Here's the press release dated 8/28 as well.

http://content.foxsearchlight.com/inside/node/2803

It's highly unlikely that there's a BP nominee that hasnt been discussed at some point this year. We're 42 days from the same point in 2008 that it was clear Slumdog was being positioned as a contender.

We would have heard something or read something somewhere. If it's Sugar, we've talked about it. Bright Star, same. An Education, yup. We've even talked about the random foreign films that are now, thanks to the 10 noms, possible contenders.

No one had talked about Juno until it hit Toronto either.

Y'all realize this makes no sense, right? We're talking about potential contenders that could come out of nowhere and declaring that there are none, even though the very basis of a contender coming out of nowhere is that it CAME OUT OF NOWHERE.

I still contend it wasn't completely out of nowhere. Juno was first mentioned on our forum (August 31st in its release year) 44 days from today. And we certainly are not the end all, be all, of Oscar forums. So it stands to reason the film was mentioned even earlier somewhere else online.

So yeah, there does not appear to be a Juno or Slumdog to speak of this year. And if there is one, it has 44 days to show up.

500 Days of Summer/Moon FTW!

It's MC score dropped quite a bit. But the critics that love it, really love it.

I found this factoid about The Hurt Locker and Best Picture nominees over at MCN

Call me crazy, but I think that The Hurt Locker could clear 15 million if treated with a little TLC. Then again, it's been a brutal year for limited releases...

BP Nominee?

I still stick to my "Crash WON Best Picture, ANY movie can get nominated!"

And if it's kept in theaters long enough. But remember, ten nominees changes a lot. Frozen River could have gotten in very easily, Diving Bell would have definitely made it in. Other movies in the last few years: Mulholland Drive, City Of God, Vera Drake, Talk To Her.

The Hurt Locker could be very commercial, but I feel like Summit's release strategy is half-baked.

I think many of the rules we used to swear by are out the window with 10 noms. However, Summit's marketing thus far has placed The Hurt Locker in a bad position. You listed a bunch of films there, let's take a look.

Mullholland Drive - October 12th
Vera Drake - October 22nd
Diving Bell and the Butterfly - November 30th
Talk to Her - December 25th
City of God - January 17th

and The Hurt Locker - June 26th.

Big big difference.

I missed one in Tyler's post.

Frozen River - August 1st (opened on 7 screens). It went on to make $2.5 Million total. Widest release was 96 screens.

And it managed two major nominations. Not bad. And it didn't have technicals like the Hurt Locker, or reviews quite as ecstatic.

Away from Her managed two major noms with lackluster box-office and a May release...

you cant really compare acting noms to Best Picture noms. Release dates and box office dont matter nearly as much.

I'm intrigued by Nick Hornby's involvement. Outside of that, the buzz is kinda loud for the film. Should be good for 3-4 nominations.

The Screenplay shock-noms indicated they had a healthy number of supporters. I'm sure one of the two would have gotten in a ten list.

Frozen River had a huge screener campaign.

You're not mentioning that City of God opened on January 17th, at the beginning of the year. It had over a year between the release and getting a Best Director nomination. I haven't seen The Hurt Locker, and I'd be giddy if it was as good as City of God, but man that was quite a feat.

Isn't Summit a pretty new distributor? Or do we have much to judge them on? Any chance at a BP nomination seems to really stand on it being at least somewhat breaking out at the box office. It's easy to tell these small distributors they should be so much more aggressive with bumping theater counts when we don't have anything on the line. I'm sure if they could push an aggressive TV campaign and release it on 1,000 theaters in two weeks, they would... Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. (Wouldn't be a first.)
These ten nominees make it awfully tempting to shed cynicism and assume the Oscars will really branch out to more diverse nominees. But hey, it's nice to dream.

The Hurt Locker needs critic supports in Dec and Jan, plain and simple. Nowadays critics could revive a film by their own. It needs at least win a couple BP and/or BD like United 93 did.

I still believe it'll get nominated, its a fantastic action film.

But it wouldnt be the first time a fantastic film gets shafted by a mishandled release strategy.

I still tend to believe we'll see more year end films amoungst the 10 nominees then out the box mid year picks.

Based on 13 voters

Up - 13/13

The Lovely Bones - 12/13
Invictus - 11/13
Nine - 11/13
Shutter Island - 11/13

The Hurt Locker - 9/13
Precious - 9/13
Amelia - 8/13
Avatar - 8/13

Funny People - 7/13
The Road - 6/13

With Funny People opening in 2 weekends, and Avatar screening footage at ComicCon, those are the only two films that could soon shift their placement, either up or down.

I expect Funny People to pretty much drop out as soon as it comes out. I think it looks great, but it's looking more and more "Apatow" and less "Oscar" than it did back when all we had were the serious poster and the semi-serious trailer. And I'm still not sure the critical reception will be quite as hot as it was for his first two films.