They're Here. The 83rd Oscar Nominations

The Day has arrived, capitals and bold intended.

I'm updated the OSCAR NOMINATION INDEX  so you can look at everything as a complete chart and also see how I did prediction wise. Or you can open up this post to check out the entire list of nominees.

The most interesting responses in terms of nomination levels have to be Black Swan and Inception, neither of which hit Oscar's sweet spot in quite the nomination tally levels people generally expected. Inception missed in director which MUST give Nolan some kind of snub record since he's now been nominated by the DGA three times. Black Swan missed in art direction and sound and costumes all of which, one thinks, should have maybe been givens.

When in doubt remember -- I also forgot -- that Oscar resists genre films when they have traditional drama to nominate instead (The King's Speech)

Complete list of nominees after the jump or you can just see the big chart.

Click to read more ...

Top of the Oscar Morn' To Ya

7:43 AM Today's the day we find out what those 6,000 showbiz people were thinking as they filled out there ballots. Or even if they were thinking. I suddenly want to chuck out all my predictions and start over again. Oh jitters.

7:47 AM  I'm so nervous. 45 minutes whoooot

MO'NIQUE BABY

Mo'Nique laughs at a flubbed line

7:58 Who is awake? show of hands!

8:18 Okay, now I am showered, coffeed, fully dressed, if not quite mentally prepared for What Lies Ahead. The great unknown. Or maybe the known if they just follow the precursors this year. I'm suddenly feeling Sam Rockwell (?) and wishing i hadn't predicted a Kunis snub.

8:28 I don't think i've ever watched The Early Show but they only had it in them (the anchors) for crossing their fingers for The Social Network and The King's Speech. What imaginative calls! Clearly the female anchor doesn't go to the movies she made a convenient "i'm still watching. i can't say" comment which means I officially shun her. That'll show her.

will Gosling & Williams both make it?

8:33 Ugh. I hate Ben Lyons so much. Switched to E! and he's talking about the Academy "FINALLY getting younger." Maybe he doesn't know that the age statistics remain about the same all the time with the acting nominations. They like the women young, the men middle aged. That's always the way it's been and they way it'll stay. As we've discussed many a time. The only way this year is "younger" is the hosts and IF eisenberg, franco and gosling are all nominated in lead actor. That would definitely be a young Best Actor lineup even with Firth & Bridges involved.

8:34 "some movies you feel" they will not stop with these King's Speech commercials.

adams, bonhamcarter, leo, steinfeld, weaver -SUPPORTING

bale, hawkes, renner, ruffalo, rush SUPPORTING ACTOR

bening, kidman, lawrence, portman, williams ACTRESS

bardem, bridges, eisenberg, firth, franco ACTOR

aronofsky, russell, fincher, coen bros, hooper DIRECTOR (wow. 3rd DGA nom 3rd Oscar snub for Chris Nolan)

another year, fighter, inception, kids are all right, kings speech SCREENPLAY

127 hours, social network, toy story 3, true grit, winter's bone ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

biutiful, dogtooth, in a better world, incendies, outside the law FOREIGN

how to train, illusionist, toy story 3 ANIMATED

black swan, the fighter, inception, the kid are all right, the kings speech, 127 hours, the social network, toy story 3, true grit, winter's bone PICTURE

COMPLETE NOMINATION LIST

20:10 "You're allowed to make a statement."

Three years ago at the original blog, I created a series called 20:07 which became one of the most popular TFE features ever and spawned a slew of imitators 'round the web. Just for fun, let's resurrect that ol' pet for the remainder of Oscar season as we finish celebrating the films of 2010 before the new film year begins.

Screen capture: 20th minute and 10th second* -- or thereabouts. I worry about my dvd player's clock --  of The Social Network

Mark Zuckerberg: I've -- you know, I've already apologized in The Crimson to the ABHW to Fuerza Latina and to any women at Harvard who may have insulted as I take it they were. As for any charges stemming from the breach of security I believe I deserve some recognition from this board.

Administrator: I'm sorry.

Zuckerberg: Yes.

Administrator: I don't understand

Zuckerberg: Which part?

Be here tomorrow morning for the announcement of the Oscar nominations and commentary all day. Here's my complete prediction list and my ALMOST complete dream ballot (aka the annual film bitch awards. Everything is done sans writeups for reasons previously explained and the actress categories). ALMOST because it was a super tough day and I'm sick on top of that. Argh. My timing is terrible. But tomorrow is another day!

Are you all jittery waiting for tomorrow morning to get here? Will you get any sleep? It's totally Christmas morning to yours truly.

Sad News and My Ballot For Best Costumes

First, the very sad news. If you've been reading the past couple of days you probably saw the "visual category film bitch nominations". While adjusting coding today, to finalize the page, I accidentally somehow  erased the entire page. I've lost four categories worth of published nominees and writeups (animated film, visual effects, makeup, and editing) as well as preliminary stuff that wasn't published. I can't seem to find a cached url that will display it -- i'm not sure it would display now in anyone else's "history" or cached pages?  I am d-e-p-r-e-s-s-e-d. That was probably eight hours of work and there are no extra minutes this time of year. Let this be a lesson to everyone: never keep your files only in one place. I'm not even sure i'll remember what I nominated or wrote. It may take me much longer and post-oscar noms to do this now. I always complete the Film Bitch Awards in the traditional categories before the Oscar nominations but this looks like the year where tradition might finally die. Sniffle. Blotchy tears will short circuit my keyboard now.

But there's no sense in not posting what I'd already written about costumes. But IF you think your computer will display a cached version of the visual nominations page don't click on this new version ;) and try it and email me a pdf or something.

Just for the hell of it, for example's sake, I want to talk about two costumes pictured below (I chose them at random) in the absurd hope that a few of you out there will reveal a previously hidden obsessive love of costume design. I want to create a series devoted to it but I need to know you're out there first.

Amy Westcott and Mary Zophres done good.

What can costumes tell us about characters? Quite a lot. Amy Westcott (Black Swan) and Mary Zophres (True Grit) will probably be Oscar nominated tomorrow, each for the first time, and I've also nominated them. Westcott is undoubtedly benefiting from Rodarte's "Swan Lake" ballet costumes (Rodarte can't be nominated with her due to contractual issues) but her own work is very fine, too. Maybe Westcott wouldn't be nominated without the Rodarte bells and whistles but that says more about the Academy's resistance to contemporary character costuming than about the quality of her work.

The color coding of all of these similarly dark and vaguely possessed women is delicious, just subtle muted variations (blacks, greys, white, pinks, etcetera) since they're distorted reflections of each other. Isn't it perfect with a capital P that Winona Ryder's evening wear on the night she's thrown in the trash heap --  excuse me, retiring --  is basically a big silver "X" . She's a goner.

Over in True Grit Mattie's clothes don't quite fit her (amusing smart choice) and Rooster's look like they desperately need to be laundered but isn't it perfect that LaBoeuf's outfits look so new and fastidious and that they're fringed. His pride takes a beating in the film but he's wearing it, you know? He cares about how he looks.

MY NOMINEES IN COSTUME
alas none of the other visual categories that have vanished like tears in the rain

Would you like to see a recurring series on costume design in 2011?

20:10 "all dragons have a limited number of shots"

Screen capture from the 20th minute and 10th second of How To Train Your Dragon
(or thereabouts. I'm not so sure this VLC time counter works properly grrrr)

"How many does a Gronkol have?"

It's less than 19 hours until Oscar nominations!!! Which animated feature do you think will place alongside How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3? It seems like a coin toss doesn't it between Tangled (the commerce and corporate tradition votes), The Illusionist (the art and international votes) and Despicable Me (the scrappy upstarts, comedy votes)? Well, a coin toss if you have a... uh... three sided coin.

Here's my chart of final Oscar predictions and the post in which I ask the big questions about uncertainties tomorrow morning.