Best Supporting Actor winner

Penelope Cruz just announced that Christoph Waltz, for Inglorious Basterds, is the best supporting actor winner.

Waltz, in his acceptance speech, thanked director Quentin Terrantino for his “Unorthodox” story telling style, in one of the bloodiest films to hit the screens.

The other nominees were Matt Damon, for his role as the captain of the South African Rugby team in a movie about apartheid and reconciliation; Woody Harelson, as an army officer for his rol in Next of Kin; Christopher Klein in the Last Patient and Stanley Tucci.

Best Supporting Actor winner, more to come

Here’s also a reminder of the best film Nominees.  The Category has been expanded this year, and 10 films will compete for the little golden man.  In previous years, the category has been half that size.

1. Avatar.  James Cameron’s blockbuster hit which has already made more than $2 billion worldwide.  If you haven’t seen this futuristic, 3D sci-fi fantasy, you must be the only one.

2. The Blind Side, staring Sandra Bullock, traces one family’s adoption of a black football player and America’s continued unease with race.

3. District 9, an old fashioned alien invasion thriller with a modern twist.

4. An Education, about the seduction of a 16 year old English Schoolgirl by a wealthy and sophisticated older man.

5. Inglorious Basterds, perhaps Quentin Tarrentino’s bloodiest film yet, stars Brad Pitt as a take-no-prisoners Nazi hunter.  It is perhaps charting a new genre of “blood-porn” films.

6. The Hurt Locker, a timely film about an elite bomb squad unit of the US army in Iraq who is charged with detonating IEDs.

7. Precious, the story of an obese, African-American woman from the inner-city.  A rare  look into the life of America’s poor.

8. A Serious Man, the Coen brother’s latest, is a look into modern America and the troubles that befall physics professor Larry Gopnik.

9. Up, pixar’s latest film, is the only animated film in the Best Picture category this year.

10. Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, traces the life of a lonely man who spends more time in Hotels and Planes than in his home town.  A portrait of the tragic mobile spirit of Americans.

The 82nd annual Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, will air on ABC this sunday at 8pm.  Watch Live Online or tune it in to find out who from the Oscar Preview takes the little golden man.  Maybe next year the Precious Cast Seats will be better if they clean house.