The nominations for the 258th annual Academy Awards were announced this morning, and since we all can guess the broad strokes -- I'll take No Country for the win! -- how about we run over a few of the surprises?
-- Way to go Jason Reitman, who seems to have ridden the collective love generated by Juno into a somewhat surprising directing nomination. We loved the movie, but we're not actually sure he did all that much -- though maybe that was the art of the thing.
-- Also young and nominated: Saoirse Ronan, who was the best thing about Atonement not to involve Keira Knightley's nipples.
-- Mixed surprises for Into the Wild, with a bummer for Pearl Jammer Edward Vedder, whose "Guaranteed" failed to get a song nom -- screw you, Enchanted! -- but a kudos to Hal Holbrook, whose brief, affecting appearance in the film earned him a supporting actor slot. We'd actually love to see an old person win one of these damn things sometime soon -- Peter O'Toole, anyone? -- but Javier Bardem has this in the bag, so there ya go.
-- Hang on, Elizabeth: The Golden Age really happened? Could have sworn we just dreamed that.
-- No Persepolis or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in the foreign language category.
-- And not a surprise, necessarily, but no love for either Black Book or Zodiac, which seems to have lost a well-deserved effects nom to talking goddamn polar bears.
[via Washington Post]