Satellite Noms Announced

The Satellite Awards tend to nominate a larger group of people, and because they separate their nominations into comedy and drama like the Globes do, they tend to make things pretty exciting. The Satallite Awards narrow the field, but by nominating almost 7 films/performances per category, they introduce some new names too. Which is just fun. Here's the breakdown...

Dreamgirls - 11
Flags Of Our Father - 10
Babel - 8
The Departed - 6
Little Miss Sunshine - 5
The Queen - 4
Litte Children - 4
Notes On A Scandal - 3

Duh! - The Ones We Expect

Helen Mirren - Nominated for lead actress. Helps her buzz which many feared would fade. A win would be nice though.

Dreamgirls - Knocking out 11 nominations, it leads the pack for the first time, which is not the last time the film will have that distinction.

Judi Dench - Will she ever not be nominated?

Jack Nicholson - Heeeeeeeere's Jack!

Nice! - The Ones That Needed It

Ryan Gosling and Half Nelson - Gosling is starting to become an automatic mention with his ISA nomination and Half Nelson sweeping the Gothams. A snub here would have hurt though. It helps that the film picked up the best pic nod as well.

Kate Winslet - Buzz has practically dissappeared. This puts her back on the map.

Forest Whitaker - Same situation as Winslet. Snub was possible here...good that it didn't happen.

Adam Beach and Flags - Not on anyone's top five anymore. This nod helps bring him back into discussion, along with a film many are dropping from their predictions.

Abigail Breslin - If she had been dropped here, a lot of doubt would have surrounded her buzz.

Aaron Eckhardt, Gretchen Mol, and Annette Bening - For similar reasons. They NEED buzz.

What!? - The Ones That Are Confusing

Leonardo Dicarpio - Lead for Blood Diamond and supporting for The Departed!? Category Confusion strikes again!

Aurora Borealis - Joshua Jackson and Donald Sutherland get nods for lead and supporting respectively. Is there anything here? The movie was well received by the critics, so I guess you never know.

Will Ferrell and Joseph Cross - Nice to get the critical praise, but it probably stops here for them, lest the globes shake things up.

Toni Collette - With all the hooplah about Breslin and Arkin, no one has been even close to predicting her in most top ten lists, let alone top five. Cool, but out of nowhere.

Where!? - The Ones That Are Missing

Will Smith - Huge buzz usually translates to letdowns a la Memoirs and it appears like Smith might be another one. Perhaps the performance is good enough to make an incredible trailer, but not a movie. But he will probably bounce back. We need more info!

Michael Sheen - Wow, this could hurt him. The movie belongs to Mirren as it is, and if he can't separate himself a little bit, then he could be forgotten.

Eddie Murphy - Surprising! Some prognosticators have Murphy taking home gold come Kodak Theater time, but he fails to deliver here. Could just be a blip in the radar, but I think supporting actor is WIDE open.

United 93 or WTC - They were not having the 9/11 films. Not even a little bit. This could be indicative of the future, but hopefully only for WTC, since United 93 is a vastly superior film than most in the running for the short list. cough Babel cough.

Shareeka Epps - This could have sent her buzz out of the house, but she fails to garner a nod here. Perhaps she's being Gyllanhaal'ed.

Adriana Barraza - Eeek! Many thought she was on the upswing for her powerhouse of a performance in Inarittu's ensemble, but the lack of a nomination here says otherwise.

Things are just getting interesting and I can't wait to see how this pans out.