Jonathan Melville: Cameron v Bigelow: The Oscar opposites

Published on Friday 5 February 2010 08:33

THIS week saw the nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards (or Oscars) announced in Hollywood, the finest films of the last 12 months rounded up in advance of March's ceremony. But did they choose the right ones?

Leading the pack with nine nominations each were James Cameron's Avatar and Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, with Best Director, Picture and Editing just some of the categories they both crop up in.

These choices are fascinating not only because of the big difference of scale and content – one is a $400 million epic, the other a small-scale war story – but because Cameron and Bigelow were once married to each other. Talk about keeping it in the family.

Some of the other Best Picture nominations include sci-fi District 9, Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Pixar's Up and low-budget British drama, An Education.

UK talent is also represented by Armando Iannucci's In the Loop in the Best Original Screenplay category, Aardman Animation's A Matter of Loaf and Death for Best Animated Short and Helen Mirren for The Last Station.

The full list makes for an interesting read, with some welcome appearances from Inglourious' Christolph Waltz (Best Supporting Actor), An Education's Carey Mulligan (Best Actress) and A Serious Man (Best Picture).

The dominance of Avatar isn't a surprise but I can't say I'm too happy to see it rated so highly by the Academy. As I've noted before, it certainly looks nice – the nomination for Best Cinematography and Editing are justified – but it lacks soul or a sense that anyone in it is much more than a cypher.

Animation-wise it's good to see Irish film The Secret of Kells, which popped up at last year's Edinburgh Film Festival, and stop- motion gem The Fantastic Mr Fox in the Best Animated Feature film list. It's just a shame the brilliant Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs didn't get an Oscar nod.

As I haven't yet seen all the films on the list I won't say for certain which one I think should win best film, but with Up in the Air and Precious out now in UK cinemas and most of the others out on DVD, we've all got a chance catch-up before the winners are revealed on Sunday 7 March.

Read the full list of nominations on the Reel Time blog at www.edinburghnews.com/reeltime