Well, the Oscar noms are out

You can read them here.

All I can say is: where the heck is A Prairie Home Companion? Altman's last terrific movie, and it doesn't get zip.

Other quick and mostly superficial thoughts:

* Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Actor for Half Nelson and now I wish I'd seen it.

*Glad to see Best Supporting Actor nods to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine and Mark Wahlberg for The Departed. A little surprised to see Wahlberg was the only actor honored from that movie, which was the best of the year, and where all the principals -- Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson (think of that, nothing for perennial favorite Jack), and Martin Sheen -- were all at the top of their game.

*I loved The Queen, but I thought it a rather odd movie in a way, since plotwise it's basically about a public relations misfire. Mirren was stunning, though.

*We keep trying to get Little Children at the Nickelodeon; last word I heard is that the distributor just doesn't know what to do with the movie and have never given it much of a push. With two acting noms, maybe it will get some more attention.

* If this isn't Martin Scorsese's year, then it never will be. People said the same thing when he was nominated for Gangs of New York and The Aviator, but those movies just weren't all that good. The Departed is an absolutely compelling thriller from the get-go. I have seen it twice. I can stand to see it a third.

*One nomination, in make-up, for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. That anti-Semitic rant didn't help him any.

*Nice to see a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Borat, but the funniest lines in that movie weren't scripted.