are out

The Academy Award nominations are out

The film with the most nominations was "The King's Speech." Since there are now about a zillion nominees for best picture, it is more efficient to concentrate on Best Director, which probably narrows the selection down to the five films with any real chance of winning.

DARREN ARONOFSKY - BLACK SWAN

DAVID FINCHER - THE SOCIAL NETWORK

TOM HOOPER - THE KING’S SPEECH

JOEL AND ETHAN COEN - TRUE GRIT

DAVID O. RUSSELL - THE FIGHTER

The biggest surprises:

(1)Christopher Nolan (Inception) was not nominated in the Best Director category. Most movie buffs will argue that he should be there instead of Tom Hooper.

(2) The Town did not make the list of ten nominees for Best Picture, although some mediocre films are on the list. (I'm looking at you, The Kids Are All Right.) Here is how IMDb ranks the ten nominees:

• Inception = #1
  
• Toy Story 3 - #2
  
• Black Swan - #3
  
• The King's Speech - #4
  
• The Fighter - #5
  
• 127 Hours - #7
  
• True Grit - #8
  
• The Social Network - #9
  
• Winter's Bone - #24
  
• The Kids Are All Right = #26
  

While The Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right obviously stick out as inappropriate members of the list above, it should be noted that The Town is only rated #17. It would be a better choice, but perhaps not the best choice. The obvious question to ask based on a quick glance at that list above is "Which two films are rated #6 and #10?" They are both animated films: How to Train Your Dragon, and Tangled. I guess the academy figured that Toy Story 3 met their quota in the animation area.