Well, it looks like my much-vaunted "sleeper hit of the year" prediction didn't quite pan out: for whatever reason, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was shafted by the Oscars. However, the other nominations were more or less what I'd expected. Biggest surprise: the Academy reversed its tradition of ignoring really, really, really good movies in the Best Documentary category (e.g. Hoop Dreams, Crumb, everything that Errol Morris ever did) by nominating Bowling for Columbine, which may actually be the first Best Documentary nominee in history to make money at the box office. Other surprising oversights: The Hours didn't get a Best Makeup nomination (I agree with Nat that the makeup in that movie was among the best I'd ever seen), and Minority Report, which was much, much more visionary then either Spider-Man or Attack of the Clones (or any other movie this year, for that matter), didn't get nominations for Art Direction or Visual Effects, which is just a crime.

Another historic moment: Eminem was nominated for Best Song, deservedly, although I'm guessing that U2 will take it home. And Jon Brion really should have received a nomination for Best Song and Score for Punch-Drunk Love, which also deserved kudos for Best Sound; it didn't have any big explosions or flashy sound effects, but Punch-Drunk Love really forced me to rethink what a movie could do with sound, which was only one of the many pleasures of that dubious little movie.