And the 2011 Academy Award nominees are...

The nominees for the 2011 Academy Awards are out! And again, the critics say that the roster this year is one of the strongest and most diverse in history. Out of the ten nominated films for Best Picture, I have only seen 2 and I am looking forward in seeing all of them both on the big screen and on DVD.  The nominees for Best Picture this year are: "Black Swan", "127 Hours", "True Grit", "The Kids Are All Right", "Inception", "The Social Network", "The Fighter", "Winter's Bone", "Toy Story 3" and "The King's Speech". 

Kudos to "Toy Story 3" for making it on the list, it being an animated feature film. It becomes only the second computer animated film in history to be nominated for Best Picture (the first film to achieve this milestone was Disney Pixar's "Up" in 2010). Also, "Toy Story 3" is the only sequel to be nominated for Best Picture without any of its predecessors being nominated. Obviously, this is my personal favorite to win this year.

I'm also glad that "Inception" got a nod for best film of the year but I was somehow disappointed that Christopher Nolan was snubbed for his great directorial effort.

For the next 3 weeks, I will be watching all the nominated films. And just like any year, I will make my predictions on who will win the major awards before the trophies are handed out later next month.  I will be posting my "Oscar ballot" in the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, not all the nominated movies will be shown locally and after checking the movie listings, the following films are scheduled to be shown in Manila:

Feb 09- 127 Hours

Feb 23- Black Swan

Feb 23- True Grit

For the complete list of nominees, go to http://oscar.go.com/ 

The 83rd Academy Awards will be telecast live all over the world on February 27, 2011 and will be hosted by Anne Hathaway and James Franco.