I place my bets on Avatar for best picture
Feb 3, 2010
Tight race for Oscars LOS ANGELES - SCIENCE fiction blockbuster Avatar and Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker narrowly led the Oscar nominee list, with nine nominations each, including Best Picture and Best Director.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed the Oscar nominees before hundreds of media members packed into the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre yesterday morning. The announcement serves as a starting pistol for weeks of frenzied campaigning by studios bidding to push the claims of their respective films ahead of the Oscars, which take place on March 7.
Also vying for Best Picture is director Quentin Tarantino's bloody World War II revenge film Inglourious Basterds, with eight nominations.
It was followed by the independent film Precious about the struggles of an illiterate abused teenager, which scored six nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Other films in the Best Picture race include District 9, South African director Neill Blomkamp's dazzling science-fiction film about aliens stranded in a Johannesburg township, and Up, Pixar's charming animated film about a crotchety widower who ties balloons to his house and floats to South America.
It was only the second time in Oscars history that an animated film has made it into the Best Picture race, after Disney's Beauty And The Beast in 1992.