Academy Award nominations

Yup, they're out. The only ones I pay attention to, of course, are ones that movies I like have gotten nominated for, so in this case I'm really only interested in four categories:

Sound Mixing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Art Direction: "Dreamgirls," "The Good Shepherd," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "The Prestige."

Sound Editing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Visual Effects: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Poseidon," "Superman Returns."

If you don't see the trend here...I'm not going to tell you. Anyway, I don't know about Art Direction or Sound Editing or Mixing, but I think Dead Man's Chest will take Visual Effects easy. I haven't seen Poseidon or Superman Returns, but what with a Kraken and Davy Jones and fishy undead pirates and a swordfight on a wheel (though that might be more like a stunt than a visual effect) what more could one ask? Sound Editing in particular I don't know if it'll get, because from what I've read, Letters From Iwo Jima is looking as though it'll win quite a few. Dreamgirls is also right up there, and it's nominated for Sound Mixing, so I think we may have to be satisfied with Visual Effects and possibly Art Direction. Hopefully it's only because this is the second of a trilogy that DMC is not overtly recognized at the Oscars (TTT got nominated for six, I believe, and won two) and when AWE comes out it'll get recognized much like RotK did. I think someone PotC-related, I forget who, has said that if there are any movies they're looking to follow, it's LotR. It made me happy. Don't quote me, though.

~Sil