Academy Awards Looking Very Bookish

The Academy Award Nominations were announced this morning, and three prominent literary adaptations led the way in the Best Picture category. No Country for Old Men, adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and There Will Be Blood, a loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil! earned eight nominations each, while Atonement, adapted from Ian McEwan's novel, was nominated for seven awards. Other adaptations up for awards include Charlie Wilson's War (Philip Seymour Hoffman got his annual Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor), Into the Wild (snubbed in every category except Supporting Actor, where Hal Holbrook was nominated), The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, which earned nominations for director Julian Schnabel and writer Ronald Harwood, and Away From Her, Sarah Polley's adaptation of an Alice Munro story, which won nominations for Polley (Adapted Screenplay) and Julie Christie (Best Actress).

I was happy to see the thriller Michael Clayton nominated for a few awards, but where is The King of Kong: A Fistful of Dollars? Okay, it wasn't the best movie I've seen all year, but it was definitely the most enjoyable. I suppose I should be used to the yearly mockery that is the Best Documentary category by now, but I'm not. Another big snub (although not one I'm surprised by) was The Lookout, a terrific film about a former golden boy with a brain injury.

In other Oscar-related news, UCLA and Harvard wasted some time and money explaining that it's easier to be nominated for an award in a dramatic role than a comedic one. Other findings of the study included "Winter is generally colder than summer," and "Night: darker than day."