And the nomations are....#Oscars

Today is the day that all of Hollywood and a lot of studios elsewhere around the world have been waiting for, the Academy is announcing the nominations for this years Oscars.

The nominations are:

Actress in a supporting role


Bérénice Bejo for The Artist, Jessica Chastian for The Tree of Life, Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids, Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbsand Octavia Spencer for The Help.

Actor in a supporting role

Kenneth Branangh for My Week with Marilyn, Nick Nolte for Warrior, Jonah Hill for Moneyball, Christopher Plummer for Beginners and Max Von Sydow for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.


Actress

ACTRESS

Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs


Viola Davis for The Help


Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady


Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn



ACTOR


George Clooney for The Descendents

 Demian Bichir for A Better Life

 Jean Dujardin for The Artist

Gary Oldman for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Brad Pitt for Moneyball.


Director


Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, Alexander Payne for Descendents, Martin Scorsese for Hugo, Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, Terrance Mallick for The Tree of Life


BEST PICTURE

I'm somewhat shocked that Tintin hasn't made the best Animated Feature. Scorsese's Hugo leads the way with 11 overall nominations and The Artist runs it close with 10. Meryl Streep has her 17 nomination but after winning two of her first four for Kramer v Kramer and Sophie's Choice. Christopher Plummer at 82 were he to win, as the father who comes out as gay to his son as gay after his wife dies, would be the oldest winner of a performance Oscar. But  he is up against Ulsterman Kenneth Brannagh is attempting to win an acting Oscar by playing an Oscar winning actor for his role as Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn.

It Was Ladies' Night

As if to honour International Women's Day today two women made history at last night's 82nd Oscars ceremony.

First there was the obvious news as Katryn Bigelow beat off the competition especially ex-husband James Cameron to be the first female recipient of the Best Director award for The Hurt Locker. In what was also only the fifth nomination of a woman in this category Bigelow said, "It's the moment of a lifetime." Through the award season after Cameron's Avatar started well, the Goliath top grossing film of all time started to lose the momentum and the awards to the David lowest budget film ever to win the Best Picture award.

The other first for women was Sandra Bullock, 24 hours earlier she had picked up the Golden Raspberry Award in person (a rarity) for worst actress in All About Steve. No women had ever previously won both a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year. Picking up the Razzie the Oscar Nominee tongue in cheek said, "Thank you for ruining my career with a very bad decision." However, last night she again walked unto the stage this time to pick up her golden man, she joked, "Did I really earn this, or did I wear you all down?"

Here is a full list of the winners from last nights ceremony.