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In terms of the biggest prize of all, Best Picture, there aren’t as many surprises. You can say that Winter’s Bone getting nominated is a surprise, but the real surprise is that the film got four nominations, including a very well-deserved Best Supporting Actor nod for John Hawkes. The only real surprise within the category - and again, it’s minor - is that The Town didn’t get nominated. I’m not sad about this one, as I found the film solid but not exceptional, but there was a lot of love within the guilds, or so it seemed. The other nominees are the same ones we’ve been talking about for a while: The King’s Speech, The Social Network, Black Swan, The Fighter, True Grit, Inception, Toy Story 3, The Kids Are All Right, and 127 Hours.

The last of those nominees did a bit better than expected in the technical categories (including a nod for its too-flashy editing), but don’t expect 127 Hours to surprise as a Best Picture winner. 127 Hours did get six nominations, mostly for its technical work, but the most noise you’ll hear about the film will come with the likely awkward jokes made at Oscar co-host James Franco’s expense, for being a host and nominee in the same year. The logic of the film getting six nominations falls apart when you notice that it didn’t get nominated for its sound editing or sound mixing. Say what you like about the movie - I thought it was good, but not great - but the sound is very key in the film, and the technical aspects of the sound seemed excellent to this layperson’s ears.

We’ve got just over a month until the Oscars are announced, but today’s nominations prove that there aren’t going to be that many surprises among the winners. I am still genuinely annoyed that Christopher Nolan and Lee Smith aren’t being honored this year, but only Smith had a solid chance of winning his category, and Nolan has a very strong shot at winning for his screenplay (the other nominated films are Another Year, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, and The Kids Are All right; The King’s Speech is the other strong contender, I think). But David Fincher is probably winning Best Director, Natalie Portman, Colin Firth, Christian Bale, and Melissa Leo are likely taking home the acting honors. And so on. Some of these nominations are interesting, and it’s gratifying to see a few lone wolves out there, including Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom, but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to win.

As we get closer to February 27th, the media is going to present us two sides: you are on team King George or team Mark Zuckerberg. Of course, there are ten nominees (and in that battle, I’m on team Black Swan), but that doesn’t matter to the media. Before now, The Social Network was the presumed victor. Now, we’re not as sure. A couple of guilds will announce their winners in the next week, including the Screen Actors Guild. Even more so than the Producers Guild, the actors’ branch of the Academy is the biggest by far. If they go for one film over another, we might have a race. But either way, the nominations remind me of one thing: the best films of any year are rarely the ones that win all the awards. Sometimes, for fans of one movie, it is just an honor to be nominated.

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