Look, it's early. We have a whole month till they hand out the Oscars on Feb. 22nd. And the Academy didn't do everything wrong. Slumdog Millionaire deserves it's 10 nominations. Milk totally deserves it's 8 nods. I'll have nastier things to say about the 13 nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that put it in the top position on the leaderboard. But the fact that the Academy recognized two great performances in small movies—I'm talking Richard Jenkins in The Visitor and Melissa Leo in Frozen River—earns a salute even from an inveterate Academy hater like me. Now on to the idiot decisions:

--No nomination for The Dark Knight as Best Picture. Are you kidding me? Here's a smart, visionary movie that restored the good name to movie epics. And the Academy ignores it. And for what? The Reader, a well-intentioned but flawed movie about the repercussions of the Holocaust.

--Kate Winslet, who as far as I'm concerned should get a nomination for almost everything she does, gets nominated for the wrong movie—The Reader instead of Revolutionary Road. It reminds me of that episode of Extras where Ricky Gervais goes up to Winslet, playing a nun, and tells her she'll never win an Oscar till she does a Holocaust movie. Ah, truth in comedy. Did Adrien Brody (The Pianist) really deserve to beat Daniel Day Lewis (Gangs of New York)? Did Roberto Benigni's crying clown act in Life Is Beautiful really merit a win over Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) and Edward Norton (American History X)?

--No Best Actor nomination for Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. WTF! Playing a Korean war vet living in Michigan, Eastwood gave a signature performance. It's the acting branch that makes these choices—the same dummies who gave Clint the Best Actor nomination for 2004's Million Dollar Baby that belonged to Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Eastwood lost out to all that digital face painting Brad Pitt wore in Ben Button. Silly. If Clint had busted through the actors branch he might have given Sean Penn (Milk) and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) a race for the gold since all the 6000-plus Academy members vote on the awards themselves, not just the actors.

--And while I''m trashing the actors branch—do these idiots not understand how brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas is in I've Loved You So Long. Ditto Benicio Del Toro in Che. Double ditto Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky. Come on.

--And what about the Best Song category. Not only does Eastwood compose a winner in the title track from Gran Torino, but Bruce Springsteen writes a stellar song for The Wrestler—a song that perfectly captures the spirit of the movie—and gets shafted. This category usually has five nominees. This year it's only three, which shows the shaft is intentional. That's how much the old farts in the songwriting branch know about music.

--Lastly, for now, the Academy had a chance in the Best Picture category to represent the artful best in animation. That would be Wall-E. No movie received better reviews last year. But the Academy has a ghetto category for Best Animation and quickly relegated Wall-E to limbo. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

OK, I've spoken, Now I want to hear from you. What are Oscars best and most boneheaded decisions in terms of this year's nominations?

Earlier today, this year's Oscar nominations were announced in Los Angeles. Was Peter Travers satisfied with the nods? Not exactly.

Does Brad Pitt give a Best Actor-worthy performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — the film that received the most nods, with 13? What happened to The Dark Knight's Best Picture nomination? Could it be that Ricky Gervais' advice to Kate Winslet was accurate (do a Holocaust movie, nab an Oscar nomination)?

So what were the Academy's biggest mistakes? Nominating Winslet for The Reader rather than Revolutionary Road. Denying Bruce Springsteen a nomination for his end-credits song from The Wrestler.

Why's Travers so worked up? Keep reading to check out the nominations for the major categories, and click above to watch his breakdown of the biggest films and the most crushing disappointments of nomination day:

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This just in for cineastes. Check out the nominations for the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, with prizes for the best in cinema to be doled out live on June 1st, hosted by the Love Guru himself, Mike Myers. There Will Be Blood Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis can go drink his milkshake. Not a nod for his film, or his role-of-a-lifetime performance. He was crowded out of the Best Actor category by stiff competition from Michael Cera in Juno and Shia LeBeouf in Transformers. Maybe next year, Danny Boy.

What you’ve gotta love about the MTV movie stakes, celebrating 16 years of laughing at Oscar’s ass, is the refreshing way it laughs at itself. Maybe it's time to laugh back or, judging from this year's movie crop, just give in and go with the idiot flow. The MTV Movie Awards have some of the most playful categories ever,

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A pox on the Academy for giving The Bourne Ultimatum (see photo) no identity in the big-ticket categories. Below the star line, though, Bourne pops up three times for technical awards, the kind most people will snooze through during the Sunday Oscarcast. But there are a few technical awards that are essential to how a movie looks, sounds and feels. Take a peek, and see if you agree:

BEST EDITING

The Bourne Ultimatum—Christopher Rouse

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—Juliette Welfling

Into the Wild—Jay Cassidy

No Country for Old Men—Roderick Jaynes

There Will Be Blood—Dylan Tichenor

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If the Oscars are making you nuts with their Hollywood bias—though there's less glitz among this year's nominees than ever—you can detox with the Independent Spirit Awards. Taking place this Saturday, and broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), the 23rd Independent Spirit Awards celebrate what you can do with film talent, working fast and on the cheap. Hosted by Rainn Wilson, of The Office and Juno, the ceremony takes place in front of an audience that gathers inside a beachfront tent in Santa Monica. On the Red Carpet, the Spirits are to cargo pants what the Oscars are to Dolce and Gabbana. The crowd is low-key and by my own witness not adverse to maverick behavior and controlled substances. Mostly, though, it's a chance for the indies get a little cred. Here are a few of the nominees:

BEST FEATURE

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

I'm Not There

Juno

A Mighty Heart

Paranoid Park

Only Juno is also on Oscar's Best Picture list. But I think this award will go to Todd Haynes' I'm Not There (see photo) or Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which both represent rule-busting experimentation pushed to the max. You can't say that about Juno.

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All this week, Peter Travers will be discussing this year's biggest Oscar races, making his picks and probably starting some arguments along the way. First up is the contest for Best Supporting Actor. Who will walk away with the little gold man? Click above to check out Travers' thoughts, and be sure to check back tomorrow for his pick for Best Supporting Actress.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

First, the Good News:

— America deserves props for soundly rejecting Paris Hilton's The Hottie and the Nottie. The bombola made a shockingly low-rent $234 per screen. So much for Hilton family loyalty. Just to keep Paris out of pout mode, the family could have bought out the 111 locations where Hottie was a definite nottie.

— In Bruges, the only literate movie to open this week, took in $16,829 per screen. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Now, the Bad:

— Just as I feared, America voted the horrendous and horrendously reviewed Fool's Gold the top box-office winner. That means ticketbuyers thought it was worth $22 million to watch Kate Hudson eyeballing Matthew McConaughey with his shirt off.

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I've already trashed Oscar for not throwing a Best Song nomination to Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild while finding room for 1-2-3 songs from Enchanted and a sappy ballad from the saptacular August Rush. Worse, it ignored Jonny Greenwood's landmark score from There Will Be Blood because the Radiohead innovator referenced other music. Apparently sampling is not a term the Academy of Motion Pictures Farts & Biases has ever heard.

With the Grammy awards this Sunday, it's time to see how music people do with judging movie music. Here are the Grammy nominees for BEST MOVIE SONG:

"Falling Slowly" (from Once)/Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, songwriters "Guaranteed" (from Into the Wild)/Eddie Vedder, songwriter "Love You I Do" (from Dreamgirls)/Siedah Garrett & Henry Krieger, songwriters "The Song of the Heart" (from Happy Feet)/Prince Rogers Nelson, songwriter "You Know My Name" (from Casino Royale)/David Arnold & Chris Cornell, songwriters

Jeez, talk about time warps! Dreamgirls, Happy Feet and Casino Royale came out two years ago.

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Don't laugh. Movies seem to have forgotten how to turn us on. So to follow up on my awards that Oscar never thinks of—thanks for your responses last week to Hot Movie Lines ("I drink your milkshake—I drink it up" won in a walk)—let's add Hot Movie Sex. I'm not counting lap dances, like the one in Grindhouse. Also out is chick-flick torture, like P.S. I Love You or No Reservations. Nudity isn't the point either, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's real contact, body and mind, I'm after. Juno provides a view of Michael Cera's skinny legs and a chair.

In a year of violent cinema—no way there's any flesh and desire in No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood—filmmakers aren't exactly worried about giving us a hot Valentine's Day. It's a sexual desert out there. Even in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling orders a sex doll and then just talks to her. What's up with that? So here are my nominees for the year's best movie sex. Feel free to argue or name your own sizzle.

ATONEMENT — It's the scene in the library where Keira Knightley and James McAvoy decide not to hold out anymore. He backs her against the bookshelves, lifts her green evening dress above her knees, unzips the pants of his tux and goes for penetration. No hard-ons. We intuit what's going on from their facial expressions. It's furtive sex, what with dinner party just outside the door and a twelve-year-old girl (Saorise Ronan) interupting them at the point of orgasm. You breathe with these characters. Woody Allen was once asked if sex was dirty. His answer: "It is if you're doing it right." Knightley and McAvoy do it right.

LUST, CAUTION — Rated NC-17 by the reliably idiotic ratings board, Ang Lee's film goes deeper than counting pelvic thrusts. As a Japanese collaborator during World War II. Tony Leung approaches sex with the sadistic relish he'd use to torture a suspect, while Tang Wei acts the role of subservient vessel. When they both drop the masks and yield to grander passions, the effect is devastating.

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Actresses Misty Upham and Melissa Leo from the film 'Frozen River'

So here are the offical awards given Saturday night for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

See the next entry for Sundance Awards: Mine

You don't think I'd really agree with experts do you?

2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES AWARDS

Frozen River, King of Ping Pong, Man on Wire and Trouble the Water

Earn Top Jury Prizes;

Audience Favorites Feature Captain Abu Raed, Fields of Fuel, Man on Wire and The Wackness

Park City, UT–The jury and audience award-winners of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival were announced tonight at the Festival’s closing Awards Ceremony hosted by William H. Macy in Park City, Utah. Films receiving jury awards were selected from the four feature-length Documentary and Dramatic competition categories by distinguished jurors. Films in these categories were also eligible for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Audience Awards as selected by Film Festival audiences. Highlights from the Awards Ceremony can be seen on the Sundance Channel, the Official Television Network of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, beginning Sunday, January 27 as well as on the Festival website, www.sundance.org/festival.

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