The Oscar nominations were announced this morning and there were several surprises. The first and most notable was the absence of Best Picture and Director nods for Dreamgirls. I would agree that Dreamgirls did not warrant a Best Picture nod, but Bill Condon should have had a nomination for Director. Pulling the wonderful performances out of Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson certainly deserves recognition. I would have liked to have seen Leonardo DiCaprio get a nod for The Departed, because he was marvelous but I have not seen Blood Diamond, so I am not sure it he does a better job. I do know it looks like a showier role and that is what the Academy unfortunately loves. The best news of today's nominations was seeing Pan's Labyrinth get 6 nominations. I would have loved to have seen it get Best Picture and Director nominations because it is more than deserving of them, but beggars can't be choosers and 6 nods is grand for a Mexican fantasy film. Children of Men received 3 nominations but a Best Director or Picture nod would have been well deserved recognition of a very important film. And who would have thought that a Steve Carell film would be the indie Oscar darling? With 4 nods, and nudging Dreamgirls out of the picture race, Sunshine is Oscar's feel good film of the year. Now that we are down to the last lap, let the studio battles begin.