And the Oscar Nominees are... Movies I haven't seen.

The 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations are out! As usual the list of nominees amounts to a cavalcade of movies I have not seen. 1997 was the only year I can think of that I'd seen all of the best picture nominees (and I even agreed with that year's winner: Titanic). That's likely never to happen again now that they've expanded the field to 10 nominees. This year I've seen exactly two: Black Swan and Toy Story 3. How's that for a freaky-ass double feature?

Toy Story 3 could become the first movie to win Best Picture and Best Animated Feature, thus proving in one fell swoop the pointlessness of both the Best Animated Feature award and the expanded Best Picture Nominee list. That's the long-shot horse I've got money on.

Jeff Bridges has a chance to become the second actor to win an Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. John Wayne won his only Oscar for the original 1969 adaptation. James Franco can become the second actor to win an Oscar at a ceremony he's hosting. David Niven did it in 1958. Although early money has Colin Firth walking away with it. (Play someone with a speech impediment or a handicap and you're a shoo-in.)

It would appear that Javier Bardem has joined the ranks of Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as being a member of the "we need 5 nominees and he/she made a halfway decent movie last year; nominate him/her" club. Other members represented this year are Helena Bonham Carter, Annette Benning and Nicole Kidman.

Natalie Portman seems to be a lock to take home actress. After the Star Wars prequels and watching her take a disastrously wooden turn as Nina in The Seagull in Central Park, I had lost any faith in her ability to act. Then she did Garden State and V for Vendetta and now I'm quite happy for her. Again, it took playing someone mentally ill to get her the nod, but if she wins, in my opinion, it's entirely for the segment where she actually is the black swan.

Christopher Nolan got snubbed off the Best Director nominee list. "It's one of the best pictures of the year, but sorry ol'boy five other people did a better job directing." Including David Fincher for The Social Network. When I found out he directed that movie, I almost wanted to see it. After all, I quite enjoyed Alien3 , Se7en, and Fight Club. Then I remembered he directed Zodiac. I still haven't forgiven him for that.

Even though it's all just one big, endless, three-hour commercial for movies, I'll still end up watching the ceremony anyway because I usually do. Mostly I just watch for the dead-celebrity-montage. This year's headliners will likely be Dennis Hopper and Tony Curtis. I wonder if Gary Coleman ever made any movies. If he did, I never saw them, but that's not unusual these days.