Thoughts on this year's Oscar nominations: meh

— Pleased to see Hurt Locker and Avatar get nine nominations a piece, like Ripley-in-the-powerloader squaring off against the alien Queen. How fitting that Cameron will lose Best Director to one of his own heroines, so to speak.

— Saddened to see beautiful Bright Star fall through the cracks. Pearls before swine.

— Still mystified by the Tarantino gold rush but then post-Jackie-Brown Tarantino is a peculiarly American taste. (The stuff set abroad, basically. It's like Bertolucci's non-Italian movies. What's the point?)

— Pleased for Jeremy Renner, Carey Mulligan and Alexandre Desplat.

— Thrilled for my inner nine-year-old to see Star Trek, Avatar and District 9 do so well. If I'd known that a movie like Avatar would one day win best picture, as opposed to Chariots of Fire or Ghandi, my little heart would have been a-pitter-patterin' like a rabbit's.

— Very pleased for my friends Nick Hornby and Amanda Posey and their Education nominations. I've never personally known someone nominated for an Oscar before. Now I know two. Cool.

— Bored by how over this race feels. Avatar, Bigelow, Bridges, Bullock, Monique, Waltz, Reitman, Boal... I feel like these are last year's winners already. Where are the potential upsets? Wes Anderson nabs animated feature? The entirety of my hopes and dreams rest on Up's Michael Giacchino winning for best score and Janet Patterson for her Bright Star costumes.