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Oscar Nominations Announced! Up For Best Picture, Best Animated and Three Other Awards!

Academy Awards News

Today marks the second time that an animated film has been nominated for the highest honor in film… ever! This is huge!

Yup, the 82nd Annual Academy Award nominations have finally been announced and Disney/Pixar’s campaign to get up there with the big dogs has finally been fulfilled! Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera, and the entire Up crew must be very proud, but a Best Picture nom isn’t the only thing Pixar will be celebrating this afternoon.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has also nominated Up for Best Animated Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Sound Mixing. That’s five (5) nominations in all! Unfortunately, Partly Cloudy was absent from the Animated Short list.

Check out Pixar’s competition below:

Best Picture: Up — Jonas Rivera
Competition: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, Up in the Air

Best Animated Feature: Up — Pete Docter
Competition: Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells

Best Writing (Original Screenplay): Up — Bob Peterson, Pete Docter/Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Tom McCarthy 
Competition: Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, The Messenger, A Serious Man

Best Sound Mixing: Up — Michael Silvers, Tom Myers
Competition: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Star Trek

Best Music (Original Score): Up — Michael Giacchino
Competition: Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Hurt Locker, Sherlock Holmes

Congratulations to Pete Docter and the whole Up crew on these momentous nominations! Check out the rest of the nominees at the link to the left.

As always, Pixar faces tough competition. Best Picture holds the most scrutiny for obvious reasons and especially after its expansion to 10 slots, but again, 2009 is the year of the animated film. In my opinion, this is the category in which Pixar’s 10th has the most realistic adversaries. Other than that, Up faces some solid screenplays and scores, making for even more meaningful wins for whoever takes home those Oscars.

But I feel Pixar has won something already; its rightful place in movie history. It’s great to finally see the acclaimed studio at the very top after years of best reviewed films like Ratatouille and WALL•E being snubbed from the top category solely because they’re animated films! Now the tough part is actually getting that Oscar statuette…

Watch ABC on March 7th, 2010 as history could possibly be made at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony!

What are your thoughts on the Oscar nominations? How exciting is it to finally see Pixar in the Best Picture category?

Last modified: February 2, 2010