Academy Awards Nominations

[Entertainment: Hollywood]

Perhaps overshadowing the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees is TV producer Gil Cates’ guarantee that the show will go on, writers’ strike or no writers’ strike.

This means that the elaborate 80th Academy Awards extravaganza will air live, as scheduled, on Sunday, February 24th at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, the prospect of stars having to cross picket lines notwithstanding.

As for Best Picture hopefuls, There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men are the early favorites with eight nominations each, followed by Michael Clayton and Atonement with seven. The other possible winner is Juno which landed four nominations overall.

The biggest surprise in the acting categories was Tommy Lee Jones for In the Valley of Elah. As usual, the Academy favored foreign actresses in both the lead and supporting categories, this time selecting Julie Christie (England), Marion Cotillard (France),Tilda Swinton (England),  Ellen Page (Nova Scotia) and Cate Blanchett (Australia) twice. Ruby Dee (American Gangster) was the only African-American thespian to land a nomination, Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) the sole Latino, and there were no Asian performance accorded any accolades.

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