Oscar Nominations

Hey, they've released the Oscar nominations! Let's take a look, shall we? For Best Picture we have:

• "The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
• "The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
• "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
• "The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
• "Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
• "Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
• "Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
• "The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
• "War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

This year we saw a grand total of none of these. My Mom saw (and loved) 'The Help'. We're going to go see 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close' this weekend. I've heard raves about 'Hugo' and 'Moneyball'. I don't know if there is a front runner, per se but it looks like a fine set of movies.
In fact I'm struck by how mainstream this list is. I think you could describe 'The Artist' and 'Tree of Life' as prohibitively art-house. Maybe 'Midnight in Paris' too, but Woody Allen is kind of his own institution at this point. Everything else was mass marketed. I think that the expansion of the nomination list has served them well here. No matter which movie wins, this is a more accessible list than the ones we were getting a few years back.