Men and Blood Lead Oscar Nominations
January 22, 2008

The Coen Brothers' There Will Be Blood and Paul Thomas Anderson's No Country For Old Men led the Oscar nominations announced this morning in a presentation that offered few surprises other than a couple of very high profile snubs. The biggest surprise of the morning was the omission of Angelina Jolie from the best actress category for her career-best work in A Mighty Heart and the near shutout of Into the Wild, including director Sean Penn getting snubbed from his category. Joe Wright, the director of Atonement, also watched as his film got seven nominations but he didn't land a directing nomination. The big winner of the day was Cate Blanchett, who scored two acting nominations for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and I'm Not There.

No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood both landed eight nominations, including nods for Best Picture. The two dark epics will compete against Atonement, Juno, and Michael Clayton. Atonement and Clayton landed seven nominations a piece, but the Atonement nods were almost all technical. Wright was snubbed and so was James McAvoy for Best Actor and Keira Knightley for Best Actress. The only acting nomination for Atonement was newcomer Saoirse Ronan for Supporting Actress for Atonement.

Daniel Day-Lewis is the front runner for Best Actor but he will have to compete against George Clooney in Michael Clayton, Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises, and the surprising nod for Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah. Jones beat out more expected nominees Denzel Washington for American Gangster and Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild.

Cate Blanchett, who proved that all actresses who play historic queens will get a nomination, will compete for Best Actress against the likely winner Julie Christie in Away From Her, Marion Cotillard in La Vie En Rose, Laura Linney in The Savages, and Ellen Page in Juno.

Javier Bardem is the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor for his work in No Country For Old Menbut he'll have to beat out newcomer Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War, Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild, and Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton.

Blanchett leads a wide-open Supporting Actress race, competing against Ruby Dee in American Gangster, Ronan in Atonement, Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone, and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton.

The directing nominees only matched up four for five with the picture nominees with Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly scratching out Joe Wright for Atonement. Jason Reitman for Juno, Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton, Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country For Old Men, and Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood fill out the categories.

(Source: Oscars.org)